FIELD NOTES The Makings of Anthropology
Edited by
ROGER SANJEK
CORNELL. UNIVERSITY PRESS Itlzaca and London
Copyright @ 1990 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in
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Nc\�· York 14850. First published 1990 by Cornell University Press. First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1990. Third printing IC)C)J. International Standard Book Number o-8014-2436-4 (cloth) International Standard Book Number o-8014-9726-4 (paper) Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 89-46169 Printed in the United States of America
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We dedicate this book to the next generation of ethnographers.
Contents
(Examples of anthropologists' fieldnotcs folio�· page
I
23.)
I>rcface
XI
Livi11g with Fieldtlotes
I
"I Am a Fieldnote'': Fieldnotes as a Symbol of Professional
3
Identity
JE��N E. JACKSON Fire, Loss, and the Sorcerer's ...1\ppretJtice ROGER
II
34
S.ANJEK
LTnpackitlg aFieldnotes"
Notes on (Field)notes
47
JAMES CLIFFORD Pretexts for Ethnography: On Reading Fieldnotes
71
RENA LEDERM �N ...
VII
CoNTENTS
Vlll
92
�4 vocabulary for Fieldnotes ROGER SANJEK
III
Fieldt1ote Practice
Thirty Years of Fieldnotes: Changing
Relationships to
the
Text
139
SIMON OTTENBERG
Quality into Quantity: On the E thnograp hic Fieldnotes
AlLEN
JOHNSON AND
O R NA
Measurement R.
Potential of
161
JOHNSON
The Secret Lije of Fieldnotes ROGER
IV
SANJEK
Fieldnotes in Circulation
Fieldnotes: Research in Past Occurrences
273
GEORGE C. BOND
Adventures ·"vith Fieldnotcs CHRISTINE
290
OBBO
Refractions of Reality: On the Usc of Other Ethnographers'
303
Field notes NA�CY LUTKEH.AL'"S
Fieldnotes and Others
324
ROGER SANJEK
V
From Fieldnotes to Etlznography
C hinanote s : E ngendering A nthropolo gy MARGERY
WOLF
He aring Voices,
Joining
Else's Fieldnotes
ROBERT J.
343
SMITH
the Chorus: Appropriating So m e one
35 6
Contents
Fieldnot es, Filed No tes, and the Conferring of Note
IX
371
D �VID W. PLATH ..
On Ethnographic J,�lidity ROGER
Index
SANJEK
419
Preface
After a long American Ethnologic a l S ociety board of directors ses sion on the first day of the 1984 American Anthropological Associa tion meetings in Denver, I met Shirley Lindenba u m editor of Ameri ,
can
Ethnologist and a fello\v member of the board, in the hotel lobby�
We \Vcrc later j oined by J a m es Clifford, a historian of anthropology.
The three of us talked about current concerns in anthropology, includ ing the growing interest in ethnographies as texts. By eleven o'clock in the evening \Ve \\7ere all hungry and decided to eat in the hotel. We de scended several Rights to the one restaurant that \\'as still open. The se rv ice \vas sl o\\ and uncoordinated. As Linden '
baum and Clifford sat eating their dinner and I sat \Vaiting for mine, Clifford brought up the subject of fieldnotes. He said that in all the recent discu ssion about \Yriti n g ethno grap hy and ab out ethnographies as V�"riting, no one had addressed ""'·hat anthropologists V�·rite
be_{ore
they \Vrite ethnographies-fieldnotes. This led o ur conversation
to
a
chain of associations, comments, and ideas about fieldnotcs and about \v h y ethnographe rs have \\lritten so little on the subject. When I learned at the next day's AES board meeting that I \\'as to chair the program committee for the AES Invited Sessions at the Washington AAA n1cetings, in 1985, I immediately thought of doing a panel on fieldnotes. In the next t"vo d a y s I discussed this \Yith Linden,
XI
PREFACE
Xll
baum and AES president-elect Judith Shapiro, both of '\\'"hose ideas on themes and poten tial panelist s were extremel y helpful. Clifford also
was amenable, and willing to do a paper. The next step, early in 1985, was to \Vritc to a score or so of anthropologists, to gauge their in teres t in joining the Washington
sym po s i um I approached people of substantial ethnog raphic accom .
pli sh m ents peop le I believed Vlould be able to reflect upon such \Vork. ,
Some I knc'\\r well; others only slightly; some not at all. My bait was a ske t c h of topics and issues to consider: Unlike historians, anthropologists create their O\\rn documents. We call ""them fieldnotes, but \VC speak little about them to each other. This symposium seeks to open up discussion about ficldnotes \Vithin the profession. The aim is less to concretize what various theoretical schools think ought to go into ficldnotcs than to examine what anthropologists do with fieldnotes, how they live \Vith them, and how attitudes to\vard the construction and use of fieldnotes may change through individual professional careers.
We hope contributors '\viii present a variety of perspectives. Among the topics that might be considered are these: I.
What are the relationships between fieldnotes and ethnographies?
Are ethnographic writings \\'ritten "fro�" fieldnotes, from fieldnotes plus other sources, or does one or more intermediate stage of writing follo\v between fieldnotes and ethnographic product? Ho\v do field notes provoke and animate memory? 2.
W hat are the different 'ckinds'' of fieldnotes an ethnographer pro
duces-running accounts of events, texts, reports, impressions, and other forms? How do these fit together in pro";ding the first-stage ethnographic record?
3. When they are available, V�·hat is the impact of earlier ethnogra phers' fieldnotes on later researchers? Should access to such fieldnotes be a
regular process of professional courtesy? If so, v.rhy, and how; if not,
\\'hy not? Hov.r successfully may one ethnographer's fieldnotes be used by another in -w·riting ethnography? 4· How does an ethnographer ulivc v.rith" fieldnotes over time? What
sense of responsibility to one's notes do anthropologists feel? Do field notes become a burden from \\'hich one must v;in freedom before going on to ncv.' work? How long can fieldnotes remain useful to an anthro pologist? Ho\v does the ethnographer's reading of her or his O\\'n field notes change \Vith professional development and maturity? Can ethno graphic v.'ritings become "obsolete" but fieldnotes remain a source for ne\v ethnography? s.
Ho\v do ethnographers in return visits change their conceptions of
what fieldnotes should be? How do such conceptions change pologists take on second or third field\vork projects?
as
anthro
Preface
Xlll
How is access to fieldnotes handled when two or more ethnogra
6.
phers work cooperatively-in team research, or in parallel investiga tions? 7. What uses rnay be made of fieldnotes-directly-as part of ethno
graphic writing? Ho\\· do canons of scientific method, responsibility to informants, and desires to write persuasively and authoritatively all intersect in the use of fieldnote material?
8. Should fieldnotes become available to anyone (including non anthropologists) other than the ethnographer? When; to \\'hom; in what forms?
I appende d a list of useful sources, including Srinivas's
Village
Remembered
and Pehrson and Barth's book on the Marri Baluch; papers by
Clifford, Larcom, and Marcus and Cushman; and the collection of essays on field research edited by Foster and others. The bait \Vorked. Fourteen contributors prepare d papers, and eleven
of those papers , in revised form, are included in this volume (the press of other commitments prevented Emiko Ohnuki- Tierney, Triloki Nath Pandey, and Michael Silverstein from r evising their papers for inclusion here). The topic of fieldnotes proved to be ti mely A report on the sym .
posiu m followed in the
Chronicle ofHigher Education immedia tel y after
the Washington meetings (see Ellen K. Coughlin, "Anthropologists' Archives: Scholars Examine the Problems and Possibilities of Field Notes," December r8, 1985, pp. 5, 7). In the next three years, sev eral Vlorks on ethnographic \vriting appeared, some dealing directly and some indirectly with the uses of fieldnotes ( including books by Agar, Clifford Clifford and Marcus, Friedrich, Geertz, Marcus and ,
Fischer, Van graphic
w ri
Maancn).
Pointed and controversia l pieces on ethno
ti n g by Richard Sh\ve der in the I\'ew Yo rk
Times Book
Review-"Storytelling among the Anthropologists," September 20, 1986, pp.
I,
38-39; "The How of the Word," February 28, 1988,
p. 13-provoked reactions in anthropological circles and beyond.
When my work on this collection of essays began in 1985, a t'\vo decade mix of theoretical, political, methodological, and fieldwork experiences had primed my thinking about the role of fieldnotes in doing anthropology I teach at Queens College in Powdermaker Hall, .
named for Hortense Powdennakcr, who ta ught there for many years. Soon after I a rrived in 1972, I rea d her book S tranger
Way of an
and Friend: The
Anthropologist (1966). What stayed with me most from this fascinating personal history was the sense of drudgery involve d in
PREFACE
XlV
diligently typing up fieldnotes from handvlritten notes on observa tions and informants' statements. This resonated \Vith the feelings I had during my o\vn fieldwork in Adabraka, Ghana, in 1970-71. I ha d kept a small notebook in my back pocket, a suggestion made by Lambros Comitas in a field training seminar in 1965. I \Vrote in this notebook all kinds of things seen and heard and struggled to keep my typing from it up to date. It resulted in 397 single-spaced pages of fieldnotes covering e ightee n months, al though the last one hundred pages \Vere not typed until the Wa terga te summer of 1973, a year after my Ph.D. thesis \Vas completed. That thesis and my publications on Adabraka since have been based on nc;arly as many pages of net\vork intcrvicvls and other systematic records, kept separate from my \Vide-ranging fieldnotes. The notes remain to be used, someday perhaps, in as ye t unbcgun ethnographic writing. The attention to records in my Adabraka fieldwork and \Vriting is a
product of my times. I first did field\\'ork in 1965 in Bahia, Brazil, as part of a Columbia University undergraduate summer program. This \\l"as preceded by a field training seminar, led by Comitas and Marvin Harris, in which the focus was on the practicalities of getting to and around in Brazil, and on es t ablishing rapport with informants. Several students from the previous year's program spok e about their experi ences. The assigned reading from Adams and Preiss's Human Organi
zation Research
( StratJger and Friend \Vas not yet published, nor were Epstein's Cra_li of Social Anth rop o logy and Jong mans and Gutkind's Anthropologists in the Field; they would appear in 1966 and 1967, and begin the flood offieldv.,"ork and methods literature
in the
1 970s.)
v..t ashe d
over me.
I was more concerned about Brazilian ethnography and
the ethnoscience literature to which my planned field\vork on racial vocabulary related. Others in the Brazil group I met that year-Dan Gross, Maxine Margolis, David Epstein, Conrad Kottak, Betty Kot tak-men tione d Levi-Strauss's
Tristes
Tropiques, but I did not read it
then. In B raz il I took no fieldnotes; I tried, but had no idea of \\'hat to
write. Instead,
I collected records ofintervie\vs, and responses to a set
of dra\\'ings of varying combinations of skin color, hair, and nose form. This led to my second published paper.1 My first, \\'rittcn in the l Brazilian Racial Terms: Some Aspects of Meaning and Lc�rning, American AntiJro pologist 73
(1971): 112�43.
X\'
Preface aftermath of the Columbia revolt of 1968, captured the intert"vined concerns with ecology, underdevelopment� political engagement, sci ence, and method ,�,..hich influenced me in my 1967-69 graduate stu dent days. 2 It reflected Harris's teaching and \Vriting. I was especially imp ressed by ho\v his field encounter '\Vith racial inequality in Mo�am bique had led to his thinking about the emic-etic contrast, and ho�,. this in turn shed light on understanding the sacred role of the
C0\\7
in
preventing even greater immiseration in India. Politics, science, and rigorous data-gathering \\7ere all one piece for me. My concerns about race, ethnicity, and class \vere crystallized in my Adabraka research on \vhether htribe" or class '�ras more impor tant in daily life, and in my interest in testing the plural society separatist thesis that M. G. Smith and others had applied to Africa. The careful studv of the dailv life and interactions of Adabraka \\'omen �
.I
and men which Lani Sanjek and I conducted ,,,.as rooted in Harris's
l\lature o._(Cultural Thitlgs ( 1964), a theoretical book that I read as having
political implications. I \Vas also strongly influenced by �':hat I sa'\\I· as a parallel interest in charting interaction among the Manchester anthropologists. Comitas had turned me on to British social anthropology� in '"'·hich I read V�idely. I \\'as fortunate also to work \Vithjaap van Velsen at Columbia in 1968. His
Politics
of Kinship
(1964) \vas a demonstration of how
careful fieldnotes on actual behavior could be analyzed to throvl light
on larger questions of process and social structure; his paper in the Epstein volume, and Epstein's own 1961 paper on net\vork analysis, I sa\v as a next step from Harris's theoretical approach. Thus� detailed attention to daily activity marked both my Adabraka net\vork records and my fieldnotes. George Bond and Allen Johnson, \vho came to Columbia in
1968 and served on my dissertation committee, rein
forced this combination of intellectual clements for me. The impor tance of dedicated perseverance in fieldwork \Vas also impressed upo11 me by Simon Ottenberg, '"rho ·\\ras in Ghana \vhile we were . The mix of political concern, respect for systematic data, and meth odical attention to detail, '"'·hich I have tried to make evident in my Adabraka publications, 3 has continued to be important to me. This 2Radical Anthropology: Values, Theory. and Content, Atul�ropology (JCI_l\
21-]2.
1
(1969):
3�1hat Is Network Analysis, and Wnat Is It Good For? Reviews in �4flthropolo.�· 1 (1974): s88-97; Roger Sanjek and Lan.i Sanjck, Notes on w·omcn and �'ork in Ada braka, A_fricatl l1rban No1ts 2, no. 2 (1976): 1-25� Ne,-...· Perspectives on w·cst African
XVI
PREFACE
mix also marked my \Vriting
in the 1970s about the employment of
anthropology. 4 The victory achieved on this issue, how ever, had as much to do \vith the politic al e x perien ce I gain ed in 197678 at the Gray Pan thers' Over 6o Health Clinic in Berkeley5 as with methodological and quantitative skills. My two years as an applied and advocacy anthropologist in Berkeley, however, pro duce d few writ ten fieldnotes, though they did result in a large file of other women in
documents. I continued as a Gray Panther activist on health,
housing , ageism, and econo mic just ice through the 198os after I returned to New York . 6 In 1981 I decided to write a book about the Berke le y Gray Panthers arid their health clinic. I d is co vered , however, a treasure of documents on the origins and history of the Gray Panther movement at the Presbyterian Historical Archives in Philadelphia, and my plan shifted to a study of the national organization, with the local Berkeley story as
one chapt er . In working on this project in 1981-82 and the summer of 198 5,
I refl ected often that the documents were my fieldnotes.
I had
not been present at the formative 1970-76 events detailed in
Thoug h
them, I knew all th e major actors, had seen the place s where events
Women9
RevieUJ5 in Anthropology 3 (1976): 1 15-34; C ognit ive Maps of the Ethnic
Domain in Urban Ghana: Reftections on Variability and Change, ..4merican Ethnologist 4
(1977): 603-22; A N e tv.' ork Method and Its Uses in Urban Ethn ograp h y, Human Organization 37 (1978): 257-68; Who Are uthe Folk" in Folk Taxonomies? Cogniti ve Diversity and the State, Krotbtr Anthr"Pologiutl Society Papers 53l 54 (1978): 32-43; The
Toward a Wider Comparative Perspective, Compara tive Studie5 in Society and History 23 (1982): 57-TO]; Female and Male Domestic Cycles in Urban Africa: The Adabraka Case, in Femalt and A,fale in ���.st AfriCil, cd. Christine Oppong, 330-43 (London: Allen & U n\v in , 1983); Maid Servants and Market Women's A p pr ent ices in Adabrak� in Ai "'o'* in Homt5: Household H'orkers in Korld Ptrspective, cd. Roger Sanjek and Shellee Colen (Washington, D.C.: American Organization of Households in Adabraka:
Ethnological Society.
I 990 ).
4The Posicion of Women in
the
Maj o r
Departments of Anthropology9
1967-1976,
i\merican Anthropologisi No (1978): 894-904; Roger Sanjek, Sylvia H. Forman, and
Ch ad McDaniel, Emp lo ymen t and Hiring of Women in American De pa rt m ents of
Anthropology: The Five- Year Record, 1972-1977, .4nthropology J'\'�'sletter 20, no.
1
(1979): 6-19; "The American Anthropological Association Resolution on the Employ ment of Women: Genesis, Implementation, Disavov.,yal, and Resurrection, Signs; Jour
nal of l+omtn in Culturt and Soc ie ty 7 s A nthr op ological
Work at a
Advocacy Goals, in Citits
(1982): 845-68. Gray Panther Health
of the United 514ltes: Studits
Clinic: Aca dem ic , Applied, and in L'rban
.l\nthropolo�y, ed.
Mullings, 148-75 (New York: Columbia University Pre s s , 1987). 6Crowded Out: Homele5sne55 and the Eldtrl}' Poor in 1\.'tu' 1-'ork
Leith
City (New York:
Coalition for the Homeless and Gray Panthers of New York City, 1984).
Preface
XVll
occurred, and had participated in similar events in Berkeley, in New York, and at national Gray Panther meetings. To me, the process of building ethnographic description and analysis from these documents Y�"as similar to van Velsen's extended case method and to the account of Adabraka life which I had built more quantitatively in my net\vork analysis dissertation and in papers. My thinking about fieldnotcs \vas stimulated, as well, by the part time, long-term fieldwork I began in Elmhurst-Corona, Queens, in late 1983, which continues at present. In this incredibly diverse neighborhood of established \\l·hite Americans of several ethnic back grounds, newcomers since the late 1960s have included Latin Ameri can and Asian immigrants of many nationalities, Black Americans, and white not-quite yuppies. With a team of researchers
as
diverse as
the local population, I have been studying changing relations among these varied groups. My fieldnotes cover mainly meetings of political bodies and associations, public festivals and ceremonies, and services and social occasions at three Protestant churches, with scores of de scriptive accounts of events in each of these three categories. My· chronological ficldnotes to date amount to 930 single-spaced pages, "\Vith more notes from ethnographic interviews. My analyses of these three domains begin "With the fieldnotcs. They have more in common \vith van Velsen's extended case approach than with the quantitative analysis of behavioral records of my Adabraka net\vork study. Political concerns about the future of racial, ethnic, and class differences con tinue to give meaning and purpose to
this work.
Most of the revised essays for this �yolume reached me during 1986. In June of that year my father died, and
in the follo\ving t\vo years
several responsibilities overtook me. It Vlas not until 1988-89 that I v.ras able to return to the introduction for
Fieldnotes: The �'vtaking.s oj
Anthropology. Once started, the introduction seemed to take on a life of its O\\'n; it is novl divided in to essays that address the issues raised in each of the book's five sections. 7 The eleven other authors are not entirely blameless for this extended "introduction." They raised so many compelling issues that adequate treatment of the wider literature
7For reading and commenting on se ctions of my contribution to this book I thank Lani Sanjek, David Plath, Robert J. Smi th Simon Ottenberg, Peter Agree, Linda ,
Wentv. orth James Cl i ffo rd Nancy Lutkehaus, Rena Lederman, C aro l Greenhouse, '
,
,
David Holmberg, Judith Goldstein, Moshe Shokeid, and Jean Jackson, who always sent just the right signal at just the right time.
PREFACE
XVlll
and context-the proper job of an introduction to an edited collec ti on p roved a formidable task. W ith their joint examination of an thropology from fieldnotcs "up" rather than from t heory "down, " the whole history of the discipline looked different. Theoretical concerns vlere very much present, but they were extended to include qu estion s of "when theory , '' '''''here theory," ''\vhy the or y, in addition to """'·hich theory." Several \v ritin gs have been extremely hel p ful to my \\'ork on this book. They include Cliffo rd Geertz's "Blurred Genres: The Refigura tion of Social T h o u g ht, " in Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpre tive Anthro pology, pp. 19-3 5 (New York: Basic Books, 1983); Peter C.. W. Gutkind and Gillian Sankoff's ''Annotated Bibliography on Anthropological Field Work Methods," in �4nthropologist.s in the Field, ed. D. G. Jon g m an s and P. C. W. Gutkind, p p. 214-72 (Ne\v Yo rk: Humanities P r e s s , 1967); Nancy McDo\.vell's ap tl y titled "The Ocean ic E t hn og raph y o f Marg are t Mead, " Americatt i4nthropologist 82 ( 1980): 278-303; and several essays by the historian G e o r g e W. Stocking,Jr. anthropology is blessed that he has devoted his pr o fe s sio nal attention to our d iscipline . But most valuable of all are the essays in this book by George C. Bond , James Clifford, Jean Jackson, .Allen and Orna Jo hns o n , Rena Lederman, Nancy Lutkehaus, Ch ri stin e Obbo, Si m on Ottenberg, David Plath, Robert J. Smith , and Margery Wolf. Every one of the authors surprised me , d o in g much more than I expected, rev·ca lin g sides of themselves to the ""'·orld, or dealing vvith themes and issues far b ey ond \\'hat I imagined back in 1984. As editor, I am honored. As reader, you are in for a treat. -
"
RoGER s.l�JEK New York City
PART
I
Living with Fieldnotes A significant attribute of \\ riting is the ability to '
comnlu
nicatc not only \Vith others but with oneself. A permanent record enables one to re re a d
as
well as record one's own
thoughts and jottings. In this way one can review and re organize one's own work, reclassify what one has already classified, rearrange \vords, sentences, and paragraphs in a variety of ways The \\ray that information is orga .
.
.
.
nized as it is recopied gives us an invaluable insight into the \Vorkings of the mind of homo
legetJS. -jACK
Gooov
JEAN E. JACKSON
''I Am a Fieldnote'': Fieldnotes as a Symbol of Professional Identity
This essay began
as
an exploration of my ovln relationship
ficldnotes in preparation for a symposium on the topic.
1
to
my
When I began
to chat vlith anthropologist friends about their experiences with field notes, however, I found what they had to say so interesting that I decided to talk to people in a more systematic fashion. My rather nonrandom sample of seventy is composed of all the anthropologists I contacted; no one declined to be intcrvie\ved. Intervie·\�tees are thus mostly from the cast coast, the Boston area being especially overrepre sented. With the exceptions of one archaeologist, one psy . chologist,
two
sociologists, two political scientists, and one linguist (each of
whom does research "in the field"), all arc card-carrying anthropolo gists by training and employment. The only representativeness I have attempted to maintain is a reasonably balanced sex ratio and a range of ages. To protect confidentiality, I have changed any potentially identi
fying
details in the quotations that follo\v.
Given the sample's lack of systematic representativeness, this essay should be seen in qualitative terms. The reasonably large sample size
1 An earlier version of this essay \vas read at the 84th annual meeting of the A1nerican Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.� December 4-8, 1985. in the sym posium on ficldnotes.
3
LIVING W'ITH fiELDNOTES
4
guards against bias in only the crudest fashion, since so many complex variables are present. While I cannot claim to represent the entire field, I do think the sample represents practicing anthropologists living in
the United States. Some are famous, others obscure; some have re flected on fieldwork and fieldnotes a great deal (a few have written about these topics), while others describe themselves as having been fairly unconscious or even suspicious of such matters. My sample is thus more representative of the profession than if I had written a paper based on what anthropologists have published about fieldnotes-the last thing many of my intervie\\'ecs contemplate undertaking is \\'rit ing on this topic. I believe that the fact that some common themes .. have emerged from such a variety of individuals is significant. 2 Although readers might justifiably \\'ant to sec connections made bet\vcen an intervie\vec's opinions about fieldnotes and his or her \\lork, I provide none because I very much doubt that many anthro pologists would have spoken \tVith me if I had indicated that I \\'as endeavoring to \\'rite up the intcrvievls in journalistic format, or \\�·rite biographical sketches, or compare different anthropological schools represented by named or easily recognizable individual scholars. Thus my "data" prove nothing, divorced as the quotations are from the context of the intervic\\l·ee's personal background, personality, field work project, and published ethnographies or essays on theory and method. The quotations given are illustrative anecdotes and nothing more. Rather than write a polemic about what is \Vrong Vlith our methods, I hope to gently provoke readers, to stimulate them to ask questions about their own fieldnote-taking. Hence, this essay is to be 2 Although
this essay is inspired by the current interest in "ethnographies as text" (see
Marcus and Cushman 1982; Clifford and Marcus 1986; (;eertz 1988; Clifford 1988), n1y methodology necessarily produces findings that differ from these and similar work in
two crucial respects. First, most of the anthropologists I intervie\ved are not enamored of the '•anthropology as cultural critique., (Marcus and Fischer 1986) trend, even though all of them had very interesting comments to make about fieldnotes. Second, given the frankness and the strong feelings-especially the ambivalence and negativity-that
emerged in the interviews, I doubt that some of what my intervie\vees said to me \''lould
ever be said in print, even by those \vho might be inclined to write about fieldnotes one day. For alii know, some might later have regretted being so frank with me, al though this does not necessarily make what they said any less true. Thus. while I certainly do not think I got the entire truth from anyone, given that the confidential interaction of an
intervie\v setting can pu11 out of people ideas and feelings they 1night not come up \\'ith
by themselves, I believe that the ntatcrial I did get is different from \\'hat I '\\'ould get a literature search about fieldnotes, even given that authors make extremely
from
negative con1mcnts about fieldnote-taking fron1 tin1e
to
tin1c.
"I Am
a
Ficldnotc',
5
seen as nei th er a philoso p hi cal nor a hi storic a l treatise on anthropolog ical epistemo l o g y but rather as a some\vhat lighth ear ted e x p lo r ation of the e mot io nal dimension of one stage of the an th ro p olog ica l enter prise, one that heretofore has n ot received much attention. With a few e xce p ti ons , my procedu re has been, fi rst , to ask int er vie'\vees to tell me \vhatever they mi ght want to say about the subject of fieldnotes . Almost all have been \villing to comment. T h en I ask about (1) their d e fi nitio n of fieldnotes; (2) training-prep aration and me nto rin g, for m al a n d inform a l ; (3) sharing ficldnotes; (4) c onfiden tiality; (S) dis position of fieldnotes at d e ath; (6) th eir feelings about fieldnotcs, particularly the actual, p hy s i cal notes; (7) whethe r ''unlike historians, an thr op o logis ts create their O\Vn documents." 3 I als o try to query th ose �·ho have had more than one field e x p eri ence a b out any cha n g es in their a p p ro a ch to fieldnotes over the years an d to ask older anthr o p o log i s ts about c h an ges over the span of their careers . lntervie\\'S last at lea s t an hour. Lackin g funds for transcription, I do not tape them, but I do try to record v er b atim as m u ch as p os sib le. Along the \vay, of course, I have disco v e red other iss u es that I \\'ish I h ad been co v e rin g s y stematically: for in stance, the interdep e n dence of � \\' h a t Simon Otten be rg ter m s " hea d n o te s ' (r em e mbere d o b servation s) and �·ritten notes. In m ore recent intervievls I h av e added ques tions about a p os s ib l e my s ti qu e su r r oun din g ficldnotes, and whether fieldnotcs are co nnected to anthropologists', or anthro p olog y 's , iden tity. Whatever their initial attitude, by the end of the inte r v i e w all i nte r viewees seem to have become i n t e re s ted in one or t\VO of the deeper is sues that the topic introduces. Most comm en t that my q ue s tions and th eir ans\vers hav"'e made them realize that fieldnotes are not by any m eans limited to nuts-and-bolts matters. The s ubj e ct is clearly com pl ex , t o u c h y, and disturbing for m o s t of us. My intervie\vees have in di c ated their unease by using familiar \V ord s from the anthropologi cal lexicon such as sacred, taboo, _fetish, exorcise, and ritual, an d by co m m ent in g on ou r tendency to avoid talk i ng about ficldhotes or only to joke abo ut them (comments rem in is cen t of the literature on avoid ance and j ok in g relationships). Anth ro po log is ts h a v e man y in sights to offer, even in discussi n g the n u ts-and-bolt s issues connected to the actual rec o rding of n o tes . Fi eld3This phrase \\'as part of Roger Preface.
Sanjek's
abstract
for the 1985 symposium; see
LIVING \\'ITH fiELDNOTES
6
notes sc..�m to make a remarkably good en try point for obtaining opinions and feelings about bigger issues (such as this paper's topic,
the relationship between fieldnotes and professional identity), proba
q uestions about these larger issues. The monologues I encourage at the beginning of the intervie\vs seem to bly better than point-blank
put informants at ease, reassuring them that I am genuinely interested
in vlhatever they have to say and piquing their interest in the topic. All
the intcrvie\vs have gone smoothly-although one intervie\vce said he was "leaving with a dark cloud"' over his head: "Hov.r am I going to get ready for class in the next ten minutes?"
Why has this project turned out to be so interesting both to me and ,
·seemingly to all those I intervie\v? For one thing, because at least one of my q u estions (although the dialogue becomes
an
u'hich one varies) aro u ses each intervievlee,
en gaged one. Also, while some responses are
Vlcll-formulated ansvlers, at other times the reply is anything but prepackaged, neat, and tidy._ allowing me to sec thinking in action.
Overvieu' o_f Answers to the Specific Questions Let me try to summarize the perplexing and ch allenging
v ariety of
responses to the specific questions. This section does not address professional identity per se, but it provides necessary background.
Definition What respondents consider to be
tieldnotes varies greatly. S o me will
include notes taken on readings or photocopied archival material; one person even sho\ved me a fieldnot c in the form of a ceramic dish for roastin g sausages. S ome give local assistants blank notebooks and ask
them to keep fieldnotes. Others' far more narrow definitions exclude even the tran s cripts of taped intervie\\'S or field diaries. It is evident that how people feel about fieldnot es is crucially linked to how they
define them, and one must always determine just
'A" hat
this definition
is in order to underst and what a person is saying. Clearly, \vhat a "
fieldnote is precisely is not part of our profession's culture, although ''
many respondents seem to believe it is. Most intervie\vees include in their definition the notion of a running log written at the end of each day. Some speak of fieldnotes as repre senting the process of the transformation
of observed interaction to
''I Am a Fieldnotc"
7
\Vritten, public com munication: "ra\v" data� ideas that are marin ating , and fairly done-to-a-tu rn diagrams and genealogical charts t o b e used in appendixes to a thesis or book. Some see their notes as scientific and rigorous because they are a record, one that helps preven t bias and p rovides data other research ers can usc for other ends. Others
contrast
fieldnotes with data, speaking of fieldnotes as a reco rd of one's reac tions,
a
cryptic list of items to concentrate on, a preliminary stab at
analysis , and so forth. Some definitions in clude the fun ction of fiel dnotcs. Many people s tress the mnemonic function of notes, saying that their purpose is to help the anthropol ogist recons truct an event. Con text is often men tioned. You try co contextualizc. I never did it and I regret it bitterly. I don't have peop le �s words on it.
I don't h a ve a d aily diary. There are a lot of thin gs that became a part of my daily life I \vas s u re I'd remember and I didn't. Things you take for granted but you don't know why any more. Pid g i n \•ttords, stuff about mothers-in-l aw. You can recall the emotional mood, but not the exact \\'ords.
One intervic\\'ee commented that at the beginning of her field�·ork she generated fieldnotes in part because doing so reas sured her that she \\'as doing her job. An insight that she could use materials her informants \Vcre generating ( memos, graffiti, schedules) as fieldnotes gr eatly aided her fieldwork. Here a shift in definition seems to have been crucial . Most anthropologists describe differen t kinds of fieldnotes , and so me wiiJ rank these acco rding to the amount of some positive quality they possess. But what this quality is, varies. For some, those notes containing the hardes t data rank highest; o thers have found thei r diaries to be the best resou rce: That journal, of course, is also
a
kind of data, beca use it ind i cat es how to
learn about, yes, myself, b ut al so ho\v to be
a
person in this environ
ment. Subsequently I s ee it as part o f the fieldnotes.
The category "hunch" is so mething anthropologists don't bring to the field. This is why you sh o ul d take a j ou rn al .
A moral evaluation often colors the definition itself and how re
s pondents feel about fieldnotes in general . Clearly, those who see
LIVI�G \\'ITH fiELDNOTES
8
fieldnotes as interfering with "doing'' anth ropology, as a crutch or escape, or as the reason v.te arc not keepin g up "vith the competition (c. g., sociology) in rigor, differ from those "vho characterize fiel dnotes as
the dis tinguishing fea ture separatin g superior anth rop ologi s ts from
journalists , amateu rs, and superficial, num ber-crunching sociologists . Training
and Mentors
The ques tion of training often elicits strong reacti ons. 4 Virtually all respon den ts compl ain in some manner� mo st s aying they received no •
formal ins truction in fieldnote-taking, several pointing out that their graduate departments are proud to "do theory" only. So me ap prove of this state of affairs, and some do not. Many speculate about hov..· to improve the situation; a fe\v intervie\.\l·ees spoke approvingly of the training received by students in other soci al science and cli nical fields. But the complaints from those who did
receive fiel d\vork training
reveal this to be an extre mely thorn y issue. Desi gning a co u rse on fieldwork and fieldnotes tha t will be useful fo r all anthropologists, \\'ith their different stvlcs, research focuses, and fieldwork situation s, "
appears to be a challenge fev..· ins tructors meet
successfully. One inter-
vie\vec said that much of what is published on fieldwork today is not , ''ho\.\1·-to , material so much as reflections on vvhy it is so difficult to tell people ho\v to do it. The best tack \\70u)d appear to be to provide a smorgasbord of techniques fo r studen ts to learn about, '"'·ithou t i nsist ing on a p articular approach . Matly of those most adamant ab out the vvorth lessncss of
\\-..
hatcver fo rmal advice they received nonetheless
report that little bits and pieces picked up along the way have been extremely useful.
Sharing Fieldnotes Interviewees arc very touchy on the topic of shari11g notes. Ques tions of p rivacy, both one's own and one's informants'., enter in. 4Scveral readers ofearlier drafts of this paper have commented on ho\\' a nutnbcr of the responses quoted secn1 quite '•studcnty. As noted above, I have obtained a roughly representative range of ages for intervie\\tees, an d I have avoided overrepresenting recently returntxl graduate students in the quotations I have chosen to presen t Yet regardless of intervievvees' age� stature V\'ithin the field. a n d number of separate fidd \vork projects, 1nost of them chose to answer my q u es tio ns by referring to their early fieldVw·ork experiences. My conclusions suggest son1e reasons ,._·hy these initial research ,,
.
periods vverc: n1ost �alient in intcrvic:v-.·ccs� minds.
'' I A m a Field no tc "
9
Also, because \Ve don't demand access to fiel dnotes, people don't de mand , " Look , you say such-and-such, I want to see the notes. " . . . It 's
like saying to a s tuden t, hWe do n 't trust yo u . " I haven ' t , and I'd be o f t w o min ds . \\rho they are and what they'd \van t it for. Fieldnotes are . it's s trange how intimate they become and ho'"' possessive \\'e are . .
.
.
.
Yet man y r ecog n i ze the myriad potential values of s h ar in g : It woul d be such an advant age
.
. . to enter a place \vith som e of that
ba ck ground .
I think for someone else \1\.'ho's gone there , your notes can be an aid to his n1em ory, too. They are still helpful , sort of like another layer of lacquer to your own notes .
An em i n ent anthropologist's fieldnotes can be a v aluable source of
in formation about both the p ers o n as a scholar and a culture g reat ly changed in the interi m . One intervie�"ee commented on Franz Haas's diary : The n otes reveal a lot and for that reason they are valuable documen ts . Does the anthropologist see the culture, o r see himself in the culture . . . sec t he social context from which he comes as somehow replicated in the culture?
Interestingly, this respo n de n t thinks she \Vill even tually destroy her own fieldnotes . Many speak of the p r ivacy of fieldnotes with a touch of wistfulness , sayin g they have ncv·er seen anyone else's: There are stron g rules i n anthropology about t h e intensely private nature of fieldnotes . I 'd like to have this protection ''It's in my notes , '' or "It 's not in tny notes, " and hide behind this . .
.
.
.
r d sho\v min e to people and they 'd say, " O h , '"'ow, I ' ve never seen notes lik e that. Fieldnotes are really hol y. "
Confi dentiality Comments about the confiden tiality of n o tes depend in large part on
the field situation and type of research conducted . Worries about
promi ses made to informan ts emerge, as do ethical considerations
LIVING WITH fiELD N OTE S
10
about revealing illegal activities or giving amm unition to groups "vho do not have one 's field site community's best interests at heart. Waiting until one�s inform an ts die mav not be a s olu tion : I
I ' m \vorking \\'ith people who h a ve a lot of in terest in h istory as a
determinan t force, and therefore for so meone to read about a scandal his family was in a hundred years ago is still g oing to be very em barrassing .
On the other hand, some anthropol ogists' informants �·anted to be mentioned by name . And members of some communities disagreed among themselves abo u t ho\v much should be made public. l)cath Several anthropologists, particularly the ones \\'ho took fe\v field notes and relied
a
lot on their memories , commented on ''' hat \vould
be lost when they died : It's not
a
random sam ple, it's much better designed. But because the
design an d values are in m y head , it 's dead data \\·ith out me.
Very fe\\' interviewees, even the older ones , have made an y provisions for the disposition of their fieldnotes . Many �·orry about compromis ing their informants, and
a
large number s a y their notes arc \IVOrthles s
or undecipherable. Some speculate about possible \vay s to preserve the valuable information in them, but apart from sys tem atically organiz ing and editing for the express pu rpose of archiving the n otes them selves, n o other practical solutions have been des cribed .
Feelings abou t Fieldno tes The subj ect of fieldnotes turns out to be one fraugh t with emotion
for ·virtuall y all anthropologists , both in the field and later on . I found
a
remarkable amount of negative feeling : my intervic"\.\1· transcripts con tain an extraordinary nu mber of images of exhaustion, anxiety, inade quacy, disappointment , guilt, confusion , and resentment. 5 Many in5 It has occurred to me that since anthropology provides no forums for dis cus sing
during co rridor talk '' or at parties , one reason so much emotion comes out durin g an in tervie\v is tha t it provides a rather rare opportunity to express such feelings confidentially and reAcctivcly. (Even in field methods co u rses that system a tically expl ore fiel dno t cs , one 's defenses are likel y t o b e in
so me of these issues, excep t anecdotally
..
" I Am a Ficldnote"
I I
tervie'\\l·ees feel that \\' ri ting and processing ficldnotes a re lonely and isolating acti vities, chores if not ordeals . Many mention feeling disco mfort taking notes in front of the nati ves: I think p a rt of that process i s forgetting your relationship, letting them become objects to some extent . . . . The way I rational ize all tha t is to hope that \\'ha t I publish is someho\\' in their interest.
O thers mention discomfort when at times they did not take notes and an
informant responded: " Write this do\\'n ! I s n ' t what I'm telling you
important en ough?" Working \V ith fieldno tes upon return can also evoke strong me mo
ries and feelings, and a nu mber of interviewees dis cuss t his in fetishis tic terms : Th e notebooks are covered w i t h paper th at looks like batik . I like them. They're pretty. On the outs ide. I never look on the inside .
Several people have rema rked that since fieldnotes are
a j og
to mem
ory about such an important time in their lives, strong feelings are to
be expected . Some inter viewees com m ent on ho\\' wri ting fieldnotes can make you feel good, or proud to be accumulating lots of valuable data.
Others remark on the reassurance function of taking notes, parti cu larly at the beginning of fieldwork : You go th ere, a stranger. It gives you something to do , helps you organize your tho ughts .
Still others mention th e value of fieldnotcs in gettin g an idea off one's
mind or using the notebooks to let off steam- what Malino�,.skian garbage-can fun ction .
�
..
e
might call the
Fieldnotcs allo \\. you to keep a grip on your sanity. Of cou rse I cou l dn't show that I w as unhappy. My diary helped me talk about myself-my angst, my inadequacy. I \\'asn 't experiencing the exhilaration I
was
supposed to.
pl ace . ) A number o f respondents co1nmcntcd at the end of the in tervie,�· t h at thev felt re liev ed and appreciated h aving been able to talk a t length abou t the topi c . ·
L I VIN G \\' I TH f iEl D N OTES
Fieldnotes can reveal '\\�· hat kind of person you are-mes s y� pro cras tinating, exploitative, tidy, responsible, generous . Some inter vi ewees fi nd this valuable; others find it upsetting: Rereadin g th e m , some of them look pretty ]ante. Ho\v could you be so stupi d � Or pue r ile� You could do an archaeology of my unde rstanding . . . but that 's so hard to face.
