Hi everyone,

I'm interested in how other people might handle this situation. I would change supervisors if I could identify a good replacement and project, but at the moment that seems unlikely.
My supervisor told me recently that the reason the director of a field site won't answer my emails is because he is 'suspicious' of me, and not prepared to lift a finger to help me until I submit him a research plan in writing. She seemed to think this was fair on his part. Why haven't I submitted a plan in writing yet? Basically two reasons: my original project plan, approved by my funding body, stated the first year of my project would focus on data analysis. Field work was going to come after that, and although we were talking about some ideas there was no indication from her that the original time frame should change or I should be contacting this guy at a certain point. Then, she was actively discouraging me from going to this field site, highlighting problems etc and trying to get me to go to another one. It's clear, both from things that happened before and her latest comments, that she has encouraged him to be 'suspicious'. There is slightly more to it, but those are key.
This aside, quite a few times she has jumped to conclusions about me and what I've done that consist of her interpreting me in the worst possible way. They are too long to describe here. I pointed out a couple to her where she was clearly wrong. I tried to explain the field site situation from my perspective once but she wouldn't listen.
Despite what i've said, our relationship isn't all bad. Should I hang on in the hope things will get better? Should I change? My current thought is some kind of middle ground where we discuss all this stuff with grad school support, but I'm not sure that won't backfire.

Does anyone have any similar experiences of resolving such issues?
Thanks
Selkie

Hi Selkie, when you said that your supervisor said that the field site director was 'suspicious' and wouldn't do anything with out a written research plan, I'm wondering whether you are reading this as a personal comment rather than a general one.

By this I mean that many people in the field are suspicious of researchers-mainly perhaps because they are busy and accommodating researchers and participating in field studies can be time consuming and a distraction for the people actually working in the field.

Often a site may receive many requests for participants to complete surveys, be observed, have reports written about them and they are naturally suspicious of the process and went some form of control over the whole thing. Thus, any director will want a plan that outlines the parameters of the study and the ethical approvals before they even consider having a researcher come on site and start their research. They will also want to know how it is being published and whether they will need some form of control over what is being said or who gets to hear it.

It isn't always personal though, just a natural defensiveness of their territory and thus the request for a plan or outline of the purpose, how data will be collected, the timeline, and the privacy concerns, so they have an idea of what is happening.

Your supervisor may also know of issues in this site already that she can't disclose to you which may be why she is discouraging you from approaching this particular site and trying to direct you to another.

I have found that supervisors are people and like all people you get to know really well, there are great aspects to their personality (or usually there are-sometimes you get a really difficult supervisor) and there are things that don't gel with one and as you become more familiar, get under your skin. Supervisors would have similar issues with their students-so on the balance of things, how is your overall relationship with your supervisor and do you generally get on and make overall progress. Weighing up this against individual issues of contention might help with your decision.

Thanks for the responses. I seem to have failed to make the situation clear.
I never expected to be allowed to go into the field without a research plan, and that's not my complaint at all. I'm not whining about being asked to provide one.
The data analysis was examining related data (as well as a lit review) before going to the field and collecting more data to analyse.
I've actually already spoken to the grad school and my funding body who were both sympathetic to the situation.

I don't fully understand the issue. Why do you think your supervisor is acting this way? It is in the supervisor's interest that the student is successful. Just trying to understand better. If the situation isn't going anywhere then maybe changing supervisors will be the solution. But first there may be other things you can try - such as meeting your advisor (do you have one?), diplomatically explaining your perception of the situation, and getting their take on it and advice. They may then speak directly to your supervisor if needed.