Written by: Nabila Binth Jahan (Junior Research Associate)
Fieldwork rarely begins with a recorder switched on. More often, it begins with waiting, outside clinics, in narrow lanes, beside busy roads, or under the sun, hoping someone will spare a few minutes to talk. In the urban slum areas of Dhaka where CHORUS Projects 1 and 2 were conducted, that waiting was often long and unpredictable.
Working as a qualitative researcher on these projects offered a close view of how health systems function for different population groups. Beyond frameworks, protocols, and indicators, fieldwork showed a more complicated truth: access to health care is shaped by time, livelihoods, gender, and social power. Those same factors shape who can participate in research, when they can speak, and what it costs them to do so.
Engaging Participants in Their Daily Lives
Fieldwork in Dhaka’s urban slums was rarely straightforward. From the start, data collection meant working around constrained schedules and the everyday realities of survival, informal labour, mobility, and social pressure.
Many participants worked long hours in informal or mobile jobs, where even a short interview could mean losing income. People checked the time repeatedly. Some agreed to speak only if we kept it brief. Interviews were postponed, interrupted, or completed in short segments between work tasks. Scheduling depended on narrow time windows, early mornings, late evenings, or brief breaks, and we often returned to the same lanes more than once to complete a single conversation.
Silence was not only the absence of words. Sometimes it was a glance that signaled someone was listening. Sometimes it was a pause before answering, as if the safest response was the shortest one. In a few cases, the interview had to happen in fragments, with certain topics avoided entirely. These moments were reminders that participation is never only about willingness. It is shaped by safety, privacy, and whether speaking openly carries social or economic risk.
Inside the Health Facilities
If community interviews were constrained by livelihoods and time, facilities brought a different kind of pressure. Clinics were consistently crowded and fast-paced. Patients waited shoulder-to-shoulder, and providers moved quickly from one person to the next. The next patient often stepped forward before the previous interaction had fully ended.
Conversations with doctors and nurses happened in brief gaps between consultations or at the end of long shifts. Providers were generally cooperative, but many were visibly fatigued and pressed for time, sometimes speaking while standing, scanning the waiting area, or apologizing for having to cut the conversation short. Even when people wanted to engage, the system rarely made space for it.
Reflections and Closing Thoughts
This experience reinforced one practical lesson : flexibility is not a helpful add-on in field research, it is the work. Future studies in similar settings should plan for shorter interview windows, repeated engagement, and schedules that respect the realities of participants’ and providers’ lives.
At the same time, adaptability does not erase inequity. Some people will always be harder to reach, not because they do not matter, but because their lives leave them less room to pause. If we want research to represent diverse urban realities, we have to design it around the people who have the least time, the least privacy, and the most to lose by speaking.
Originally published in ThinkSpace Vol:1 (February, 2026)