And a nu mber of respondents dis cuss ho\v fieldnotes , in tandem \Vi th their emo tions, produce good anth ro p ology: I t ry to rel ate the ana lysis to th e fieldnotes and n1 y gu t sense of what's going on . . . do you _feel tn ale don1inan ce ?
Quite a nu mber of responden ts mention feelin g oppressed by thei r fieldno tcs : I experien ce th is still when I lis ten to t hcn1 . A ho rror, shock, and disorientation. Pa ranoia, uncertainty. I think I res i sted lookin g back at th e journal for that rea son.
If I look in them , all this emotion co mes out, so it's like hiding some thin g aw a y so i t \-.ron 't remin d you . Son1etin1 es I've wished they ju st weren' t there. So they aren 't just ph ysi cally unV\'ieldy, bu t mentally as \vell.
And othe rs' fieldn o tes in'\tite in vidious com parisons: I had a sense o f in sufficiency. I hadn't done i t a s \\'ell . I w oul dn't b e able to access mine as easily as she had hers . She, on the other h and, felt the same way.
For one respondent \vho " \vondered ho\\' i t felt to be responsible for so much (vlritten] m a terial , " the contrast between having som ethin g '"'·ritten down rather than stored in memory is troubling . The written notes beco me more separated from one's control, and their presence in creases one's o bligations to the profession , to posterity, to the na tives . It sort o f makes me nerv ous seein g those file dra \vcrs full of notes . It
reifies ce rtain things , to get it into boxes . For n1e . . . a lot gets los t V\'hen they're t ranslated on to these cards.
13
" I A m a Fiel dnote " Several intervie\vees mention the p roble m o f ha ving too much m ate rial, of feeling do minated or ovcrurhel med. They can be a kind of al batross around your neck. They seem like they take up
a
lot of room
.
.
. they t ake up too much
roo m .
particularly true of audio tapes.
Several find this to be
I ssues o f \VOrth , co n trol� and protection often fi g u re p rominen tly. An entire study could be devoted to \vhether ficldno tcs are thought of
as valuable, po tentially valua ble, o r \Vorthless . Anxiety about los s emerges in many interviev�' s . The no tion of b u rning fieldno tes (as opposed to merely thro\vin g them a\.\lay) has arisen q u ite often . I have also been struck by hovl many interviewees men tion , sometimes '"';th great relish, legend s (apocryphal or not) about lost ficl dnotes .
Though
fieldnotcs in general have recei ved little atten tion until recently, this is not true for the theme of lost fieldno tes in the profession's folklore. So m ay be the people who los t their no tes are better off.
[Withou t notes the r e s ] more chance to schcm atize, to order conceptu '
al ly . . . free of nig gling excep ti ons , grayish half-truth s you find in you r 0 \\rn data.
Several interviewees spoke of the phy sical lo cati on of their notes and meanings attache d ; one admitted a strong awareness of the physi ca l n otes, in pl ace next to m y desk a t home
And quite
.
.
.
a
symbolically important
a n1ana qu ality.
a n umber of respon dents report feelin g great plea sure, in
some cases visceral pleasure, at thinking about their notes , looking at them, reading them (sometimes aloud) : I do get pleasure in \Vorking with them again, particularly my notes fr o m my first work . A feeling of sor t of, that is V.'here I came in, and I can someti mes recapture some of the intellectual and physica l excite m ent of b ei n g there. So
a
feelin g of confidence th at if one could manage thi s, one could
manage almost any thing .
sacri fice , ho "v it's done. When reading �y notes I rcntcm ber how it smelled . everyone's reall y pleased when t t con1es time to eat it .
For example, you \\'ri te about
a
.
.
LIV I NG WITH FIELDNOTE S
14
Black ink , very nice; blue carbon, n o t so nice.
Some respondents seem to see their fieldn otes as splendid in them selves and invaluable for helping with recall ; others say their fieldnotes are rubbish compared to their much more real memories of the events . Th ese memories may be described in terms of visual or aural qualities that fieldno tes cann ot provide . One in tervie\vee said his ficldn otes were not real for him until he combined them with his memories , the theory he was vlorking on, and his \vife's critiq ues to make a p ublished \Vork . For some reflective types , fieldnotcs p o ssess a liminal quality, and strong feelings may result from this alone. Fieldnotes are liminal betvlixt and betv�recn- because they are bet\veen reality and thesis , bet\�leen memory and publica tion, bern·een training and professional life (see Jackson
I 990) .
It seems that fieldnotes may be a mediato r as well . They are a " translation' ' but are still en route from an internal and other-cultural state to a final destination . And becau se some anthropologists feel that fieldnotes change with each rereadin g , for them that final destin ation is never reached.
Fieldnotes as Docu ments "Creat ed"
by
the Anthropologist Despite being the premise of the
1 98 s A A A s y mposium on field
notes, the statement that anthropologists create their own documents elicits quite va ried an d usuall y strongly opinionated responses . So me say this is absolutely true : Yes , you do create data in a self-conscious way that is quite special . Each an thropolo gist knows it's a dialectic. The informant creates it; you create it togeth er. There must be a tremendous sense of responsibili ty in it, that is, a sen se of po litical history. one version . It seem s plausib le . . . one is creating s ome special kind of fabricated eviden ce . Especially after time has
passed ,
and you go back and it's as if
they 're \\'ritten by someon e else. So we do more than his torians
.
.
.
,..,,e
create
a
'"'orld, not just
docu
m ents. Fieldn otes are , my creation in the sense that my so me sense that they be recorded.
energies
saw to it in
15
"I A m a Fiel dnote '' It's crea ting something, not crea tin g it in the imagi n a tion s ense cr ea t ing it in terms of bring ing it out as a fact. ,
says as he's In some senses we do. We see ou rselves . Malinowski . h co m ing into Kiri\\"in a, '• It's me \Vho 's going to create t em for the world . " .
.
But some consi de r "create'' as a pej orative term : Thi s (st atement] says t h a t an thropolo gis ts fu dge and his torian s d on ' t I d on 't agree. .
I te nd to believe my notes reflect re ali t y as cl osely
as
possible.
object to the im p lica tio n that anthro polo gists use onl y those docu ments they have c eated . To o thers, the statement seems to d is p a r a g e t h e n at i e s A lar e number of in tcrvie\vees
g
r
v
:
The r eason why I ' m having a hard time r espon din
g is I never think of
m y fiel dn o tes as a do c u m ent I feel the people are sort of a document. I .
did n ot create these people, and they are the documents.
Maybe I just view my task not so much as being a brok er, an intermedi ary, a partner
Still others disagree \Vith the
cont
r
.
.
c rea ti n g .
.
bu t transm i tting,
It's their words .
as t made between anthropologists
and historians : Of course anthropolo gis ts create their own documents. The argument would be to what extent historians do that.
Fieldnotes, the Atzthropologist, and �4nth ropology H a v in g sketched in so me neces sary background , \V C can novl ex pl ore th e ex t e n t to �vhich the interviewees s ec fieldnotes as svmb oliz i n g the anthropological endeavor. Some make very direct st� tcments :
i
It's a symbol of your occu pat on . A materi al symbo l .
An t h ro pologists are those \1\tho w rite t h in It's ou r dat� it
g
s
do\vn a t the end of the day.
in chronological order. N ot neatly classi fied the mo ment you receive or en e ra te it. c om es
g
L I V I N G W I TH f i E L D N O TES
16
Clearly, one reason for the s trong feeli ngs my questions freq uently elicit is tha t "fieldnotes'' is a synecdoche fo r '' ficld \\'ork .
'�
One woman
described the differences bct\vecn anthrop ology and other social sci en ces in terms of ho\\' vle do field\vork, sayin g that ours was feminine and osm o tic, '' like a S co tt to wel soaking up cult u rc. " 6 Another female res p ondent said that she found fieldwork and traditional fieldnote taking to o feminine� and this was why ethnoscience was so appealin g : it promised t o introduce ri gor into fieldnotes , elimin ating the touch·y feely aspects (see Kirs chner I 987). Yet several others sa\\' no special link bet\v een being an anthropolo g i st and taking tieldnotes : N o. I've read the ficld notes of so ciologists an d ps ychologists . They ' re verv sin1 i l ar. I
I don 't feel they 're uniqu e. In order to col lect data, you h a ve to take notes of som e kin d. No. Our fieldno te tra dition comes out ofnatu ralist expl orer-geographer background . Le""·is and C:lark
.
.
.
r were] not that different.
This is a \Vay anthropologists have of alien ating themselves from o ther disci plines because we are alienated from n umber-crunching so ciolo gists.
'-•
We jus t feel su perior to social ps ychologists becaus e V..'e say thi s isn't social. They don ' t do tieldwork, \Ve say.
Still , the majority of interviewees do say that ficldnotcs are unique to anthropology, even if they disagree as to \vhy. It is in their O\\'n varied definitions offieldnotcs that we find cl ues about how fieldnotes are seen as unique to anth ro pology an d therefore em blematic of it. For al most all, ficldnotcs are li mited to the fiel d (it is perhaps sig nificant that the fevl nonanth ropologists I intervicvv ed did not make this dis tincti on) : Notes taken in the field. Ha rd-core fiel dnotes are \Vri tten records of obser vations and interv iews . Anything I \Vrote down in the field A n d didn 't thro w out. .
Before going I rea d a bout the place and take notes . I keep the no tes but I don ' t consider them
as
ficldn otcs.
6 LCvi-Strauss com ntents : '• U'ithout any pej orati v e in ten t-quite the co ntra ry- 1
\\ ou l d sa y that ficldv...· ork is a l i ttle bit '\\'Oot en \ \\'ork ! ' "v hich is pro b a b l y "vhy '
succeed sec
so
\.V elJ a t i[. For my part. I
also C:aplan ( 1 9S�).
was
lacking in
care
women
and pa [iencc" ( E ribon 1 9 8 8 : 3 ) �
" I Am
a
I7
Ficldnotc''
An o ther ingredient formd in many dctinitions is the no tion that fiel d notes come from primary sou rces : Notes take n on a book in the field ar e not fi eld not e s But if a K wa kiutl .
brought d ow n Boas's book, then yes . I suppose, stri ct l y speaking, fiel dno tes a rc the records of ver b al con ver sational a nd observational kinds of work vou did, rat h er than archives . I
However� as alvlays seems to happen vv·ith this topic, ambiguity soon enters
the picture:
The q u es ti on is : is it onl y no tes on the in tervic\\"S, or everything else?
Or \vhat I ' m note-taking in Bah i a versus Nc,.v Yo rk City? I ' m not sure there's a neat di stin ction in B ra z i l I ' m in the fie l d But \\ h a t if i'm doing r e se a rch in Ne\\' York City? It's sort of a n infinite regress . .
.
.
.
'
For examp le; in N icara gua, it 's such an ongoing ev en t and I can ' t say, ,
"So methin g's h appening bu t it's not of relevan ce. "
Several intervie\\�""c cs co mmented on the problem of defining the
field,
particularl y those Vlorking in nontraditional settings:
Sometimes I don t take notes on p urp ose A round here I use it as a '
.
protective device . My V\'ay of turning off.
For many respondents this "field" component of the definition, '\\" hile historically and sociologically importan t, is not the only reason field notes are unique to anth ropology. B u t "the field " for the majority is seen
as exclusive to anthropology, for it is characterized by various
criteria that are not seen as applying to the research sites
of
other
disciplines . While field\\'ork is carried out in other behavioral sciences, anthropology is seen by many as hav·ing imp arted a special quality to '' the field" tied up Vv;th the intensive, all-encompassing character of p articip ant-observation, v.rhich is not found in notions about field Vlork in related dis ciplines . Your try h a r d to be soci alized . You r measu re of su ccess is ho \\ comfort ab l e vou feel . We trv l ike m �d . '
..
�
I feel no \v that I am p rep a red to not fmallv become o ne of the locals . '' I .. did have t hat ex pectation . "
Th is atti tude toward the field has conse q uences fo r fieldnote-taking:
L I V I N G \1/ I T H f i EL DNOT ES
18
I think ( fieldnotes are] unique . . . because of the kind of data being coUected and because of the kind of relationships . The fieldn otes are the record of these. . .
.
I don 't think the fact of notes is unique, but the type of n otes is . Maybe not uniq ue, bu t special . We try so hard to get close to the people we 're working on . Most an thro pologists are not real ly satisfied until they 've seen them, s een the country, smelt the m . So there 's a so mewhat im me diate qualit y to our notes . The sense of intimacy \Ve pretend to develop with people we work vvith. I think if it's done correctly, then you get good in formation, not the trivial stuff that frequen tl y comes fro m su rveys . Fo r exam ple, th e theo ry o f the culture of p overty is worthless , but Children of Sanchez [Lewis 1 96 1 ] will survive.
Dialo gic consideration s enter the pict u re for some : In many ways I see anthropology as the art of lis tening to the other. Doin g fieldwork happens when you ex pose yoursel f t o the jud gment of others .
Several intervie\vs indicate that the an thropological fieldworker frequen tly worries about intellectual exploitation . Ha ving material in one's head is somehow less guilt-inducing than having it on paper. Some of this may be the " t\vo-hat'• problem : one is in some wa·ys a friend of the natives, yet one is also a student of them, and one cannot \Year both hats simultaneously. Writing fi eldnotes can make repressing the contradictions in this balancing act more difficult : I found (troubling] th e very p eculiar experience (of] gettin g to k nov-,' people, beco m i ng their friend, their confidant, and to be at the same time standing on the side and obser\'ing . . . . So when I came back from the field, it was, yes, years before I was able to write up that ex p erience. In traditional types of "deep bush" fieldwork, the category ''field
notes'' can be conceptually opposed to " the natives" (usually seen as illiterate). 7 Many intervieVv·ees revealed complicated opinions and feel ings about colonialism and cultural imperialis m , literacy and power, and their own image of themselves both as hard working ob servers and sensitive, mo ral pers ons . all field situations fit this stereot ype. So me interviewees plan to leave their fieldnotes on file in a local museu m run by the people they study. 7 Not
"I Am a Fiel dn ote ,
19
A g en eral pattern for most interviewees is t o couch their answers in terms of hovl thei r fieldV�"ork-and hence fieldnote-t aking-differs fro m th e stereotype. I think in p art this sig nals a defensiveness about
o n e's fi eld\vork not living up to an imagined s tandard . It may also r e fle ct what vve might call the Indiana Jones S)rndrome: a ro mantic ind i vi d u alis m, an " I did it my vv ay " at titude. A substan tial number of intervievlees expressed pride in the uniqueness of their field sites , in their
0 �11
iconocl as m , and in being autodidacts at fieldnote-taking .
The s tereotypical research proj ect involves isolation, a lengthy stay, and l ayers of difficulty in obtainin g information . One needs to arrive, to get settled, to learn a language, to get to kno\v indi vidual s , and so fo rth . Overco ming such difficulties is seen as dem anding a near-total marshaling of one's talents
and re sou rces . These and other ch aracteris
tics of field""'·ork turn any written notes into so mething valuable, becau se to replace the m is difficult if not impossible.
[Given ]
the whole aspect of re moteness , remo te areas , not much \vrit
ten, your fieldnotcs beco m e es pecially p recious .
One factor is the conditions of tradi tional field\\lork, the role o f isola tion and loneli ness in producing copious fieldnotes that the research er will be attached to. In modern urban setti n g s this factor may not apply, yet it appears that at least for some "margin al " an thropologists people carrying out research in nontraditional settings-fieldnotes are an important s ymbol of belonging to the tribe. Another often mentioned characterist i c of t rad itional fieldwork is the attempt to supply context, to get the \vhol e picture. This is spoken
of in m any ways, often \Vith ambivalence. I su ppose I had a desire to record the com plete pictu re. The ideal video in my mind .
is like a
I have t rouble \\'ith my students . I s a y, uWri te down what they ' re wearin g � what the room looks like . " I guess what strikes m e i s that fo r all the chaos I associ ate v.'ith field note s, there's also a richness , and that somehow that is distin ctive to anthropolo gy.
An o the r im portant idea is that the investigato r is a cru cial part of the fiel dw ork / fieldnotes p roj ect : Fiel dno tes cnbody the in dividual fieldv.rorker's reactions . It 's O. K . for
20
L I VI N G WITH fiELD N O T E S m e t o be part of [ anthropologicalJ fieldnotes, bu t n o t O. K. i f I'm p art of [notes from] a child observation [in a ps ychology research p roject ] .
Often, notions o f personal process, of the investigator's own evolu tion and investment, enter in: In that case, the intervic\v t ranscri pts woul dn't count ( a s fieldnotes; they are] data but not fieldnotes . Th ey're more inseparable from you, I guess . An aura, an in tensel y personal ex perience, an exposu re to the other, a relu ctance to reduce to or translate, so un \villing to do this [ to \'\'rite down field notes ] .
The individual is further tied to the fieldnotes because he o r she "s\Yeats blood" for them in the field. This is often remarked on in connection \\'ith reluctance to share notes. Frequently mentioned too is fieldnotes' mnemonic function ; thev become "a document of ·"vhat �
happened and device for
triggering ne\\'
analysis. "
All these personal aspects of fieldnotes bring us far from formal , spa tial , and temporal definitional criteria. A frequently mentioned theme does seem to be that of
the
anthropologist-as-participant-observer in
the very process of reading and \vriting from fieldnotcs, revealing the close ties between fieldworker and fieldnotes : That might be closer to a definition of a fieldnote: someth ing that can't be readily comprehended by another person . A ne\\"spaper clipping can be interpreted . The clippin g has more validity of its own, but it can be a fieldnote if it needs to be read by me
. Ies \'\'hat I remember: the notes mediate the memory and the interaction . .
.
.
This tie is illustrated by one anthropologist's reactions \\'hen her notes \Vere subpoenaed: "The y're dog's breakfast! '' they [opposi tion law yers ) woul d say. "How can you expect anything fro m this?' . . . (They] had been writ ten on the back of a Toyo ta [i. e . , scribbled on paper held ag ainst the trunk of a ca r in the field] and \\"ere totall y inco m prehen sible to an yone but me. But it was an attack on my credibility .
.
. I said , ''This is a genealo gy. " " Th is is
a genealogy? " Our law yer \Vould jump in, " Yes, of cou rse. "
Securing the document's acceptability as a genealogy demonstrated her credibility as a professional anthropologis t.
'' I A m a Fieldnote "
Some people see the centrality of the personal component in field w o rk and fieldno tes as a stren g th: Something about the identity of anthropology, first of all, concerns the subj ectivity of the o bserver. Being a so cial science doesn't exclude this . . . the definition of field notes is a personall y bounded [in the field] and personally referential thing . [Fieldnotes are] personally referential in terms of this dialectical rela tionship with memory. Otherwise you ' re dealin g with "data"-socio logical, demographic, computer card , disks .
A political scientist notes: Anthropologists are self-conscious about this process called the creation and use of personal fieldnotcs . I think it's dangerous that political scientists aren't.
Yet many intcrvievlees arc reluctant to sec fieldnotes in overly subj ec tive terms: They're uniq ue to anthropolo gy because anth ropology has consciously made it a methodology and tried to introduce some scientific meth ods. . . . in anthropology \Ve don ' t see it only as an extension of someone's sel f but also a methodology of the discipline. If I felt tha t ethnography j ust reflected internal states, I \\·ouldn 't be in this game.
The pers onal issue emerged strongly when intervie\\'ecs considered the interdependence of ficldnotes and memory: An event years later causes you to rethink . . . . What is the status of that material? Is this secondary elaboration? . . . the mem ories one has, we have to give some credence to, an d the notes themsel ves are subject to di stortion, too. Are memories fieldnotes? I use them that way, even though they aren' t the same kind of evidence. It took a \\"hile for me to be able to rely on m Y memory. But l luld to, since the idea of \\rhat I \\ras doing had cha n ged, and I had memories but no notes. I had to say, u well , I Sa\V that happen . " I am a fieldnote.
This interviewee's willingness to state
"I am a fieldnote" reflects the
sh ifting, ambiguous status of fieldnotes . At times they are seen as
LIVIN G WIT H fiE L D NOTES
22
"data"-a record-and at times they are seen as "me. " I create them but they also create me, insofa r as
w
ri ting them creates and maintains
my identity as a j o u rney man anthropologist . A number of anthropolo gists link the uniqueness o f their fieldnotes
directly to issues of privacy: fve never system atically studied anyone else's, which says something about anthropolo gis ts. It co mes fro m the British teachin g ofkeeping one's personal ex periences private. You can read all through Argonauts \vith out finding out how many natives Malinowski talked to about p aintin g canoes .
I do think about \vhat to do \\;th them. I would hate fo r it to come to light if so mething happens to me. The people being observed fo rg et you' re there. There is so methin g unethical about that: they go on abou t their business, and you're still observing . So to have fieldno tcs that reflect your direct observations become pub lic property is to me a b etraval of trust. "
It's secret. Part of it is a feeling that the d a ta is unreliable. We \Van t to be tru sted when we say " the X do Y" ; V\'e don 't wan t them to be chal lenged .
Many respondents point out that t.he highly personal nature of field notes influences the extent o f one's Fieldnotes
can
w
illingne s s to share them :
reveal how worthless yo ur work \Vas , the lacunae, your
linguistic incompetence, your not being made a blood brother, your childish temper.
But several note that such secrecy is unacce p table in other fields : Think of ho"'' it would be for a graduate chemis try student saying "You 'll have to take my word for this. " We've built up a sort of gentlemanly code dealin g \Vith one another's ethnog raphy. You criticize it, bu t there arc limits, social conventions . . . you never overs tep them or you beco me the heav y.
A numb e r of anthropol ogists mentioned that field notebooks serve
as reminders that one is an anthropologist and not a native: I'm not just sitting on a moun tain in Pakistan drinking tea. [I had ] to '\Vrite ·s omething dovin every day. To not accept everyth ing normal.
as
23
"I A m a Fiel dnote ''
They can also be a reminder to informants that the information will used:
be
I feel better taking notes and tape reco rding, beca use it 's clear that \ve re in tervie\\rin g. '
But ot hers saw the no tebooks as hinde ring the resea rcher from obtain i ng info rmation and creating distance bet\veen the observer and the
observed: The record is i n m y h ead no t on paper. The record on p ap e r it , because it's s tatic, it interferes "''ith fiel dwork keeping fiel dnotes interferes with w h at s really i m portant. ,
,
.
.
.
'
First, it took up far too much time, like the addiction
to
reading the J\Jew
York Times . Fieldno tes get in the \\ray. They interfere "''ith \\'hat fieldwork is all
about- the doing . This is what I would call fiel dwork . It is not taking n otes in the field but is the i n t era cti o n between the researcher a nd the so-called res earch
subjects.
One intervie\vee
criticized
at length the pro fession's mythology
about fieldwork, saying that most anthropolo gists
thro\v
away their
original research pro pos als . They begin without a clue as to ho\v to do it, or if they have a clue , it turns out not to work. Most of the time in the field is wasted , and man y unsavory emotions em erge. Not only ar e y ou no t uliving l ike one of the n atives" much of the ti me, he sai d,
but the anth ropological en t e r p rise requires that you d o not; your \vife and kids will probably go more "native '' than you . This man con cluded that many people know their fieldnotes are \VOrthless , but, as with the emperor's ne"· clothes, mutual deceit is necessary to underpin the fate of the empire . Another man noted : One al�'ays doubts . Anthropologists mask their doub ting \\'ith a cer tain amount of masculine bra vado.
The \vays a nu mber of intervi ewees discu ss the mystique of field no tes reveals the p roblematic association bet"vccn field\vorkers and thei r notes . Many speak, usua lly ironically, about the fieldnotes as s a cr ed, "like a saint's bone. , Some even volunteer that their fieldnotes are feti shes to them . The l eg en d s about lost notes and the frequent •
the m e of b u rning suggest t he p resen ce of a mystique.
L I V I N G W I T H FIEL. D N OTES
24
The high degree of affect expressed by many interviewees is proba bly also evidence of a fieldnotcs mystique. That some do not feel this \vay� or at least say they do not, does not necessarily argue against the existence of a mystique, for these anthro p ologists note that their feelings are not shared by others; they "don't have the same kind of mystical attach ment" that some people do. Linked to the issue of mystique is the frequent observ ation that graduate sch ool is an a pp rent i c eship period and field\vork an initiation rite. S tudent-advisor interaction can p ro voke long-standing problems of a u thori t y sometimes for both student and advisor. Mentors were identified as the generous givers or mean v.tithholders of fieldnotes advice. St r o n g feeli n g s abo ut ad v i sor s also emerged when several in formants discussed hovl they ''liberated'' themselves from their field notes-or at least from the variety they had initially attempted to p r oduc e us i n g such p hrases as "the i ll us io n of control , " "positiv is m , , , "em p i ri cal trap. " One called ficldnotc-taking "a self-absorption, a \vay of retrea ting from data. " Many interviewees comment that their tr a ining reflected the mys ti qu e of field\\'ork and fieldnotcs. The fo l lowi ng ex p lication of this connection summarizes and "translates" the i r remarks. ,
-
1.
The only vvay you learn is throu gh the sink-or-swi m ap proach .
''Yo u go to the ti eld with Hegel an d yo u d o it or you don 't. " (I V\'ent through hazing \Veek ; you sho uld too. ) 2.
T he only \7\'ay that you become attached. cathected , trul y initia ted
is through the sin k-or-S \\tinl app roach. (An importan t feature of be co min g a profes sional anthropologist is to di scover that the standard operatin g procedure is wron g, and then modify it. ) 3.
Each resea rch site i s different, each research proj ect is different,
each anthropolog ist is differen t . (So any fieldnotes training will resem ble the "take a big stick for the dogs and lots of m a rm alade, jokes . Any advice
"viii
even tual l y h ave to be thrown aV\'ay. )
knows the Bes t Way. 5 . Tailo r-made solu tions are the \7\'ay t o go, to be \vorked o ut be t ween g raduate stu dent an d advisor. 6. There is alv-,'ays competition bet\veen the ()}d Guard and the Yo ung Tu rks regardin g theory an d method. and so any beginnings of a contin uous tradition of train ing abou t fieldnotes \viii be sabo ta ged . 4· An thropology i s not at a s tage ·"vhcre it
We can argue that first-field\vork fieldnotes are a diploma fron1 anth r opology's bush school, even if it is almost never displayed. Fur ther, insofar a s being a n1ember in good standing of the anthropolo gi-
" I Am a
Fieldnote''
ca l cl ub requires continued resea rch, continued production of field no tes is evidence that one is not letting one's membership lapse. But v·.re h av e seen that a fe\v interviewees speak of fieldnotes (and here a g ai n, defi nition is crucial) less as tools of the trade than as tools of the a pp r en tice . For these anthropologists-a small minority-fieldnotes are a beginner's crutch, to be cast aside '\\th en one has learned to \valk pr ope rly. While most anthropolo gists, by far, do not hold this view, it is a remarkably clear, albeit extreme, illu stration of the ambivalent emotions revealed in many interviews. Some intervie\vees suggL'Sted that 011e reason fieldnote-taking is rarely taught may be that part of the hidden curriculum of graduate training in anthropology is to promote a mystique about \vriting and ethnographic documentation. Perhaps in some \vays it is necessary to unlearn assump tions about the connections between observing and recording to become a good fieldworker. One respondent s p oke of receiving an insight into Australian Aboriginal symbolism about the ground while on the ground: You notice i n any kind of prol onged con versation , people arc squ at ting
,
or l ie on the g r o u n d I came to be qui te in trigued by th a t partly becau se I'd hav e to too . . . endless dust. .
,
,
This is participant-observation, ethnography-by-the-seat-of-your pants par excellence. The lesson this anecdote imparts about ho\v to do fieldwork \Vould be difficult to teach explicitly. The important insight that folloVi"ed his paying attention to the groun d is quite divorced from for mal academic models of observing and analysis. In p art, what intervie\vees are talking about is that the \\'riting versus the doin g of ethnography creates a tension sometimes difficult to bear. Thoreau \Vrote that he could not both live his life and \vrite about it. Some anthropolo gists grapple with the problem by beco m ing heavil y invol""ed with recording and even analyzing their field data in the field. For them, "field\vork " includes data-sort cards, audio tapes, even computers: I s o m etime s fel t li k e a charac ter in a Mack Sennett co nt edy tryin g to manipul ate the camera� tape reco rd er, pen s A mental image of myself try ing to \Vrite with the micro phone and po i n t the pen at someone. .
I always m anaged to j u stify it to my self that it \Vas more imp ortant to
analyze \\'hile y o u re still in the fi eld so you can check on things it's also a p reference. '
.
...
B ut
L I V ING WITH f i E L D N OT ES
26
But others become convinced , at leas t at times , that the road to succes s is to minimize these trappings of acade me and the West. Clearly, many anthro pologis ts suffer duri n g field work because of this tension , which is exacerbated by not knowing what the method ological canons are: We ought to have the kind s o f exchanges of methods and tech nolo gies that scientis ts d o rat her than the highly individuated kinds people do in the humanities . It w ould make li fe interpersona lly more comfortable if you k new others \verc having to make thi s kind of decision .
..
The lack of stand ard metho dol ogy is also revealed in the huge variety of definition s of fieldnotes offered by in terviewees. While in our "co rridor talk'' ''' e anthropolo gists celebra te and harvest anecdotes about the adventure and art o f fieldwork, playing doV�n and poking fun at our attempts to be obj ective and scienti fic in the deep bush, the tension remains-because at other ti mes vve use our ficldnotes
as
evidence of objectivity and rigor. Ficldnotes , as symbol o f fieldwork , can capture this tension but not resolve it . They are a mystery to me
.
.
.
I never k no\\r what is material.
Ho�' do you know '"'hen you kno"v eno ugh ? Ho\\r do you kno�' �'hen you' re on the rig ht track ? If there was something happening, I'd write it d0 \\'11 . Not very helpful info rmation, and I \Vas looking to the lis ts of words to get a clue as to \Vhat to do. You have no criteria fo r determining what 's relevan t and \-.rhat isn ' t . And collecting no tes: '"'hat d o you \\'ri te do�'n?
Some anth ropologists connected this l a ck of explicitness and ag r e e
ment regarding methods to the anthropological enterprise as a v.rholc , and to its position vis-a-vis other social sciences . What is lost in that , I feel, is that there is a sense that disciplines are cumulative in thei r knowledge. We're not j ust collecting mosaic tile and laying them nex t to each o ther. [Yet] anthropology has performed a real service in being [politicall y and intel lectually] slippery. So I feel
a
certain
ambivalence.
Such feeli ngs -.of loss of control, inadequacy, or confusion about \Vhat one is supposed to do-influence the stan ce one takes regarding fieldnotes .
27
"I Am a Fieldnote"
Fie/dn otes a tld the Indiv idr�a/ Anth ropolo�ist 's Idetztity The topic of ficl dn otes sooner or later brings up stro ng feelings of guilt and inadequ acy in most of my in tervic\vces . I ��ish I had recorded how many of them made negative statements (u sing \Vo rds like "anx ious , "' ''emb arra ssing, " "defensive, " " depressing"') \vhen I first asked to interview them. Some even accused me of hidden agend as, "of trving to make me feel guilty my fieldnotes aren 't in the public do � m ain . " Most often , people worried about the in adequacy of their fiel d notes, the disorder they were in , th eir in decipherability : Oh, Christ, another th i n g I don ' t do very \•tt ell, and twen ty years la t er l sti ll feel thi s qu ite st ro n gl y .
Fieldnotes can bring up all sorts of feelings about one's p rofessi on al and personal vlorth . Sev eral in tervie\vees have commented on ho�.. disap poin ted they are \\'hen rereading their notes : they are skimpy;
they lack magic: I \vent back last year and they \\'ere crappy. I didn' t have in them what I remembered, in m y head, of his beh avior, w hat he looked like .
And vet � What the field is is interesting. In Africa I [ initially ] wrote down every
thin g I sa\v or t h o u g ht , w hether I understood it, thought it signifi cant , or no t-300 photog raphs of trees full of bats. Ho\v peo ple drove on th e . Havin g sent [ my ad vis o r ] back al l that crap, h e left side o f the ro ad di d n ' t say anythin g . .
.
.
I n one case the fieldnotes are inadequate because they are skimpy; in ano ther they are inadequate because of an "everything including the
kitchen sink " quality. . With inte rvi ewees opinions on training and preparation, and so me tl me s \Vi th th e fieldnotes-as-fetish issue, come expressions of attach m en t to one's first fieldn otes :
They 're l ike your first child ; you love them all but y ou r fi rst is y our firs t, and spe cial .
I d o like m y fieldnotes from the very be inning . There's m ore fresh g nes s , cxc itetnen t. The sense of discovery of things V\'hich by now seen1 ver y o ld hat.
LI V I N G \\l i T H fi E L D N O TES
28
My fiel d notes of the ' 50s, t hat's \vhcre I have m y emotional invest ment ,
even though my work in the '7os \1\.' as superior.
I sti ll have my I 93 5 Zuni notes. I couldn ' t bear to throw them away.
nu m ber of interviev.rees co mmen ted to the effect that "an impor tant part o f myself is there" ; they find it natural to be anxious ab o u t the A
notes because they represent a period of anxiety, di fficul ty, and great significance to ""�hich their career, self-esteem, and
p resti ge may
ap
p ear to be ho stage . Several made direct links between fieldnotes and thei r o\vn p rofessional identity : Wben I think of acti vities I do. that's a lot clo ser to the core of m y
iden ti ty than mo st things . I ' m sure the at titude to\vard the notes them selves has a sort of fe tish istic quality- I don 't go stroke them, but I
spent so much titne get tin g, guarding, and p rotectin g them
.
.
house were b urning do\vn , I 'd go to the notes first.
. if the
I have a lot of affection for m y notes in a funny way . . . their role here in the U. S . A . , my study, in terms of my professional self. So methin g
about my aca demic identity. I ' m not proud of everythin g about them,
but I am proud of some things about them . . . that the y represent .
Probably in a less conscious way so me motive for my n ot \Van ting to make them too p ublic . My primary identity is someone who w rites things do\1\."n and \vrites about them . N ot just han ging out. That particular box is my own first real claim to being a s chol ar and
gives me the iden tit y of a person doing that kind of work . Lookin g at them, ""·hen I sec this dirt , blood, and spit, it's an external,
tangible sign of m y legitimacy as an an thropologist.
A number of anthropologists sa'\Al their ftcld notebooks as establishing
their identity in the fiel d : "a s mall n oteb ook that �·ould fit into my
pocket " bec a m e
"a kind of badge. "
Frustrations in the field
r egardin g
\vh i ch intellectual econo mics to
make add to the compl exity: fieldnotes
can
be a
va lidatio n of one 's
vela tion of h o \\' much one is a fraud . Bu t ho\v to decide v�.rhether one is or is not a fraud is far from clear. A s we have seen , fieldnotcs are not done by filling in the b la nks . Adv i s o rs c a n tell you only ��ha t they did and \Vhat you should do , but one pe rs on s method does not ��ork for m o s t others , and many advisors and g ra d u at e s chools refuse tp cover thes e topics . J)oin g fieldwork p r ope r l y ap par-
worth or a
re
'
"I A m
a
29
Fiel dnote "
en tl y inv olves strategies other than fo llowing \\tell-specified rules . I t ap p ea rs that one must create some o f the rules , prcdissert ation research pr o pos als with i mpressive methodolo gy sections notw i thstan ding. To
so m e ex ten t, perha p s , one is expected to define or design the problem in the field and is subsequently j udged according to ho\\t well one has l iv ed up to those expe ctations . The se in tervie\vs make it almost seem that fieldwork involves the dis covery of one 's own True Way. The advisor-shaman can only pro vide s ome obscure \�larnings, like the aids in a game of Dungeon s and
Dragons . If the initial period of fieldwork is part of a coming-of-age process, then the fieldnotes aspect of it seems a well-designed and effective ordeal that tests the anthropologist's mettle . Clearly, insofar as
firs t fieldno tes sym bo lize f1 rst field\vork, they represent a lim i n a l
period in our p reparation a s professionals . As i n othe r initiation rites , items ass ociated vlith su ch activities take on a heavy emotion al valence and sacredness . We need s o me answ·ers as to why many inten,.ic\vs do offer evidence
of a fieldnotcs mystique, for although a m inority ofintervie\vees assert that their ficldnotes a re j ust a tool , most res pondents relate to field notes-their O\Vn and as a conce pt-in an am bivalent an d em otionally charged manner. Despite some an thropologists' a p parent nonconfu sion about \vhat fieldno tes are and how to teach about them , one co uld make an overall argument that ambiguity and ambivalence about fieldnotes are pro moted in the occupational subculture. Perhaps the idea that field\vork requires one to invent one's own methods explains
\vh y such advice as is given is so often j oked about ,
even v�lhen it was originall y offered in utter seriousness . You kno�-,
"Take
plenty of marmalade and cheap tennis shoes. ''
K roeber s ai d to t a k e extent of his ad vice to me. ]
[Alfred]
a
big stick for t he dogs . [That
\1\'
as
the
T he n umerous co m plaints about useles s advice con cerning stenogra
p he r's p a d s , data-sort cards, or multicolored pen sets-all of \vhich �ere spoken offa·\torably by other intervi ewees-need a deeper analy s ts t ha n merely that only some advice works for only some people
o nly so me of the ti me .
Du rin g fieldwork o n e must work o u t one 's relationship t o the fiel d , �o t he nati ves , a n d to one 's m i n d a n d emotions ( a s data-gathering 111st ru men ts and as bia s-producing im pediments) . Working out a rela-
LIV I N G W I TH fiELD N O TES
30
tions hip to one's field n ot ebooks i s a part of this proces s and since fieldnotes are m aterial items that con tinue to be u sed upon o n e s return , they app a rentl y o ft en c o m e t o symb ol i z e these ot her i mp ortan t processes . Furthermore, since the v'rri ting of fieldnotes validates one s me m b ership in the anthropo l og i cal subculture, fieldnotcs symbolize r elations \Vith one's fello\v professionals: "You have to do something to justify you r existence as a n anthropologist. " Th ose interviewees \\'ho exasperatedly disagree with this view do for th e most p a rt ac kno w l e dg e its hold on th ei r fello\\' anthropologists . Even th e most adamantly anti-fieldnote respondent indicated that he did not consider himself a t r u e anthropologist in a number of r es pect s A n ot h er s ai d : ,
'
'
.
I re memb e r reading a novel by Barbara Pym w her e one ch ara cter burned his field n o tcs in a ritual istic bonfi re in the back yard. It \\'as inconcei vable
.
.
.
someone d oi ng tha t an d remai ning an an thropologis t .
I found this passage t o be fa s cinati n g and very provo cative.
My ma t er ial on c o mpet itive feelings, in th e fo rm of smu g ness or anxiety, s h o\\'S that p eo p l e are curious and judg m en t a l a b out e a ch ot h er s fi el dn ote s : '
I've been astonished at the
a m o u nt
,
bo th more or les s
,
of fieldnotes
p eo ple have come back with .
some of the ex press ed i ntervi e w ees sec value in s ha ring :
This accounts for though
reluctance to share, even
The irony in a n th ro polo g y is that [ because fi e ld no tes are really exerci sing acts of faith a lot of the time.
Perhaps
some
private, ] we're
anth rop ologis ts see th ei r fieldnotes as a s o rt of holy text
which, like the tablets
Moroni gave to Jo s eph Smith , need to be de ciphere d \vi t h gol den spect acles or a s i m il a r aid; o t h erwis e the possi bilit y arises of one's fieldnotes lea di ng to misunders tanding-by colleagues and by natives. In p art , fears about notes being used \Vith out their author's s u p erv i sion are fears about potential abuse, b ut t he y may also go deeper: hovl could so met hing so mu ch a part of you be ( p otent ially) so ali ena t ed from y ou ? In this , Bronislav.r Malino'"'ski's diary (which many intervie\vces re ferr ed to one \vay or another) stands not only a s evidence that all gods have feet of clay but as a dire ·\\ra rning. His diary \vas deciphered V\titho ut his p e r mi s s io n or par,
''1 Am
a
31
Ficl dnotc "
tici p ation and most of us w an t to feel c o mfo rt a b le and secure a bout a text so linked to our identit ies. We a re also pulled in the o pp osite direction, u rged to a rchi v e our notes, to be respo n si ble scientists about them: ,
It's tak en me fou r years t o tu rn this over to an a r c h i v e . . . rm ab out to do it.
