Resumen de Doing empirical work during a pandemic: socio-legal research experiences in Latin America in the course of the COVID-19 outbreak
Julia Maia Goldani, Natalia Zuluaga Acevedo
This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities of carrying out empirical work during the COVID-19 pandemic. By these means, it aims to contribute to the yet incipient analyses of how the circumstances created by the global spread of the SARSCoV-2 virus, such as government restrictions on gatherings and mobility, impacted social research practice during 2020. For this purpose, the article presents two experiences of qualitative socio-legal fieldwork at graduate degree level, carried out during the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak, one in Brazil and the other in Colombia. In doing so, it also emphasizes particularities of the pandemic response in Latin America. Our central arguments are (i) that the flexible logic that characterizes qualitative research practice allowed for creative solutions to the problems posed by COVID-19, and (ii) that careful examination and heightened sensibility were needed to deal with the novel ethical dilemmas that arose during this process.
