Remote Fieldwork

Performing Natural Disaster Risk Reduction Fieldwork From Home During the COVID–19 Pandemic

Abstract

The inability to conduct research in the field due to the COVID–19 pandemic would at face value seem to be a detriment to research. However, it is both possible and important to turn difficult times into opportunities. We can cite some examples of good fieldwork in which actions and interventions from remote locations successfully overcame a lack of face–to–face interaction at the actual sites (Stage 1) or even improved upon previous activities by developing new, more productive fieldwork techniques (Stage 2). Here, we introduce two such cases from the field of natural disaster risk reduction. In one case, fieldwork aimed to realize more active participation by overseas residents and elderly people in tsunami evacuation drills by using approaches such as letters, community broadcasting, and notice boards in multiple languages. In the other case, fieldwork examined evacuation behavior in elderly people by using the offset mode of a GPS–based smartphone app in remote work.