The interviews pro vide d many examples of ho\v the boundaries between the anthropologist an d his or her fieldnotes are fuzzy. One interviewee, \\rho c o mm ent ed on how useful Boas's diary is because of its re v el a tions abou t his motives . concluded: On the o ther hand . . . by ta k ing fiel dn otes w e re reporti ng on the pu b lic '
and pri v ate lives of the natives . To what ex ten t are th e documen ts our own ? And fo r either side , the observer and the o b s er ved I don 't think .
the re s '
an easy ans\\"Cr.
As we have seen, some re sp o nd ent s conside r themselves to be a kind of fieldnotc, spe a ki n g of both written notes and memory in similar fa shion . As noted above, for some interviewees fieldnotes from the b eg in ning of a fieldwork period arc "all garbage, '' yet for others these are u the most valuable" b ecause one h as not vet become too socialized; on e has not yet come to take things too m u c h for granted:
Right at the beginning [ taking copious n o t e s ) is important becau se later o n you'll s ee your mistakes .
Watching p eop l e 's fi el d not es o v er th e years, the fi rst impressio ns are very im po nant, very revealin g . Because you beco me so cialized to t h e culture . . althou gh some sco rn this and think ies dangerous, m ost pride themselves on this . .
O ne re spondent regarded field�·ork as a s o cial process v..·hereby we learn to form u l a te questions that the members of the cultures being st u di ed fin d interes ting and a pp ro p r i a te yet even Hboring " questions �an h ave interes ting answers that fieldnotes p rov ide a record o( Many tn tervie\\l·ees commented on ho\v changing r e s e a r ch topics, meth od olo gy, or theoretical o r i en t ation can m ake rereading ficl d n o tes an ey e o p en in g experienc e: "You get this eureka experienc e: there it was an d I d idn' t notice at the time:' In a num ber of respects, then, field,
-
L I V I N G W I TH f iEL D N OT ES
32
no tes arc a synecdoche fo r the anthropolo gist. Probably those who a re b o th pro- and anti-fieldnotes are so in part because of hovv they �"ant to think of themsel ves as anthropologists . Some of those I intervievled also cont rasted fieldnotes with the ques tionnaires and standardized in stru ments of sociologists and political scientists, portraying fieldnotes as individualistic, authentic, impossi ble to replicate-the art an d poetry of anthropology. When these anth ropolo g ists link fieldnotc-taking with their p rofessional identity, rom antic and adventurous themes appear. Perha p s some of those \vho feel n egative about fieldnotes reject \vhat they see as the Western tendency to valorize the record over "reality. '' They are unhappy \Vith the fact that in a modern b u reaucratic state a document can have a major role in creating the reality : \Vhether you ' re ma rried or not f1nally dep ends on the validity of the ma rriage licen se, rather than on your intentions an d assu m p tions at the time . Exp ressions such as "I needed to carry things to keep ali ve ; the last thing I n eeded was a bunch o f notebooks'' perhaps contains a \Vish t o b e free o f the p o \ver o f the \Vrittcn \vord; free from the \va y writing, bureaucracy� and academe can control one's life; free, like the noble natives, to e xperience life directly \Vith n o in terferin g in termediaries, external (notebooks) or internal (the symbols that the enemy-ina uthentic literacy-uses to maintain outposts in one's mind). Of course , those anth ropologists \\'ho believe that fieldnotes fairly unproblematicall y reflect realit y
do
n o t feel t h i s \v a y a t all .
Conclusions My intcrvie\\'S have ill ustrated that the topic of fieldnotes is often one of deep signifi cance for the anth ropologist who \vrites and subse quently works \Vith them, as \veil as the anthropolo gist vv·ho speculates about someone else's notes . The ans vvers to the questions I asked reve al s trongly held and varied opinions and feelin g s about many of the issues linked to fieldnotes . Many interviewees believe that more con sensus on fieldnotcs (e. g . , definition) exis ts in the pro fession than is actually the case. Our p rofess ion perh aps has an unusually large proportion of people who view themselves as rugged individuals; I have argued tha t ficldnotes and field\\7 o rk d o represent a n indi vidu alis tic , pioneering approach to acqui ring knowledge , at times even a maverick and re bell ious one. I have argue d that the hints of a deliberate kn0\\7-noth in g spirit i n graduate trainin g , which e merge i n discu ssions o f lack of
" I Am
a
Field note''
33
p re p a ra tion for ethnographi c field\\'ork and tieldnote-takin g , may even be part of a hidden curri culum designed to force the student to b ecome an active creator, or re-creator, of anth ropological techniq u e . A s o ne i nt erviewee p u t it: "There "\V a s the image that each anthrop ol o gis t "\\" as going into terra in c ognita and h ad to reconstru ct, or reinvent, a nt h ro p olo gy. ''
1 ha ve argued that anthropologists' opinions and feel ings abou t fi e l d n o t es can tell us much about the anthropological ente rp r i se: how
it straddles the fence between sci e n ce and the hu manities; ho�· it d i st in gui she s itself from its sister social science disciplines; and h ow it creates its O\\'n pecking orders , p rods , rew ards , and justifications for
doin g " g ood "
ficld\\l·ork. 11l anning fiel d research, carr1ring it out, and
o r t ing on the results necessitates planning, w r i tin g , and usin g field notes . If ''the field " is anthropolo g y s version of b oth the promised re p
'
land and a n ordeal by fi re, then ficldnotes symb olize what journeying
to and returning from the field mean to us: the attach men t, the iden ti fi cation , the un ce rt ainty the m y s tiq ue ,
,
and , pe rhap s above all, the
a mbivalence .
REFEREN CES
Caplan , Pat. 1 9 8 8 . Engendering kno\1\rledge: The Politics of Ethnog raphy {Part
4 n th rc.tpolog} Today 4
�
'
(6) :
)
2 .
1 4- 1 7.
Clifford, Jam es. 1 9 8 8 . The Predicament of Culture : Tu•er'llieth-CetJ tury Ethtlograph)', Litera ture, and ..4 rt . Cambridge, M ass. : Harvard Un iversity Press .
Clifford, James, an d George E. Marcus . 1 986 . 1-J.-'riting Culture: The Ponies and Politics o_f Ethnography. Berkeley : Universi ty of C alifornia Press . Erib on, Didier. 1 9 8 8 . Levi-S trauss Intervi ewed (Part
2).
�4 nthrop ology Today 4
(6) :
3-s .
Gcer tz , Clifford. 1 988 . ��JOrks atJd Lit1es: The �4 nt1J ropologist as i\uthor. Stan ford, Cal if. : Stanford University Pres s. Jac ks on, Jean . 1 990. Deja E n ten du : The Liminal Quali ties o f Anthropological Fieldnotcs . Journal ofContemp ot·ary Ethnograp hy 1 9 ( 1 ) : in press (special i ssue on ethno gr aphi c researc h writing ) . Kirsc hn er, Suzanne R . 1 9 87 . " Then What Have I to Do with Thee?, : O n Identitv, ..
Fi � l d w ork, and E t hnogra p h i c KnO\\'ledge. Culta4 rt lt ntiJrop ology 2 : 2 1 1 34· Le \\'lS , O scar. 1 96 1 . The Ch ilJretJ oJ· Satlch ez : Autobiography of a .rt,1exicatJ Fam il}'· Ncv-' York : Ran dom House.
Ma rcu s , G eorg e E . , and D ick Cushman . 1 98 2 . Ethnographies
as Texts . ..4nnual Rev i eu1 of Anthrop ology 1 1 : 2 5-69. Marc�� ' Geor ge E . , and M ichael M . J. Fi s ch e r. 1 9 8 6 . Anthropology as Ct4ltural Cra tzq ue: �4 n Experimrnta l l\1oment in tl1e Hu man Scietues . Chic ago : Universit'f· of Ch ica go Press. 4
RO GER
S A NJ E K
Fire , Lo s s , and the S orcerer ' s Ap prentice
A s Jean Ja c kso n ,s a nth ropologis t natives revealed to her the very , thou ght of fieldnotes is fra u g ht \Vith e mo t i on . . . both in t h e field and "
l at e r.
"
Fieldnotcs may " reveal the kind of person you are . , , Their
exi ste n c e summons up fe elin gs of professional and p er so nal compe tence and obl i g a tion. Des truction o r loss of fieldnotcs is the \vorst th ing that can h ap p e n to an anthropologist .
How app ro pri a t e then, th at the image of fieldnotes a fi r e came up in ,
so many ofJackson 's in te r v ie w s . This ha s its fear e d but practi cal side: , "If the house \Vere burning down I d go to the notes first , , one '
anthropologist told her. Yet I suspect t h at with such deep, emo tional feelings about identity inv o lv ed the purging by fire also conv e ys ,
a
lure of fin a lity where one must live \Vith ambivalence . 1 The shackles that fieldnotcs may be to an ant h ropol o gis t and the rel ea se the anth ropologist mi g ht feel \Vhen they are gone are ingre
dients in the wild scene of fieldnote b ur ning near the end of Barbara Py m's novel Less
than Angels ( 1 95 5),
m e nti o ne d by one of Jackson 's
informants an d e p i g r a p h ed by David Plath fo r his e s s ay in thi s book . J
Fire does b rin g
fmality. her he
Edv;ard Sapir telling
When Marg aret Mead received a letter in Samoa fron1 ha d fallen in love v,,-i th someone else, she burned all his
letters to her. Th i s \\'as uncha racteristic; Mead's
nearly every one (Hov-'ard 1 984: ?J ) .
34
habit \Vas
to
s ave all her letters,
from
fire,
Loss,
and the
Sorcerer 's
Apprenti ce
35
\veil;
to
she vvas from 1 9 5 8 her anthro p ologists 1 974 Pv m k n e'¥ to International African Institute director D aryll e t o ri al a ssi st ant Fo rd e, and assis tant editor of the journal
di
�4Jrica.
Fir e ha s inde ed threatened the work of flesh-an d-blood anthro p o l o gis t s . On Nige l Barley 's second Cameroons field tri p, the hu m and gl ow o f fire o ver the vill age he was working in fille d him \Vith panic . I t ,v as pr obably a hut on fire. I felt \Vith st r an ge cer t ainty that it was mine. All my notes on local healing techni ques , my camera and equip ''
ment, my do cum e n ts and records \Vere no\v doubtles s d is appearin g in
pall of s mok e" ( 1 98 6 : 9 1 ). A false alarm- but not so fo r Davi d Maybury-Lewis . As flames a pp ro a c he d the Shercn tc v i l la g e in B razil \vhere he and his \Vife Pia a
we re
conducting
field\vo rk
in 1 9 5 5 - 5 6, '' I m e
t
I>ia h urr yin g back
towa rds our hut. ' We had better decide wha t Vle want to take out, ' she said , 'I don' t think \ve've got much time . ' I grab bed my notebooks and p en ci l s. She took the camera. O n the second trip vle took
mocks" ( 1 965 : 77).
the
ham
A fter t he interrogation of Paul Rabino\V by a French-speaking po
liceman v.rhile he vlas doing fieldwo rk in a Moroccan village in
1 968-
69, his key informant Malik \Vas shaken : HHe asked me to b u rn the
notes we had made . " Rabinow instead gave the fieldno tes to Malik to hold until the tempes t subsided ( 1 977: 8 5 -89, 1 0 5 ) . They were safely returned-nothing ven tured , n o thing burned . Fire did more than threaten the fi eldnotes of Winifred Hoemle, the fir st pr ofession al anth ropolo gist to conduct fieldwork in South Africa and Namibia. In 1 9 3 I a fire at the University of the Wit\.vatersrand lib ra ry destro yed her 1 9 1 2 , I 9 1 3 , and 1 9 2 2 - 2 3 fieldnotes on the Khoi kh oi (Ca rsten s 1 98 7 : 1 ) For t unately several papers based on this \\l·ork .
,
ha d alread y been pu b lishe d , and her j ournals su rvived (Carstens ct al .
1 9 87 ; H o crnle 1 98 5) . Four months into M . N . S rinivas's residence at th e Cent er for Ad vanced Study i n the Beh avioral Scien ces at Stanford U ni v ersi t y on Ap ri l 24, 1 970, "al l three copies of my fieldwork notes, pro cessed over a period of ei g htee n years , \\'ere in my study at the '\\"he n a fi re \ as started b y arsonists . My O \V n study, and a n ei g h b our 's, Vlere reduced to ashes i n less than an hour, and only the s teel pipes form ing the framework s tood out \\'ith odd bits of burnt and t wis ted redv.rood planks of the original wall s ticking to them' , ( 1 976 : Srinivas's mother h ad died in India only five days e a rl ier and his de spai r was over\\' hel m ing Sol Tax sug g es ted that h write his pl an ne d e t hn og r a p hy of Rampu ra village from m em o ry, and this he ,
C�nt e r
\
'
xiii) .
.
e
,
LIV I N G WITH FIELDNOTES began i mmed i a tely to do, producing
The Remembered Village, p u b
lished i n 1 976 (Srin iv as I 976 : xiii-xv; 1 97 8 : 1 3 4- 3 6 ; for appraisals of the book , see Madan 1 978). The notes lost were those that Sri ni v as had developed from his original fieldnotes , \\'hich had been written in Rampura and were safe in Delhi . These ori ginal notes were quickly microfilmed and airmailed to Stanford. With his long time research assistant j oining him, Sri -
nivas was able to co mpare the paper frag m e n ts remaining after the fire \vith the original notes and reconstitute "a
good part of the p rocessed
The Remembered Village �vas \Vritten , in the main, from neither the orig i n al nor the salvaged n o tes . Srinivas began writing by hand from memo ry. He soon switched to d i c tapho n e and the draft of the book was co mpleted by November 1 9 70. T he fieldno tes were data. " Yet
,
consulted only to check certain details and to locate a passage on cons u lting a
R a mpura deity (S rinivas 1 9 76: 3 26-2 8) . Fire may be the most d ram a tic and symbolic th reat to fieldnotes, b u t i t i s not th e only one. Gunnar Landt man , a member o f t h e pre-World Wa r I "Cam bridge School , " spent two years doing field\vork on the Papua Nev.' Guinea co as t, and his fieldnotes "were actually lost in
a
s h i pwreck ; it was only by hir i ng a diver that he was able to salvage the trunk that contained them"
(S to cking 1 98 3 : 84). R obert Dentan lost .
part of his 1 962- 6 3 fieldnotes on the Semai of Malaysia " when our canoe ti p ped over during a tr i cky portage over a fal l en log on our last t r ip downstream" (Dentan 1 970 : 9 5 ) . Follo wing Stanley Diamond 's 1 9 5 8- 5 9 fieldwork a mo n g the Nigerian A nagu t a " the larger part of ,
my notes \\'ere stolen in Octob er, 1 960"
( D i a m ond 1 967: 3 63 ) . N o '\Vonder many anthropologists s tore their fieldnotes i n trunks and metal bo x es (Levi-S trauss 1 9 5 5 : 3 3 ; Perl man 1 970 : J I 2) . 2 Leg ends about lost fieldno tes \vere recited by several of Jean Jack
son's anthropolo gist informants . A few even suggested that those who lost their notes might be better off.
(I dou bt that Srinivas, Dentan , o r D i a mond \vould agree. ) Richard Sh\veder, in a front-page Neu' )'"ork Times Book Review essay, '' Storytelling among the Anthropologists, '� \\'ent even further: 2Tv.·o anthropologists have made l i ght of losses. or near losses, of fieldnotes. "It da\\'11
.
.
.
.
I had clearly been v..· oken by
was
a large goat that was pensively devouring my
field notes" (Barley 1 9 83 : 1 39-40). "Little boys grabbed my data to make kites�
(Werner 1 984: 61).
This rings of " the travails of ficldv.·ork" cocktail-party chatter.
Those v.·ho \\rrite of fire and loss convey a di fferent em otional tone.
fire, Loss, and the Sorcerer's Apprentice
37
The idea is that the best Y.'ay to write a compelling ethnography is to lose your fteld notes. Sir Edmund Leach, the British anthropologist, did this. While in Southeast Asia during the Second World War, he lost his field data as a result of enemy action. Made free, quite by mishap, to speak on behalf of the facts, Sir Edmund went on to write a classic eth nograph y, "The [sic] Political Systems of Highland Burma" [ 1986: I.
38]
Shweder was doin g some storytelling of his own. Several acts of \\Tiring by Leach occurred between fieldnote-recording in the Kachin community of Hpalang, in 1939-40, and
Political Systems of Highland
Burma, publishe d in 1954. My Hpalang field notes and photographs "''ere all lost as the result of enemy action. During 1941, hoVw'ever, I had found time to \\'rite up much of my Hpalang material in the form of a functionalist economic study of the Hpalang community. This manuscript is also lost but the effort was not entirely \Vasted. The fact that I had worked out this draft fixed many details in my mind which would other\vise have been confused. In 1942 when I reached India I sketched out notes ofHpalang as I then recollected it and I think the details were probably fairly accurate though some names and figures may have got confused. I took such notes as I could during my military tours of 1942-43 and these are preserved.... In 1946l
.
.
.
v-'as permitted by the University ofLondon
to prepare a thesis based largely on historical materials relating to the Kachin Hills Area.
.
.. I think I have at one time or another probably
read nearly everything that has been published in English, French or German about the Kachin Hills Area during the past 130 years. [Leach 1954= J12]
Advocating "casuistry" in ethno g ra p hic writing, Shweder (1986: 38-39) follow s his OV'I� advice. I read the firs t two sentences quoted from Leach to mean that he used his fieldnotes to write the 1941 fu nctionalist economic study" ofHlapang (see also Leach 1977: 196). "
That is ordinarily what British anthropologists mean by "writing up.'' Both fieldnotes and the draft study were then lost, in 1941 or 1942.
Memory was prevailed upon only reconstructed a set of notes. These, extensive historical materials, were To say that Leach \�ras "made free .
.
in 1942, in India, where Leach plus his later 1942-43 notes and used in writing .
Political Systems.
to speak on behalf of the facts" is
to negate the efforts he indee d made to use, recall, and add to the fiel dn ote s that under g i r d his remarkable book.
LIVING \�liTH fiELDNOTES
Some anthropologists ha v e also experienced tear that their field notes might be lost not to them but to others, should the ethnographer die before transcribing the notes into readable form. On leav ing the Mnong Gar village of Sar Lukin highla nd Vietnam in 1950, a hospi taliz ed Georges Condominas learned, incorrectly, that "m)" days
\Vcre
numbered. Since the wo rst could happen at any time, I had to take
ad·v antage of my every living moment to sal v age all the notes I could, that is to say, to translate into French as much as poss ibl e of what I had taken down di rectly in Mnong since I was, at that time, the only person able to ·\\rrite the lang uag e
"
(Condominas 1972: 233).
Margaret Mead vowed early in her carc..�r that she \Vould "vlrite up each trip in full before u ndertaking the next one"
(1972: 184).
I had been deeply impressed with the dreadful "''aste of ftcld \\'Ork
as
anthropologists piled up hand\\rritten notes that went untranscribed during their lifetime and that no one could read or work over after they died. In Ne\\p Zealand, Reo [Fortune] and I had called on Elsdon Best, that indefatigable chronicler of the Maori, and \Ve had seen his cabinets full of notes. And every summer Pliny Earle Goddard took another lovely field trip to the South \Vest and accumulated more notes that he never wrote up. ( 1972: 183] All of it is unique. All of it \�;11 vanish. All was-and will be-grist for some future anthropologist's mill. Nothing is V�·asted. He
[sic] has only
to record accurately and organize his notes legibly; then, whether he lives or dies, what he has done makes a contribution. [ 1977: 282]
in ad d ition to fire, loss, and death, is computer wipeout . As anthropologists once moved from pencil to typewriter, Today's new fear,
they are now, as Allen and Orna Johnson explain (in this book), mov ing from type�vrite r to computer. Few
co m pu ter
users have
not
lost text through error, careless attempts to overfill doc u ments or disks, or pow er failures. DOS-using anthropologists must master
BACKUP and COPY, and safeguard their second computer-readable set of fieldnotes the way those of the typew ri ter era sent carbon copies home for safekeeping. 3 Fieldnotes cannot be produced w itho ut informants . U nless there arc "actions" and uutterances" (Ellen 1984: 21 4) to observe and hear there ,
3Jn commenting on this essay, Moshe Shokeid told me ofhis unsettling experience of
learning that his fieldnotcs \\rould fade, then disappear. Max monies to photocopy and thereby preserve them.
Gluckman provided
Fire,
Loss, and
the
Sorcerer's Apprentice
39
no ethnogra phy. Evans-Pritchard (1940: 12-13) reproduced his fa ous conversation with Cuol to illustrate how noncooperative the Nuer could be. The act of recording fieldnotes stands for doing an thropology, for defining the ethnographer. But on a fe\v occasions recorded in the field�"ork literature, anthropologists have revealed situ ations \vhere their role has been challenged not by Nuer-like non cooperation but rather by the tables being turned. "Mirth and horror" seized Ethel Albert when in 1956 her Rwandan field assistant Muntu failed to appear one morning, ·
�
and I went to the kitchen to get my coffee for myself. He \Vas there
,
leaning against his V\'ork-table, notebook and pencil in hand. He was talking to one of my informants and appeared to be taking notes. I asked ,._.hat he was doing. HAnthropological research, like you. But I kno\V the language, so my research \viii be better than yours." I asked if he meant to tum the notes over to
me.
He did not This "vas his research. .
Happily, the professional rivalry bet\'\'een us did not last long. [ 1960:
369] Muntu \\'as literate; his challenge to Albert embodies the present reality of a \vorld in \Vhich those whom anthropologists study, every where, can read (and write) fieldnotcs, let alone ethnography. But such \\'as not the case in the \vorld anthropologists have lost, in the dreamtime when it was still acceptable to believe that there �"as "no more thrilling prospect for the anthropologist than that of being the frrst \\'bite man to visit a particular native community" (Levi-Strauss 1955: 325-26). Such romantic Western self-inflations, and their racist and sexist conventions, were dying-if slo\vly-by the I9JOS, as Claude Levi Strauss's 1955 comment indicates. So does Rabino�,.'s account (1977: �8-69) of his 1968-69 sexual conquest-symbolic domination-of a Berber girl" in the field. Christine Obbo, siding perhaps with Muntu (a "research assistant on the cheap"), makes it clear in her essay here, however, that the last gasp ofWestern/middle-das s/white/male (and female) ethnographic hegemony is still to be heard. Levi-Strauss's encounter with the Brazilian Nambik\va Indians in ra 3 19 9 included this hint of the beginning of the end: As I had done among the Caduveo, I handed out sheets of paper and _ penal s. At first they did nothing \Vith them then one dav I saw that they were all busy drawing wavy, horizont llines. I \Vo�dered what they \Vere tryi ng to do, then it was suddenly borne upon me that they
;
LIVING \\'ll"H fiELDNOTES
40
were writing or, to be more accurate, V\7ere t ry in g to use their pencils in the same way as I did mine .... the chief had further an1bitions
.
.
.
he
.
asked me for a \1\.'riting-pad, and \vhen we both had one, and were
w orkin g together, if I asked for in forn1 at i on on a g iven point, he did not supply it verbally but dre\v \Vavy lines on his paper and pres en ted then1 to me, as if I could read his reply.... his verbal commentary followed almost at once, relieving me of the need to ask for explanations. [I 9 55: 296)4
Decades earlier, in the
1
89os, Franz Boas had alread y begun
collaboration \\'ith the K wakiutl-speaking 1\Jetis George Hunt;
his
joint
effort and autho r sh ip "vere ackno\vledged. By the 1930s several "na tives" \Vcrc pro fe ssi onal anthropologists. Sir Peter Buck (Tc Rangi Hiroa), a Maori, \\7as s ta ff ethnologist at the Bernice P. B ishop Mu se um in Honolulu, and from 1936 to 1951 its direc tor (Keesing 1953: 3� 72, 101-2; Spoehr 1959). Jomo Kenyatta, a Kenyan; Fei Hsiao-tun g a ,
Chinese; and A. Aiyappan and D. N. Majumdar, both I ndians
me m bers
v.rerc
,
of Bronislaw· Malino\vski's London School of Economics
seminar ( M adan 1975: 133, 152; Malino\\'ski 1938, 1939; Vidy ar t hi 1979a: 46, 171-73, 438-39; 1979b: 330-43� 352-55).
Manuel Gamio
,
J ulio de Ia Fuente, and Alfonso Villa
The Mexicans Roj as vlorked,
respectively, vv'ith B oas, Malino\\'ski, and Robert Redfield and their ovin (Drucker-Brown 1982;
Gamio
on
1930, 193 r; R edfield 1934, •
1941 ) In the U nited States, American Indians William Jone s a Fox, and Ella Deloria a Dakota, were publ ished students of Boas ( E ggan 1955: 503-4; Jones 1939; Le ss e r 1976: 1 32; Lib e rty and Sturtevant 1978; Mead 1959: 406). U nder W. L l oyd Warner, A fr ican American anthro .
,
,
.
pologis t s Allison Davis did fieldwork in Massachusetts and Missis
sippi, and St. Clair Drake in Missi ssippi and C hi cago ; Fauset
,
a student of Fran k Speck and
African American life ethnographically
A.
I.
Arthur Huff H all o \v el l also studie d ,
(Bond 1988; Davis et al. 194r;
Drake 1980; Fauset 1971; Sz\ved 1979). In sociology departments,
Paul Siu conducted a field\vork-based s t udy of the Chinese of Chicago (sec Tchen 1987), a nd S. Frank Mi y amot o (1939) one of the Seattle Japa nese.
Toda y the pro mise and premise of a \\'orld anth ropolog y in its
.:11n the late I970s, Barley (q�83: X4) found Dowayo 1nockery of fieldnote-tak.ing
e v en more pointed. In a ritual perforntancet "the clo\\,lS \\·ere extravagant . \vcre delighted �ith n1e. They ' t oo
,. notes on
banana leaves.''
k
.
.
photographs' through a broken bo\�ll,
.
They
�,vrot�:
Fire, Loss, and the Sorcerer's A pprenticc
radical u ni ver sality is visible reali t y. Other-fucking in liberal or more ulg ar forms is draw ing to a close. Yet th e issue of to whom i ts mo r e v fie]dnote s ultimately b elong is not r eso lv ed . T heir production requires
on ; their use, conversely, is mainly p riv at e, restric ted loc al collaborati Thorny issues of protection of in fo r man t s re to the ethnographer. main, and the larger questions ling er of authorship and of eventual
ac cess to cultures no'\v lost by their im mediate descenda nts . Boas solved this p robl em as he scrambled to salvag e the old Kwa kiutl culture, studiously ignorin g the commercial salmon industry and Christianity. His ethnograp hy is his fieldnot cs , and much if not m ost
of it was published. But B oas is probably exceptional. As Sol Tax tol d Srinivas soon after the S tanfo rd fire, "n o social anthropologist, not
the most in du strious . . . ever pu blish ed more than a small portion of his data" (Tax 1976: xiv). Simon Otte nb er g has arranged to depos it c opies of his fieldnotes, to be mad e available after his death; Margery Wolf is a\vare of the complicatio ns in the short term but even
nonetheless believes that fieldnotcs mus t in the long term become part
of a
public record. It
��as Ma rg a ret Mead's Vlish that her fi el dno t es ,
with those of her colleag u es , be ac ces sibl e to fu ture scholars (Bateson
1980: 276).
"All of it is unique. All of it \Vill v anish Mead \vrote of the cultu res that anthropologists study. In the short term an anthropologist's field notes are her or his bread and butter. In the l ong te r m pe rh aps field notes are like chil dren as envisioned by the Lebanese poet Kahlil ,''
,
Gibran (1923: 17-18):
Your children are not vour children .... They come through y � u but they arc not from you, And though they arc \vith you yet they belong not to you . . . . You may house their bodies but not their sou1s, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrov-.', \vhich you cannot visit, not
even
REFERENC
in your dreams.
ES
Albert, Ethel M. 1960. My uBoy," Muntu. In ltJ the Company of A1a,.z: Twenty . l>o rtrarts of Anthropological bJ�(ormtuJt;, ed. Joseph B. Casagrande. 3 57-75. New York: Harper Torchbooks. . Barlev Ni ge I . 1 8 J . . n ..1JvetHurrs rn a A1ud Hut: .4n lntJocent Al'lthropologist Abroad. 9 Ne\\' York: Vanguard Press. ..
·
----. I986. Ceretnony: ..4n A.tHirro olo ist'.> .'\4isadventr�re.s in rl1e �4fTiUln p g Bush. -
York: Hoh.
New
LIVING WITH FIEI.DNOTES
42
C ather ine Bi og ra ph y of M ar garet
Bateson, Mary
.
1980. Conti nuiti es in In sig h t and
In novation: Toward a
Mead . .,4,nerican .Antl1ropologijt 82:27o-77.
Bond, G eorge C. 1988. A Social Portrait of John Gibbs St. Clair Drake: An American Anthropologist. Amen'can Ethnologist I s:i62-81.
Carstens, Peter. 1987.
Introduction.
I 5·
Carstens, Peter, Gerald
Klinghardt ,
Klingha rdt , and West
In Carstens,
1987,
I-
and Martin West, eds. 1987. Trails in the
Thirst/and: The AtathropoloRilill Field Diaritj o.fU.'inifred Hoernle. C-ommunication
Centre for African St udies , University of Cap e Town. Co ndomi nas, Georges 1972. Musical Stones for the God of Thund er In Crossin�� Cultural Boundari(l: The Anthropological Experience, ed. Solon Kimball and james B. Watson, 232-56. San Francisco: Chandler. Davis, Allison, Burleigh G ardn er, and Mary Gardner. 194 I. Deep South: .4 Socia[ Anthropol(.)gical Study of Caste and Class. C hicag o : University of Chicago Press. Dentan, R o bert K. 1970. Living and Working \\"ith the S em ai. In Bein� atl Anthro pologist: Fieldwork in Eleven Cultures, ed. G e o rge D. S pi ndler� 85-112. Nc\v York : Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 14. Cape Tov.n:
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Diamond, Stanley. 1967. The A nagu ta of Nigeria: Suburban Primitives. In Con 1,
tetnporary Change in Traditional Societies. Vol.
Introduction and African
Tribt's,
ed. Julian Ste\\·ard, 361-505. Urbana: Univ ersit y of Illinois Press. Drake, St. Clair. 1980. An thro p olo gy and the Black E xperience . Black Scholar 1 1 (7): 2-3 I .
Drucker-Brov.n, Su san. 1982. Malin o\\ ski '
in Mexico: Editor's Introduction.
In
Bronislav.r Mal ino wski and J ulio de Ia Fuente, �1alinowski in l"1exico: The Eco
nomics o_f a Mexican Market System, 1-52. London: Routledg e &
Eggan Fred. ,
Kegan
Paul.
195 5 . Social Anthropology: Meth od s and Results. In Social .�4nthn-.
pology of f\iorth American Tribes, cnl. cd., ed. Fred Eggan , 485-551. Chicago:
Un ivcr sity of Chicago Press.
E llen,
R. F. 1984. Pr od ucing Data: I n tr odu ctio n In Ethnographic Research: 4 Guide .
to General Conduct, ed. R. F. Ellen, 213- Ii- San
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940. The 1\ruer.
Oxford:
Diego:
..
Academic Press.
Oxford University Press.
Fauset, Arthur Huff I9ii [1944]. Black Gods ofthe �\{etropolis: .."legro Religiou.s Cults in the l)rban ."lorth. Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press.
Gamio, Manuel. 1930 [ 1971 )
.
Hl4rtUJn lvligration and Adjustment. Chicago: University of Chi ca go Press. York: Dover]
--
of [New
Wexican Immigration to the United States: A Stud}'
•
. 1931 [ 1971 ]. The .Mexican Immigrant: His Lift Story•. Ch ica g o: University of
Chicago Press. [The Life Storr of the A1exican Immigrant. New York: D o ver) 1923(1964]. The Prophet. New York: Knopf.
Gibran, Kahlil.
Hoernle� Winifr ed . 198 5- Tlae Social OrgatJization ofthe 1\ra,na and Other Es.says, cd.
Peter Carstens. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand Universit y Press Howard, Jane. 1984. �'vlargaret .."f\,fead: .A Lift. New York: Fa\vcett Crest. Jones, William. 1939. Eth11ography o_fthe Fox IndiatJs, ed. Margaret Wclpley Fisher. Bureau of American Et hnolog y Bulletin 125. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. .
·
Fire,
Loss, and the Sorcerer's Apprentice
43
x M. 1953. Social Anthropology in Polynesia: A Revi� of Research. l{eesing, Feli London: Oxford U niv ersity Press. 1954 [1965). Political Systems o_( Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Leach, E. R. ston: Beacon. Social Structure. Bo 1977. In Formative Travail with Leviathan ..Anrhropological Forum 4: 19o-97. r. 1976. The A merican Eth nolog ic al Society: The Co lumbia Lesser, Alexande Phase, 19{)6-1946. In American Anthropology: The EtJrly Years, ed. John Murra, . 126-35· St. Paul Minn.: West Pu bl ishin g Co m pany
--·
,
Tn"stes Tropique.s. Trans. John and Doreen Levi-Strauss, Claude. 195.5 [1974). Weightman New York: Atheneum. Liberty, Margot, and William Sturtevant. 1978. A p pendix : Prospectus for a Col .
lection of S tudi es on Anthropology. In American Indian lntellectutJl.s, ed. Marg ot Liberty, 241-48. St. Paul, Min n. : West . Madan. T. N. 197 5. On Living Inti ma tely ""'ith Strangers. In Encounter and Expmmce: Pn-sonal ..4ccounts oj.Fieldwork, ed. Andre Beteille and T. N. Madan, 131-56. Honolulu: University o f Ha \•.raii Press.
--. 1978.
A
Review Sym pos iu m on M. N. Srini vas s The Rrmrmbered V illage. '
Contributions to Indian Sociology 12:1-1.52.
Malino\vski, Bronislaw. 1938. Introduction. In Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount KenytJ: The TribtJI Liftoftlte Gikuyu, vii-xiii. Ne\\p York: Vintage, n.d. (c. 196os).
--. 1939. Preface. In Hsiao-Tung Fei, Ptasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Lift in the Yangtze Valley, xix-xxvi. London: Rou tledge & Kegan Paul.
Maybury-Lewis, David. 1965 [1988]. The SavtJge and the Innocent. Bo sto n: Beacon Press.
Mead, Margaret. 1959. An Anthropologist ar Work: Writings ton: Hought on MifBin.
of Ruth Benedict.
Bos-
-. 1972. Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years. Ne\V York: William Morrow.
-. 1977. Letters from the Field, 1925-1975. Ne\v York: Harp er & Row. Miyamoto, S. Frank. 1939 [1984]. Social SolidtJrity among the Japantje in Seattle. Seattle: U n ivers ity of Washington Press. Perlman, Melvin. 1970. Intensive Field Work and Scope S a mpl ing : Methods for
Studying the Same Probl em at D ifferen t Levels. In J\.farginal Natives: Anthro pologists at Work, ed. Morris Freilich, 293-338. New York: Harper & Ro\v. Py , Barbara. 19SS [1982). Lts.s Than Angels. New York: Harpe r & Ro w. Rabtnow, Paul. 1977. Rqlectioru on Fieldwork itt .Morocco. Berkeley: U niversity of
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Cal i fo rnia Press. Redfield, Robert. 1934 I 1962). Preface. In Robert Redfield and A l fo nso Villa Rojas, Cluzn Kom: A Maya Village, ix-x. Chiago: University o f Chi c ago Press. . _1941. Preface. In Tht Folk Culture ofY ucatan, ix-xiv. Chicago: University of Chaca go Press.
--
Shw�er,
Richard. 1986. Storytelling am on g the Anthropologists. �"lew York T•mes Book Review, September 21, pp. I, .38-3 9· S Poe�r, Alexander. 1959. F orew ord. In Peter H. Buck. Vikings ofthe Pacific, v-vii. Chic�go: Un iv ersi ty of Chicago Press. Originally p u blished as Vikingj of the Sunrzse {New Yor k: Lippincott, 1938).
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44
Srinivas, M. N. I9i6. The Remembered t,'illage. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press. --
. 1978. The Reme,nbered Villa�e: Reply to Criticisms. Contribution� to lndiaf·l
Sociolo�}' 12:127-52. Stocking, George VJl.,
Jr.
Anthropology from
1983. The Ethnographer's Magic: F ie ld w ork in British
Tylor to Malinowski. In Observers Obsert'ed: EsscJys
Ethnographic Fieldwork_. ed. George W. Stocking�
Jr.,
on
7o-120. Madison: Univer
sity of W isconsin Press.
Sz\ved. John.
I 9i9-
The Ethnography of Ethnic Groups in the United States�
1920-I9SO. In Tl1e L'se� of Anthropolo�y,
cd.
Walter Goldschmidt, ICX>-1()().
\Vashington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association.
Tax, Sol. 1976. Forc\vord. In Srinivas I9i6, ix-xi. Tchen, John Kuo Wei. 19R7.
Introduction. In Paul C.
P. Siu, The Chine.se LaundtJ'
man: 4 Study o._{Sociallsolation, xxiii-xxxix. Ne\V York: New York University ..
Press.
Vidyarthi, L. P. Vol. --.
1,
1979a. Rist.· o_i .4nthropolo.f!Y ita India: A Social Science Orinatation.
The Tribal Dimension. Atlantic Highlands,
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Ri;e
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A So[i411 Science Orietatation. Vol. 2, 1·!1e
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N.J.: Humanities Press.
Werner� Dennis. 1984. Amazon Journey: An l�ntllropologi.st's \'ear atnong Brazil's A1ekranoti Indians. Ne\v York: Simon & Schuster.
PART
II
Unpacking ((Fieldnotes" Physically, the corpus of data I have acquired over the
years fills
1o
file boxes V..'ith 5 x 8 inch sheets of paper.
Three boxes contain basic data of many types, classified according to the HRAF [Human Relations Area Files] in dexing system, \\'hich I have used from the beginning of my Tzintzuntzan work, and \vhich I feel is the most logi cal system for community studies. A fourth file contains nearly 400 dreams from more than 40 informants, \\'hile
a
fifth holds TAT [Thematic Apperception Test] protocols, all taken from tapes, of 20 informants. A sixth box con
tains data, much of it taped, on health and medical prac tices and beliefs. ·T\vo more boxes are filled \\'ith nearly 200
years of vital statistics,
a
near 10oo/o sample of births,
marriages, and deaths drav..rn from the parish archive and, since 1930, from the municipal civil registry as \\'elL I have hand-transcribed from the original sources half or more of these data, a process requiring hundreds. and pos sibly thousands, of hours
.
.
.
.
Finally, t�·o boxes are filled
with over JOOO slips, each of \\'hich contains basic data on a
single person, all people whose names appear on any of
the three I00°/o complete censuses taken in 1945, 1960, and 1970. -GEoRGE M. FosTER
JAMES
CLIFFORD
Notes on (Field)notes
This essay aims to complicate and decenter the activity of descrip tion in ethnography. It begins with three scenes of \�triting, photo graphs printed in George Stocking's Observers Observed.1 T he first, a recent photo by Anne Skinner-Jones, catches the ethnographer Joan Larcom glancing down at her notes while seated on a stra\\' mat among women and children on the island ofMalekula, Vanuatu. It is a moment of distraction. Larcom seems preoccupied with her notes. Two women look to the left, beyond the frame, at something that has caught their attention. Two boys stare straight into the camera. An other child's gaze seems riveted on the ethnographer's pen. The second image is a photograph from 1898 showing C. G. Seligman, MalinO\\' ski's teacher, in New Guinea. He is seated at a table surrounded by half a dozen Melan esian men. One of them sits rather tentativelv on a chair dravln up t o the table. Various ethnographic objects ar scattered
�
there. Seligman is intently \\rriting in a notebook. The third scene, eatured by Stocking on his volume's cover, finds Malinowski \\'Ork t a a bl l�g ta e inside his famous tent in the Trobriands. He has posed hunselfin pr ofil e, turned away from a group of men who are looking f o r on m just beyond the tent flaps.
�
fi
;see r
e.
Stocking 1983: 17fJ, 82, 101. The volume contains othe r revealing scenes of m o e or less posed, \vhich might be compared to genre
d�'o k,
r
Pamung which portrays the artist with •
1nodcl(s)
in the studio.
the
in realist
47
r.
lnscriptiotz. Joan
Courtes
,.
.Ann
arco1n
kirmer-Jon
"\Vith i fonnants in So th�·, �.
r
llay l\1ale 'U1a, \7a1 uatLl.
