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With the lifting of pandemic-related travel restrictions, international researchers are now returning to China. While the end of 'Zero-Covid' opens new possibilities for mobility and access, China remains a challenging environment for fieldwork; given current geopolitical tensions, mounting anti-foreign (and anti-Chinese) rhetoric, and an ever-growing list of 'sensitive' research topics, it seems unlikely that conditions for field-based researchers will improve any time soon (see Harlan 2019). As concerns about risk and access continue to loom large in the Chinese Studies community, we-three postgraduate researchers in human geography based at an Australian university-offer a discussion of our recent experiences doing fieldwork in Switches. Source: @designwallah (CC), Flickr.com. post-Covid China. Scholars have written about methodological constraints and coping strategies amid the pandemic (Woodworth et al. 2022; Tan et al. 2023), but, to our knowledge, little has been said thus far about the evolving challenges of conducting fieldwork in Mainland China, particularly outside the main cities. In drafting this forum contribution, we acknowledge our diverse backgrounds and research interests, as well as the points of commonality that unite us as colleagues and friends. We identify as a middle-aged white researcher and long-term foreign resident of Shanghai, a Chinese female scholar and environmental activist pursuing a doctoral degree at an overseas university, and a Chinese researcher with eight years' overseas education experience in both science and the arts. We also have diverse academic interests-water governance, techno-politics, China- Africa relations-yet all our methodologies involve qualitative, embedded research strategies in locations where we are simultaneously insiders and outsiders. Our stories from the field therefore demonstrate how personal, cultural, and political dimensions can intersect in unexpected ways during the research process-for instance, when researching 'peers' who resist identification, when confronting the gaze of male participants, and when family relationships open the door to official sources. In these experiences, our stories unite around a shared theme of discomfort with how we are identified and how we are forced to comply with the expectations of others. We hope that by sharing our recent experiences we can, first, provide some firsthand information about China's post-Covid research environment and the implications for scholars who are or will be conducting fieldwork in the country. We also hope that our stories can inspire others to consider unconventional research sites and approaches, and to think of obstacles in the field as prompts for reflection and, potentially, fresh insights. Additionally, in recent years, we have witnessed the opening of a frank and thought-provoking discussion about the unacknowledged challenges faced by those engaged in China-based fieldwork, both foreign researchers (Braun and Haugen 2021; Schneider et al. 2021; Alpermann 2022) and Chinese academics (Zhao 2017; Sin and Yang 2018; Xiang and Wu 2023). In our own modest way, we hope to continue this conversation by being honest about our identities, our emotions, our histories, and how these collide with conditions in the field. In the current climate, we believe that it is more valuable than ever to share experiences. Rather than thwarting research, the challenges we face can open new avenues for exploration.

What is the role of scientists in society? What should we think when they talk about more than just science? Mary Midgley discusses the high spiritual ambitions which tend to gather around the notion of science.