The dilemma of conducting research back in your own country as a returning student – reflections of research fieldwork in Zimbabwe

The research process is more like finding one's way through a complex maze. ‘Home is where the heart is’, but foreign students face a number of problems upon their return home to do research. This paper chronicles the dilemma of a Zimbabwean student conducting fieldwork for his UK‐based doctoral studies in his own country. The dilemmas were critical in that the fieldwork was undertaken during the ‘Zimbabwe crisis’ and the inherent problems of researching government‐related organisations. This has a bearing on any research process and invokes use of the etic/emic dilemma. This paper contributes to the gaps and growing literature on methods and techniques for conducting qualitative research in human geography.