Transcription. C. G. Seligrnan t work� Hul . Courtesy Univer�it Archaeology and Anthropolo , Ca bridge E gl nd . gy
2·
•
�
�1useun1 of
9
3·
D scriptiofl. l\1alinowski ar
Malinowska.
so
wo
k, Om rakana. Courtesy Mrs. Helena "'ayne
Notes on
51
(Field)notes
Thes e three remarkable photographs tell a lot about the orders and isorders of fieldwork. Each \\7ould repay close attention. But I am
d
here merely to illustrate and to distinguish graphically usin g them three distin ct moments in the constitution of fieldnotcs. (I can only \\'as actually going on in any of the three scenes of \Vritguess "''h at ing.) 1 use the first to represent a mon1ent of tnscrtptJotl. I Imagtne that the photo of Joan Larcom glancing at her notes records a break (perhaps ·
·
·
·
·
onlv for an instant) in the flo\\' of social discourse, a moment of
abstraction (or distraction) when a participant-observer jots dovln a mnemonic word or phrase to fix an observation or to recall \vhat
someone has just said. The photo may also represent a moment when the ethnographer refers to some prior list of questions, traits, or
hypotheses-a personal "Notes and Queries."' But even if inscription is simply a matter oC as \\'e say, "making a mental note," the flow of
action and discourse has been interrupted,
tunJed to writing.
The second scene-Seligman seated at a table vvith his Melanesian
informant-represents a moment of nographer has asked
a
transcription. Perhaps the eth
question and is \\'riting down the response:
"What do you call such and such?'' "We call it so and so.'' "Say that again, slo\vly." Or the writer may be taking dictation, recording the myth or magical spell associated
�
ith one of the objects on the table
..
top. This kind of Vlork was the sort Malino\\'ski tried to dislodge from center stage in favor of participant-observation: getting a\vay from the table on the verandah and hanging around the village instead, chatting, questioning, listening in, looking on-\\'riting it all up later. But despite the success of the participant-observation method, transcrip t on has remained crucial in field�"ork, especially when the research is :nguistically or philologically oriented, or \\� hen it collects (I prefer
�
�
..
produces'') extended indigenous texts. Boas spent quite a fe\\' hours seated at a \Vriting table \Vith George Hunt. Indeed a large part of Malinowski's published ethnographies (their many myths, spells, leg
ends)
are the products of transcription. In Returtt to Laughter Laura Boha nnan (Bovven 1954) advised prospective fieldworkcrs: "You'll need more tables than you think." b The writing evoked by the scene of Malinowski inside his tent may
.e called description,
the making of a more or less coherent representa of an observed cultural reality. While still piecemeal and rough, such field descriptions arc designed to serve as a data base for later tion
lJNP.A.CKII'G "fiELDNOTES'�
52
\\'riting and interpretation aimed at the production of a finished
ac
count. This moment of vvriting in the field generates \vhat Gecrtz ,, ( 1973) has called "thick descriptions. And it involves, as the Mali nowski photo registers, a turning away from dialogue and observation to\vard a separate place of '''riting, a place for reflection, analysis, and interpretation. Stories of ficld\vork often tell of a struggle to preserve such a place: a tent \Vith the flaps closed, a private room in a house,
a
typev.."riter set up in the corner of a room, or, minimally, a dry, relatively quiet spot in which to spread out a few notebooks. The three scenes of writing are, of course, artificially separated: they blend, or alternate rapidly, in the shifting series of encounters, percep tions, and interpretations called fieldwork. The term "field\vork" has a
misleading unity, and breaking it up in this v,ray may at least have
defamiliarizing effect. Moreover, it should be apparent that, as I
a
an1
using them here, these "scenes" arc less representations of typical acti"·ities than images, or figures, standing tor analy tical abstractions.
The abstractions refer to basic processes of recording and constructing cultural accounts in the field.
I
have found it useful to take these
processes, rather than fieldnotes as such, as my topic. For it is clear from Jean Jackson's survey, as \\'ell as from the diversity of observa tions contained in this volume, that there can be no rigorous definition of exactly Vlhat constitutes a fieldnote. The community of ethnogra phers agrees on no common boundaries: diaries and journals arc in cluded by some, excluded by others; letters to family, to colleagues,
to
thesis supervisors are diversely classified; some even rule out tran scripts of interviews. The institution of fieldnotes does exist, of course� '''idely understood to be a discrete textual corpus in some \vay pro duced by field\\'ork and constituting a raw, or partly cooked, descrip tive database for later generalization, synthesis, and theoretical elab oration. But within this institution, or disciplinary convention, one fmds an enormous diversity of experience and opinion regarding what kind of or ho\\' much note-taking is appropriate, as \vell as just ho\V these notes are related to published ethnographies. A historical
ac-
count of this diversity (linked to intluential teachers, disciplinar y
ex
emplars, and national research traditions) would
be revealing. There
is, hov.rever, a problem of evidence: most of the actual practice and advice is unrecorded or inaccessible. Fieldnotes are surrounded
by
legend and often a certain secrecy. They are intimate records , fully mcaningful-\vc are often told-only to their inscriber.
Notes on
(Field)notes
53
·rhus� it is difficult to say something systematic about ficldnotes, ot even define them \\rith much precision. The three since one cann ked �ti in this essay ac�ount for a good dea of eth processes mar . . o a \Vlthout exhaustmg the subject. And 1t should n gr phic production
�
be stressed at the outset that a focus on the interrelations of inscription, transcription, and description need not imply that writing is the es sence of fieldwork. Its importance is suggested by -.�raphy in the Vlord
ethnography, but there is no point in replacing the misleading formula ''participa nt-o bservation, Vlith an equally simplistic "participant inscription. "2 Fieldwork is a complex historical, political, intersubjec tive set of experiences which escapes the metaphors of participation, observation, initiation, rapport, induction, learning, and so forth, often deployed to account for it. The frankly graphocentric analysis that follovls merely brings to center stage processes that have until recently been simplified or marginalized in accounts of ethnographic research. Fifteen years ago Clifford Geertz asked-and ans\\tered-the crucial question underlying this collection of essays: "What does the eth nographer do-he \\'rites"
(r973: r9).
His influential discussion \Vent a
long \vay toward opening up a broad domain for debate (see also Crapanzano
1977;
Dumont
I978).
But I v.'ill suggest in what follovvs
that Geertz and the mainstream of ''symbolic anthropology" unduly narrowed the domain of ethnographic \Vriting to processes of inscrip tion and interpretive description. My three scenes of �·riting are an attempt to complicate matters.3 2Jean Jackson and Simon Ottenberg (this vol ume) discuss the crucial function of memo ry as a (re)contextualizing process making fieldnotes (re)intelligible. The role of fiddnotes as mnemonic artifacts large1y escapes my graphocentric analysis. Nor do I
deal V\,.ith the full range of documentary materials produced and gathered in the field
maps, photos, documents, objects of diverse sorts. 31n his book £i'orks and Lives; Tht Anthr"Pologist as Author, which appeared after this essay \Vas completed, Geertz writes of cultural description \\rlth a good deal more he ita n s tio than he did fifteen years beforc-unOV\' that anthropologists are caught up in
the vast reorganization of political relationships going on in the v..·orld and the hardly less vast rethinking " (p. 14 T) "The of just wh at it might be that 'description' is, asy metrics across which ethnography \\l·orks and the discoursive complexity � _ lthan wh1ch at works make any attempt to portray it as anything more than the eprese ntation of one sort of life in the categories of another impossible to defend·' .
:�r�l
.
.
� {?R8: 141. 144). Description as a perhaps impossible goal is not rejected in U.�rks and rves.
But there is
a
new emphasis: thick description becomes contingent description,
caught up in history, politics, and the imperfect arts of \vriting and translation.
UNPACKING
54
''fiELDNOTES"
Scene One What is most extraordinary in the image chosen by Joan Larcom
to
represent her fteld\vork in Observers Ob.sen•ed is the sense of confusion
it registers. Data inscription appears not as an orderly process of collecting or recording but as
an
improvisation in the midst of conl
peting , distracting messages and influences. The photo's play of gazes
suggests (1) that the focused ethnographic moment always leaks be yond its frame into other "irrelevant" events; (2) that the ethnographic observer is al"\vays her- or himself observed; and (3) that any represen tation of this messy event, as here the photographt is itself part of the event. The gazes, directed to the act of \Vriting, to something outside
the scene, and to the photographer, signal the confusion of fieldworkt its inescapable reflexivity, and the stn�(�le to register data.
The photo is also appropriately ambiguous concerning the eth
nographer's activity. Is she \Vriting something down or looking sonlc thing up? Are we \Vitnessing the birth of a ne\v, jotted text or
a
recourse to some notes that have been brought into the field, a pre figuration of Vlhat will count as important in the S\virl of potentially meaningful discourse and activity? In the Anne Skinner-Jones photo graph \\'e cannot tell. Recent literary and textual theory argues that the
ambiguity can , in fact, never be resolved. Inscription is both the making and remaking of texts . Writing is al�"ays to some degree
rewriting. This is also the burden of Larcom's essay (1983), \Vhich analyzes her engagement with, simultaneously, the Mewun of Male kula and the unfinished texts of her predecessor in the field, A. B. Deacon. Larcom's essay portrays ethnographic fieldwork as fully his
torical: drawing on prior inscriptions to portray local customs
over
time and temporally situating its own interpretations of events and
documents in an ongoing series. The critical and inventive use of prior \\'ritten sources enmeshes ethnography in the history of ethnography.
As Emiko Ohnuki-Tiemey reminded us in her paper at the 1985 symposium, the rapprochement of ethnography and history in
recent
years diversifies the range of appropriate textual sources. The archive
encroaches on the field; historical readings can no longer be seen
as
mere background for the essential \Vork of firsthand discovery. 4 4The latest convergence ofhistory and anthropology has been widely disrussed; see� among others, Cohn 1981; Davis 1981; Sahlins 1985; Thomas r963� Wolf1982. For the
No tes on (Field)notes
55
·r h c belief in ethnography as an original production . a process of p ure i nscription most perfectly embodied in the ficldnotc, is shaken . F o r o f a l l the data used by field workers, the texts created in the field have s ee med most authentic, least tait1ted by prej udice. Fieldnotes e m b o d y c ultural facts apparentl y un der the control of their inscriber. Ma li n o\v ski expres sed the notion of originality a little too clearly, as
u s u al , in his field diary ( 1 967: 1 40): " Feeling of O\\'ncrship : i t is I \vho will describe them or create them . " But ethnographers can no longer
claim this sort o f origin ary or crea tive role, fo r they m u s t al\vay s reck o n w ith p redecessors (and no longer only those most ea sily dis miss ed : mi ssionaries, travelers, adn1 inistrators) . The field is more and more littered v.rith "serio us" ethnog rap h i c texts . One wri tes among ..
agains t, through , and in spite of them. This predicament underm ines ficldnotes as the privileged empirical basis for
a
descriptive practice.
Indeed, one has, less and les s , the illusion of cont rol over the con struction of any \V ritten corpus . Many literary analyses of intertex tuality
(e. g. ,
Barthes 1 970; Bloom 1 97 5 ; Kristeva
1969)
have made us
confront the t�n originality of '"'·riting. 5 And recen t stu dies of ethnogra
phy as
a
genre (Pratt 1 9 86; Thornton 1 98 3 , 1 9 8 5 ) bring out the many
tropes it shares \Yith unscientific , lay forms such a s travel "\\l"ritin g.
Moreover, the originality of " primary" inscriptive practices has been challenged by theories o f prefiguration and pre-encoding, most nota
bly those of H ayden White. 6 E ven to notice an event or fact, to find it im portant, Wh ite argues, is to presuppose some prior inscription or grid. Th e class of phenomena taken to be " the field" can be grasped in sequence or sep arately-acco rding to at least four mo des of figura tion :
(1)
as an image or pattern (metaphoric),
empirical facts (metonymic) ,
(2)
as a collectio n of
( 3 ) as a hierarchi cal, functional, or organ-
ofh ist oric al tex ts by a nthropologists , see Evans-P ritchard ·s severe strictures ( 1 97 1 ) the Selign1 ans . " E thnographic '• topics and rhetoric have been adopted by social and u lt � ural hi s to ri ans (see Rosaldo 1 986), but as yet no systematic analysis ex ists concern the d iffe ren ce and sitnilarities of research practice , ju xtaposing "the archive '� with s t he ficJ d" - scen both as textual. interpreti ve acti vities , as dis ci p 1 in ary con ventions, an a s s t �ate gi c spati alizations of overdetermined em pirical data. th In Kn st� va's \\'ords. " E very text takes shape as a m osaic of ci tations, every te x t is a bsorp tt on and transformation of other te xts'� ( 1 96«): 1 46). usc on
� �g
�
�
a
��
e s p. White's
Metahistory ( 1 973 )
Trop ics of Di.1course ( 1 978).
a nd
Daniel Defert's ofgrille.s de d�scription in early travel accoun ts identifies "obvious·' . unus ' or "na t ura 1 " entttlcs , w h.1c h arc proJected p nor to even the most detailed and . acc u ra te ac counts . Thornton ( 1 98 8 ) takes a similar approach to early ethnograp hies.
n� ysts (1 98 2 , 1 9S4) ·
-
.
.
U NP A C K ING " f iEl D N OTES "
ic whole (synecdochic), o r (4) as a temporal, usuall y passing, reality (ironic). Kenneth Burke's four master tropes are here deployed to account for the dominant forms of historical narrative. White makes a strong claim that any historical or cultural "fact" can be registered a s meaningful onl y by virtue of some prior code or figuration of the whole in which it belongs. Robert Thornton ( 1 98 8) makes an equally strong argument for the textual / rhetorical prefiguration of the facts in ethnographies that pur port to describe social or cultural '''holes. A classificatory rhetoric orders the most elementary items of behavior and experience included in the textual "corpus. " (Thornton makes visible the commonsense metaphors of body, architecture , and landscape that underpin ethno graphic co-constructions of text and society. ) The most simple de scription , or even statistical counting , in the field presupposes that the items recorded are parts of larger social or cultural units whose imagi nary configuration in terms of explicit or implicit �?holes relies on rhetorical means . Another account of the pre-encoding of facts has been offered b y Johannes Fabian ( 1 983). He argues that the differences constitutin g , '•us" and " them' in ethnography, a complex play of distances in each moment of inscription (visible in the photo ofJoan Larcom) , have been mastered and simplified in the form of an overriding temporal distance. "They" are p laced in either a historical past or a mythic, oral (non historical) condition. Fabian 's critique makes us a\vare that every per ception and inscription of an uevent" implies a temporal positioning with political implications. Very concrete decisions of what to record in the field can follo\v fro m these prior assumptions . If one perceives an event-a performance or ritual-as a traditional sunrival, one may "naturally" exclude from one's data the modern, commercial, or evan gelical forces that are every,vhcre in the culture but "peripheral" to the event. If, however, one sees the performance or ritual as emergent, predominantly located not in a past but in a possible future, mode n1 , things become interesting and will be much more prominent in onc s corpus of inscriptions. Of course, fc\\' ethnographers believe that the facts "speak, tor themselves, or that the scientific observer merely collects or records them . But it is still \videly assumed that inscription, the passage of experiential phenomena into \Vriting, is at the origin of ethnography � s more or less realistic descriptions. What I have said so far suggests th at this is too simple a viev.r of the writing, prefiguring, and remembering
Notes on (Field)notes
57
t h a t o ccu r in th e field. Ins cription is intertextual, f1gurative, and his torical all th e way dovln to the mos t " im m ediat e perceptions . "
Scene Two Theorists \\7ho
see eth n o g r a phy as beginning \vith a process of ins cription g en e rall y rel y on Ricoeur's influential formulation ( 1 97 1 ). Clifford G eertz giv es a quick version in his introduction to Th e In ter p retat ion of Cultt4res, an ess ay ,,,hich I am r e"W ri t in g here and to w hich I th u s o\ve a great deal : "The ethnographer in s c ribe s, social discou rse; he u•rites it dou,n. I n so doing he turn s it from a passin g event, \vhich exists onlv in its o�·n m o m e n t of o c cu r re n c e , i n to an account, \\rhi ch exists i11 its i� cri ptions and can be reconsulted " ( 1 97 3 : 1 9; original c n1 p hasis) . I have s ugg es te d , dra\\'ing on W hite, Thornton , a n d Fabian, th a t the very noting of an "event" pres uppo s es a prior inscrip t io n M oreove r, my second scene of \Vri t i n g suggests fu rther the limits of in s c ri p tion as a model for what e thno g ra p h e rs do. The p h o to g ra p h of an ethnogra pher doing extended t e x tu al vlork with an i n d ig en ou s collaborator revea l s a kind of \\7 rit in g in the fiel d t h a t is often not a matter of catching " passing events" of social discou rse as m u ch as it is a p r o c es s of tr ans c ri bing alr ea dy formulated, fixed d i s c o u rs e or lore . A ritual, for e xam ple, '''hen its normal course is recounted by a kno\vledgeable au t hori ty, is not a "passin g event . ' ' Nor is a g ene a logy They are already inscribed . Th e sa me is true of everything paradoxically call ed ''oral literature . '' A myth recited an d taken do\v n , a s pe ll or song recorded in writing or on t a pe the s e involve processes of t rans cri p tion an d exp licit t ran sla tio n I have s u gge s t ed elsewhere the difference it makes \Vhen t ra n s cription and in di gen ous forms of w r i ting are moved to"rard the center of ethno gra p hy (Cli fford 1 9 8 3 : 1 3 5-42). For e.xa mplc, if \V r i t in g in the field is n o t seen as b eginnin g \vith ins cri p tl �n: th en the ethno graphic \\'riter le s s automatically appears as a pr tv d cgcd recorder, s a l va ge r, and i n te rpret er o f cultu ral data. G reater pro�in <..�ce given to transcribed m at er i als c a n pr o du c e a more poly ph o nt c fin al e th n o g r a phy. This e ffe ct already existed in the early \�Vorks of B o as , Lo \vie, and others \\'h o , see ing their task a s i mpor ta n t l y Phil. o lo g ical , transl ated and co m m en ted on indigenous t exts , many of th e m Wri tten by na t iv e "informants." (E v en the term informant implies a s to ry o f in s c ri p tio n : "They tell me I \Vrite it do\vn . ) T he image of , tran scrip tio n (o f \Vriting over) interru p ts the smooth passage fro m ·
'
..
.
.
-
.
"
U N PACKI ('; G " F I ELD N O T ES "
\Vriting do\vn to writing up, from inscription t o interpretive dc..�crip tion . The authority of the researche r who b rin gs passing, usually o ral , experien ce into perm anen t \\rritin g is de centered. 7
I do not mean to suggest, hovv evcr, that transcription is an innocen t .
ethically su perior, o r nonauthoritative form o f ''' ritin g. I t distributes
authority differently. Authority is nei ther b ad nor good in itself, but i t
i s al ways tactical . I t enacts po\ver relations . The range of possible
readings differs according to \vhether a cultural account presents i tself
as a description , for exam ple, or as an exercise in philology. Field
notes, less fo cused or "cooked" than published ethnographies , reflect more diverse, often contested, contexts of authori ty. (This is perhaps
one o f the reasons why they have beco me interesting at
a
time like the
present , wh en s tyles of scientifi c descrip tion and anal ysis are bein g
intensely debated . ) Fieldno tcs contain exa mples of my three kinds o f \\'riting: inscription (notes, not ra\V b u t sl ightly cooked o r cho pped
prio r to cook ing), description (notes sauteed , ready for the later addi
tion of theoretical s auces), and transcription (reheated lefto vers ?). B u t the cooking metaphor, so tempting \vhen i t comes t o fieldnotes, is inexact , because there are no " ra\v " texts . Transcription , \Vhich as
a
kind o f copying appears to involve the least tran sformation, is in no
way a direct or innocent record . The pro cess may have the politi cal
effect of makin g canonical what is simply one tellin g of a myth or item
of cul tural lore. And transcription al\vays raises q uestions about tratls lation .
In a very acu te essay, Talal Asad ( 1 9 86) argues that the rather com
monly i nvoked model of ethn ography as translation hides the fact th a t
cultures are not like coherent languages o r texts but are comp osed of conflicting discourses . Moreover, the apparently neutral act of trans
lating is en meshed in global power inequalities . There are persistentl y
"strong" and "vleak '' languages , he observes , and the vast maj o rity of
ethnographies are \Vrittcn in s trong languages . Asad's analysis of how a strong language of ethnography ov·errides other languages adds
a
political dimension to our attention to fieldnotes .
texts produced in th e field are often poly glot. They include large quan tities of the l ocal vernacular plus diverse pidgins, sho rt
The
hands, and languages of translation, along with the language or lan71 have analyzed critically this mode of auth ority, which identifies ethnography \•.tith
a fra ught passage from o ral to literate. fro m event to text; see Cliffo rd 1 9 86b: 1 09- 1 9· Fo r a recent look behin d the scent."S of B oas's textual production wh ich shov.'S hi s ' Tsimshian collabo rator, Henry Ta te, "on a ti ghtro pe ben\·cen oral and li terary s tory
telling� ,. see Maud 1 9�9: 1 6 1 .
N o tes on
(Field)notes
59
u a es of the ethnographer. The final " \vritten-u p" ethno graphy g g sm o oth s o ver th e discu rsive mess-or richness-reflected in the field
notes . Is this inevitable? To a degree, yes. Who \�lould want to read
unimproved ficldnotes? But there are alternati ve uses and formats for
t h ese texts produced in the field . I ha ve called attention elsewhere (Cliffo rd 1 986a : 1 s - r 7) to a recent series of publications from the Un i ve rsity of Nebraska Press: the papers ofJames Walker
( 1 980, 1 982,
1983), who ��orked \vith the Lakota Sioux around the turn of the century. Thirty-eight Lakota "authorities" are listed at the back of the first v olume, Lakota Belief and Ritual. Each section of the book is presented as the work o f one or another of these authorities , inter spersed with Walker's
O\\ln
notes and reflections . In the normal transi
tion from fiel dnotes to final ethnography, utterances tend to lose their individuated quality. Quotations from indigenous sources are often not given proper-name attribution, and even when they are , they merely serve to confirm or exem plify the ethn ographer's general line . Two Crows is seldom heard den yin g things , as he more often does in contradictory, hetcroph onic fieldnotes . 8 Of cou rse , vernacular expres sions do appear in many ethnographies , according to protocols v.rith which we are all familiar; for exa mple, they often stand for problem atic native "concepts . " But \\'e seldom encounter in published work any cacophon}· or discursive contradiction of the sort found in actual cultural life and often reflected in fieldnotes . A dominant language has overridden , translated, and orches trated these complexities . A culinary relapse : I am remin ded of Roland Barthes's image of the
sauce or glaze, the nappe, \vhich in French cuisine smooths over and hid es the productive, transformative p ro cesses of the cooking . Barthes
ma kes this into an im age for ideolo gical, natu ralizing discou rse . I have
the impres sion , as
I try to find out about fi eldnotes, that I can some
ti m es see through the napp e of the finished ethnography-beneath the unifyin g glaze, chopped meat.
Scene Three Any systematic an alysis of fieldno tcs is hampered b�l the probl em of
acces s t o a b road sample of texts . Moreover, individuals' reflections on issue of \vhat to do with disa g reein g . or hetcrophonic, Lakota voices \V as s � eca fic ally confronted by Walker in writing up his fieldnotes for what w o ul d become � cla ssic �onograph. The Sun Dance ( 1 9 1 7). In a revealing exchange of letters, Clark ls sl e r (ot the American Museu m of N ational His to ry), urged Walker not to \Vrite too
;
8�he
•
U N P.A C KING " FI E L D N O TE S "
60
their own practice are li mited in ob,rious ways . CJ The fullest publish ed compendiu m of fieldnotes that I know is Gecrtz's
Religion ofjat'a,
work unusual to the extent that it is openly constructed from
a
te x t s
written during primary res earch . The book contains hundreds of indented passages identified as "transcriptions from the author's fiel d notes" ( 1 96o: posed. thick
1 5).
These ficldnotes are largely of ffi)'" third son : conl
descriptions.
Almost any example will give the flavor:
We s po ke about the difference bet\vccn village an d to \vn patterns of duwe �awe, an d she said the buw1-1h pattern \\'as different. She said that the people on the Po h rcdj o row (this is the el i te section o f town , inhabited almost entirely by prijajis) woul dn 't accept bu u,u h . They only accept gifts (called cadeau , to llo\1\.' in g Dutch usage), and then they note d o \vn the price of t h e gift, and when the giver h a s a duu1e gawe they retu nt so methin g of exactly the s a me va l u e 1 1 960: 67 ] .
The passage is indirect, su m marized speech about custom, \Vith paren thetical additions by the ethnographer, and this is a dominant mode throu ghout the book. The passage continues '"�"ith a directly quoted in terjection by the informant's brother, her o\vn com ments about h o \v the exchan ge system doesn 't vlork perfectly, and more parenthetical info rmation about her class standpoint . The fiel dnotes quoted in the book-often taking up as much as half the pa ge- include a mixture of discursive positions and distinct vie\vpoints while maintaining , ov er all , a homo geneous tone. Geertz provides an unusually specific appendix , \vhich clarifies just how these notes \vere constructed and, to a degree, cleaned up fo r publication . Writing in the late 1 9 sos, Geertz '"'·as far ah ead of the field in textual self-consciousness . He would say things rather differently now, an d it is unlikelv that he would assert \vithout hesitation, I
as
he
did then, that his book \Vas "nothing more th an a report , " that his extensive use of fieldnotes \Va s a wa)'" for the ethn ographer "to get
out
of the \vay of his da ta, to make himself translucen t so that the reader can sec for himself something of \\'hat the facts look like and so j udge unified an account of the sun dance. H e made a subversi ve sug gestion , not follov.,·ed bv Walker: "I often feel that the ideal t hing "\\' ould be to publish all the statements � f informants together \Vith an estimate and-su mma ry b y the in ves tig ator (Walker T 980: 29). 9Jean Jackson 's intervie�\'s pro vide a n1 plc evidence of the highly personal, and often a m bivalent, feelin gs of individual researchers to their 0"\\'11 precious and flaw ed prod uc tions in the field. , ideal or
·•
Notes
on
(Field)notcs
61
the eth nographer 's summaries and g eneraliza tions in terms of the h n o g ra p hcr's actual perceptions" ( 1 960: 7). But des p i te its sometimes t
;0 0 si mple notions of tran sparen cy, this is one of the few ethnogra ve us a real gli mpse of the m aking of cultu ral descriptions ph ies th at gi n i fieldnotcs. It embodies a kind of textu al empiricism , rather differen t from Geertz's l ater p o sition of textual in terpreta tionism . If
The
R eli
gion o_f]a va � o es not pro vi � e us with a direct view o � i ts aut hor's "actu al perceptions
. . . 1n the field, It docs offer an unusual , If partial, access to
his cons truction of eth no g raphic fa cts . Consider
the book's first qu oted fieldnote, ·"rhich end s the s hort
open in g chapter. It i s an ethnographic set piece sketching a typical
slametan , the " si m ple, forn1al , undramatic , aln1ost furtive little ritual '' that lies ''at the center of the "'"hole Javanese reli gious systcn1 " ( 1 960: 1
1). After setting out the "pattern '�
of events (\vhen the cere n1ony is
gi ven , \vho cooks, \�tho gets invited, what is chanted , ho\\l the food is distributed and receiv ed), Geertz then quickly elucidate s the ritual 's " meaning . " He does this in a familia r ethnographic \\lay, q uoting and explicatin g the statements of unnamed Ja vanese . Sometimes he creates
a collective persona, as in this definition of the ritual 's psychic goal : " The wished-for state is slamet, which the Javanese defines \\'ith the
ph rase '�a k ana apa apa '-' there isn 't anything, ' or, more aptly, ' noth ing is going to happen (to anyone) ' ,, ( 1 960: 1 4). Then, a t the end of a paragraph on Javanese beliefs about the o mnipresence of spirits a gainst which slametans provide protection-the b o o k 's fi rst inden ted fiel dno te m akes its a p p earance, introduced s i mply "As a Javanese put it . ,, At
sla rnetan all kinds of in vis ible beings cotne and sit with us and they al so eat the food . That is why th e food and not the prayer is the heart of th e sl arn etan . The spiri t eats the aroma of the food . It's like this b anana. I s m ell it but i t doesn 't di sappear. That is \vhy the foo d is left for us after the spiri t has alrcad y eaten it. 1 1 960: 1 5 )
Wit
a
� thi s luci d and en gaging s tatement , the chapter on sla nteran closes .
L tke all direct extracts from fi cldnotes the tex t " sho\v s" the ct h no g_rap h y's represen tational data. In his pape r at the 1 98 5 AA A sym po si u m , Micha el Silvers tein nicelv analyzed this rhetorical function and..ad ded that rather like ph oto g � aphs in the text, quo ted fieldnote s
:��
?
�� re " q u ali ty (fo r cxam pl �
realit -cl ose" ; th �y a � e a " ou are t � � quo tat1 on above: It s hke th rs banana
ofjava which focused on its ways
).
in _ A readtn g of Tile Rel1ga ot1 •
.
of establish in g au thority might sec
UNPACKING
"FIELDNOTES "
the opening chapter as an elaborate staging of its final quotation. Th e last �\rord on a "basic core ritual " ( 1 960: 1 4) is given to a Javan ese making an explicit cultural interpretation . This interpretation, pre sented as a transcribed fieldnote, associates the book's database \Vith a direct access to the Javanese vie\vpoint. At the same time, the citation accomplishes a subtle fusion of native and ethnographic subj ectivi tics in a common interp retive proj ect. The passage, for all its "spoken', immediacy, is not surrounded by quotation marks. Geertz explains in his appendix ( 1 960: 3 8 5-86) that such marks are reserved for more o r less literal, or close, translations of things actually said . The passage in question is thus not an exact rendering but in some degree a recon struction. It is an enunciation neither by a specific Javanese nor by Clifford Geertz ; it falls some\\l·here between direct and indirect dis course, accomplishing a rhetorical fusion of vie\vpoints. It is the enun ciation of an ethnographic persona speaking cultural truths. The passage, endowed with both the personal presence of speech and the empirical function of a fieldnote, is an enunciation of jat,a nese kno\vledge. It does what any "good" ethnographic interpretation does, making a diffi cult custom or belief concretely comprehensible. Geertz chose it in part, certainly, for this reason: to sho\v that his enl pirical data was a record not only Qfhis observations but also of indige nous interpretations. Later he Vlould explicitly a rgue that cultural facts are always already interpretations (Geertz 1 973 : 3-30). Mo reover� since culture is prefigured as a complex but coherent �"hole, Javanese interpretations ·"vill not systematically contradict those of the eth nographer of Java. Gcertz wiH account for all the interpretations he chooses to quote in The Religion ofjava. And as we have seen, Javanese direct statements will, in their constitution as fieldnotes, have already been selected, focused, contextualizcd as "cultural'' enunciations . The book regularly presents its informants as interpreters giving lucid explanations of their beliefs and acts, sometimes with a laud ab le cultural relativis m: "I don't kno\v ho\v it is in America, but here ( 1 960: 1 4) . Moreover, as in the first fieldnote quoted abo ve, the re , search process is continually made manifest: "I asked her, , "she said, ,, then "he said, " then a parenthesis on her personal background, and s o forth. One might object that Geertz's notes smooth over a great deal , that they do not contain much on the ethnographer's subjective states , that reported interpretations seldom conflict radically, that a cert ain "ethnographic" tone suffuses all the purportedly individual voices . But how many ethnographies (let alone those '\V rittcn in the late 1 950s , .
.
.
�'
Notes on
a
t
(Ficld)notes
t h e height of A merican social-scien tific po s i tivis m)
can satisfy such
bjcctions? What makes the fieldno tes selected for inclusion in The � eligion ofjava especially useful for my present purpose is the variety
o f � ay s i n \vhich they sho\v cultural interpretations being constructed as
fi el dn ot e s . Jav anese discou rses and those of the ethn ogra p her (de n s , contextual comments) are fused or, b e t ter sc ri p ti o ns, t ransl atio orch es trated to produce rich desc ripti on s . Geertz's fieldnotes may be " ' ' t hick er than mos t . But the kind of selec ting , na rrating , contextual ,
iz ing, an d t ra n slating visible in them is in some degree practiced by any ethn og r a pher \vho sits down to record and begin to make cu lt u ral se ns e o f a busy day's i m pressions .
Tra vels with a Typewriter Geertz's fieldnotes are, o f course, anything b u t "ra\\'. " He te l ls us in
his appendix ( 1 960 : 3 8 5 ) that they '\.\tere carefully typed up every da y or so. A short essay co uld be written about type\\' riter s in the field (and
T here are in triguing gl i m ps es in print. When Jean Briggs ( 1 9 70) is o s traci zed by her U t k u Eskimo h o sts , she finds solace in her ty p ew r i ter. Gccrtz r e p re s ents the ethical am big uities of fieldwork through a strug gle over a ty pewriter with a Ja v an e se informa n t ( 1 968 : 1 5 2- 5 5). C ol in Turnbull reveal s some\\'here in The Fore.st People (1961) tha t he has the m achine with him (forcin g us to reim agine his Mbuti v illages, adding to the calm su ffu sion of fore st so un ds the tap-tap of fi eldno tes in the m aking) . To illustrate my third s ce ne of \V riting I almost chose th e fa m ou s photo that appears on the soon, pe rh aps , one on word processors).
cover of this volume : Mead and Bateson in the Iatmul "mosquito
room , '' facing each other from behi nd separate type\vriters . Thi s m omen t of initial orde rin g , the making of a neat r ecord (\vheth �r in type or scri pt), m � st be a cru cial one in the fieldV'I"ork proces s . G ood data" must be ma t eri all y produced: they become a distanced , qu as i- meth odical corp u s , som ething to be accumulated , j ea l ously pre se rved , d uplica ted , sent to an academi c ad"; sor, cross-referenced , se l ec t� v e ly for got ten or manipulated later on . A p reci o us , p recari ous
�eeh n g of con trol over the social activities of inscription and transcrip �o n ca n res ult from c reating an o rderly text . This wri ting is far from Si m ply a m a tt er of mechanical record in g : the
" fact s" are selected , fo c u se d , in itia lly interpreted , cleaned up. Most wri ting is seden tary activity. U n like s torytellin g , it cannot be
U N P A C K I N G " f i EL D N O T ES "
done \\'bile walking along a path. The turn to the type\vritcr in·volvcs a physical change of state, a break from the multisens ory, multifo c a l perceptions and encounters of participant-observation. Writing of th is sort is not ''situated " like discours e or an oral story, which includes or marks in the performance-the time / space of the present mom en t and audience. Rather, the present moment is held at bay so as to creat e a recontextualized, portable account. In crucial respects this sort of writing is more than inscription, more than the recording of a percep tion or datum of "e·videncc. A systematic reordering goes on. Field notes are \Vritten in a form that will make sense elsewhere, later on . Some may even, like the notes included in The Religion of]a1-'a, pass directly into a published book. Turning to typewriter or noteb ook, one v.rritcs for occasions distant from the field, for oneself years later, for an imagined professional readership, for a teacher, for some co nl plex figure identified with the ultimate destination of the research . Facing the t)"pe\vriter each night means engaging these "others�' o r alter egos. No wonder the typewriter or the pen or the notebook can sometimes take on a fetishistic aura. As \\'e have repeatedly seen, fieldnotes arc enmeshed in writing and reading that extends before, after, and outside the experience of cn1pirical research. A fundamental question emerges. "The field, " seen a s a place of Vlritin g, leaks . Once one complicates and historicizes the "notes" in ''field /notes, " the boundaries of the first term, "field, " begin to blur. Hovl is the field spatially and temporally defined? Can one, properly speaking, record a field note \vhilc not physically " there '� : Would a remembered impression firs t inscribed at one's home univer sity count as a fieldnote ? Or, what about a "thick description" \vrittcn not at the site of research but while sojourning in the capital city of the host nation? Ficldnotes are by definition "\\o·ritten "in'' the field. B u t with increased coming and going, better global transport and mobility, "'�here does the field begin and end? Indeed, the very identity of "fieldnotes'' as a discrete corpus depends on a spatialization more an d more difficult to maintain, a historically specific set of distances, boundaries , and modes of travel. As the historical and political rela tions of different parts of the planet shift, as cultures interpenetrate, an d as ethnography turns back on its own culture, "the field'' becomes more and more evidently an ideal constru ct. It would be useful to trace a genealo gy of the tcrn1 "field, " as us ed to designate a site of professional activity. While this is beyond n1 y present scope, it is worth mentioning a fe""'.. points of departure (B er''
L
Notes on (Fiel d) notes
develops s o n1e of them in his analysis of the an d P ul l man tr f ren ch term terrain ). In vari ous Western discou rses " field, is associated wi th ag ricul ture, property, co m bat, and a " feminine�, place for plough
[ 1988]
i n g , pe n etration , exploration , and improvement. The no tion that one's em irical, practical activity u nfolds in s u ch a space has been sha red by
p
natu r a l ists , geologists , archaeologists, ethn ographers, missionaries,
and military officers . What com m onalities and differences link the profes sio nal knowlcdgcs p roduced throu gh these ' ' spatial practices'' (De C erteau What is exclu ded by the term "fiel d ? " The modern
1 984) ?
t rave ler, unlike the ethnog rapher, has no field , only a route; n o body of classified data, only a narration . The primary "descriptions'' o f travel
ers
are reco rded in j ournals, not fieldnotes . Ho\v h ave these generi c and
professional differences been constituted and n1aintained ? Ho\v has one
set of practices co me to be co ded " obj ective� '� the other '' subj ec
tive?" Such questions open up a larger domain of research concerned
with the history of Western mo des of travel, occupation, and d \\7cl ling .
Within th a t general history professional ethn o g raphy appears as a
particular, contested, spa tial practice . Arjun Appadurai ( 1 986: 3 3 7) has raised sim ilar spatial / his torical questions with regard to the articul ation of theo ry.
At leas t since the l atter part of the n i neteenth century, anthropological
theo ry has al \ovays been b ased on th e practice of going sorneu,here, pre
ferably some\1\'here geographical ly, n1 orall y, and sociall y dis tant fron1 the theoreti cal and cultural metro pol is of the an thropo logist . The sci ence of the other h as in escapably been tied to the j ourney else 'A-· here. But the question of "vh at kind o f el sewhere is tied in co mplicated ways t o the history of Euro pean ex pansio n , the vaga ries of colonial an d pos tcolonial pragm atics, the shifting tastes ofWcstcrn nu�n ofletters. I n turn , changes
in anthropological theo rizing, influenced in ill-understood ways by
these shiftin g loci of investigation, have them sel ves infl uenced fashions in anthropological travel. Places (i. e. , parti cular areas, loca tions , cul
tures, societies, regions , even civilizations) are the objects of anthropo
�ogical study as well as the cri tical lin ks bernreen d escri ption and an alysis
an
anth ropological theory.
The i ssues raised here are far-reaching and \viii req uire, as Appadurai
ha s said, considerab le develop m en t . 1 0 I can only sug ges t� in a p assing h l(l A pp a d urai or ganized a session on place in anthro pological theo ry an d practice a t e
�
e
f) ec elnber 1 9H6 meetings o f the American
papers presen ted there
appeared i n
Anth ropological -\ssociation . Many o f (February 1 9XX).
Cr4 ltural A.nthropology 3
..
U N PA C K I N G 1 4 F I E LDN OTES ' '
66
vlay, how they impinge on the topos of fieldnotcs . A ppadu rai 's cruc i al point is that descrip tion and analysis a re sys tematically linked
(and
distinguished) by specific histori cal spatia l izations . From this perspective, a corpus cal led field notes s erves the
of
reifying and naturalizing a " place " to be kept sepa rate
function from the
various operation s of theorizing, fictionalizing , and writing up th at conventionally occur elsewhere . The largely unexamined distinct io n bet\veen " fieldnotes" and other forms of ethnographic writing
(the
intimate journal ; or letters home; o r more openly analytic, interpre tive, or explanatory st yles of writing) serves to constitute and protect
a
bounded "obj ect" of s tudy, a col lection of textu alized cul tural facts that wil l serve as a fairly sta ble base for interpretation and theori zi ng even long a fter the field research has been accomplis hed. This spa tially defined corpus resists the historicity of
the
long-term \V riting
and
re\vriting processes involved in mak ing an ethnography. Once re cog nized, ho\vevcr, the inescapable temporality of writing and re\v riti n g unravels synchronic spa tializations. A n d i t blurs conven tional fron tiers separating , for example, " fieldnotes" from ",,,riting up. " The problematic corpus ,
the
disciplinary convention " fieldno tcs . . ,
tends to dissolve into more general proces ses of v,"ritin g-i nscrip tion, trans cri p tion, and description . And as one questions the specifi city of \v riting done in " the field , '' one is led to confront the ways a cultural s cience defines and maintains its objects of study. I have su ggested that ethnography-a practice fused, after the 1 9 20s ,
\Vith
aca demic field
Vlork-has tended to construct its obj ect as som ething to be
describfd.
