What Is Seen and What Is Silenced: Representations of Fieldwork in Atmospheric Science

Fieldwork has long been represented as a positive learning experience across disciplines and atmospheric science is no exception. However, this representation has marginalized the discussions of many longstanding issues in fieldwork, such as long working hours, unsafe working environment, low pay, and tense employer-employee relationships. These nonideal working conditions are intertwined with the overemphasis on output linked to the neoliberalization of academia, but this relationship is overlooked by current literature on fieldwork ethics which focuses on individual incidents of negative experience rather than systemic exploitation of academic labour. Nonideal working conditions in the field often overlay and interact with other concerns that animate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) discussions, such as retention of women and racialized students, sexual harassment and assault in academia, and perpetuation of colonial behaviors when working with local researchers and communities in non-Western societies. Through a review of social media posts, news articles, podcasts, videos, and conference presentations about recent atmospheric science field campaigns, I examine what (student) workers actually experience in the field and the kind of dominant representations of field campaigns that marginalize these experiences. I found out that the students are usually overworked, but they normalize it by emphasizing how fieldwork benefits them – a better-looking resume, friendship with peers and professors, and a chance to explore different cultures. Their employers (the principal investigators) also normalize the problematic working conditions for their students and themselves because they have to operate within time and funding limitations – which have become more difficult to cope with due to the ever-increasing competition that characterizes the neoliberal academy. A discussion about changes to funding mechanism and attitudes towards fieldwork (prioritize input over output rather than the reverse) is provided at the end of the paper. Through the case of atmospheric science field campaigns, this paper hopes to break the silence surrounding working conditions in the field across disciplines.