Book excerpt: What distinguishes ethnographic study from other qualitative inquiry is that it requires researchers to enter and navigate a "natural" social setting or a field. Fields can be drastically different depending on the discipline, research area, and topic, yet all share that they exist independently of being researched. Fields are more or less refined social worlds that typically have their own social organization, history, beliefs and values, code of conduct, and spatial habitat while being embedded within a larger society and culture. The people who inhabit fields are commonly called members. Most fields furnish a variety of social positions, or roles, that members occupy; there usually is a distinction between regular members and leaders, and there may be additional parts for complementary or supporting actors. As ...