There arc alterna tives . A dominant p aradigm of transcription (closer to the practi ce of Boas or Lowie, fo r example) constructs th e other philologicall y, as a collection of discou rse requiring transla tion an d exegesi s . 1 1 O r a n ethnography less concerned to separate i tself frotn "subj ective" t ravel \Vriting m ight adopt an openly inscriptive sta n c e, registering th e ci rcu mstan tial situation s o f a percei ving, interp reti n g subject , noting events and statements as part o f a passing soj o urn
of
research . (Indeed, many recent autobiographical, reflexive , ethn ogr a phies can be seen as signs of a rapprochement between ethnograp h ic and travel genres. ) I have a rgued that all three modes of writin g
a re
active in field\vork . But they have been hierarchically organized , un der a dominan t rhetoric of description , in "W·ays that are no\v in qu es tion . 11
The \l:lalkcr collections mentioned above arc recent exa mples (see also Evers and (written by an ant h ro p ologist and a linguist) \v hi ch
Molina 1 9R 7). Fcx an ethnography
combines description with extensi ve textual exegesis , see Bcns a and
Rivierre 1 9 8 2 .
Notes on (Field) notcs
Toward a Decenterin� ofDescrip tiotz The fieldnotes cited throu ghout
The
Religion ofJava
are typed-up,
co n stru ct ed, and Vlritten-over "descriptions . " Actually, they contain lit tl e d es cription in the strict sense. (Description is a specific, rather un com mon , fo rm of writing . ) 1 2 But their overall effect is descriptive: th ev se le ct and foreshorten perceptions and statements in \vays that c o�s ti tute an obj ective, un contested world of interpretations, indige no u s a n d scientific . In the process, interpretations cease to be prima rily debates, dialogues, transcri ptions , or ci rcumstantial in scriptions . I have argued that the const ruction of "thick" cultural descriptions involves a turnitJg au,ay from inscription and transcription to a different form of writing . The photo of Malino\\'ski stages rather precisely this mo m ent of turning avvay fro m encoun ter, speech, participation, and observ ation tow ard the \vriting table, the notebook s , the type\v riter. A crucial line-in the photo, the shadowy th reshold bet\veen the tent 's
inside and ou tside-must b e maintained, crossed and recrossed . Vari ous
rituals and conflicts surround this transition . And as Jean Ja cks on's
survey confirms, the tu rnin g toward solitary writing can
be the focus
of strongly ambivalent feelings : '' I t takes you away from the action '' or "It keeps you from going native . " The process o f field research i s potentially endles s . O ne can never have enough conversations, learn the lan guage well enough, g rasp all th e u hidden" and emergent domains of indigenous life. Yet one must
arrive at some baseline or adequate corpus of facts . The writing of descrip tive fieldnotes, " good" data oriented toward a coherent cul tur al object, provides a body of knowledge prefigured for theoretical dev el opm cQt. This textual (portable and permanent) corpus offers a con ventio nal "empirical " ground , or starting point, in a situation whe re, as Geertz intimates, "it's interpretations a ll the wav do wn"
-
( 1 973 : 29).
Bu t de scriptions are not merely in terpreta tions . They are writtetz r e � or ical con structions. A tieldnote featured by Geertz ( 1 973 : 7-9) in ht s In fl ue ntial css a y on " thick description" provides a particularly clear exa mp le : the story of Cohen the Je�·ish merchant in French colonial
�
Mo r oc co leading a raid a g ainst maurauding Berbers and claiming five h d re d of their sheep as an indemnity. An ironic colonial tale , replete �n �lth C on radian touches (the French cap tain says to Cohen: "If you g et kil le d , it's your problem! ") , the tale is p resented as a "not-untypica l" l2 See particularl y
the w ork of Hamon ( 1 9 8 1 )
and
Bcaujour ( 1 9R 1 ).
U N PA C K I N G " ft ELDNOT Es � ·
68
excerp t from Gecrtz 's field j ournal . Its co m pose d ,
narrated qua1ity i s
pat e nt . And i t is, one as su mes, derived fro m interlocution, narrati on.
and rewriting . The events take place i n 1 9 1 2, their source an unnam ed
" inform ant. " The fi e l d jou rnal excerpt- " q uoted raw, a note in a
bottle -bri n gs us to see the events . For example , after the confl i c t i s se t tled , a sharply etched scene : "
The two armed Berber groups then lin ed up on their h o rses at o p po site ends of the p lai n , �'ith th e s h eep herded bet\veen t hem , and Cohen , in his black go\\"n, pi llbo x hat, and flapping slippers, w e n t ou t alone am o ng th e sh ee p, pick ing out , on e by on e and at his O \Vn good speed , the b e st ones for his p ayment .
Here is description . B u t V�'"ho saV�.. this scene ? Not Cohen . The " i nfo r mant" ? His i n fo r mant ? Or, as I sus p ect , the ethnographer as he sat at
his '\\"riti n g table , p ulling together j ottings, memories , transcriptions of the account (or accounts ) he heard?
Geertz cites this " fieldnote"-obviously co m pl e x and l i tera ry-to
sho""'" that et hnogra p hi c data are al\v a y s constructi ons of o ther peo ple's
constru ctions ( " "'·inks upon winks upon \V inks" ) . His point is i mpor
tant and trenchan t. But Gecrtz's well-known formula for ethn o gra phy, " thick d escription , " is more ambiguous . It can either be read oxymoronic cri ti que
as
an
of the very notion of de s crip tion ("interpre ta
tio n s all the \\'ay do'\\"n") or be taken as a charter for an inter p reti ve
science (which des cribes, \Vith hermeneutic compl e xity, a cu ltural object) . By as sociating ethnographic con struction with descri p t i o n.
ho\vever thi ck or problematic, Gccrtz li mits a po ssibly far-reaching
critique. For description inevitabl y s uggests a spec u lar, repres en ta tio n al relation to cu l ture . I have argued that such a relation is al \v ays rhetorically (a lso his torically and politically) me diated . Ethnogr aph y cannot, i n practice, maintain a cons tant descriptive relati onsh ip to cultural phenomena. It can m a i n tain such a rel ati onship onl y to \vh at is
produced in ficldnotcs, and especiall y in the most "focused" pro d u ct s
form s of �"riting, inscriptive and transcr iptive , may regis ter qu ite di ffe re nt relat i o n ships to the people, discou rses , an d events studied in fi el d ... '\\"Ork . One form of ethn og raphic \Vritin g , description, has too o ft e n of V�"riting in the field , those of my third scene . O ther
been m ad e to stand for the en tire et h nograp h i c process . But \Vhcthe r it is
...riting do\\'n , '\\" nting over, or wri ting up, the
�
"'·ork of eth no g ra-
phy is intertcxtual, collab orative, and rheto rical. It is possi b le to be serious, tru thf1;1l, factual, thoro ugh, scrupulous , referential-\vith out claiming to be describing anythin g.
N otcs on (Field) no tes
�
�
A ppad ur ai , A un: 1 98 . Theory in An thropolog y: Center and Periphery. Com . pcJ rat itlt Studres In SoCiety and H.story 2 8 : 3 s6-6 I . Asad, Ta lal . 1 986. The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthro pology. I n Clifford and Marcu � I 9R6, 1 � 1 -64. , B arthcs , Roland. 1 970. S 1 Z. Pans : Le Scud. H
eauj our, Michel . 1 98 1 . Som e Paradoxes of Des c ription . Ya le Frnuh Studies 6 1 :27-5 9 ·
B ensa, Al ban, and jean Claude R ivierrc. 1 98 2. Les chemins de 1 1alliance: L 'organisatio n sociale et ses representa tions en j\louvelle- Caledonir. Paris : Societe d'Etu des
Li ngu istiq ues et Anthropolo giqucs de France. Bloo m, H a rold . 1 97 5 . ..4 ��tap of4�1isreading . Ne\\'" York: Oxford L1 niversity Press. Bo v.re n, Elen ore Smith ( L aura Bohannan ) . Anchor Books.
1 95 4.
Return
to
Laughter.
N ew York:
Brig gs, jean. 1 970 . 1\'e t1er in .4 n.\'er: Portra it o_fa n /!skim(, Fa11J il y. Cam bridge, Mas s . : Harvard Univers ity Press.
Cliffo rd� James . --
--
I 98 3
. On Ethnographic Authority. Representa tions 1 : 1
1 8-46.
. 1 986a. Introduction: Partial Truths. In Cl ifford and Marcus 1 9R6, 1 -26.
. 1 986b . On Ethnographic All e gory. In Clifford and J\,1arcus 1 986, 98- 1 2 1 .
Cli ffo rd, James , and George E. Ma rcus, eds. 1 9 86. 1-t'riting Culture: Th e Poetics and Politics oj· Eth nography. Berkeley : Univers ity of California Press.
Cohn, Bernard. 1 9R 1 . Anthropology and History in the 1 980s : To\vard a Rap prochement. ]ourt1al o.f ln terdisciplin cJry History 1 2 : 227- 5 2 .
Crapanzano� Vincen t . 1 977 . The Writing o f Ethn ography. Dialectical .4 nt1J rop ology 2:69- 7 3 ·
Davis, Natali e . 1 98 1 . A nth ropology and History in the 1 980s: The Possibilities of the Past . Journal of lnterdiscip liiUlf)' History 1 2 : 267-7 5 . D e Certeau, Michel . 1 9 84. 11a e Practice of Everyday L�fe. Berkeley: University of Cali forn ia Pres s . Defert, D aniel . 1 9 82 . La collecte du mon dc. In Collectio,•s passion , ed . Jacques Hainard and Roland Kachr, 1 7- 3 1 . Ncuchatel: Musee d 'Ethnographie N eu cha tel . ( Trans. in Dialectical Anthropolo�y 7 ( 1 982). ]
Les livres d' habits (Ess ai d 'eth no-iconographie) . In Histoires de l 'anthropologie X �·'I-XIX .s iecles, ed . Brit ta Rupp-Eisenrcich, 25-42. Paris : Kli ncksieck .
-
. 1 98 4 . Un genre ethnographiquc profa ne au X Vc siccle:
Du m ont , Jea n-Paul . 1 9 7 8 . The HeadmcJtJ and I. Austin: University of Texas Press. E v ans- Pr itch ard , E . E . 1 97 1 . Sources, v.'ith Particular Reference to the Southern Su da n. Cahie rs d 'Etudr.s .,'\ fi'icaine.'\ 1 1 : 1 29-7 1 .
Evers , L ar ry, and Felipe S . Molina. 1 98 7 . Yaqui Deer Songs: i\faso Bwikam . Tu cson : Su n Tracks and Univers i ty of Arizona Press. F bia n , J oh annes. 1 98 3 . Ti1ne and the Other: How A ntltrop ology A1akts Its Object . a Ne w Yo rk: Columb ia Univers itv Press .
Geertz, Cli fford. 1 96o. The Rdi�io � o..f)cJ va. Nev.' York : F ree Press. ----:- · • 968 . Thinkin g as a Moral A ct : E t hical f) i mens ions of Anthropological FJ el d\\'ork in the N e w Sta tes . 4 n tioch Review 2 7 : 1 3 9- 5 8 . ..
•
U N PA C K I N G " FI ELDN OTE S "
70
. 1 97 3 . The Interpretation oj" Cu ltures . New York : B asi c Books.
--
. 1988.
--
n'orks cu1d Lives :
ford U nivers i ty Press.
The .��4 tJ thropologist as Author. S tan fo rd , Calif. : S t a n-
Hamon, Philippe. 1 98 1 . In troduction a l 'analyse dl�
desm'ptif.
Paris : Hachctte.
Kristeva, J u l ia 1 969 . Semiolike: Rech erches pour une simanalyse . Pa r is: Le Seu i L .
L a rcom , Joan. 198 3 . Fo llow ing Deacon : The Problem of Ethnographic Rea n al y-
sis, 1926-198 1 . In S tocking 198 3 , 1 7 5-95 .
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1967
.
Harcourt , Brace & World . Maud, R al p h
.
4 Diary in the Strict Sense of th e Tenn . Ne\\' Yo r k:
•
1989. The Henry Tate- Franz Boas Collaboration on Tsin1sh ian
My th ology. A merican Ethnologist I 6: I 6J -68.
Pratt, Mary Louise . 1986. Fi eld Work in Com mon Places . In Clifford and Marcus 1 9 86, 2 7- 50.
Pullman, Bertr a nd . 1 98 8 . Pou r une h is to i re de Ia n o t io n de terrain . Gradh it�a 5 : 2 1 JO.
Ricoeur, Paul. 197 1 . The Model of the Text: Mean in gful A c tion Considered
Text. Socitll Resea rch 38: 5 29- 62.
l�osal do
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Renato. 1 9 86. From t h e Door of His Ten t: Th e Field\\yo rkcr and the
In qu isitor. In C lifford and Ma rcus 198 6, 77-97.
Sahlins., Marshall. 198 5 . Islands of History. Chica go : Un i ve rs ity o f Ch ica go Pr�s . S tock ing , George, ed . 198 3 .
History of An th r opol o g y
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1.
Observed: Essays on Ethncgrc:Jp hic Fieldwo rk .
Madison : University of Wisconsin Press .
Thomas, Ke i t h. 1963 . History and A nthropology. Past and Presettt 24: 3-24.
Thornton, R ober t . 1 983 . Narrative Ethnograph y in Africa, I S ; o- 1920 . Afc ur 1 8 : ) 02-20.
. 198 5 . '· Imagine Yo urs e lf Set Down . . . '' : Mach, Conrad, Frazer, Mal i
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no \v ski , and the Role of I mag ina t io n in Eth no gra p hy A nthropolo�y Toda)' .
7- 1 4.
1
(5) :
. 1 98 8 . The Rhetori c of Ethnographi c Holis m . Culturc:Jl .1 nt1J rop ology 3 : 2 8 5 -
--
30 3
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Turnbull, Colin. 1961 . The Fore.st
People.
N e\v York: Simon & Schuster.
Walker, Ja mes R. 1917. The Su n Dance at�d Other Cererncmie.s ojtM Oglala Division c.�f the Teton Dakota . Anthropological Papers 16; pt. 1 . New York: American Museum of Natural Hi s to ry. --. 1980. L:zkota Belief and R itU47I, ed . R a ymond J. DeMallie an d Elaine A . Jah ner Lincoln : Un iv ersi ty o f Nebraska P ress. .
--. 19R2. Lakota Society, cd. Ra y mond J. DeMallie. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press.
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REN A L E D ERMAN
Pretexts fo r Ethno g ra p h y : On Reading Fieldnotes
Anthropologists do many thin gs in the field and o u t, and while
\\rriting is one of those things , it is surely no t the dis tin guishing characteristic of our �·ork. Wri ting sets us apart neither fro m p e ople in
other disciplines and lines of work nor, always , from the peo ple we
seek to un ders tand . Nevertheles s , a focus on anthropol o gical forms of vr it in g can reveal something about the strengths and limits of anthro polo gical kno wledge.
\
Recent an a l y ses of the co n ven ti o ns of ethnographic \vriting (e. g . , Cli ffor d 1 9 8 3 ; Cliffo rd an d M a r cus 1 9 86; Ma rcus and Cushman 1 982;
Sp er ber
1 9 82) a rcjust part of a sustain ed e x p l o r ation of t h e l a r g el y ta cit
di mens ion s of our \Vork . D u rin g the past tvlenty years anth ropolo gis ts have pu blished detailed descriptions of the personal experience of fiel d �" ork. Whi le such accounts have not alwavs been self-c ri tical or a n alyti ca l they have b een re fl ex i v e in a pa rti cul �rly direct manner and h ave o cc asio nally pursued epis temological and ethical or political is ,
sues m erel y named in manu als on research technique.
I tha n k Micha el Merrill, Hilly Geertz, Ro g e r Sanj ek , and Julie Ta ylor for co mments a n ea rly version of this chapter, and also Jim Clifford, whose paper I read in 1 986 as I Was dr af ting this one and \vhose arguments helpe d to provoke mine. I d o not take S ac coun t of a num ber of important, recent works (e. g . , Cl i ffo r d 1 988; Geertz 1 9 88; t ra th em 1 98 7) . on
•
71
U N PA C K I N G
72
idera t ion s nf Ho\�levcr, a nal y se s of
The " I " is generally not present i.t1 more recent
ethno graphic writing, as Rabino"\v ( 1 9 86) notes.
� 'FIEL D N OT ES � · con s
unspoken conventions-such as ho\v an authoritative or persu asi ve vo i ce is created in
ethnography (Clifford 1 9 8 3 ; Geertz 1 98 8 ; Ros al do 1 986) -ma·y pose a more s ystematica lly critical chall eng e to anthro p o.. logical self-understanding than do d escr i p t ions of field experiences, a challenge akin to that r aised by earlier exposes of the relatio n s h ip
bet\vecn anthropology and colonialism or anthropo
l ogical knowl ed ge
.
1
by the feminist critique
This volume's consideration of fieldnotcs must
be seen in the
of
co n
text of such reflexivity and critique. While field\a.'ork (the typifica tion
of an thropolo gical p rac ti ce in the popular mind)
has
been a
focus
of
disciplinary attention, and \vhile e thnogr ap hy (anthropology's offi ci al
public medium) is no\v also an object of uns ettl i ng critical analysi s� fieldnotcs remain largely obscu red
from view, even among practi
tioners. They a re a "muted" medium, seeming to be merely a means an end,
or
to
an end to the dav. One Vlonders \\'hethcr fieldnotes con�
stitute a top i c worth Vlrit i ng about at all and cas ts abou t for a proper
arc they like historians' archives, or like the notes histo rians take when they are in the archives? In vievl of the obvious centrality o f
analogy :
ficldnotes to our \vork, professional silence on the matter ought at
least to raise susp i c ions
.
It is no wonder that fieldnotes are hard to think and write about:
they are a bizarre genre . Simultaneously part of the "doing" of fiel d work
an d
of the "\vriting" of e thnograph y, fieldnotcs are shaped by
t\\'0 mov·c ments : a turning away fro m academic discourse to conversations in unfamiliar settings , and a turning back again kind of communication addr e ssed primarily to oneself, they
.
join �s a
•
are unlike
both the face-to-face but ephemeral sociability of field\vork and the ind irec t but oddl)" enduring published exchanges at home. Wh at is
more, many (perhaps most) anthropologists have never actually re ad
any before creating their own; they have \veil-established mo d el s neither for hovv
fieldnotes arc \v ritten nor for how they are us ed .
De s pi te being cr eat ed for oneself, fieldnotes arc not meant simpl y as diarylikc record; however, neither are they a public archive.
a
W' h il e
they are supposed to be a rcconsultable record of field experien ces - an
see Rabinow 1 986 an d also ClitTord ·s ( 1 986) self-critical remarks. Textual concerns may also lead one in a direction antithetical to feminisn1 an d anticolonial is n1 I But
Pre texts for Ethnog raphy
fo r the crafty frames of memory and possibly a resource for an chor o the r researchers-their value as such is someti mes questioned : uThe dea is that the best Vlay to write a compelling ethnography is to lose
i
vour �
fieldno tes " ( Sh\\'edcr 1986) . They a re in fact ambiguous in fo rm, content, and intention t neither
here no r there (or, perh aps, both Here and There) . Smudged by gritty fing e r s and squashed bugs, any day's sheaf of notes might include a
series o f chain and compass readings, j otted fragmen ts of interru p ted con v ersation, a typed-up in tervie\\' transcript with marginal com ments, a dense descrip tion of some event or pers on (suitable for pu blicati on), an outline for a dissertation or j ournal article, a comment on a book or letter recently read , an expression of personal feelings. Produced and still s melling of There- musty, smok y, spicy evoca
tions of people and places-fieldnotes , like ethnography, are simply a form of writin g . Discomfort with their p ersonal side makes reading and �"riting about one 's own notes difficult (as this volume's papers reveal). But reading fieldnotes is discomfiting not just because of their revelations about one's personal anxieties and inadequacies or because o f their
ambiguity : fieldnotes are dangerot-ls. Observations are noted or written
down in order to aid memo ry, but reading fieldnotes can challe nge memory. It threatens to ret urn one to uncert ainty about what \Vas
what; it acts against the sense of the \Vhole that one carries around in one's head. Fieldno tes can contradict the single , anthropological voice
we are all encou raged to ado pt in our formal ethnographic wri ting at ho me by recording-hovlever indirectly-the voices of the people \VC lived with when doing fieldwork . In this '\vay, \\l?hile fieldnotes medi ate field work and ethnographic �"riting and are shaped by both, they also s ubv ert ethnography as surely as they are at odds with other as pects of the fieldwork experien ce.
I n this essay I frrst describe my own fieldnotes to illus trate more co n c re tely their particular form of fragmentation and their relations to th e w orl d s of field and academy ; the description is otTered '\Vith the �xpe ct atio n (or hope) that my notes are typical-if not in details, then f ln u nc tion or sense. I go on to discu s s so me of the �"ays in which I h e �v read and used fieldnotes . I conclude by consideri ng the impact of d i ffer en t a udiences and com munities on the ev aluation of fie1 dnotes .
By
end, it ought to be clear that the dangers of fieldnotes are P o stnve , even essential to critical cul tural analysis.
.t�e
73
U N P�� C K I N G " FI EL D N O T E s ' '
74
Fieldno tes : Orienta tions atJd Diso rientations
I agree \Vith James Clifford (in this volume} that distinctions n1 ust be made among kinds of "field work'' ; the term is un��eldy and n eed s to be unpacked. While Clifford's scriptive categories are th o ught provoking, I will need to unpack it differently because my focus is less on the contexts in which notes are written do\vn than on hovv· the y a r e read and used. I did field research in the Mendi Valley (Southern Highlands Prov ince, Papua New Guinea) during 1 977-79 and again for a fe�.. mon ths in 1 98 3 ; my research concerned sociopolitical aspects of the relation ship bet\veen production and exch ange and focused on understanding Highland pig festivals from the perspective of community history (see Lederman 1 986c). I also became interested in gender relations and in local economic and political innovation . Over the course of my field\vork in Mcndi, I produced th ree n1ain kinds of written fieldnotes: daily logs , typed files, and personal jour nals . 2 Each kind is both orienting and disorienting for the reader in its own \vay. For example, an extended "description" 3 in a logbook can be quite readable and provide apparendy easy access to " what things were like" ; it orients the reader by presenting an account that seems comprehensible in itself, or else by having traceable connections to other notes. At the same time it is disorienting insofar as it derives from heterogeneous , sometimes contradictory sources and documents a shifting perspective (more on this below). More fragmentary notes such as my census data are relatively meaningless in themselves and need to be cross-referenced to be usable. The·y are disorienting insofar as they are so obviously incomplete. One needs to kno\v more in order to interpret them, but they do not themselves point out a direction in \vhich a reader must travel to complete them, and in fact , man y directions are possible. At the same time, a census jormat does orient the reader to a single topical context. 21 do not discuss tapes and photos he r e ; their differen t mediums need se pa ra te con sideration . I do not mean to imply that they are not "ficldnotes" too; both arc q ui te
relevant to any consideration ofhow fi eldno t es preserve the " voices,. of an anth rop o lo gist's research subjects , a central theme of this essay. But it would be \Vrong to literali ze
and reify the no tion of uvoices'' by asserting tha t they are ne ce ss ari l y p reserved be tte r on tape than in v..rritt e n notes . A process of selection is a t play in t api n g j ust as mu c h a s in written note-taking, and that pro cess can be engineered (consciously or not) a
kind of univocality in any record . -' See ClitTord ,
t}:lis
volu nte. for a discussion of the in adequ acies of this
to cr ca ce
ter n1 .
Et hnograph y Pretexts fo r
75
hile the feelin g o f being oriented is useful to a reader of notes , it is 1 0 misl eading. The s pecial v alue of fieldnotes is their capaci ty to a 5 se tt l e, to caus e a r eposi tionin g of existing boundaries and centers. In under to realize this value , o n e must r eco gniz e the qualified c h aracte r W
0� the orien tations p rovided even by one's more holistic notes . 0
Amon g my own notes , my personal j ournals are the most orienting and a essib le because they contain lon g , s·ynthctic passages on par
cc
But perve rs el y the y are also the most p rivate of my ti cul ar top ics . \vhat I i m a gine I �vould never want to m ak e n otes . They are, in fact, they are a p ub l ic, sin ce t he y are as much a diary " in the s trict sense" as ,
reco rd of reflec tions on my· reading and my field observations and
in t ervie ws . Th e jou rnals are mos t orientin g p recisely because they vlere my met a-notes : in them I w ro t e about my fieldnotes and re co rde d my
sen se of how th ings fit together. 4 B u t despite the orien tcdness of particu lar passages, the j ou rnals also make q ui te clear-clearer than the ot h e r kinds of notes-that my sense of the whole \Vas hard l y
cohere nt: not only did it keep changing, b u t it had many sources . In the cas e of the journals, these sou rces include both the reading I did in the field and the conve r s ati o ns I had there with mv husband and other Westerners: my familiar Here brough t t e mporarily into relation \Vith �
another �vorld. They also include telling incidents or subtle accu mula tions of detail: the unfa miliar There translated and brought provision
all y under
c on cep t ua l
control th ro ugh many, many p ages of \\'ritin g .
Thu s , reactions to the books and artic les I was rea di n g-so m e ant hropo logy, so m e history, and some other th ings w e re usually ent ered i n the journal in the form of ideas for a dissertation / book or -
•There I also \Vrote about \vhat I considered, at the time, to be my not officially note V'I·orthy field experiences. One's topical and theoretical interests constitute an e xplici t b asis for ch oosing what to include in and exclude from one's notes. But what of th e tacit choices? I h ave found personal journals an important source of information n cem g m y "'' uns t ted assumptions about wh t co stitutes an "anthropological " � � � � � Al serv a n on ; th1s ts an tmportant reason for cons1denng them as fieldnotes here. h th ou g h they were meant as a place for reflectin g on m:.teri:.l already noted elsewhere,
��
�
�ey con tain accoun ts of con versations and observations reported novlhere else cau e, t the time at least, was not treating them "anthropologically. " Of cou rse, the �.nclus�tonaof even those items had its determinations , but they were of a different I
. and
I
ov.,·n
� rha ps more variable) sort than those shaping inclusions and exclusions in the t enoall y public notes. I nsofar as any kind of \\"nting implies a background of u rally structure d understandingtacit and explicit-that shapes '\\t h at vle perceive no t:. hie , it is probabl y a good idea to have various kinds of writin routin es in the g �
:� �� ;
U N PA CKING " fiELD N OTE S ' , for articles . More general notes on readings (before and after fiel d work) were kept separate from the field notes. Part of the u nderlying motive for recording reactions to the books in the journals as well
as
separately \Y as a fear I had, familiar to man y graduate students, that I would not have "enough data, from the fieldwork itself to produce an adequate eth nography. Whatever the motive for including them, the j ournal passages con cerning readings demonstrate how non-field (an d , in particular, tex tual) sources suggested lines of in-field questioning and defined in field topics . For example, \Vhen I \V as liv i ng in Mendi to"vn and had not yet decided on a ru ral communi()" in which to base my research , I beca me a\vare that the lea d ers in one o f the villages I was considering were in conflict con cern ing their group 's Pig Festival date. I wrote in my j ournal that such a conflict \v as just the thing I needed to be able to observe in o rder to understand the politics of pig kills, a "topic" in the anthropolo gical literature on the Highlands and a focal point of
n1 y
research proposal. In other \Vords, vvhcther or not it \vas as notable locally (and at that stage of the research, I was in no position to the conflict was o f some ethnographic interest. S imilarly, a s I
tell), \\' a s
preparing to leave my rural field com munity, I planned to organize rny report to the Southern Highlan ds Pro"mce's Res earch Com mittee around a criticism of assumptions con tained in the earlier report of
a
fo rmer provincial develo p ment planner about the relationship be t\veen leadership and land o\vnership. That report was the text to �vhich several j ou rna l passages comp aring the landholdings of ''big men" and ordinary men obliquely referred . 5 Another significant type ofj ournal entry summarized conversations \vith my husband about our shared interests and reflected his sense of historical methods and "'"ide reading in social and economic theory, his research experience in colonial A merican history, and his practical experience in labor edu cation . My reports of our discussions o ften con cerned w ays to translate familiar abstractions like "exploitation''
or
" reciprocity" into an alien i diom and social-hi storical context . 5Jntertextual references in the journals arc mostly explici t . more
so than in any oth er
kind of notes I to ok But m y emph asis on external and literary references in thi s description of my journals is not m eant to deny the exis tence of other sorts of re fer ences . As fie) d,�·ork progressed, m y own previous fieldnotes on local affairs, as "'d l (I S previousl y unnoted (nn-"ins cribed '') conversations, observations, and intcracti on s1 became an increasingly important contex t \Vithin which eac h ne\v happening be ca ntc J notable "event . " The g radual e m er g ence of this new context and the deforn1a tio n s it .
produced in my interpretive langu age are evi den t in the journal, jus t as ' other notes .
they are in m y
Pretexts for Ethno grap hy
77
these references to home\va rd-oriented readin g s and con r l Pa a le li ng \v ere journal p assages about \vhat I \vas learning through ·e r s a ti on s vc ons w ith my Mendi village hosts, ob servations of lo cal o n rsati structured research routin es . Many of these pas ven t s. an d more a gc s sp ecu lated about conne ctions between observations made in dif
: �
\Vhen there \"Vere dis crepancies or fer en t field contexts-especially confu sio ns- and planned strategies for following through . N ot a fe\\' o f th es e pass ag es \verc also co mposed as a coun terpoint o f Here and
There . F or instance. \Vhen it began to be clear to me that my husband an d I \\�·ere go ing to have no trouble talking \·Vi th Mendi \.V omen about gift exch ange and other things, my j ournal contains ung enerous mut
te rin g s c oncerning the research an d writings of other Highl ands eth no g rap hers . These thoughts \\' ere notable because they had a bearing o n anth ropological " conversations" con cerning gender in the High-
lands . A s my experience in Men di deepened, a n imp ortant theme connect
ing many disparate journal entries \Vas my discomfort \Vith the cate
gories and analytical structures discussed in the passages about my
readings and non-Men di conversations . It became less easy to find adequate translations for key ideas from each context. In effe ct, it \Vas
here th at I played \\'ith alternative ways of extending the categories of the various disciplines and literatures I vlorked vlith to conjure up the
Mendi concepts I imagined I ' d vvant to \V rite about once I returned
home. The j ournal documents just how po\vcrful my resistan ce \vas to giving up familiar, orienting categories , ho\v very clever I \.Vas at
coming up with fresh alternatives , and ho\v difficult it vvas simply to hear what my Mendi acq uaintances V��ere tellin g me (sec Asad 1 986) . De spite their overtly synthetic intent, the journals arc disorientin g . While particular passages record m y attem p ts to harmonize what I
heard around me in Mendi, to read the j ournals thro u gh is to hear a dis sonance of shifting keys, for my sense of the whole kept changing o� er th e cours e of .fieldvlork . What is more, any day's entry contains
dt v e rse, distracti ng items ; the strictly diary-style entries are particu r ly d is cor dant. During the first few years after they \Vere "\\l·ritten , the Journals \Vere sufficientl y distu rbing to induce me to a v o i d them al m o st tota lly.
�
I als o k ept a daily log, of which (unl ike the j ournals but like all the h t 0. e r n otes I took) I sent carbons home fo r safekeeping-perhaps a Sig n t ha t these were part of my "public" record. The log-books contain p o rt s o f conv ersations I had h ad or had listened to each day, descrip r�
ti on s
of whatever events in the area came to mv at tenti on .
,
and re-
U NPA C K I N G " F I E L D N OT ES "
sponses to m y questions (con cerning l o cal events or linguistic poin ts , fo r exa mple) . Whenever con versation s became interviews-as th e v
often did when talk turned to local history or to exchange practic es_:_ or whenever an event \v as so involved as to require an extende d
a c
count, the log refers read ers to my typed files . Like the census and intentie\v material described belo\v, these extended, log-style acc o u n ts were typed up and stored in ring binders , \vhereas en tries in both the personal journals and the daily logs \Vere hand\v ritten in bound books . As did the personal j ournals, daily log entri es derived from vari ous sources , although this is p erhaps less ob·vious than in the journals, since these sources \Vere m o re likely to be local (Mendi) onc..�-neit her literary nor familiar to most potential readers-an d , in any event , l o g entries contain little explicit information about the m . F o r exa mple, b e cause I worked on the transition zone betw een tvlo language a reas. some of my frequent informants spoke a language with \vhich I \Vas n ot familiar; as a result, s o me log notes \\'ere based o n di rect discus sions bet\veen me and my interl ocuto rs, others on interpreter-mediated discussions . The logs do not always identify· my interpreter (th ough that infor mation may be recorded in m y journal) , and V��hen they do , they rarely offer information about that person 's particular biases a n d active interventions . 6 Another reflection of their diverse sources is that some of the l o g notes \\'ere \Vritten while people \\'ere talking, and o thers \\"ere V'lritten up afterward '\\l"ith the help of abbreviated jottings taken dov-'n in the steno pads I al\va y s carried Vlith me. I did not distinguish betw een these t\VO note-taking m ethods in the log . 7 Rewritten notes usually contained more information than the original j ottings , but the pres s of events o r the limi ts of li ghting-not to say my inadequate recognition of their impo rtance-often led to uneven l evels of detail con cerni n g settings, my own and my assi s tants' m oods , and o u r respective rel a tions \vith our interlocutors . My person al j ournals contain much of this mis sing backgro und information, an indication th at I did not then consider it to be of strictly "anthropological" interest . In any case, even when I rC\\'rote my abbreviated , nearly ille gib le agree \•lith Obeyesekcrc ( 1 98 1 ), \v ho noted that much o f interest co uld be \\'r ittc n about th e "interpreter effect . . 7 �n ex tended discussion could probably be written abou t v-·hat goes on \-..· hen personal shorthand notes, written in the midst of a conversation or event, are t ra n scri bed for one 's permanent records. There are n o doubt m a n y ways o f doin g this \\'hen it is done at all. ('I
,
...
Pre tex ts for Ethnog raphy
79
o- ad notes in the logbooks, expanding them in a legible script st en p I ould still decipher them , I made no effort to compose and ,.,bi l e c c on so li d a te entries on a particular topic but rather transcribed them in th e s a me order as I had reco rded them . As a result, they contain
in t e r ru p tions and interjections : notes on so-and-so's explanation for th e fu ss he made at a public meeting; a list of other meetings planned; s ome Mendi te rm s ; more notes about the fu s s . All the while, place n am es and personal names are explained only if I did not kno\v the m at t he time of the note-taking . Ma ny a da y's lo g entries contain a series of unrelated items-a
se n tence repo rting that a friend had gone off to his \vife's father 's place to rep ay a gift, a paragraph des cribing an interaction overhea rd on a village path that morning, a lon ger report sum marizing several con versations bearing on a land dispute,
a
con tributed to a mortuary presta tion
list of na mes of people \vho had a
\\'eek or
so
before-all with
only sporadic mention of �"here related items might be fo und. Very often there is no clear indication of \vhy any particular item was deemed noteworthy at the time. N either could a naive rea der tell whether what is contained in an en try is complete in itself, as an item either of local concern or of anthropological interest . The gift repaid that day might have been controversial or might become so; the repayment might help to clarify an exchange rule previously (or soon to be) describe d. To so m e extent, the log's ch ronological organi zation is orienting, at l ea st when what one is looking for is the story of a dispu te or anything el se tha t is played out over time, yet this mode of rea din g is inefficient . As the author of the log, with a reason able m emory of �"here things are and an index for each logbook, I nevertheless find myself reading
over m any items of no di rect relevance to my immediate goals when ev er I consult it. The eye \V anders ; unsought facts m ake their ap p earan ce, and unanti cipated connec tions suggest them selves, leading
the eye further astray. With all these jux tapositions, the daily log is the m ost disorien ting of my notes . But ch ronology is key in ano ther \Vay. These disorientations �ol la g es of apparently un related item s , ambiguities as to wh)· certain � tcms \Vc re in cluded (or excluded) and whether (or on \Vhat basis) any It em i s complete-engender reading problems because log notes in
cre a si ngly presuppose , and subordinate themselves to , the context of Un d ersta ndin gs created through long-term so ciable exchanges with pe o pl e in one's field com munity. Over the course of field\vork one
So
U NPA CKI NG " f t EL D N O TES n
becomes party to conversations and situations defined not only by an interpreting observer's autonomous eye, or by external cr i te ri a o f interest, but also by deepening relationships with some of the peo p l e \Vith vlhom one is living. Happenings bec o m e notable (events) aga i n st a background of one s friends· and neighbors' not al'"'·ays con ver g e nt concerns . These in-field matters have their 0\\7n logics which, played ou t o v er time, may gradually shift the emphasis of one's notes away frorn preexisting, compa r a tive frames of referen ce and to\-vard div ers e L' col loquial " ones (Fernandez 198 5). Any item newly noted in a logb o ok may have many unnoted but signifi c ant antecedents that mad e its com ing-to-(note)-consciousness possibl e . J ust as one has limited co n t r ol over the intertextual shaping of one's attention , one has only partial control over these changing colloquial influences . Yet \Vhi le c olloquial contexts for the interpretation of events are the special vantage poi n ts that field'"'·ork opens up, they probably cannot be fully recorded. Cons equently reading notes requires re m ember ing (o r dis covering) the various local biases and partialities that formed an i m po r tant but largely ta ci t rationale for inclusions and exclusions. This inevitable incompleteness is "vhat makes reading one's O\Vn old n o tes , not to mention other people·s, so diffi cult. I n addition to the handwritten j our n als and logs, I typed up notes taken during long intervie\\'S and complex events (my O\vn observa tions and reports of what other observers and parti cipa n ts told me on the spot or afterward). Some intervie�·s arose spo n taneously out of informal conv er sa tions concerning events or topic s of par tic ula r con cern to me or to my hosts; these \\'ere the sa m e, except for level of detail as the sorts of i te ms found in the log. Apart from these extended log-style a c cou n ts, my" typed notes in clude the results of a com m uni t y \Vide hous ehold census, respons es to sys tematic intervie\vs concerning marriage and bridewealth, m ortuary prestations, land tenure his to ries, exchange partnership histories, daily "gift-debts" and "gift-cred its'' and other matters, and descri ptions and m e asurements of the co mnlu nity s gardens, garden produc tio n and pigs . The results of ea ch of these inves tigations \\,.ere typed up every day or so; back in the S ta te s, each was ftled in its own ring binder. My typed surveys are simultaneously the least readable and the most orienting and formal of my notes . While my person a l j ou rn als are orien tin g on the level of the part but not of the \vholc, the revers e is true of the surveys . They arc hard to "read" because they cont ain '
,
,
'
,
Pre texts for Ethn og r aphy
J
81
cco n textualized res ponses to questions : the rationale for the ques-
· ons
i s c ontained in the log and the j o u rnal, but the ques tion-and
nnswer
"situation " -the participants and their mutual relationships at
�e tim e of inter viewing-is not described in the typed notes them selve s . N e vertheless, any set of in tervic"v notes is composed of the
of individuals to ques tions on a relatively coherent topic; it es on r p s es o ri e n ts the reader to a single topic and involves fe\N· of the distra ctions th at a re rife in the journals and the logs . l) espite their apparent coherence, the survey notes are a p recipitate of th e dial ectical rel ationship between intra-anthropological discou rse
and the interactions of fi cld vlork For m any of my in tcrvie"'" projects I fi rs t defi ned topics and outlined ques tions \\7ith the anthro p ol og i cal literature o n other Highlanders in mind: that is, w i th the desire to address topics with \\lhich oth er Highlands researchers v.rcre al so con cerned . But I "vorked out t he boundaries of the topic, and the details and phrasing of the questi ons included in even the most general sur vey, with the help of my field assistants, my closest friend s in the .
community, and the people I interviewed in each case .
