This reflection article presents insights on conducting fieldwork during and after COVID-19 from a diverse collection of political scientists—from department heads to graduate students based at public and private universities in the United States and abroad. Many of them contributed to a newly published volume, Stories from the Field: A Guide to Navigating Fieldwork in Political Science (Krause and Szekely 2020). As in the book, these contributors draw on their years of experience in the field to identify the unique ethical and logistical challenges posed by COVID-19 and offer suggestions for how to adjust and continue research in the face of the pandemic’s disruptions. Key themes include how contingency planning must now be a central part of our research designs; how cyberspace has increasingly become “the field” for the time being; and how scholars can build lasting, mutually beneficial partnerships with “field citizens,” now and in the future.

Considerable research assesses research success in political science. Yet this work has not considered widespread findings that scholars can follow various career research paths that complicate how we envision scholarly success. Further, we have no systematic information on these career paths in any scientific discipline. I present an empirically validated research career-path typology for political scientists who began their career in a research institution. The typology demonstrates that many scholars follow paths different from the most conventional expectations, and research success by measures of publications and citations is associated with only some of these paths. Thus, existing research on aggregate publications and citations likely addresses only a subset of the career paths revealed in this article. Understanding research activities in our profession requires consideration of the various career paths, their motivation, and their place in our research community.

Drawing on my field research experiences in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia, I present a personal narrative that creates a vivid picture of field research in challenging environments and contemplates what research ethics look like in post-genocide societies. Working in violent, traumatized, or oppressive conditions reveals the fragility of traditional political science methods when confronted with the realities of human suffering. Part of the intrinsic value of field interviews is the unique interactive experience between researcher and respondents, which can never be fully replicated. Addressing the controversies about research methods, I argue that the Data Access and Research Transparency (DA-RT) versions of protection, replicability, and transparency undermine the integrity of field research and can threaten the security of researchers and respondents. This article also reflects on the personal experience of working in three post-genocide societies, including the effects of trauma and empathy. Despite the difficult subject matter and personal challenges, I continue to champion field research for the unmatched understanding it offers researchers. This reflection encourages a broader discussion about the value of human interaction in the research process, even if those interactions do not fit neatly into a methodological template.