For example, after talking and corresponding \Vith a number of Highlands researchers befo re I a rrived in Mendi in 1 9 77, and having tal ked \Vi t h my husband d u ring the preceding few years abo ut his O\Vn his to rica l res earch on the account boo k s of eighteen th- an d nineteenth century Ameri can farmers I decided to create monthly gift exchange "acc ounts" for a s a mple o f the fem ale and male residents of m y field co mmunity. The idea \\7as to get a sense of the everyday gift exchanges of ordi nary people in Mend i to complement my in vesti gation of pub lic ''cere monial" exchange. As a follow-up to that '\¥ork, about a year into th e res earch \\l·e interviewed all member s of th e '' accounts'' s ample concer nin g the history o f each of their partnerships . Considering that an av era e member of the sa mple might ha ve a net \vork of about fo rty g ,
� xch ange partners, we needed a \va y to organize the inte rvic\v s mean
Ingfull y, so as to facilitate memory and to maintain interest. The firs t people I interviewed were t\vo of my closest fri ends in my fi e ld com munity : my villa ge s p onsor, Nare (a local leader), and Mel,
rny m ai n field assistant . Both of them vlcrc co mfo rtable enough with me a n d proprietary enough about the \N�ork I \Vas doing to tell me ho \\
7
t ey t ho u ght I ought to conduct the interview. In separate convers a to s t J � h e y each explained ho�.. they re member their own exchange 0 h g ati ons , and how those mn emonic devices might be employed in
�
�
this u nfamiliar context. My q uestions and what they each cho se
to
U N P A C K ING " fiEL D N OTES "
e x pl ain during their p a r tn e r by p ar t n er his t o rie s helped me to devel op e x pli c i t "pro mpts" in subsequent intervie\\'S. The intervie\\' for nta t rem ained flexible as I spoke \V it h the people I kne\�l best (people m ost likely to speak \V i th out "prompting" questions and most likely to o ffer unsolicited advice and commentary) and g r a d u all y became more for m al as I \V e n t along . Consequently, the r e su lts reflect both anthropo logical and local frames of referen ce. All the surveys my husband and I car ried out in Mendi o ri g inate d in this sort of interactive p ro ce s s and be a r its t r aces th o u gh it m ig h t be hard for anyone else to reconstruct, since the diachronic dim e nsi o ns of the su r v e y s arc obscured by the \vay I have filed them. -
-
-
Using Fieldnotes
written ethn o gr a p hy is not just a s u mm a r y or selection of",vhafs in the notes . ,, The poin t o f e t h no g r ap hy is not, after all, to describe one 's fieldnotes (as I am do ing here) or to reconstitu te t he anthropolo gist's day th ro u g h a ch ronological co lla tion of notes but rather to en ab l e one 's audien c e to understand s o meth in g of interest about a co rne r of the world they have not � x perience d directly t h c ms el v·e s ; to share that to w hi ch one's field experience has g i v e n one access. Some thin g of in terest to one's a u dien c e : what that is d epe n d s on the a u dience and hovl far one believe s they are \\'illing to travel. I used my no tes for self cl ari fic atio n \vhen I \\'as still in the field. While m y per s on al j ournal entries record reactions to field experiences� t hey are also the pro du ct s of a c ri t i cal reading of the log an d othe r notes. In the field I used jou rn a l v.rriting as a time for exploring connections bet\\reen the v ar i ou s things I was l e a r n in g about an d for rec i pro ca l translations of the ter ms of my anthropological and Me n di kno\vledge. This \\'ork invaria b ly generated questions; the effo rt to orchestrate my kno\vledge clarified some of what was missin g or dis co rd an t Such frequent s u m m ar i z ing and ret hinking \\tas a check o n the complacent sense of everyday compe te n ce and fa mi l i ari t y t h a t long-term field\vork can eng e n der (L e der man 1 9 86b). A ft er all, fr u s tr a ting or c on fus in g interactions with informants, assistants, or friends and shifts in the sense of hovv things fit together are often re p r es s e d in t h e interest of ca rrying on . In my case the journals became the place where these things ·\vere preserved for conscious reflection . My j ournals inform m e, for e xA
-
.
Pretexts for Ethnography
m , that I was not fully aware of the significance of ex change a pl e par t n er ships-a central component of my p resent understanding of Men d i social relations-until the last month of my first period of rese a r ch , even though I had been focusing on them all along . Th is realization enables me to read my log and survey notes more critically
and warns me of the need to compare my early reports of conversa
tions and incidents \Vith those \Vrittcn to\vard the end of the research . 8 When I first returned from the field in 1 979, I planned to index my
note s b ut soon changed my mind . [ \vas dis satisfied with the categories 1 w as im posing on them and w anted to give myself more time to under stand \vha t I had lea rned in Mendi . For the same reason , I held
otT tabulatin g and summarizing the informa tion contained in the sur veys. In short, I was not at all sure how to read and use my O\\'n notes .
Viewed a s a whole-as shelves of ring binders and j ournals, and as s tacks of paper on the floor near my desk-the notes V� ere inaccessible . ..
Journal writing, my in-field vehicle for exploring the other notes, no lon ger seemed appropriate; its themati c pa cing had been too closely linked to the daily rhythm of fieldvvo rk . Another m ethod of using the notes had begun to assert itself, how ever, even befo re I left the field . It "'"as occasioned by the need to address audiences and contexts quite different from those that had shaped my journal \V riting an d other fieldnote-taking. Several months before leaving Mendi [ prepared an abstract and outline for a paper I hoped to read at the Ameri can Anthropological Association meeting
later that year, and during my last week in Mendi in 1 979 I presented a research repon to the Southern Highlands Province Research Com
mittee. These writing projects focused on issues defined for me by
preexisting "conv e rs ations" among people who were not members of
my field co mmunity. The research report addressed questions raised by p ro vincial and national development plann ers about the rural polit
ic al economy in Mendi; the meeting paper concern ed the participation o f Hi ghlands women in gift ex change, a topic of general as well as . 8!w o p oints ou g ht to b e spelled ou t , th ou g h they may be obvious. First . a s I have the notes themselves de vel o p during field,-.,· ork: one's u s e of terms shifts in su b � le w ays as one's understa ding of lo ca l concepts and r el� t ion s changes . Second, n d g an unn y rereading of th e notes-in the midst of fi eld\\'o rk or subseq uently-on e's CUr rent sen se of the whole i m poses certain consistencies on this heterogeneous so u rce
lll d.i ca ted
As
,
O tt �berg ,
wh o le
Wolf, and others in th is volume point ou t , one's changing sense of the in the c h an gi n g interests and pers p ectives expressed in the •vritings during an anthropological career. Clearly, t his p roce s s may not be evident a t
1s r e gis tered
Prod�ccd
any
.
stngle
mo m ent
in any particular v-·riting.
UNPACKING
" fi E L D N OTE S ' ,
regional interes t in ethnography. While the terms of those conv e rsa
tions shaped my participation in them , I joined in \\,.ith the hop e introducing the Mcndi case might shift the terms a bit . Other events intervened to influen ce the \vays
th at
I used m y notes aft er 1
had retu rned fro m Mendi to Ne\v York. Like the t\vo Vlriting proje ct s already mentioned, those events involved addres sing specific au di en ces and entering conve rsations that al ready had his tories. Readin g the newsletter of the Associa tion for Social Anthropology in O c ean ia in the fall of 1 979, I found descriptions of two symposia to be h eld at the association meeting the next spring . Since both sy mposia \\'ere still
open to the inclu sion of new papers, and I felt that
I had observations
relevant to the topics, I set to \\'ork \vriting them up. 9
Not only did partici pation in these symposia help me to use n1y
notes by orientin g me to a specific audien ce and topic G ust like the cases ci ted above) , but it al so suggested a particular place of en try in to
the notes . For both papers-one in vol ving the political us es of lan
1 9 80) and the other concerning the relationsh ip between " sorcery" and social chan ge ( Lederman 1 98 1 ) - I planned to guage (Lederman
address the symposiu m topics by analyzing events I had s tudied in
Mendi : a politi cal meeting, a curing ceremony. As the \Vork pro
gressed, of course,
I had to go far beyond si mple des cription of the
events themselves , tracing out connections to other events and collat ing what many informants h ad told me about rel ated matters . In retro spect, it seems that "events" were good modes of en try into
fieldnotcs . 1 0 Events happen at particul ar ti mes , and can therefo re be found easily in chronologically organ ized notes , \vhether one has
a
good index or not. They also h ave an app arent '',vholeness"-a su per fici al sense of boun dedness-that facili tates initial description . E v ent
based
topics helped to orient me in my notes because they
'' made
sense" in three ways : each occurrence had been a focus of local int e re st
and discussion in my field co m munit y, but it also related to some do main of anthropological discourse, and from a practi cal standpo i nt it directed me first to mv most readable notes . I
Starting with events that had nity helped to preserve 9£ach
a
A SAO s ymposi um is
of concern in my field co m mu local logic, but the integrating rationale t"i1 r
m e an
been
t to be the last stage in a collective process that als c
(ideally) involves info rmal face-to-face discussion of ideas, follo\vcd by an exchange
and discussion of \Vorking papers .
tOThe question of \Vhat cons titu tes an �'event" in this or that cul ture (or cult ur al context) is com p lex; for a suggesti on \vith regard to M cn di , see Lederman 1 986a.
Pretext s for Ethn ography
ss
t hes e in quiries was at least as much comparative as it was local . As I co n fr o nt ed ethnographic questions I had not explicitly thought about in th e fi eld, notes about events guided my search through the less i m m e d iately readable surveys, bits of conversation and observation s rec o rded in the logbooks, and so on. Unlike a project of indexing, of ta bu la ting suPlC}' results, or of explicatin g concep ts I kne·\v to be im p o rta nt when I \\'as in the midst of research , rereading my record of eve n ts m aximized the possibility of discovering relations and connec tio ns within the notes of \\rhich I had not p revio usly been aware. This ex p erience, "vhich effectively turned the notes into an archive for me by suggesting questions different from those around \vhich the notes were c ollected, finally enabled me to do the indexing and tabulating wi thout vlhich a longer writing project vlould not have been possible. I \vill discuss one last use of fieldnotcs here: their incorpo ration into ethnogr aphic \\'riting. Ethnography issues from an ''argu ment" ( "dia lo gue" may sometim es be too genteel a term) bet\veen comparative and local voices . While the comparative voice is usually the more influential (given the demands and capacities of ethnography's reader ship), the textual echo of local voices may be privileged in certain s ty le s of ethnographic \\'riting (as in life histories and transcripts of native texts). If my experience is at all typical , this argument has its clearest written expression in ficldnotes. It is there that the compara tive attitude is humbled in the effort to understand an immediate but unfamiliar and confusing reality. That is not by any means to say that it disappears . But at least some balance is achieved, in the very course of field\vork, between transcriptions, para phrasings and reports of \\'hat some others are saying and doing .. and the ethno grapher's composed description and commentary. 1 1 On e ca n bar this argument from one 's formal ethnographic \\'riting. O r on e can choose to introduce it into the text by allowing fieldnotes to break through at critical points to advance the argument or even to 11
Tran sc riptions and paraphrases obvio usl y i nvol v e interpretation, even when infor �ants and ethnographer speak the same l an g uage; and changing contexts of interpreta tion an d of reflexivity may foreground as '"interpretation" that \v hich Vv·as previously un recog nized as such. It may be th at fi eld n otes provide more ready access than
ethno gra phies do to the interpretive proc�ss, regardless of the ethnogra pher's commit lltent to "exp erimental" ethnographic V.'riting. D es cripti on in the notes is more clearly the pr oduct of a concrete social process invol vin g p articular peopl e. E ven if one \\'ark s co mp os� som e of o ne 's n otes � the orm of fi nished ( publishable) des c ripti o ns , the _ _ _ ance 1 s hkel y to cvtnce a spec 1 ftc votce and perspective, the rough edg es of uncertaa n ty, and q u es t ions and answers \\rl th na med others.
�0
�
�
86
U N PACKING " f i E L D N OTE S "
cons titute i t (as, for example, Cliffo rd Gccrtz has done; sec Cliffor d . this volume). All owing fieldnotes t o break through docs n o t n eces sarily require direct quotation from the notes, but it docs demand th at some of the fragmentation ofknowledge-some of the contradicti o n s and polyvocality characteristic of fieldnotes-bc represented for read ers to consider, alongside the v.,"riter's interpretive efforts of orchestra tion. In other words , ethnographic \Vriting is all about directing readers toward novel modes of seeing the world (an effect achieved by nl ain taining authorial control, one way or ano ther) . Our claim to a right to \vrite this way is based on bouts of successfully disorienting field resea rch (and, pres u mably, on discovering a \vay of taking do\vn and using equally disorientin g notes) . Bringing the field ho me is onl y fair� to disorient readers is sometimes an effective Vlay to encourage a rethinking of recei ved categories and a reorientation of perspective. I have tried several times to in corporate disorientations into r n y ethno graphic writing. After co mposing a brief, univocal commun ity history of a Mendi pig kill in a book mostl y devoted to explorin g the social structural background of such events (Lederman 1 986c), I wrote a paper (Lederman 1 986a) that discusses so me of the local sou rces of his torical knowledge in Mcndi, by way of arguing that while the Mendi have a dynamic past and present, they do not necess arily use "histo rical '' argumen ts (as Europeans and Americans often do) t o assert their agency in the world. That paper catalogued disparate observations I had made in the field concerning Mendi representations of the past, les s to orchestrate an interpretation than to create a sense of possibilities . The point of presenting the material in a relatively di sjointed fashion was to encourage readers to rethink the meaning of " his tory" as applied to contexts like that of Mendi. 1 2 Similarly, in several places in my ethnography, U'hat G({rs Engetuler ( 1 986c: 4o-4 1 , 47-5 2), I p resent descriptions of what are essentiall y ficldnotes. They paraphrase or quote statements b y my Mendi infor mants that either contradict one another or else do not fi t exis t in g ethnographic paradigms-or "gatekccping concepts, " in Arjun A ppa durai's ( 1 986) useful phrase. In this case the issue was the form and significance of male collectivities ("cl ans'') in Mendi. Using as n1y 1 2 A s Clifford ( 1 9 86) has pointed out, Richard Price's study of the S aramak a. J--'i rst Time ( 1 9 8 3 ), uses a similar device : the_,Orm of his book m ak<..� a substantive point a bo ut
local Saramaka historical representa tions. Writing a coh eren t history o f the Saramaka woul d have misrep resen ted the insi stent and self-conscious pol yvocality of local his tory, so Price chose t o demcPntrate th is co n1 plexity instead. His " texts'' beca me his te x t .
Pretexts fo r Ethnography
c paper by Roy Wagner ( 1 974), v.,"hich ques tions whether there rn od l a re " g r oups" in the New Guinea Highlands , I tried to clear a space for
:uch a question about the Mendi by dis cussing my " sources" rather
di rec tl y. In a later paper dealing vlith a related issue ( Lederm an 1 989), p reserv in g the contradictory pers pectives of Men di men and women as [ found them in my notes rather than giving them a unifying "glaze"
en ab led m e to raise questions about the relevance and implications of a gen eral model of the soci al structure . I t �·ould be i n terestin g to dis cover how freq uently fieldnotes are
e m ploy ed in this way in published ethnographies . Their use to b ring the disorientations of field\\'ork home to readers-the better to shift the terms of existi n g anthropological convers ations-may be more c o mmon than it seems, alth ough it may be mi ssed if """e look only for
deli berate and di rect q uotation. Because of the dangers and ambigu ities offieldnotes, and becau se of their p rivatization (which encourages each o f us to interpret our confusions pri marily in personal terms, as signs of inade q uacy, rather than in terms of cultural disj unctures), the notes the mselves may be dis gui sed and detectable only indirectly as a force acting against received co mparative categories .
Comm un ities and Audiences To historians who read anthropology, "being there" is anthrop ol ogy's distinct advantage insofar as it gives us a sense of the whole and the conviction that Vle ha ve understood a place and a people. But that easy sense of the �"hole is treacherous ; from this poin t of vie\v, histo rians arc lucky that their convictions clearly are conscious and hard won acts of imagination . The ease \\'ith which """e can claim to know the world s we invent-the fact that \Ve can claim to " remember" them rath er than having to admit always that �·e h ave fashioned them-is
da ngerous . We might do better to be suspicious of that ready fa mili arity, that implied factuality, even as we strive to convince readers, in a ut ho rita tive and not so authoritative ways, of the plausibility of the \Vo rl ds we v.,"rite about .
Ant hr opologi cal research practices do not automatically check the h u m an ten dency to familiarize strange circumstances, but they offer
the p ossi bility of doing so, and we can choose to emph asize it. To that end, it i s interesting that fieldnotes can ha"·e the reverse effect "at
ho
rn e" fro m the one Clifford (th i s volume) describes for them in the fiel d . In th e field, livin g \Vith an alien reality, every new d ay o ffers us .
LTNPACKI"G ''FtELDNOTEs'�
88
opportunities for a confrontation between our existing Vlays of under
...
standing the \Vorld and those of our neighbors. In the midst of our research, many of us \Vork to create contexts for long-term (post
...
research) dialogue \\'ith the people \\'e live \Vith and
study-\\'hcthcr
simply by building close personal friendships or by making practical or political commitments of one sort or another-even vv·hen we do not write about these efforts. Whether personal or political,
such
involvement can help rein in the tendency to interpret \vhat \Ve see and hear solely from our own perspective. But both the anthropologist and his or her informants continue to have their O\\ln interests as well·
'
not all the projects of either are necessarily of moment to the other. For
many, though certainly not all, anthropologists this separation
(or.
more strongly, this active disengagement) is palpable in the everyday
something down \vhile others continue to argue; turning one's back to type movement of writing in the field: looking away to "",.rite
something up while around the hearth the rest are stilllaughing.1J To understand the role of ficldnotcs in
the field,
one has first to
ackno\vledge that being in the field involves placing oneself deliber ately in a context of commitment dou bly different from the norn1al one. As V.'e all knovl, this act need not involve any traveling at all: it sometimes involves simply a shifting of attention and of sociable connection \\.'"ithin one·s own habitual milieus. From this perspective "the field" is not so much a place as it is a particular relation betV\7CCn oneself and others, involving a difficult combination of commitment and disengagement, relationship and separation. T hat one is writing about what one is simultaneously living is part of the separation and
said: the question is, for who'n do V\'e ""'"rite? 14 The point is that writing in the field is more often than not a very tangible sign of our double lives, of sociable connections in t\\tO
difficulty. But there is more to be
13Performing dual. apparently contradictory roles in the tield as friend or engaged participant on the one hand and as note-taker, photographer, recorder, or transcriber
on the other-as close and as dis tanced-is a central experience for many anthropolo gists. The disquiet engendered by that experience helps to motivate professional
reflexivity. .Engagement ought not to be thought of as a means to the end ofbette r note taking, nor ought note-taking to be thought of either as a justification for being there or _ as something that gets in its \vay. As anthropological activities, these are t\vo moments ot the same process. Note-taking is not anthropological (field)note-taking \�·ithout long term participation in everyday life, and that participation is a less anthropological
experience without the discipline of systentatic comparison between alternative� im pinging realities \vhich keeping notes encourages. 14The separation is quite clear \�tw·hcn
V..'C
\�tw'ritc ethnographies for anthropologists and
for the anthropologically trained. It is less so \\'hen those
large part of our readership.
,._.e
\\'rite about will fonn
a
Pretexts for Ethnography directions. To the extent that our two \\'orIds are distinct, our loyalties are di vided and we may feel c ompromised But that is the price we pay for a unique voice. ,
.
Once we arc home however, the scales tilt over\\'helmingly in one direction. T he commitments we have made to people in our field ,
community are subj ected to intense if contradictory compe tition \Vit h
commi t ments to our professional community, which for most of us
exerts a more persi stent influence. Our conversations, formal and informal-in semin ars conferences, and hall\\'ays, and indirectly on ,
the pages ofjournals and books-are constrained by common anthro
p ological idioms. As Appadurai (1986: 3 57) has emphasized "gate ,
keeping concepts ( s uch as Hhonor and shame'' in the Mediterranean) can virtua lly create ethnographic pl a ces and suffuse our \vays of talking about them; insofar as they fran1e our th e ori zing about the places where vve do our research and ''define the . . . dominant ''
''
questions of interest in the region,
''
"
th e se concepts n ecess arily affect
ho\v we usc our fieldnote s. How \\'e read our notes is also affected b·y
habits of thought that transcend approa ch es to p articul ar ethnograph ic
places" : Western presuppositions co t1ce rning gender for ex amp le (see Wolf in this v olume) These sorts of in fluen ce s may even be felt in the midst of field work-while prese nting a seminar report during a research break per h a ps C ert a inl y many of us can tell stories about our traumatic "
,
.
,
,
.
rcsocialization to academi c discourse en r oute home from th e field.
Along th e \vay, local realities-Alcome's dream, the d eath of Miri
bip-frequcntly become exemplifications chosen to illustrate a point whose ration ale lies outside Alcome's \Vorld, in a context in \Vhi ch
Alcome does not laugh \\7ith others arou nd the hearth just a tc\v paces
from on e s ty pe vlriter. Once \Ve are home._ our wri tten styles enc oura g e narrative closure and a final analys is : in conventional ethnography, decisions need to be made about \Vh at s what. Now, fieldnotes can be party to that. As a '
'
corpus, the notes may give us the sense that, for the moment anyho\\1·, they contain the basis for all that can be \Vritten about a place: the
fundamental intangibility and infinite comple xity of social experience r�duced to a "thing" '�rhich, e\ten '\\"hen very bulky, ha s fini te dimen �lons. Given this fini teness v.re can talk about hovl effi cien tl y or llleffi ci entl y fieldnotes arc u se d in this or that case in the produ ctio n of et h n ography (see Plath, this volume). A n d their concreteness restores our con fi den ce in the possibilit y of gras ping social reality But simultaneously, fieldnotes can defamiliarize our kno � led g e of ,
"
•
�'
.
·
90
UNPACKING "FIELDf'OTEs''
the field, and perhaps that is one reason �·hy they disturb us so n1uch
(see Jackson, this volume), v.,rhy some of us avoid using our notes
v.,rhen \\re write, and \\,.hy stories about lost or destroyed notes (such as that of Leach's Political Systems of Highlat�d Burma) take on mythic
dimensions. Having notes-all neatly· typed or bound, all stored safe and sound-is one thing: it validates our anthropological communica
tions. But
using notes is quite another: that activity shows fieldnotes to
be not a fixed repository of data from the field but a reinterpretable and contradictory patchwork of perspectives. We rightly fear that immer
sion in them might cause us to doubt our conviction about \vhat's
what and (even worse!) lose our putative advantage over the histo
rians.
In this \vay, fieldnotes can have an effect at home quite opposite
from their effect in the field . W hile one may indeed have to turn away from direct engagement \\'ith people in one's field community in order
to "inscribe" notes and type them up, at home one has to disengage from ethnographic discourse in order to consult them. While this
movement is not exactly like returning to the field, still it does put one
back in touch-mediated and imperfect though it may be-\\7ith
another set of categories, commitments, and values.
Moreover, it preserves the tension between what we talk about \Vith
our interlocutors in the field and our dialogue \Vith our fello\\'S at
home. But after all, that tension is vlhat animates an anthropological
sensibility. Anthropology can no longer claim to produce descriptions of cultural traditions through an imaginative separation of Self and
Other. A recognition that connections between the two cannot be
factored out-that they are constitutive both of our scholarly practice
and of the phenomena we study-has helped motivate the recent
scrutiny of ethnographic vvriting. These connections are no less evi
dent in fieldnotes than anywhere else. Thus it makes sense to extend
that scrutiny to fieldnotcs, as the corpus of still largely unexamined
texts in which much of the significant vlork of decontextualizing and
recontextualizing cultural categories and idioms takes place. This
es
say urges that equal attention be paid to the scenes of reading notes
as
to those of their writing, the better to appreciate those texts' critical potentialities.
REFERENCES
Appadurai, Arjun. �986. Theory of Anthropology: Center and Periphery. Com parative
Studies itl Society atld His tor)' 28:3 56-61.
Pretexts for Ethnography
91
1986. The Co ncept of Cul tural Translation in British Social Anthro�sad, Talal. y. In Clifford and Marcus 1986, I41-64. polog lifford, James. 1983. On Ethnographic A uth orit y. Rtpresmtations 1: 118-46.
C
1986. Introduction: Partial Truths. In Clifford and Marcus 1986, 1-26. Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus, eds. 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetic.s and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press .
--·
--·
1988. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Litertlture,
and ...-\rt. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Fernandez, Ja mes . 1985. Exploded Worlds: Text as a Me taphor for Ethnography (a nd Vice Versa). Dialectical Anthropology Io: Is- 26. Geert z, Clifford. 1988. '.Yorks and Live.s: Tht Anthropologist tU Author. Sta n ford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Lederman, Rena. 1980. Who Speaks Here? For mality and the Politics of Gender in Mendi, Highland Papua Nev.r Guinea. Journal of tht Polynesian Society 89: 479-98. . 198 I. Sorcery and Social Cha nge in Mendi. Social Analysis 8:15-27.
-
Mendi :
. 1986a. Changing T imes in
Notes Towards Writing Highlands
History. Ethnohistory 33 (1): 1-30.
--. 1986b. The Return of Redwoman: Fieldwork in Highland New Guinea. In IVomen in the Field, 2d ed., ed. Peggy Golde. Berkeley: University of California
Press. --
. 1986c. What Gifts Engender: SocU21 Relations cJnd Politics in �\ftndi, Highland
Papua �'Vew Guinea. New York: Cambridge University Press. --. 1989. Contested Order: Gender and Society in the Southern New Guinea Highlands. American Eth,.,.,logist t6:230-47·
Marcus, George E., and Dick Cush m an . 1983. Ethnographies as Text. Anmutl Review of Anthropology 11:25-69.
Obeyesekere, Gananath. I98 1. Medusa'.s Hair: An Es$tly on Ptrsonal Symbols �nd Religious Experience. C hic ago: U nive rsity of C hi cago Press.
Price, Richard . 1983. First- Timt: The Historil42l Vision of an Afro-Ameril42n People. Baltimore,
Rabinow,
Md.: johns Hopkins
Paul.
I 986.
University Press.
Representations Are Social Facts: Modern ity and Post
Modernity in Anthropology. In Cli fford and Marcus 1986, 234-61.
Rosaldo,
Renato . 1986. From the Door of His Tent: T he Fieldworker and the
Inquisitor. In Clifford and Marcus 1986, 77-97. Shweder, Richard. 1986. Storytelling amo ng the Anthropologists. 1\J"rw York Times Book Review, Sep te mber 21, pp. 1, 38-39. S pe rber, Dan. I 982. Le savoir des anthropologues. Paris: Hakluyt. Strathem, Marilyn. 1987. Out of Context: the Persuasive Fictions of Eth nogra phy. Current Anthropology 28:2)1-81. W ner ag . Roy. 1974. Are There Social Groups in the Nev.' Guinea Highlands? In Frontiers of Anthropology, ed. Murray Leaf, 95- I 22. Ne w York: Van Nostrand.
ROGER
SANJEK
·A Vocabulary for Fieldnotes
Anthropologists often characterize themselves as mavericks and individualists, holding an "I did it my \v ay
"
attitude about fieldwork,
as Jean Jackson confirmed in several of her intervie\vs. Despite this iconoclastic "Indiana jones syndrome," as she calls it, there is consider able order and pattern in the way s anthropologists operate, more than many may wish to believe. Patterns in fieldnote practice have changed from the 188os to the 1980s, as I show in "The Secret Life of Field notes" (in Part III). But first we ne ed to establish a vocabulary for the discussi on of fieldnotes. "What are fieldnotes?" George Bond asks (this v ol um e) He answers that they are first, certainly, texts; they are documents \Vith ''the .
security and concreteness that writing lends to observation ... immu table records of some past occurence." Yet fieldnotes are '\Vritten, audience of one. So they are also "aides-tnetnoire that stimulate the re-creation, the renevval of things past," Bond explains. F ieldnotes can make difficult reading for a n·yone other than their author, as Robert J. Smith discovered in his first reading of Ella Lury u suall y for ,
an
Embree's fie ldnotes about the Japanese village of Suye Mura. Field notes arc meant to be read by the e th n ogr apher and to produce mean ing through interaction with the ethnographer's hcadnotes.
92
Vocabulary for Ficldnotes
93
Headtlotes and Fieldnotes ''
Headnotes ,
"
the felicitous term coined by Simon O tte nber g iden ,
hing immediately understandable to ethnogra p he rs We tifies somet come back from the field \\lith fieldnotes and h eadn ote s The field s stay the same, \Vrittcn dovvn on paper, but the hcadnotcs con no te tinue to evolve and change as th e y did d u ring the t i me in the field. Ethnography, Ottenberg ex plai ns is a p rodu ct of the two sets of notes. The h ead notes are more im portan t . O nly after the anthropolo .
.
,
gist is dead are the fieldnotes primary. Other anthropologists ha v e \Vritten about headnotcs \Vithout using
the term (D a·vis 1984: 304-5; E11cn 1984b: 279; Holy 1984: 33; Van Maanen 1988: 1 18). On her third visit to Manus in 1965, Margaret Mead vlas struck by the importance ofher headnotes: "Because of my long ac qu aintan ce with this v ill a g e I can percei ve and record aspects of this peo p le s life that no one else can . It is my individual c on sciou s ness \\7hich p ro vides the g rou n d on wh ich the lives of these p eople are figures (1977: 283). Niara Sudarkasa (Gloria Marshall), while \V orking in another field site, wrote a rich account of her 1961-62 fi eldwor k in the Yoru ba community of A�ve. Her fieldnotes, diaries, and letter s remained at home; only her dissertation and a few photo graphs were �;th her. "What follov.ts , therefore, might best be described as remembrances of, and reflections upon, my e fforts as an anthropologist in the mak ing. These are the en c ounters the evaluations th e episodes that are chiseled in mem ory (M arshal l 1970: 167). She relied on her head notes. Martin M. C. Yang's 1945 clas s ic ..4 Chinese l/illage, was '''ritten from headnotes alone. In C hin a du ri n g 1931 he drafted a pap er about his home com m u nity '\vhich \Vas later published. Still later, '
.
.
.
"
,
,
"
,
early in 1943 Ralph Linton invited me to work on a project entitled "The Study of Modern Chinese Rural Civilization" in the department of anthropology at Columbia University.... The project, which lasted about sixteen months, resulted in my writing A Chinese t�'illage . In .
.
.
my im a gin ati on I almost completely relived my boyhood and adoles cent years. I did not merely recall facts or occurrences, but mentally and e m otionally retraced my role in the life of the community. All came back to me-my parents, brothers� sisters; the people of adjacent neigh borhoods, of the village� the market to\vn, the market-tO\\'n school;
UNPACKING "FIELDNOTES',
94
their personalities, lives, and work; their relations with each other. [Yang 1972:
71-72]
Srinivas �"rote The Retnembered �/illage also primarily from head notes
.
And like Yang
but m ore extensively, he ha d done ear lier
,
"" ritin g about Ram pura (sec S rin i v as 1987 for se ve ral of these papers). "
A. C. Mayer raised the question about S riniv as s book: '
Has not that me mory been '4mediated" by diary-�rriting and note ta king ... by the later processin g " of the field notes, and for som e of the data, by the \•.rriting up in articles? . The question is, then: ho w far was Srinivas able to forget his field notes and other writings? . He may have had his memory ushaped" by these other dat� in much the same way, though to a much lesser extent, as might the person working openly \•lith no tes in an or thod ox \Vay? Perhaps. then, Srinivas has not so much used a new method of pro vidin g ethnography . . as varied the mix-of memory and written aids-in the usual one? [Mayer 1978: "
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
43-44] Mayer is c orrect of course. Srinivas's headnotes of 1970, his memories ,
at t he time he wrote the book, \Vere different from the headnotes
formulated in Ram p ura at th e time of his fieldwork in 1948 and 1952.
All the ep isodes of writing and thinking about Ra m pura between these points in time affected the headnotes and led to The Remembered Jl'i/ lage. Several of the authors in this volume comment on the headnotes
fieldnotcs relationship. J ean Jackson mentions that for many anthro pol ogists , chan ging top ical interests and theoretical orientations "make re reading fieldnotes an eye opening experience." M a rgery Wolf \\'rites -
that feminism brough t ne\v qu estions to the fieldnotes she and Arthur Wolf had produc ed in Tai\va n. Nancy L.utkehaus's post-fieldwork headn otcs provoked a reading of Camilla Wed gwood s Manam Island '
fieldnotes different from that prec ed ing Lutkehaus's residence there. Rena Lederman considers ex te nsively the tensions between fieldnotcs and the evolving "sense ofthe whole," both du rin g and after fieldwork. Georg e Bond concludes, "When """e review
our
notes we fill in gaps,
\Ve give order to the i m mutable text."
The Field and Writing Fieldnotes are produced in the field, but '\\there is the fi eld ? Clifford asks: "Can one, properly speaking, record a fi el d note \Vhilc not
Vocabulary for Fieldnotes
95
h cal l y 'there'? Would a remembered impression first inscribed at p ysi one's home university count as a fi eldnote? " And what of the in creasing numbe r of anth ro p ol ogists who do fieldwork "at home , "
often in their ho me comm u nities ? Lederman offers an ans\ver. Being "in th e field," she says, "need not
involve any tr av eling at all: it sometimes simply involves a sh i fti n g of attention and of sociable connection \·Vithin one's own habitual mi lieus." Fieldnotes are "of' the field, if not al w ays written ''in" the field . But what, ph ysi cal ly, are th ey? Anthropologists bring back a variety of objects from fieldvlork, including much paper. Jackson found no
defining con sen sus on what to include; notes on read ing s , ph oto copie d archival mate rial , a ceramic dish, even the eth nogra p her her- or h imsel f ("I am a fieldnote , " stated one storer of headnotes)-all \Vere con
sid ered fieldnotes by som e . Anth ro p ol o gists also b r ing back photo
graphs, films, videotapes, audio r eco rdings, and recovered doc uments
of many sorts, in cludin g informant letters or diaries. Here our focus is on what the anthropologist turites in th e field: '''What does th e et hnog rap he r do?'-he write s" (Geertz 1973: 19). We shall identi fy scratch notes, fieldnotes proper, fieldnote records , texts,
journals, diaries, letters , reports, and papers written in the field (c( Davis 1984: 297-304; Ellen 1984b).1 We \vill briefly discuss also taped interviews and in forman t statements, which are often transcribed out side the field but then be come written documents used in writing
ethnography, like field-produced fieldno tes .
Scratch Notes For many
anthr opolog ists ,
a first step from field perception to paper
is han dwrit te n "scratch notes," to use another of Ottenber g 's \\'ell
chosen phrases (cf. Ellen 1984b: 279-80, 282). Scratch n otes are some times produced in the view of informan ts, V-�"hile observin g or talkin g with the m , and sometimes out of si ght . William Partridge, in Colombia, felt uncomfortab le carrying a note book early in his 1972-73 resea r ch, but with tim e he \v as able to re cor d 1 Ottenberg's and C li ffo rd 's essays guide d my analysis of the fieldwork literature. I ad r� Ellen's edi ted volume (1984a) after writing the frrst draft of "A Vocabulary for Fteldnotes." All of our views of fieldwork \\'nting are gr at ifyi n g! y coincidental, even if �e. o r other authors in this volume, do not always use the same terms for conceptualiz lllg dt. fferent types of field writings. I \Vish to ackno\vledge the published priority of Ellen's typology (1984b) and ofOavis (1984).
UNPACKING "FIELDNOTES't
96
notes in front of his informants (Kimball and l>artridge 1979: 52� I7r').
full�r notes as people were talking, and at other times she reconstructed her observations later, from "abbreviated jottings" on the pads. In outdoor Lederman al'i'lays carried a steno pad; sometimes she \\�rote
observation among the Skolt Lapps in 1958-59, Pertti Pelto \\'as often
prevented by cold weather from producing more than bare scratch
notes (1970: 265-66). Ed\vard Norbeck, in Japan in 1950-51, choosing to "devote as little time as possible to writing V'lhile in the presence of informants," produced his scratch notes afterward; during long inter
vievls he often excused himself ''to go to the toilet, \vhere I hastilv ; jotted down in Gregg shorthand key Vlords to jog my memory later � (1970: 25 s).
Morris Freilich, in 1956 research among Moha�"ks in Brooklyn and
Canada, soon learned that open note-taking \Vould not be
tolerated:
"[I] had to keep a small notebook in my hip pocket and periodically go to the men's room in the bar or the outhouse at Caughna\\'aga and write notes to myself. As frequently as possible, I \vould go to
a
coffee
shop to write dovln longer statements" (1970b: 193. See also Gupta 1979: I 13; Keiser 1970: 230). William Sturtevant (1959) even published a
short statement about his technique of \vriting scratch notes
un
observed during long ceremonial_events: he used a two-inch pencil
on
two- by three-inch slips of paper held together by a paperclip in his pants or jacket pocket. Some ofHortense Povldermaker's fieldnotcs in Mississippi Vt,.ere written with similar surreptitiousness (1966: 175, 178).
Scratch-note production is what James Clifford calls
inscn'ption: "A
participant-observer jots down a mnemonic \Vord or phrase to fix an observation or to recall what someone has just said."
It
might also
record fuller observations or responses to questions the ethnographer brings. Either way, as Clifford observes, "the flo\\' of action and discourse has been interrupted, turned to \\'riting." For some of .Jack son's anthropological informants, inscription disrupts participant observation: "Fieldnotes get in the Vt"ay. They interfere �·ith \\7hat fieldwork is all about-the doing.'' Inscribing scratch notes, usually on a small pad contemporaneous �;.th or soon after the events observed or words heard, is anthropolog
ical field\vork (Boissevain 1970: 74-75, 79; Freilich 1970b: 200-20I; Gonzalez 1970: 171; Gulick 1970: 133-34; Kobben r967: 42; Marshall 1970: 190; Powdermaker 1966 : 94-95; Whitten 1970: 3 51; Ycngo yan 1970: 416). But so is the ''typing up" Ottenberg speaks of, the
produc
tion of an enhanced and expanded set of fieldnotes (see Beals 1970: so;
\'ocabulary for Fieldnotes
97
eattie 1965: 41; LeClair 196o: 34-35; Marshall 1970: B maker 1966: 95; Wolff 1960: 241).
Scratch
190;
Powder
Notes to Fieldnotes
This second stage of ficldnote production is epitomized in the photo graph on the cover of the paperback edition of this book, Margaret
Mead and Gregory Bateson at \\'Ork in "the mosquito room" in the latmul village ofTambunam in 193R. They sit opposite each other at a
small desk, each behind a type\vriter. Bateson is looking to his left at a small notebook, his hand\vritten scratch notes. Mead, her notebook to
her right, next to Bateson's, is either reading her typc\vritten page or thinkin g. They are busy in description, as Clifford characterizes it: "the
making of a more or less coherent representation of an observed cultural reality ... for later writing and interpretation aimed at the production of a finished account."
The scratch-notcs-to-descripti"""e-fieldn otcs \Vriting act must be
timely, before the scratch notes get "cold" (Mead
1977: 202).
But more
than preserving their warmth is involved. As Ottenberg notes, other
ingredients are added in the process. Aneeta Minocha, whose circum
stances of field research in a \\'omen's hospital in Delhi made taking scratch notes relatively easy, is precise about her additions in writing
second-stage descriptive fieldnotes. During my talks I scribbled key ""'ords on a small notebook. Later 1
\\'rote extensive reports of my conversations, and also recorded my explanations and interpretations as they occurred to me at that time. I also recorded the contexts in which particular conversations took place, as
\Veil as the general physical and emotional condition of the infor
mants, their appearance and behavior, and the gestures they used. L,.sually it took me three to four hours to put on paper five to six hours
of field ""'ork. It \Vas because of such immediate recording of my field experiences that I \Vas able to recreate the atmosphere in which each conversation or event took place. Even no\v, as I write, I can vividly feel the presence of the participants. [ 1979: 2 I 3] Jo hn Gulick, in a Lebanese village in 1951-52, used brief scratch notes in conjunction \\'ith his memorv of conversations to produce his fieldnotes. �
Often ... I would have to ""'ait until the evening to do this, and tired though I usually \vas at the end of the dav, I found that it was essential to Write the day' � notes before going to �leep. If I failed to do this and
UNPACKII'G "FIELDNOTEs'�
p ostponed
note \Vriting till the next day I found that the not es were ,
useless, excep t insofar as they might co n tain s imple factual information.
The subtleties of cues an d responses-some of which one can catch in not es if one writes them soon enough- becam e lost in sleep, and what 1 \'\'TOte the next day \vas essentially a second-hand account, an
over
simplified vers ion in \vhich the events and my reactions to them ,
truly
blurred. r 1970:
'"'ere
134]
Other anthropologists may handwr ite fuller, longe r las ting scratch -
,
notes (Po\\rdermaker rg66: from one time to Wagley
95), though these also vary in completeness anothe r (Beals 1970: 55; Honig mann 1970: 44;
Fevv· are as candid about the compro mises they make
1977: 18).
as Pelto: My
p lan
was to type up the day s field '
n ot es
each evening, or, at the
latest, the next morning. Ho\\'ever, I \\'as frequently at other act ivi ty for as long as two weeks at
returning
a
a
roundu p
time, which meant that
to home base I \Vo uld have to schedule lengthy typing
sions to catch up on back notes. While typing up my notes
or on
ses
I often recalled sig n i fi can t events that I had not jotted down in my notebook. I \Vrote up these additional notes in the same mann e r as the information from the notebook, although the nature of the materials often made it cle ar which data had been writt�n on the spot and \\·hich were later recollections. [ 1 970: 266] ,
A backlog of scratch notes to be ty ped plag ues more an thr o p o l o
gists than Pelto-probably most anthropologists (see Briggs 1970: 33;
LeC lair 19(io; Po\vdermaker 1966: 170). When possi ble some eth nographers take sho rt periods a\vay from their fieldwork location to c atch up on processing their scratc h note s (N orbe ck 1970: 25; Shah 1979: 32). M ead comments on the pleasure that bein g ca ught up brings if only m o menta rily : "For the first time in two months I am almost up to date in writing up notes \Vhich is the n earest I can ever come to a ffl uence It's imp ossible to get on the credit side of the matter, but just to be free of the knowledge that t h er e arc pages and pages of fa i n d y s cratched rapidl y cooling notes vla iti ng for me is almost afflu ence (1977: 228-30). The disp osition of s cr at ch notes is p ro bably the \V astebaske t in n1ost cases. Ottenberg kept his for some years, then threw them out. Nor beck apparently kept his longer. He \Vrote in 1970 about his fie)d,,,ork in Japan: "My hand\vrittcn field notes consisted of t\vo very slim notebooks more or l ess filled with cryptic sy m bo ls My type\vrittcn ,
,
,
.
,
"
.
Vocabulary for Fieldnotcs
99
notes consisted of a file of s by 8 inches eq ual to perhaps 2000 manu
script pages . The slim notebooks contained ... the basis for typin g lengthy ac counts" (1970: 256).
Ficldnotes Proper When Solon Kimball arrived in West Ireland in 1933, it had been •'drilled" into him that success "would be evident in fat piles of field notes" (1972: 183). The "lengthy accounts" broug ht back from the
field- N orbeck 's 2,ooo cards , for exampl e- are the heart of our con cern \V i th fieldnotes. It is this body of description, acqu ired and record ed in ch r onolo g ical sequence, that I shall te r m "fiel dnotes proper, '' though other s have different names for it: ''journal,, " n otebooks , '' "daily l og s." Scratch notes precede fieldnotes, and other forms of writing in the field are arranged arou nd them. At the core of the more spec ialized fieldnote records and j o urnal o fr m Margery and Arthur Wolfs 1958-60 research in Tai wan are, on
five- by eight- i nch cards, "some 6oo closely typed pages of what we came to call G data, or g ene ral data. These notes include detailed descri p ti ons of funeral ceremon ies , intensiv e inter v iews with unhappy young women, leng th y explanations by village philosophers, and rambling gossip sessions among groups or pairs of women and men."
Simon Ottenberg's 1952-53 Afikpo fieldnotes are similar-"a thi cket
of ethnog rap hy." Rena Lederman's Ne\v Gu inea
"
dail y logs " were
hand\vritten, from her steno-pad notes, in chronologically kept bound
books: "Very often there is no clear indication of w hy any particular item \vas deemed noteworthy a t the time. Nei th er could a n a ive reader tell whether vlhat is cont ained in an entry is co mplete in itself ."
Nancy Lutkeh a us and Robert Smith, co min g across other eth nogra
phers' fieldnotcs, have found in th e m the properties and problems that
Wolf, Otten b er g , and Lederman ascribe to their own. Fol l ow ing Mali nowsk i 's advice to pro d uce "a chaotic account in which ever yth ing is Written do�n as it is ob served or told," Wedgvlood kep t her 1933-34
fi eldnotes in "th i rty-fou r neatly bound notebooks" that record "obser �ati ons of daily a ctivities, gen ealo gi cal data, frag men ts of tex ts with
tnterlineal translations, narrative des criptions of events and pr ocess es, and dra�"ings diagr am ming such thi ngs as house construction and the
'Various pa rts of an outri gger canoe" (Lutkeh aus, this volume). Among the Suyc M ura field mate rials vlere "two typesc ript jo urnals . John E br m ee ' s contained 1,276 pa ges ; Ella's 1 ,oos." Ella Embree, reports
UNPACKING "fiELDNOTES'�
100
Smith, "wrote dovln what she had seen and heard, and often
\vhat she
thought about it, at the end of every day. The journal ... begins
on
December 20, 1935, and ends on November 3, 1936. The difficultv \Vas that increasing familiarity led the journal's author to use short� hand references to individuals and places."
Allen and Orna Johnson (this volume) suggest solutions to the
problems of unevenness and haphazard organization that may charac terize comprehensive fieldnotes. They also point out, provocatively, that the "interpretive " and "scientific" camps of contemporary
an
thropology have had little to say about the imp li cat i ons of their posi
that anthropologists produce: "We suspect that both humanistic and scientific anthropologists keep their journals in roughly comparable \vays .... Open discussion of our fieldnotes ...
tions for the ficldnotes
might reveal more similarities betvleen varieties of anthropologists,
illuminating the bases that link us as a unified profession.,, Whether in handvlritten bound books or typed on five-by-eight cards or full-sized typing paper ("I .. use the best rag-content paper'� .
(Mead 1977:
r
1 ]), a substantial corpus of sequentially produced, \\'ide
ranging fieldnotes is at the heart of the ethnographic enterprise (Barn ett 1970: 4-.5, 28; B ois seva i n 1970: 79, 81; Ellen 1984-b: 283; Fenton 1972: 109; Gulick 1970: 133, 134; Ho nigmann 1970: 40; Wolcott 19R1: 256; Wolff 196o: 241). Extracts from such fieldnotcs have been
pub
lished in several books discussing fieldvlork (see Boissevain 1970: 75; Conklin 1960: 1 19-25; Freilich 1970b: 197-98; Kimball and Partridge 1979; Kobben 1967: 37-38, 43-47, 50, .53-54; Mitchell 1978 : IOI-3, 107-8, 16o, 172-7 6, 18.5, 232-33;
Whiting 1970: 293
,
299-311).
Wagley
1977: 90-93; Whiting
and
Fieldnote Records Some of Jean Jackson's anthropological informants contrasted "fieldnotes," in the sense of "a running lo g "\Vritten at the end of each day," with "data." For these ethnographers, fieldnotes are "a record of one's reactions, a source of background i nformation a preliminary stab at analysis." Data, for them, are sociological and demographic ,
materials, or ganiz a ble on co m puter cards or disks. The Johnsons point to the differences in design and use bet\vccn f1eldnotes and more specialized field materials-both the "question naires and surveys" of quantitatively oriented anthropologists and
the
"folktales, life histories, or taxonomies" of the humanistically in-
Vocabulary for Ficldnotcs
IOI
clined. Robert Maxwell (1970: 480), reviewing his 1964 research in samoa, distinguished "thesis-relevant information" ("tests and sys tematic observations that provided me with enough data for a disserta tion'') from "soft data" (his fieldnotes, recorded on 1, 500 five-by-eight cards, concerning "the sociological characteristics of the village, the
dreams of the inhabitants, ...general information on the \vay people in Laovele pattern their lives,'' and a mass of details on the lives oftv.ro individuals).
[n an organizational sense, these contrasts arc between fieldnotes
proper and fieldnote records-information organized in sets separate from the sequential fieldV�"ork notes that anthropologists produce (El len 1984b:
286). While Jackson and the Johnsons identify a strain
of
contemporary anthropological thinking in ��hich fieldnote records, or '•data," are a more important goal than '""ide-ranging fieldnotes� and Ma."1twell provides an example, the point here is larger than "scientific'' models of ficld"vork.2 Records, as the Johnsons note, are produced by
all brands of anthropologists; this \�ras the case for many decades
before anthropology became a "behavioral science" in the 1950s.
In addition to the t\vo sets of fieldnotcs totaling more than two
thousand pages from the Embrees' field\vork in Japan, Smith \Vas pre sented with their household census records, along \vith documents, letters, reports, photographs, and an informant"s diary·. The records from Margery and Arthur Wolfs 1958-60 Taiv..'ain research were even
of timed observations of children, hundreds of pages of formal intenie\vs of children and parents, and hundreds of questionnaires administered in schools, all in addition to their "G data" fieldnotes. more extensive: thousands of pages
Other extra-fieldnote records that anthropologists have mentioned in accounts of field�..ork include household data cards, genealogies, and folders for information on "certain persons ... and subjects such as kinship, godparenthood, church organization" (Boissevain 1970:
75, 77-78, So); a list of personal names and their meanings, informant comments on a set of photographs, questionnaires, life histories, and a day-by-d ay record on political developments "in vlhich every conver
sation, rumor and event was kept" (Codere 1970: 157-61); forms for data on knov..'ledge of plants and animals and on material culture, and a 2
0ttenberg v-·ritcs in a personal communication, "There is a danger for some pcr ns of overemphasizing records at the expense of fleldnotes. We had an ethno � rnustcology student who in his research did great '•.rork ,,,.ith the video camera but it so Preoccupied him that he had few \Vritten notes."
U N PAC K I N G " f iELD NOTES , ,
102
Wo rld Heal th
Organiz a tion form on household co m position and po s ses si ons , economi cs , and health and nu trition (Den tan 1 970: 95-96) ; a q ues tio n nair e on values and the Thematic A pperce p tion Test (TAT ), both adapted fo r local u se (Diamo n d 1 970 : 1 3 8- 3 9) ; topical n ote s
on
" change , child ren , co mm uni cat i o n , co-op erati v es , dan c es , e m p l o y ment, int e rp er so nal relations, la\v, l eade rshi p, ma r ria g e , p e rso na l i t y and rec re a tio n'' and a "data bank " on individual co m m u n i t) resi den ts (Honig mann 1 970: 40, 66) ; and Rorschach tes ts, a co m preh en s i v e "sociocultural index s chedule , " and an "e x pres sive autobiogr aph i c interview" (Spindler an d S pind l e r 1 970: 2 80-82, 2 8 5 , 293 -95). As these a c c o u n ts explain , some fiel dn ote records are envisione d in " res ea r c h desi gns" before field\vork , and othe r s a rc d ev eloped as th e research p rogres ses . L ede rm a n c a reful ly e xpl ai ns the evo lu tion of her " daily log " fi cldnotes and typed files" records, and the rel atio n s hip between t he m . Her records, kep t acc o rd i n g to top ic in ring binders , included accounts of co m ple x e vents , lo ng interviews, a ho u s e h o ld census, land tenu re histories, data on garden p l ots and pig p r od u c t i on , gift ex cha n ge account books, and sys te m ati c interviews on exchange network me m bersh i ps , m a r r i ag e , bridc\vealth , and m o r t u ar y pres ta
y
"
tion s . In a
al ua bl e account o f William Partridge 's fi eld,\rork i n Colombia,
v
the p r ecis e points at w hich sys t ematic records e me r ged from field notes are identified. Some si x months after arrival in his research co m munit y, Partridge wrote Solon Kimball : "I am goin g to be g i n a se r i es of directed in t e r v i ew s , " c h oos i n g respond e n ts from " the costetio [ co as tal ] hamlet of laborers , the cachaco vereda r mountain s ettl e m e n t ] La Piedra, and selected o lde r p eople of the town's upper cru s t . I \vill reco rd the i n te rvie\vs on five-by-eight-inch sort cards . ' Up to that poin t, information from these three g ro u ps had been inclu ded in Pa rt ri d ge s ch r onol o gi cal fieldnotes . Six months lat e r a n e \v se t of records-interviews on marijuana p roducti o n and usc-was begun. Again, this crys t al l i z ed data collection already under \vay in Jlar t ridge ' s fieldnotes (Kimball and Pa r t ridg e 1 979: 1 3 1 , 1 72) . The balance bet � een fieldnotes and records is uni qu e in ea ch re s ea rc h project, and most if not all an t h r opolog i st s prod u ce both kinds o f do cumen ts . M an y ethnographers \vould p r obabl y feel u nco m fo r t able spea kin g of research as fieldvlork if it p rod u ced reco rds b u t no fi eldnotes . Yet the demands of p artic u la r s u bdis c iplin es and theor etic al ap p r oa c h es in crea s ing l y drive ficld�·orkcrs toward mo re direc t ed re c o rd coll e c tion . A t ten t i o n to V\..id e- ra ng i n g fieldnotcs co rres p onding l y '
'
·
e
r ce
d es .
,
Vo c abulary for Ficldno tcs
John Hitchcock ,
in his
1 03
1 96o-62 field"\\l·ork in N epal, used a carefully
ted in terview guide, yet "mu ch that we learned was picked u p for m ula fortu it o usly " a n d recorded a s fieldno tes. On bala nce . . . it was a boo n to have \\tell-defined research obj ectives and easily drawn lines bct\\'een relevan ce and i rre l e v anc e Yet the s i t u a .
tion w as not 'Nithout para dox . The sa me design tha t was guide and s upp ort . . could become a demon rider . . . and I railed at it . . . It did not trul y lay to rest a conscience enhan ced if not derived from written exp osu re to eminences like Boas . . . . The co mmunal liv e sacrifice at the fortress described in The 1VIaga rs o_(Banyan Hill [ Hitchcock 1 966 ) could not have been written \vithout notes that from the po int of vicv-,' of the research design did no t seem strictly relevant . [ 1 970: 1 76] .
.
Margery Wolf, in writing
Family in Ru ral
The House of Lim ( 1 968)
and
U,'O rnen
and
the
Ta iwan ( 1 972) , drevv upon both fieldnotcs and record s .
She was " g ratified b y all th e seemingly purposeless anecdotes, conver
sations verging on lectures, and series of complain ts that had been re corded. Clearly, the presence of unfocused, wide-ranging, all-inclusive fieldnotes v,ras essential to the success of this unplanned project . "
During her 1 980-8 1 intervie"vs i n C hina, i t \v as impossible to produce much in the way o f similar fieldnotes; in her v iew, a more restricted and limited
book neces sarily resulted .
"If we are to develop authen tic descriptions of individual behavior and beliefs , " the Johnsons �"rite, "vle must acco mpany the subje ct into
the several significant settings that evo k e the many fa cets of the whole
p erson . ,, They identify the dangers of records without fieldnotes: "The
tigh t, dedu ctiv e research designs of the behav ioral scientist are neces
sa rily r edu ctio n istic . . . . Anthropologists generally a g ree that most hu man beh avior is o v erdeter m ined, serving multip le purposes o r re
fle c tin g multiple meanings si multaneousl y. " A mong �·ays to balance re c ord-orien ted research with wide-ranging eth n ographic fieldnotes , the Johns ons propose a "cultural context checklist" a s a medium for con sta ntl y reintroducing holistic con cerns into fieldwork routines m u ch as Honi gmann ( 1 970: 43) reports that reviewing Murdock 's Outline of Cultural lWa terials was useful to him.
Texts Am o ng fieldnote records , "texts" are a particular kind, with their o�n l o n g hi sto ry in anthrop ology. They are p roduced by transcriptiotl , C hffo r d 's thir d type of ethnogra phic ficldnote writin g . Tran scription , #I
UNP.o\CKI I' G " FI ELDNO TES ,
1 04
�
unlike inscribing s cratch notes , usually involves an encou n ter bct\veen informant and ethnographer away fro m ongoing social action an d convers ation . Ideall y, the ethnographer and informan t sit alone
to
gether; the ethnographer carefully records ans\\'ers to posed questi ons : or \\f·rites dov.rn in the informant 's 0 \\7n \Vords and language a dictate d myth, spell, recipe , or life history rem emb ran ce . While handwri tt e n
transcriptions may be retyped and translated later, the poin t i s
to
secure the info rmant 's preci se ""'·ords durittg the field\\f·ork encounte r, as they are s poken . The results of such field work p rocedure are tex ts . Texts figure p rominently in the fieldnotes of Franz Boas . He p u b lished more than 3 , ooo pages ofKwakiutl texts and translations , many \Vritten by George Hunt , and s ome fieldwork (C odere
1 966:
xiv;
6, 75 I pages of texts from all his White 1 963 : 23 -24). These texts give us
"the lineage myth as its O\\lner tells i t, the potlatch speech as it
\Vas
given , the point-by-point pro cedures in making a canoe , " according to Helen Codere
( 1 966: xxx) , who knows as vvell as any anthropolo
gist the full Boa s co rpus . H er three examples stand fo r three different social contexts of trans crip tion :
(1)
a
myth recited for the anthropolo
gist-a text reproduced a"\\l·ay from its normal context of recital;
(i)
a
speech given during an event-a text recorded in the context of i ts social production , heard by na tives and ethnog rapher alike;
(3 )
account of a technical procedure-a text created at the promptin g
an
of
the ethnographer and not reco verable in such fo rm else�·herc . Although the second context-reco rding on goin g speech events certainly resul ts in texts, it partakes of both in scription and tran s cri p tion . In a contem p o rary sociolinguistic app raisal of intervi ev"' methods, Charles Briggs
( 1 986) argues against imposition of the Wes t
crn i middle-class intervie""'· speech event and in favo r o f cultu ral l y
grounded forms o f listening and talk, learned over time through participant-observatio n . His cautions arc relevant to both the
fi rs t�
displ aced mode of trans cription and the t hird , fab ricati"\"C one . H is argu ment \Vould fa vor the seco nd inscription-trans cription
mode.
Texts resulting from such on goin g speech events \vould also be
m o re
appropriate to the go als of text transcription professed by Bo as . These goals, according to Stockin g, arc well presented i n a 1 905 Boas letter on the importance of published texts : I d o n o t think that anyone \\'ould ad v oca te the study o f an tiq ue civiliza tions . . . \vithout a thorough knowled g e of their languages and of the literary documents in these languages In regard to our Am erican Indian s . practically no such li t e r a r y material is available for s tudy. . . . .
.
.
.
.
.
Vocabulary for Fiel dnotcs
105
My own publis hed work shows, that I let this kind of w ork take pr e ceden ce over practically everything else, knowing it is the found a ti on of all future researches . Without it . . . deeper studies . . . will be all bu t impossible . Besi des this we must furnish . . . the indispensa ble m ate rial fo r future linguistic studies . (Stocking 1 9 74: 1 22-23 ]
T he linguistic value of Boas's displaced and c reated texts is m ost useful in work on morp hology, syntax, and semantics ; it i s less so for stvlis tics and pragmatics than the texts o f actual speech e'\"'ents would b� Qa cobs 1 9 5 9 ) . In "antiq ue civilizations , " texts and physical re mains
a re al l \VC have. In l iving societies, ho\vever, o ther anthropolo gists ha ve not elevated text-recording in field \v o rk to the height that B o as
did; rather, they have valued pa rti cipant-obser vatiot1 , vvith its other
forms o f note-taking. Nonethel ess, it is the poten tial of texts to assist in "deeper stu dies, , th at has accoun ted fo r their continuing t ran scrip-
tion . For Boas , one aim of ethnography vlas to " disclo se . . . the ' inner
most thoughts, ' the ' mental life' of the people , " and texts �vere a means " to present K wakiutl cultu re as it a p p ears to the Indian himself''
(Cod ere 1 966 : xi, x v). With fieldnotes and other kin ds o f record s , texts
have been used b y other anthropologists to meet similar goals. On
Manus Island i n 1 92 8 -29, Reo Fortune "concentra ted on texts , once
he had trained Pokanau to dictate the con tents ofl ast nigh t's seance . He took everything dov.."n in longhan d " (Mead 1 9 72 : 1 74 ) . The limits of displaced transcripti on, hovvever, \verc reveal ed to Mead in 1 9 5 3 '\Vhcn
Pokanau told her that her more rapid typing of his texts permitted him
to " ' put it all in . ' The 'all ' simpl y meant an in credible nu mber of re pe titi ons . ' ' But it is precisely " rep etition" and other pcrform ative
an d pa ralin g uistic features that today so interest analysts of transcribed t ex ts of ongoing rituals and o ther speech events . Like Mead (see also
1 977: 297) ,
Mandelbaum in I ndia in 1 93 7 tran
� cribcd texts directly by type\\l·riter from his English-speakin g Kot a Informant Sulli . Although u m y notes an d the quotations of his \�lords U su all y preserve the structure of his utteran ce, . . . as I typed I \v ould re p ai r, fo r the sake of fu ture clarity, some of his direct speech" ( r 960 :
27 9n).
Sulli's texts covered a wide range of Kota cu lture . He also
di c ta te d texts for M u rrav Emeneau, who mentioned in Kota Texts ( 1 944) -based enti rely o� Sulli's displaced oral productions-that he
\V�s a "fine storyteller who adj usted to the slo\v pace of dictation \VItho ut l osing the narrative and entertain m ent qu alities \\'hich are cha ra cte ris tic o f Kota tales" (M andelbaum r �6o: 3 06). In candor, Man-
U NPA C K I N G " FIEl DN OTES , ,
r o6
also adds that Sull i ,s narratives tended "to be neater and more in t eg ra ted than \Vas the historical actuality, " and that he ten de d ;' to fi gure much larger in his account than h e may h a v e in the event " ( 1 96o: " 3 07). Displace d and created texts arc here ce r ta i nly Kota c ulture as it appea r s to the Indian h i mself " Like all tex ts, nonetheless , they and thei r creator arc posit i o ned in their local society. Life his tories tum around the disad v a n tag e s that such texts , crea ted at the e thnographe r s prompting , have for any general apprecia tio n of "the m en ta l life of the people. " Instead, t he y purposely pos iti o n the i n fo r mant \Vithin her or his lo cal so c i e t) In a dd iti on to la r ge chunks of texts life his to ries as g enre pres ent an a l y sis based upon fie ld n o te s and o ther forms of records . John Adair ( 1 960: 495 -97) des c r i bes the life history fiel d\vork process, with an extract from his tran scriptions on ce they reached a text-productive stage. I n formative a cc o unts of collect in g life history fieldnotc texts are pro v i d ed by James Freeman ( 1 979 ) Sidne y Mintz ( 1 960) and Edvla rd W inter ( 1 959). Langness and Frank ( 1 98 1 ) offer a history and overvie\v of this ethnographic opt i o n . With litera c y the dis placed oral produ c tio ns and created acco u n t s o f in for m an t s may ta ke o n a self-edited form (Goo dy 1 977, 1 986, 1 987) m or e like eth nography and, before recent interests in narrativity and rhet ori c well suited to th e et hn o g r apher s textual goals . Recalling field\vork �;th the Co p p er Eskimo , Jenness conveys the frustration of ma ny past text transcribers vlith nonliteratc info rmants and their non Western / middle-class spe e ch con ventions . delbau m
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,
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We then closeted ourselves \�lith two old m en , v-'ho se hearts we warmed with some hard biscuits an d cu ps of stea ming chocolate. The comfort
In the end it \\'as not their secretiveness that hampered ou r researches, but ou r able tent and the unusual beverage loosened their ton gues .
.
.
.
ignorance of their ways of thought and their own inability to narrate a story from the g round u p ward; fo r they invariably beg an with the crisi s, so to s p eak, and \Vorked backward and forward , with many omis sions and repetitions, on the tacit as sumption that our minds moved in the same groo ve as theirs and that explanations \�'ere needless. r 1 928: 202- J l
no doub t reflect his schooling . So did t he deta iled, sequential account of the three-da·y A g arabi male initiation ritu al dic ta t e d to James B . Watson on his second New Gu inea field trip in 1 963 64 by "a handsome, clean-cu t youth " \vhosc clot h ing his beari ng , and his excellent pidgin , d eli b er a t e l y inters p ersed \Vith En glish beSulli 's texts
"
,
,
Vo cab ulary
1 07
for Fieldnotes
aaved that he had been to school and had also worked for a time in a
to�n o r on
the coast . "
•'T he Firs t Day, " the young m an announced like a title, flashing me a sel f- c onscious smile. He began to detail the preliminaries o f the ritual. . . . I finished the last unused leaf of the notebook and . . . continued
th e n otes on the inside back cover, then on the ou tside . . . . He stopped co ask if I did not have ano ther book . . . . I call e d out to the hou se . . . fo r
so meone to bring me the book . . . . We picked up where \Ve had . . . . M y eyes were straining no \\" from seldom looking up. stop Page by page we no ted all the events of "The Second Day, " finally
ped
reach ing the third . . . . At last the session ended . . . . We had been at it for v-'ell over t\vo hour s . . . . My collabora to r told me cheerful} y that he
v-'ould be available tomo rro�v fo r any further questions . . . . Sure that I kne\\F the village \veil ten years ago, I had found no one like this . . . . N o elder I h ad ever talked t o could do �'hat had jus t been done. [Watson 1 972: 1 77-79 ]
The next step \Vith literate informants, as B oas lon g a g o learned with George Hunt , is to add tex ts written by the informants themselves to the ethno grap her's own body of fieldnotes . T his happened spontane ously for Mintz in 1 95 3 after he asked Don Taso, a Puerto Rican su g ar
cane wor ker, if he could tape-record his life story. "He asked for time to think about it . . . . The follo\ving evening when we sat down
together again , he p roduced from his pocket several sheets of lined paper, torn from a child's notebook, on vlhich he had wri tten dov.,'ll his sto ry. . . . So the fo rmal gathe ring of the data on Taso's life began with
a \\'ritten statement . " Mintz published
an
English translation of this
te xt, and reproduced a page from the handwritten Spanish
Worker in the Cane: a Puerto Rican L ife History ( 1 960:
original, in
27- 3 1 ; illus . 4).
Letters from informants on ethnographic topics ( Kluckhohn 1 960 :
450; Lo\v ic 1 960 : 43 1 - 3 2 are anot er form of text, as is "The Diary of
)
h
Inn keep er's D au ghter, found a mong the Suye Mura materials that acco mp anied the Embrees' fieldnotes when Smith received th e m. In Rwan da in 1 95 9-60, in addition to transcribing forty-eight life histo ries, C ode r e ( 1 970: 1 5 7) ha d a dozen Rwandan reporters ftll many an
"
"
no tebooks for her. Meetin g the Boasian mandate,
"
"the
good notebook
llla t er ial does give a picture of the activities and preoccupations of the
Y o un g R \van da that year, of their mobility, and of their version of W ha t they sa \v around them . " S evera l ofJean Jackson's anthropolo g i cal inform ants also gave their field informan ts notebooks to produce
U N PA C K I N G " f i E L D N OT E S , ,
1 08
their o�vn fieldnotes (sec also Beattie 1 96 5 : 26-27, 30-34; Epstein 1 96 1 ; Evans-Pritchard 1 974; Le\�,.is 1 95 1 : xix; Parsons 1 9 1 7; Schapera 1 93 5 : 3 1 8). Perhaps the uncertainty of 0\\7nership betvveen sponsor and author of these informant-produced texts is involved in the lack of clarity many of Jackson's informants express ed over \\'hat to inc lu d e under the "ficldnotes"' label .
Journals and Diaries Journals and diaries are written products of field\vork that serve indexical or cathartic purposes for ethnographers (Ellen r 9 84b: 2 R9). Chronologically constructed journals provide a key to the inform atio n in fieldnotes and reco rds ( cf. Carstens ct al. 1 987) ; di aries record the ethnog rapher's personal reactions, frustrations, and assessments of life and work in the field. In some cases the same account \vill contain elements ofboth fo rms, as is evident oft\\'0 extracts from S . F. Nadel's "diary " of his N uba fieldwork (Husmann 1 98 3 ; see also Turner 1 9 � 7 : 94). Latterly, the increasingly intertextual nature of post-field ethno graphic writing has intruded on both journals and diaries. Journ als may now record reactions to ethnographies read or reconsidered in the field; and diaries, one suspects, may be vlritten '"'lith the aim of pub lishing a "personal account" offield�vork (as with Barley 1 98 3 ; Ccsara 1 982; Rabinovl 1 977; Romanucci-Ross 1 98 5 . See Gccrtz 1 9 8 8 : 89-9 1 ). In her Pacific fieldwork Margaret Mead kept "a diary"-orjournal, using the distinction I make here- "strippcd of comment, as an index to events and records. This was an act of responsibility in case my field work �·as interrupted and someone else had to make sense of it" ( 1 977 : 1 1 ). Honigmann·s 1 944 and 1 945 journals from his fieldvvork amo n g the Canadian Kaska Indians were similarly a daily record of activity; his ficldnotes \vere "on 4" X s'' slips of paper and categorized according to the advice in George P. Murdock's manual called Outlitt.e o_(Cultt�ral JWaterials " ( 1 970: 40) . In Honigmann's case, there were no "fieldnorcs proper" ; the journal and topical fieldnote records together contain the information that more ordinarily appears in chronologically kept fiel d notes. Boissevain's 1 96o-6 r Malta fieldwork joumal-"a daily dia r)'� into which I entered appointments and a rather terse summary ot persons and places visited during the day" ( 1 970: 79-80)-is ano t he r example of the journal form . Rosemary Firth's 1 9 3 9-40 Malayan fie}d,vork diary \Vas someth in g
Vocabulary fo r Fieldnotes
1 09
d i tTer e nt from these three examples of j ournals, or from that of her husba n d : [It ) bec ame for m e a sort oflifclinc, or checking poin t to measu re changes in m yse lf. I believe Raymond Firth kept a main l y chronological-record t y pe o f diary w hen he \Vas in Tikopia [Firth 1 93 6 : 2] and Malinowski the more p erson al sort when he was in t he Trobriands. Mine \Vas u sed as an emotional outlet for an individ ual subj ected to disorientating changes in his
[sic] personal and social world .
Perhaps ideally, both kind s should be
kept; first the bare facts, the n ev"'s sum mary as it \Verc , then the person al
re action s · ( I 972 :
1 5)
Bronislaw Malino�·ski 's Dia '}' itJ the Strict Sense
certainly well titl e d
.
o..f the Tertn ( 1 967)
I t h as been the s u bj ec t of many assessments ,
which that of Anth ony Forge-like Mal inowski, an ethnographer
is of of
Melanesia-is both sy mpathetic and useful . It \Vas never intended for pub lication . . . . These diari es are not abou t the Trobriand Islanders . . . . They are a partial record of the struggle that affects every anthropologist in the field : a struggle to retain a sense of his 0\\'11
identity as an individual and as a member of a culture . . . . Under
these circu mstances a diary is . . . your on ly ch ance o f expressing yourself, of relieving your tensions, of obtainin g any sort of cathar sis. . . . The negative side of fieldwork . . . predominates in the diaries . . . a place to spew up one's s pleen, so that tomorro\.v one can start afresh. [ 1972: 292-96 . Also sec Geer tz 1 9 8 8 : 7 3 -8 3 ; Mead 1 970:
3 24n J
Other anthropological diarists , \vhose \Vork we do not s ec in full as
\Ve d o Malinovlski's , stress the personal fun ctions identified by Forge . When expe riencing " despair and hopel essness" in her field work in Mexico, Peggy Golde ( 1 970a: 75) vented her feelings in her diary. Mar g er y Wolf, ranging mo re widely, recorded her irritat io n \Vith vil l ag e life, some vlild hyp ot hes e s of cau sation, an ongoing analysis of ''
�
t e Ch inese personality structure, var i ous lascivious thou ghts tnbcs ag ainst inj ustice, and so forth . "
9,
D ia m on d Jenness's 1 9 1 3 - r 6 Arctic fieldwork l ed to both diary
8 8)
and fieldnotes
( 1 928 :
1 4,
28,
41 ,
,
dia
( 1 9 57:
8 3-84) . Dawn in Arctic �41aska ,
cov erin g the first month s of his research, portrays Alaskan Eskim o s rnu ch more acculturated to Western society ( 1 95 7: 1 00, 1 03 , 1 22) than
U N P A C K I N G " F I E L D N OTES . ,
I IO
the Canadian
C oppe r
Eskimo described in Th e Peop le of the
1u·i l �� h t
( 1 928), o n e of th e earliest and best of many p e rs onal ethn o g r a p h i c accounts . Dawn in �4rctic �4 laska '\�ras \vritten from Jenn ess's diary, he tells us ( 1 9 57: 8) -plus his hcadnotes , of course. An extract fro m th e di a r y is i n cl uded ( 1 957: 8 8-89) , and the book in co rpo ra tes both t h e fa ctu a l G ournallike) and the personal (di a rylike) qualit ie s that h is fit:ld diaries cle arly contain. No p refa ci n g statement identifies J en ne ss s textual sources for The People of the Twilight, bu t its chronolo g ic al s t ru c t u r e must also be ba s e d on h is diary; again, th e fa ctual and t h e pe rsonal are co m.ingled . The i n t cr te xtu al environment of c on te m p o r a ry anthropology fig ures cen t r all y in the e xten si ve per son a l jour na ls t h e most priv ate of my n ote s which "I i mag ine I wou ld never wan t to make p ub li c that Rena Lederman k e p t along �·ith her fiel dn o t es and records durin g her NeVv"" Guinea resea rch : " There are re a ctions to the books and a rt i cl e s I w as reading-some anth ropology, some hist o r y, and some othe r t h i ngs us u a l ly entered . . . in the form of ideas for a diss erta t ion / book or for a r tic l es A t extu a l influence o n an t h ro pologi c a l jou rnals and diaries that has reg is tered po \ve r fu ll y in recent dec a des is L evi S t ra uss s Tristes T,·op i ques ( 1 9 5 5 ) in English translation �ince 1 96 1 . C li fford Geertz s a y s of it: Thou gh it is very far from bei ng a great anthropology book, or even an especially good one, is sur ely one of th e finest books ever Vv�rittcn by an a n thropologis t ( 1 97 3 : 347; sec also 1 9 8 8 : 2 5-48). Wh ile other pers o n al accounts of fieldwork p red ate it ( C u shin g 1 8 8 2-8 3 ; Jenn ess 1 92 8 ; K lu ckho hn 1 927, 1 93 3 ; O sg oo d 1 953 ; Wissler 1 93 8), none ex c ep t Laura B oh a n nan s Return to Laughter (B o wen 1 9 5 4) has had nearl y the i mpa c t ofLevi-Strauss's wo rk as is evident from references to i t in s eve ral fieldv,"ork accounts (Alland 1 975; RabinoV\t 1977; Roman ucc i Ross 1 98 5). O ne also suspects its inspiratio n or st yl i stic influe nce in s eve ral others where it is not mentioned (B a r ley 1 9 8 3 , 1 98 6; Cesara 1 9 8 2 ; Gearin g 1 970; Maybury-Levvis 1 96 5 ; Mi t ch ell 1 978 ; Read r 96 5 ; R o berts o n 1 978; Tu rnbull 1 96 1 ; Wa g l e y 1 977; Werner 1 984). Stirred by this b urg eo n in g genre since the mid- 1 950s, intenti on s to V�..rit e pe r so n a l field\vork accounts later have no doubt revivifie d a fieldwork di ary tradition that h a d been giving way to indexical jour nals under the growing i nfl u en ce of so cial a n thro polo gy and behav ioral sci ence models Sim on O tt cnberg \Vrites of his 1 95 2- 5 3 Afikp o field\\'Ork: " I did not keep a diary which I very much regret today. '
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\'o cab ulary
for Fieldnotes
I I I
u \\ \\'ere brought up in a positivistic age \vhere personal impres B t 'e sions v-rer e seen as less important than the ' facts out there. ' " Let ters, Reports, Papers field n otes, records, texts, and j ournals and diaries remain in the fiel d w ith their author and one-person audience. Many ethnographers m a il ca rbon copies of field notes home for safekeeping, but not, nor m a ll v, for reading by anyone else. The exceptions are usually graduate s t ud;nt s ,_\' ho send sets of fieldnotes to university advisors and men to r s� as did William Partridge to Solon Kimball (Kimball and Partridge 1979). 3 Kimball's investment in Partridge's fieldv/ork via return letters was considerable-and unusual; in fe\v other places in the field,vork literature arc similar involvements recorded. When advisors vlrite to students in the field, it is more likel y in response to those in-field compositions wri tten to leave the field-letters, reports, and papers. Probably most anthropologists in the field \vrite letters to family members and friends, to mentors and professional colleagues. Letters, first of all, inform others that one is alive and ·\veil, or alive and recovering . They also allo\v the fieldworker to report on his or her psychological state and reactions-see Rosemary Firth's letter to her father ( 1 9 72: 1 6)-although not as fully or cathartically as do personal diaries . '' The long letters that Ruth and I wrote to our families are poor substitutes for a diary" (Dentan 1 970 : 89). Perhaps more signifi cantly, letters allo\v the ethnographer to try out des crip tions and syntheses in an informal fashion . Hazel Weidman's 1 95 7- 5 8 field letters from Burma include evocative descriptions of Ra ngoon and of the hospital in which she conducted field\vork ( 1 970: 243 - 46). Buell Quain's 1 93 8 letter from Brazil to his advisor Ruth � enedict (Murphy and Quain 1 95 5 : 1 03-6) is a rounded, rich descrip tton of Trumai Indian culture, more human in tone than the abstrac tion s of fiel dno tes. Letter s are a first step in committing headnotes to p aper (e. g . , Mi tch ell 1 978: 96- r o 1 , 1 04- 7). As Lutkehaus reveals, Camilla Wedg Wo od ' s letters from Malinowski, received \\"bile she was doing field Work in Manam , indicate that her letters to him were the beginnings of h ��riloki N ath Pandey 's letters to his ad vi s o r Fred E gg an were indeed his fieldnotes: h e did not take notes i n front of his Z uni informants. but he cou ld safelv write to his
boss" ( 1 979: 257).
�
U N P.ot\ C K I N G " F I EL D N O T ES , �
I I2
analyses . "Cut out cer t a i n p ortions of your information and pub_ lish them in �wa n as it m i gh t be easier to do it out of infor mal le t ters than for you to ste\\' o ver the V.."riting up of an article, " he advi se d he r. Letters certainly can be a useful tool in constr u ct in g a personal accoun t of fieldwork such as A . F. Robertson's for his 1 965-66 rese a r c h in Uganda ( 1 978 : 1 -2). Like her ethnography, and her marriages, Margaret Mead's let te rs from the field are m onu men tal. A s ubstantial selection of them ( fv1 e a d 1 977), published s h ordy before her death in 1 978, forn1 an ess e nt ia l complement to her memoirs (Mead 1 972) and jane Howard's bio gr a phy ( 1 984) for an understan din g of Mead 's career in anthro pology. "Letters �\,.ritten and received in the field have a very special sig nifi cance . I mm e rsing onesel f in life in t he field is good , but one n1 u s t be careful not to drown Letters can be a \vay of occasionally righting the balance as , for an hour o r two, one relates oneself to pe op l e \Vho are part of one's other world and tries to make a little more real for them this world which absorbs one, \vaking and sleeping, , (Mead 1 977= 7). In her early fieldwork Mead wrote individual letters to relatives. friends, and mentors Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, William F. Ogburn , and Clark Wissler. But from her first fieldwork in Samoa in 1 92 5 -26, she also typed multiple carbons of letters addressed to a group; her mother too retyped letters and sent them to others . This practice netted Mead return mail of sevent y or eighty letters every six \Vcck s in Samoa, as well as setting a pattern that con tinued th roug h her fiel d experiences into the 1 970s . By the 19 50s her field letters \Vcrc ci rculat ing to fifty or more persons ( 1 9 77 : 8- 1 0). The final tv.."o forms of fieldv.."ork \Vriting \\l·e will conside r a rc reports and papers . In preparation for such writing, as well as for later dissenations and publications and to identify gaps in their fieldnot(.�S, man}· anthropologists report "rereading. " "revie\\"ing, " "working up, " "going over, " "organizing, ,, and "thumbing th roug h their fiel d notes while in the field (Barley 1 983 : 9 1 , I 1 2, 1 69-70; Becker and G ee r 196o; Ellen 1 9 8 4b: 282; Firth 1 972 : 2 1 ; Gonzalez I970: 1 7 1 ; Jen n e ss 1 928: 1 4; Levi-St rauss 1 95 5 : 3 76; Pelto 1 970: 263 -64; Read 1 9 6 5 : 3 9; Whi tten 1 970: 3 5 1 ; Yen g o y an 1 970: 4 1 7- 1 8). On his ovln, Pelto ''o cca sionally �"rote short ess ays on such materials (sometimes in the fo rrn of letters from the field) " ( 1 970: 266). Most reports, ho\vcvcr, are directed outside the field, toward sp onher
.
.
.
.
"
Vocabulary
for Fieldnotcs
I I
sors and overseers of the research. From Samoa, Mead sent the Na tional
Research Council a report
(1977:
42).
John and Ella
Embree
wrot e '�progress reports to the Social Science Research Committee of the University of Chicago \v hich had funded the study," as Smith
found in the cache of their Suye Mura materials. In the month before leaving Somaliland in 1957, I. M. Le\vis \\'rote a report that "runs to 14o ronco ed foolscap pages and is pompously titled
The Somali Linea�e
the Total Genealog}': .,4 General Introductiotl o{ Somali Political Institutions" (1977: 236). Similarly,
System atzd
�xtensive
to
Basic
Principles
Lederman s first '
writing \\'as a report on Mendi rural political economy,
\\'ritten for the Southern Highlands Province Research Committee,
and submitted before she left the field in
1979.
Reports, if read, may produce responses useful in later ethnographic
�,riting. Boissevain
sent the Colon ial Social Science Research C oun cil
a I4,000-\vord, six-month report fron1 Malta: ''Writing the report
forced me to rethink basic problems and to look at my material ... In doing
so
.
I discovered numerous shortcomings. . . . Moreover . . . I
was able to elicit valuable criticism and comments from my supentisor [Lucy Mair] and her colleagues at the
London School of Economics.
feedback \Vas invalua bl e.... I should have been consolidating my data freq uently in short reports" (1970: 8o, 84). In addition to letters and fieldnotes, Pa rtridg e sent Kimball six-\\l�eek and six-month reports (both reproduced in Kimball and Partridge 1979: 28-48, 13648). Unlike too many supervisors, Kimball replied to Partridge vvith
This
his reactions and suggestions.
Professional papers are occasionall y \Vritten from the field, al though
the lack of libra ry resources mak es this difficult. Frank Hamilton Cush ing vvrote many papers while at Zuni pueblo b et\ v een 1879 and I 884, several of \Vhich \Vcre published (Green 1979: 12-13), among them his personal field work account, "My Adventures in Zuni" (Cushing 1 8 828]; G ree n 1979: 46- I 34). Ninety years later Partridge \�trote "Cannabis and Cultural Groups in a Colombia Municipio" after a y ear in the field; ftc\v to deliver the paper at the I973 Ninth lnternational Congress of Anthropological and E thnolo g ical Sciences in Chicago; and returned to co mplete the final months of his research (Kimball and Pa rtridge 1979: 1 90, 192, 220). The paper \\'as subsequently published (Partridge 197S). While in Bunyoro, Bea ttie wrote a paper for an East African Institute ofSocial Research conference (1965: 44, 51). Also in the field,
Lederman prepared an abstract and outline for a paper she presented at
3
UNPACKING ''fiELDNOTES''
114
the Ame rican Anthropological Association meeting later that year after returning home, no doubt a more common experience than that of Partridge.
Tape Transcripts Transcripts of taped, dictated fieldnotes and texts may be typed
nut of the field-by paid assistants in some cases-but the resulting do<..1.t ments work much like fieldnotes in relation to later forms of ethno graphic writing. Dictating ficldnotes is by no means a common prac tice among ethnographers, though the technology to do so has
been
available for decades (but see Barley
1941:
1983: 62; Warner and Lunt
doubt appear a suspicious practice in many parts of the \\'Orld. But I suspect 69). Speaking into a microphone -w·hilc one is alone would
no
the missing scratch-notes-to-fieldnotcs step is the primary reason that dictation is rarely used. Sitting and thinking at a typewriter
or com
puter keyboard brings forth the "enlarging" and "interpreting"
that
turns "abbreviated jottings" and personal "shorthand'' into fieldnotes. Margaret Mead wrote in 1953, "I don' t dare usc tape because there is no
chance to vlork over and revise-or, if one does, it takes as long,, ( 1977: 252). Untypically, Gertrude Enders Huntington and her family
n1cn1-
bers, in a study of a Canadian Hutteritc colony in the early 196os, dictated some fifty typed pages' worth of fieldnotes a \Veck into
a
tape
recorder; they also kept written ficldnotes and records, but v.triting time was at a premium in this communal society (Hostetler and Hunt ington
1970: 213). If tape-recording one's
O\Vn
fieldnotes has
not
become a popular ethnographic practice-for good reason-taping texts is another story. Laura Nader, in a short study in Lebanon in 1961, tape-recorded informant accounts of cases of conflict; these proved "much richer in contextual information " than similar cases recorded by hand
(1970: 108).
R. Lincoln Keiser taped inter";evls and life histo
able to record highly detailed accounts of intervie\\'5 that I could not have
ries with Chicago Vice Lord gang members in 1964-65: "I �?as
written by hand. Transcribing the tapes was the main difficulty. It took me
months of steady \Vork to fmish"
(1970: 230).
Untranscribed tapes sit in many offices and studies. The disadvan ...
he sort that Boas and
tages mentioned by Keiser are real, but so arc the advantages that and Nader found in having instant texts of the
others labored for hours to record by hand, and "'·ith the oral features
Vocabulary for Ficldnotes
115
often lost in written transcription encounters. Agar used that are art cipant-observation, documents, and taped "career history inter p i views" in his study of independent truckers. The lengthy interviews,
"a format designed to let the interviewee have control," were the core ofhis research: "to \vork �..ith this material, transcripts are necessary; their preparation is tedious Vlork, since a clean hour of talk might take
six to eight hours to transcribe .... Transcription \Vas done on a word processor to facilitate 'proof-listening'-going over the transcript, listening to the tape, and checking for errors" (1986: 178). Agar had an
assistant transcribe most of the interviews, and his ethnography in cludes extensive quotations from these texts. Current anthropological interests in political language and \Vhat
(1939; see also Briggs 1986) called "speech in action'� require a good ear and a quick hand, or a tape recorder. The tape Audrey Richards
recorder is probably \\'inning out. As Da";d Plath reminds us, portable
tape recorders arc now a commonplace in rural villages as well as cities \\"orld\\ride; their use by ethnographers in taping others no longer invites curiosity. Ne��-fashioned styles of fieldwork are emerging in
which transcriptions of taped texts arc the primary if not the only form offieldnotes produced (Agar 1980, 1986). Quinn's cultural analyses of American marriage (1981, 1982, 1987) are based on taped interviews "pattemed as closely
as
possible after ordinary conversations''-that
average fifteen to sixteen hours for each partner in eleven married couples
(1982: 776). As in Agar's \\'ork, extensive quotations from
these texts appear
in her publications, and the relationship between
fieldnotes and analysis is as close as in an}" more traditional ethnogra
phy. Technology marches on, and taped texts arc here to stay. REFERENCES
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--
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I8
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-
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--
Keiser� R. Lin coln . 1970.
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--.
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Examples
of Fieldnotes
c
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A page from Ca milla Wedgwo od's Manam Isl and fieldnotes;
� l· :. �
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a july
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29, 1933, entry
on "Canoe magic. " (Size:
.1'
. 75
by
4 75 ·
inches.)
.:;Bo.n-.A L
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£
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An index page from one
o
CQ.Ift-.)
yt:.
- �c'ft>-(. ("· :_ i:� ti-� 7-
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11�.-
e-n�)
�ql .
Wt:dgwood?s add notebook
�
:J?r.
There are two roof making
groups in the village:
Imamura consist -'ng of Kitagawa old brother
(Chokichi's
man,
buraku and
say that the Oade kumi
a
set of
sma
a
o
Kurohi�t
Oade for this regl·
. .
-
i.e.
n.
ll1an.
Imc...mure. in -:bat
But I heard
pecple
s be tter.
Ka aze group of
1 squares
Ishikav1a �nd a Ka-no
'!Ork by regions
inv1 t e d to
neighboring,
I watched
t�
and Kumaichi).
Another group cor:sists of Kaneda, They are usually
Sakagu:::hi and
one i�
made
are
children
p f.y"ishi iri rr.
At first
like this
Some ahildren vary :this and make
curved,
48r�ines
or the whole
set in a circle.
A small stone is put ver th e
mus t
c.
from
one
ent i re
·n
sur f ace
square to anuther.
some
square at ei her end and
knoc king As one
t ne st one
co,rers
the
;i
J
h
course
lines tetween squares alre�dy covered, which makes it harder for the next pe�so� s�uares.
When all
J. A page from
mo had
�o
shoot
a
one
trick · f ��ger
one rubs out that cuch
1onger distar.ces.bet�een
i�e s :-,ave been rub·oed o·;t J
the flhole square
lla En1bree's Suye Mura fieldnotes. (Size: 8 .5 by .
I r
inches.)
is
862
Today is �5th of Au
o.�.
•
-�__,r arrangement of kaya
I
s .K,e1Ria
of
any of the
fa
( the
(s eet? )
out
jugoya
-
1 grass)
and cooked taro and
are offered to ju�aya san, ade them and she
ho
are.. spinn ng,
s
w-�v+·�•··v��w1-•�·-·,-
but
has
,
no
� ough
a
orms to
are still do
some
and
days people are busy with them.
After
children began to .gather,
su pper
rom
men came to do the
�
e
ob
The rope
did not do much.
while
-
(
2-3 sen fr
to the emJ)ty lot next ot
they bro ght
�ung
eac
the.r vent from house
-
as
farmers)
nd the t o
Bun 1
s
other young men came u� ov en by Bunji
the pa e
son held
LOn
·
ica the
ater
K ranei1
an
used as support,
to turn the rope a s i" emerged at t e other end
i"' r
fuen
twist.
0
,e
tre endous rope
pret"t#y h avy rain 1nstead of moo
1gh
'�)
and one made
Senko were as
coi tid
co�l
ing.
told
p
ling e�Ch
1,
othe r
and loosi�g
e
bee arne �reak and when -
' ·
tired
onge
,
Event
now
fo..-
s
e
iiJto it
- t hey n
tug of
the other
the
-Y
of the game they s op.
all gi
notes
ana �he
Then
ar
sirce the roue won't break
ippery road.
s
a.yer
offe��ng
there.
st·�ck
unin�elligible words
side getting st
one
along
Entbr
an
Then they grabbed one end
no
ticipants
to g�ve
and inch nte
There is no winning
e into ou
ce
one huge lump and _senko Tvere
in
there and Chi1dren t e
n
jidzo san and the zori hung
to the
offered
the
h·le t ...e other one made an ecually
huge · arabi
a
readj"' - done
as
C ilo.
en
and bops turned out in their
tember 30� 1936.
(See c:1urches;
General:
Histcry,
Schools, F.dUC:'tion and :�ss!.ons; Hoslems ; Amade-Oto�i, Long Juju-Aro; �rear Erosia Ymn Pric�t
and Shrinei t·[restl��g; Uar!are, Inheritance; FWlel·als; :;o1.1 ... r:ound and Unaudi, ,Tillage �r..d Hards, Villq�e-LTOUp, Cgo; Ik·Tl ' etc . ) . Here list under General onl�' itarJs tlu.t do not seezn to !it �·ell el.set·:l".ere. Ter:1 �csi, 343?
.:iscellaneous, 5-6, D-42-4).
Three £rosi :� Govar�ent Stzti�n, 119. Sacr�1ca1 mater!.als, 24?. Three vo�en1s erosi, 299-)00, 22�1�•2, 2455, 228�, �96-99, 230 7 1 2)76 , 2J77, 243e- J9. See ikt·:u, urnudi, tunerals, inheri t�nce, :'>1-.oebe 1 s notes. Egbo erosi, �gbo1s tree, .538. Cr o fs River trosi, 5411-45. Seven animals, 2!�<)6-)7. 2521-22 3n:i v:'!rio,Js. Ogbe, 1504-11. liho- He,, Year, 973-75, 1059-90 and Phoebe's n�tes. �-iine Z1;.d trir- al::;o1 S�crifices to sheines on a�o day, 975-? 9 · G�t�olic attitude tu�ard �ork, 1-74 Blessing, 1729 L::.ck of belief in erosi and in dibias, 2441: see elso F..m:o 1 s attitudes, Tom The's, m."'ini y regard to Ogo. .��lso J�na I�uachi. ��:.so OE 9!.J.-95. Fish in S:,re:.ms aro crosi, 0-�1, 0-.3,)-84. /&:·A· r >lft,r./,� ),/,.}� *ftl t·'v . (h·•��j.,� 0/('<5... "J ... ( £,. Ok·t (-"}l ··
Diviners
•
ru!9. Divination �1't.,
55, 164-6i, 1054-56, 10�•• 167-168, 168, 411��15, 53C-J4, aos, 1498-99, 150.5-0 9 , i512-14, 1�72-?4, 1.521, 1571, 183?-lW, 1353·9�. 1966-6?, 19?2, 2161-6), 2119, 2174-79. 2186, 2221l-48, 1505-09, 2262, 228)-8?, 2288-89, 2296-2)06, 2323-JL_., 2Y�5, 2)6t-70, 2371-75. 2376-80, Zlr{})-06, 2L:.29- J0, 2'�J6-)9. 24!.0, 2459-66, 2.'�68-72, 2!�73. 21�)-Bh, 2475-78, 2491-92, 2J�'-J., 2499-2506, 2509-10, 251�-15, 2)2), 2534. 2524-28, 2530-Jl, 25)2, 25JJ, 'l!JS-40. 2!41-'Jl•, 2562-67, 2572-?4, 2594-260), 26o7-l?. 26!;.?-.55. 26.56- 62, 25JO, 2?J7' L.�-281, c-44, OE-66-67· 1 722 , () �· 'f�tl. cllbanji 2288-19, 2J07-l4, 2J 27. 2)28, 2)49, 2�61, 25L�J. 26o9-1?, 2647-51. 2651-55· See Phoebe's notes.
�k!s:1eja
l828, 2376-80, 24)7•
See Phoebe's notes.
(see abovej see v:--�ious oth� catagorics, e�ecia�ly for f:..1•;-;t triP•) 1666, 1707, 1762-6.5, 1766, 1972, 22�1-42, 2242-L'-J, zz!Jl•-�-5. 2296, 22�8-;.�;,c<>, 2J03, 2)04-06, 2J)J, 2)66-70, 2 37 1 , 2)�0J, 2.90-'�, 2429-JO, 2!J.9)-84, 252J, 253�-39. C-17-18, C-81, 8-9)-8'�. �66-6?.
nL"less
��0��.
(See I!
Reinc�.rnaticn
ibtl��
s. A
page from Simon Ottenberg,s index to
notes.
(Size:
8. s by 11
inches.)
his
1952-53
and 1959-60 Afikpo field
VILLAGE-GROUP AGE GRADES S
81
all o VILLAGI-GIOUP
1084-90, �54-60, 746,1005-07, 1011-1,, D-62-65, L-IJ7-,0, 1018-25 9�1··.21-1 I"J'-?-?o,.,,271,1#1, bSilge in p ow ers under British 155, more powerful in old 43ays 719 c h e re 'Yillage-grcup gradea EE! called '10, ,17' ,22, ,y,., ,a,, etc. oasel w rillage-group gradea ant conoemed with warfare L-1'2 �l lkara and yam planting aee.acm-ahrines and activitiaa1 etc. 74;-46 '2l. 8 c
g..ner&l 1;'
�'
L-2'�''
bor1 7461
,
/.477.
order at greeting at age grade meeti"Dga 868 fillage-gradea, especially how they cove up �54-60. 921-251 1 014-17 eneral rules ae well z1a try varioua oaaea at market 1011ikpUbisi 1012, L-124-27, L-1$.�1, , D-62-6,, D-109 ])- -::r �.. 2, v-1-�, 1 sr, 'h11 s 1421-28 ouT pleader age-gr till 1�91 � 2. 7-9,
�f
·
cmi lkara18Jld �de ?-118} �Ji11T� .I 'J _l-1-l., ).:ai 7, �' 1
.!-;;� 20,
L-1?1, �1�''
l-f'l �Tc
D-4d, • t��;.V () ... .....,0 . .. "'7 .:.J·"l, 4
.
1 q lf(, �L D.O. 1Dterterea Afikpo market, 11,25, 156, ·11.li, !ackvaBen against A't\�A and D.O. in Igwe affair 77-78, 148-4'9, in Ikwczo (prepare-daed)cersmaqy 12,-29 case ia Bsa court 147 ln. set day for bush burning 157, B• set day for farming and harvest ;)46 I• gi•a ceremODy to rainmaker for rain 164-67 Ba bacb up aec1a1cna of Afikpo dibia society 168 onraoiam of Erato at brideprica cer•ony, l·!g'bom 172-� iJl general �o,-04, r at.taapt to regulate bride price cirOUJilVent ed }07-8, '14, part of 81a in 1plaut ram togetber1 land diapute and in land C8.881 1h general, "'2-�, oEJe large MgbaD grade in Olen lea instea.d of two anall ones �1, aak young men ae meeaengers, but never aak village grades '65 lay down cba.11gea in ogo initiation rulings '66-67 vbat grades Dll one �oina in village-group when a memb er of two ill village -'95 'TJ P••• marriage re•ettlement rulings 400-01 ,w Httl'l co � •llDCtion money collec:ticm to try !bi 11.1rder case 4o2-0.5 'to 'rJ' ilcw land case 566-07 in laa court alders and Atikpo people do not go Amaseri market-ruling 806 clan law violaters do not take uh1ch1 850 Bend lea 1D8.1l ill Ikwu • ia pate 860 lle�1Dg-Oj1' • preresentat1ons, br ide price regulations, fining thoee who side with Oltpoba in dispute, 866-67 -�lhc1Y• feetival and Yam priest 1010-11, (•es UN PRIEST AND SHRmE)1 9/J.. /� 1 tiZ1Ume t itl e members do not have t o pay certain fines of villagegnup gradea 1�;, take part in ceremonies 1094, J3-ll 1 11 Afikp o-Ama aari auket dilpltte 11o4-o5 and 1ee pe.�ent dispute 1117 11 Ngodo-Amachara-Ukpa •chool site dispute 111,, Nlee & limit O'f too foo for marriage feari. 1126 1 crnume title 1129 era e.nC D.O. rule first ogo ceremcmy sho�ld occur on Saturdaya 12.54 t ernpt to aettle Anona Nkalo-Ndibe dia"'.lUte D-84-85 •ol va to import Ogu men to oatoh criminals D-2,2, �� to maintain Ib� Osio .wanen priest at shrine L-25-26 ,.,. ,(,.,._.. v, .� /;., /,.-.!\/ �..�.l� .. -7{· �-If-� i. �
•
�?t.
OASES
�ket �a. :: � ft��.�
r
:1 "·I �-
�.er,i 6.
kA-
'·'
/.-f,�P -/ ';1 9
3?'Y-- -?<"-?'
Another page from Ottenbcrg's ficldnote index.
•
March 11 'l'heTe is o th e r evi dence o ther than G ' s saying s o , that p ar t s o f the :Bara language are l o st , at l ea st in thi s mal.o ca..
He o ft en says t he
1 vie j o s '
talk thns - the r i ght w�. We the I s i t be cau se thi s maloca i s i solated and they have the mo st con tact wi th
younger people , d on ' t ,
or have fo rgo tten , e to .
'J'uyu.ka s ? ll'wo in stan c e s : Juanico gave me two forms for eyelash and eye brow ; 8 di dn ' t ac cep t t he one fo� eyebrow , said there was on 1, on e term , I didn ' t t e l l him Juanico had t o l d me th e o ther .
Juan i co gave me
Al so"
term for Forehead that G di dn ' t accept a c oupl� of time B i ac c e p ted i t ye s t e � ( different iating it from �.
1 face • )
APril 2 Y.lore formal work wi th tribe-language . n o word for
G sai d there i s
1 trib e ' { :-.wh i ch I knew , but mohok& can be asked , ' wha.t people are they' . Que s tions are :· no te di ffeTen oe in
)
(
in terrogati ve pTonouns ::
Di
1b
�
ohoko pakho �t.ti Es tribina
iie wadego p a.kho lll tati ko
/' 1ieno
wadega eahani
G said en ti ty of mohako was alw� di st ingu i shab l e b7 a sep arate language , that word for them was &lwt\YS the same , mean ing ' Bara people ' ' people who speak Bara' and t hat the que s t i on s
/
were synonymous in that they always e l i c i t e d the same an swer s , referringto sp e c i fi c p erson s or group s .
Jul7
6
Marcel ino had a quarre l wi th the dze saed •atu Sun� Be vas do ing mo st moming of the fiesta - out side in trcmt . or the talking , but the o ther maD vaan ' t acting su.b•e:rvi en t o r &DTthiDB· Othe1' m en looked on , exprea aionle ss. Aside � that , there vas l i t tle interaction between gu e at a and
The gi rl , Isiri a , danced. O thers looked at the�� . Girls giggled. that o l d wom• ' a b::reaata were �lllling 'l'he7 aren • t greeted or one muoh bigger than �e o ther . case , they are { ae• to s thi In vq. any acb:lovl edged in
Xakus .
be )
Jliguel • s parii cular pet s .
7- Three faeldnote cards frorn Jean Ja ckson 's 1 9{")()- 70 \V Ork a m ong the J3 a ra Indians of the northwest A m azon River basin . The notes \V crc ftlcd by subj ect in baskets m ade t4.lr t hem by the Bara. (Size: 4 by 6 inches . )
g()USE LIN3 PREP..tUiATIONS : 13 oct ob e r 78
Alwe s a
one ... of those .,.,ho Pe ople say he never ki lls want s t o kill pi gs thi s Xmas . hiS pigs and so has alot o f them sav e d up t o k i ll s oon.
Se
haS be en r e fe rred to re c ently as
e says now that he wanted to j o in S al e in kill ing pi gs s o on but he d o e snt think he can be cause he hasnt fotmd the shell s he ne e ds to pay off hi s wife ' s line -- ,_ l! t i a .
H
i%X*1''4 1*IQI ;�at doe s he ne e d in order to kil l pigs : hi s l i s t of debts to hi s "i fe ' s kin : 1.
Pundiaep
he owe s him one she ll and K8 he will r e turn t� i a \'Vi t h " 5 " :
K20
--
2.
W of Pundiaep
3.
P
4.
w�� ch i s ngpae . � of hi s W Kalt a l iv i ng in Tambul :
5.
o f Waekiem
thre e she ll s a.nd
t wo pigs he will return thi s with five shells for e ach plu s two ehe1 ls as nOpae
in K o mi a : he ovte s him KlO he wi ll ret urn t o him two she l ls ,
one of
he owe s her two �i gs and one she ll he will return K80 far one p i g 5 she ll s for ano ther �ig one she ll for the shell he has alre ady given the nppae of one Marup Okipuk he owe s K4 0 He ha s alr eady he Will return two she lls for t hi s . giv e n t he nopae o f one she l l
6.
Pepena he o•1e s KlO he will re turn thi s wi t h two she ll s
7.
famalu, a Kagol Yak op man in Komia , W ' s line he owe s one shell he will r e turn t'V'IO she ll s
Pigs :
8·
He killed thre e pigs at the re c e nt� parade . He says he has four he can ki ll at the hous eline He says no women are l o oki ng aft er pigs for him e lsewhe re and e o he has no othe r mok ya ri payt1ent t o make ( Kus , ove rhearing this , says " Ah, he must have about 20 to ki11 , he 1 s lying ! )
A page from one of Rena Lederman's formal interviews in
N ew
G uinea, October 1 3 , 1 978. (Size: 8. 5 by
11
inches.)
the Mcndi Valley,
Papua
shell
� tAdO f 1 d.� � 71�� �
� � ".J. Ql'l 1"'1 a..b � 111a.lci&J � �«-¥ a..\A �k ( fh. o.klen ,:s kM UIIJ-- kJ-&ut� HA.l L44/- c.4 U.:.. Grwh II- wf kd.u.uJ �pi U:. .6a n�). 7>ose a.1f Sou. U.d a&w �d lid fttm i� ��·e.u;�- �Q./.Jf... � 4 fr,frl'\o.J (Y'4tl1frA.fen..., � - M.r.t.A,t2 r'I CMI(' (!=) �v,.,} (L
� s�A'td. Bt.J PaX,' U.d � IM �t:Lt.el .a_ � � · OJ,.a� w tc.c-.. bot{, 'iP t«AL � 1-rwn -ku.. 0/ rNJ.V..th.- Ud � 'PalGi lcnttl f rtJ..n./ te� '> 12.(� W tUfu.d PalL�' h Plnd Jurr:. a un� lw o-c.t. . Pa.JU J...A.t:J <S1A.tfi(U k4 !h o..lden t2.u.ci ltrW ikR ()/,., . is in n'fi�� t-io �; � -Ia abdt- QU.:J � � � � �� h � ""',.,· r,,;.bt.t- WQA � kl.!a'4-¢L t/4M (m's �:z: u , P� :S F'? �'cJ w � 8t' o.L.nt � 41 lc � t:f � .5 1 � RitUL 1.6 S iek.-, T- Sf. 1d � OM � � � d.� A./.u.�D.IIo.ute. w-o.(f � : W 1s � wf P" s�a 1r Sdu 1s � wcwt'= �� � u 'rJ � .J � � � 1-rro ) b ed- U � Stu.t LP '.r 11.of o� -k fa1A. UJW. an- I 80;� -to d..Q ? Sf.tu....cl u.p tU..d � o u..f. l -f!.t\s ,$.(1 rJ U�ou.� ! , !' ., (t) W�o d!Je.s -1-rillL. C!)u.l; � ? lu-i ( t-Uho'.s b � 4618-i� CUGUh'- � #t t �'.e fri 1<. IN� � -l-It is �m) S �Uf0 1w-o W GW kllt'Wn flu, cA- : l
;.. p, � -
-
,
"
�
.
c
,
pages frorn Rena Lcdcrn1an ·s 1 9 � � "dailv . log" .... Pa pua Ne\\-" Guinea. (Size: 7 by 9 . 7 5 inch s.) 9· Tv..·o
;
fieldnotes in
the M cndi
Valky.
8D.f- vtA.a.MA·� t.y-A.J.ec.� seu WQ.4 � K l t-Oo c) lt\0� ( U - KO�
Mo �
N CLu-d..l 's � D.J d t••
0-hcrt.cJ-
}
·.
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G8n . Ankrah 1 a' moiher waLJ.isitiD£ 1/1 Q todv. He �� "Madam luaynor" at the family accoun t in g. She i;-the -�-eni��'d - woman rnue--� family.----0: " 2 1181l -ir1ai:ted Mr. Q in the at.temoon. One livee at lC'J{§P�Jl.!� ---� � at the A mio Emergy install ation . 'l'he ot he r , w1 th a Fanti s ound ine�..t... t :&ohie Daviiaon , was a pri-ni&.ry teao Ona"t-iR the 8&l'lyl95().!a.-Ea-aaid- then "T.ha- o l d men _pre f igbti.ng f --._"better p� and o� i t ions for ua . " He ie now a soo iologi a t wi th ani studied at Rutgers . "!'tie7 were dririking aohiiappe . � --... � _,At til;p&-�t-ah�to be nxed � 1 nt.nere tnt ta1 ) .. wbo se� � hi�- � ao_!li� i n front of the Q. house . �� _ _ T 8BVI me d ata on thi fimily ana fUDerii -a:rr&ire . ------� -�1/2 men Mre. - Solo+-fte-i-ted-- lt/M--Q-iA-'Ule-mUDiRS• Le s!?��__!lo� s , m 5 a 30. we me t Ben end Alu at 7p11 8rid walked to-"lhi AdoverS: -- ----. -A:l:ez·- aeke4 :Beft--to- � .,.,.,ea. aaa:tohe • ""bt.attePtl iea• -tor- h.1m... u__ --.. _:tb� k.ios_�- �!. _rankah - �o �e ue be sqs th e Ghana matches are no good. HJ said t hey vouldnot se l l to hi• beoasue they thouSht he 1ras a· c op;---_ --- - -- - l!arUi:tt not �t -an.r �ther. Al�&i 4---beoasue :Ben-:l&-lmown4bev -1JOuU . - ·- · · - ----j!illJ_Q hi •�--We tral.lced to t he Ado7or • s house and met. . AttikpowliOW! svisiting ---IIDII1JOne-B"h! a- t�Rtte -.---.e---alao used to--l-!-.e thelte -We- wea t-- JJ -and_Alex -� ed __biutif !_ � s . Ad�C?;r o a.me ��� - the �i t c b e_!l� She a aid Jlr . Adovor ' e c ousi n had t.i e T'.t stol en tad � and.ICr�Adovor - - - · -·---- ----or---.n to11"ellf-111•.- ·Xr-.; - --J. •v-brother-eame- -b7 and asked-abou-t --the- &f.f-e:ir-.-. . i.e_.diaouasecLIWJI tood .vhioiL�I!tli.Y see ae i dentibi�m a.a _ �and di:rterant , aq :f"rom the .lshanti s who e a t only "fufu and aapesi , • aas 1ftio ll.1CilC61'«6Y 8l'l4 batlku� Hwea the) 88\Y ha�e- •so man, - fooD� � �d frieDda tokin over��� BtrL_f.9od _ha�_aent llt_ -� - la.tel: - talked..-abo
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amenth a ft111n4 VIla-ta-tro• •zod ze wid o wwks for the - - - - - --- - - ----ftA- -&t--Ako8011bo J- be ia vi s J..ting _ in�cr.a . _lie_ �rka in tpe :ris beri��- ' studied fish larm ng in Sea\�le for 2 y ears . He told ua how he used �ari n& ancrpeanutouner to ub-iftl"t tU tt · tor gar1 B!id groundnu t pas te .s - - · - - B•-eaW-� -�-b.- miaaee .ae.t...1r om us ve pie , e G ._l MOD »i.e.. He a ai d Accra is too fas t and ax� ens ive for him . -· � sa1d-7ou o an ""t--wn- -n�o�fl'b1'--are mrtn -c�mmr "becaii ae -o .the-Ga--an4-- Akar1 --IIACi- -Ella--WOmen all dress al i ke ( also truLiiL.LOmt -1- ----"EYen by the face you cant te l l , " if there are no marks , he sa id . � A e ald --lneAciis are related to "the a as , out t!i�JH-bmr �· --- · - be tm--eome- -m�age ---lfi.th..Zwea-on. . .tbe bozater.� tb� go to_e ach othUA--- --. mar�et_s� Som� of t!le board er speak Ewe . He a aid the ir name a are ei t�� -___... · Ewe or Ga. The Ewes- - he sald· -liive ver't dlstinot11ii names . "Our--n�- - e.J�e--¥e�i.f-tueD:t •• -We. t alked abr:ut dra a e diftere�es i n aen 1 e traditio nal -The Akana dont wear jumpers , but the Gas , Eves �{1s d o , ,;r-tD c-0 . ' -"" - - - - ------- xr;-.l--.nd;d·.-- --i'be-&u wei!:r the- lcmg eMit�'lihe;v--eeid--t.he-·BtoGki� � ___R!9 •!l_e_. _Mly wo�n by A.t� l� � __./ The E "es al ong the Vol ta river, q. Sogaltof'a , h av e a very t..o ad.... Adamar-he eaid A -Mrs. BJ'eak. to Ewea --4�'1ll t d1aleo-t·-for o tbE 1 the .o.p_praation epel.lkL1hla.. diM_'!l.c t, trom Sogako:fe . ..../ / -·
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t o. A page from Roger inches . )
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Sanjek's
1970
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Adabraka, Ghana, fieldnotes .
(S ize:
8 . 5 by
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1 1
EC-FN 1 9 8 8
- page 6 6
7 MaY 19 8 8 - Carmela G8orqe ' s Cl eanup Day Mil aqros and I a r r iv ed at 1 0 am , a s Carmela to l d me , but 9 7 th st r e et , the deadend , wa s a l ready c l eaned o u t , and the l arge rbage p ickup t ruck , w ith rot a t ing b l ades that c rushed e� ing , was in the midd l e of 9 7 th Place . I found Carmel a , and P e m t Ph i l i roz z i o f Sanitation , wh o had three men work. in g on the The men us the sweeper that arr ive d a l i tt l e l ater pl p , u 01 8an and boys on 9 7th p l ace he l p ing to l oa d their ga rbag e into the t ruck i nc l u ded several Guyane s e Indians i n th eir 2 0s , whoa CArme l a sa id have been here 2 - 3 y ears [ ' They ' re good . ' ] ; s ev era l fami l i es They were lo ad in g tv s et s , o t H i sp an i cs , and Korean and Chinese . wood , o l d furnit ee bra nches and prun i ng , re , t ca rt s , u r ng pi op sh garbage . Most hou ses had larqe p i l e s o f and boxe s o f s bag d an The l ittle boys hanqinq on stu f f i n front , wa it i ng f or the truck . They spoke a and h e l p in g were H i span i c , except for one Ch ine s e . mix tu re o f Sp a n i sh and Engl i sh together , when p a int ing the LIRR wa l l s .
�
carme l a h a d put f l ye rs at ev ery hou s e Pa rkin S a t ur d ay • s igns [ D ] were up few c a r s were pa rked at the curb , b u t thre e b l o cks was empty so the sw ee pe r
on Wednes day , and Po l i ce ' N o on the t e l eph one po les . A most of the curb s ide on the c ould c l e a n the gutt ers .
!be sweeper t hi s ye ar was smal l er than the one in 19 8 6 , and there no sp ray i ng of the str e e t s , on l y sweep i ng the qutt ers . As before , peop l e swept their curb s , and i n some cases driveways , into the gutter . c a rm e l a was a wh irlw ind . She a s ked her elderly I t a l ian ne ighborh J enny , who d i d not c ome out , if she cou ld sweep the sand p i l e near Jenny ' s hou s e in their common driveway . J enny said do n ' t bother , but carme l a did it anyway . She was ru nn i ng a l l around with pla stic garbage ba g s , qet t ing kids to he lp paint o f f the gr a f itt i o n the L I RR pane l s she had p a inte d i n the p ast , and commandeer ing wo•en to cle an out the qra s sy a r e a nea r the LIRR bridge at 4 5th Ave and Nat ional Street . She got a Co l omb ian woman froa 9 7 th Place , and qave her a rake and p l a s ti c bag . She then ranq the door bel l ac ross from the grassy area , beh i nd the bodeqa , and an Ind i an- l ookinq Hispan i c women came down , and l a t e r did the work w i th the Colomb i an woaan wa s
•
•
Mareya Banks was out , in smock , h e lp i ng o rg a n i z e and s uperv i s i n g the ki ds doing the LIRR wa l l pa i n t in g . Mi l aqro s h e l ped with t h is , and s et up an int erv i ew appo intment wit h Ma reya . S he a l so met a Bol iv ian woman , t alk i ng with Ma reya , and sw eep i ng her s idewalk on 4 5th Avenue . Carme l a a l so had potato ch ips a nd Peps i for the ki ds , Co lomb ian wom en gave out to th em , and OTB t - sh i rts .
wh ich th e
Phi l sa id th i s was the on ly such c l ean up in C B4 . A man i n rst d Elmhu oe s something l ike th is , but j ust fo r h i s o n e b l ock . �ey Dept . l i ke s th i s , and hopes the sp i r i t w i l l be contagious . e l i ke a nythin g that g e ts t he commun i t y involved . He s a i d i t egan h e re b ecau s e the new peop l e di d n ' t unde r s tand how t o keep b th e a re a a n i ce p l a ce to l ive . carme l a we nt t o them , a nd now they are i nvo l ved .
S anjek's r 98 8 El mhurst-Corona. Queens, Ne\\t York, field co mputer word-processing p rogram . (Size: 8 . 5 by 1 1 inches. )
1 I . A pag e fro m Roger
note s , p ri n ted fro m
a
PART
III
Fieldnote Practice
Most good inv estigato rs are hard l y av"'are of the precise manner in v.rhich they gather their data.
- PA U L R A D I N
S IM O N OTTEN B ER G
Thirty Years of Fieldno tes : Changing Relationship s to the Text
When I \vas out i n the field as a graduate student at N orthwestern University, Vle 'V'lere instructed by our major professor, Melvill e Her skovits, to send home a copy of our typed notes a s our research pro gressed so that he could read and co mment on them . I did this every few months during my first field trip to the Afikpo, an I gbo group in southeast Nigeria, in 1 9 5 2- 5 3 . 1 The comments I recei ved, I later learned, came mostly from his wife, Frances, who vvas not a trained
anthropologist but had collaborated with her husb and on much of his research and m any publications . So me of the replies \\'ere useful, but man y did not make sense to me . Those th at did not \Vere based up on th e H erskovitses' interviews in Evanston years before with a man who came
from a different Igbo area. I resented my professor's intrusions
and wa s anxious o�,.er negative criticism . I \1\ranted to be in the field just Wi th m y wife and not have the Herskovitses with me . 2 I th a nk John B arker. Jean-Paul Du mont. Charles Keyes, Lorna Rhod es , Mel for d Spi ro , and Pierre van den Berghe for their com ments on this pape r . 1 1 ha d already carried out a su mmer's field research i n a Gullah community in Geor gi a in 1 9 50, w hile a student at North\�lestern, but there I had not been re quire d to follo w this procedure.
20n the other hand, John Messen g er, a fell oVw· st u den t at Northwestern. enjoyed sendi ng back a cop y of his notes, felt that t he responses he got v.·ere helpful, a nd uses the same procedure toda y with his stud<.."ll ts . 139
FIEL D � OT E P RA CTI C E There are analogies bct\vcen the field\vork situation an d m y c h i l d hood . Hcrskovits \vas a strong man , \veil kno\\'n in an thro p o l o g v. who single-handedly ran the dep artmen t . He \\'as on eve ry graduat e s tudent's co mmittee; t\VO of the three other professors in the d e p a rt mcnt had been trained at North\\'Cstcrn with him ; and he and hi s wife ...
..
in man y ways crea ted the im age of parents tovlard us as s tu de n t children . (The infantilization of graduate students by thei r profess o rs . \vhether consciously done or not, is not unco mmon ; in fact ,
so1n�
students uncons ciousl y seck the chil d role with a parental pro fe ss o r
•
'1 J
The conseque11ce is that my fieldnotcs fro m my first research in � fri c a ..
arc ps y chological l y linked to m y O \Vn childhood \Vith m y fath er an d mother. These notes \\'ere a test, an exa mination of my con1petcn ce a s
a graduate student; the school of my childh ood \\�·as linked to the school of professional train i n g . I V�"as n o t in this position on my se cond trip to the same area six years later3 or in my research in n o rthern Sierra Leone in 1 978- Ro, ye t Herskovits was still looking o v er tny psychic shoulder, follo�..ing that crucial experience of my " childhood'� as an an thropologist . I still take notes , type them up, and sen d off a copy (thou gh they go to storage no\v) , and my notes still take n1u ch the s ame form : ethnographic and out\\7ardly obj ective in appearance. It was a thorough j ob of impri nting .
I don 't think my experience i s atypical, whether o ther studen t an
thropologists had their p rofessors read thei r ftrst research n o tes o r not. Gra duate school is a dependency situ ation �;th many aspe cts that may be associated \Vith childhood . The fieldnotes ine\l;tably connect with one's own personal experiences in childhood and m aturation. They arc employed in wri ting the dis sertation, the end of formal schooling. When one starts to publish fro m these notes, as I soon did, the pattern is extended : j ournal and press reviewers become the anonymous fa
thers and mothers of the writer. Fieldnotes-particularly the fir st set but, by extension , others-a re a physical manifesta tion o f chil d
hood experience. Whenever I dra\v upon them , they brin g ba ck cons'ciouslv or unconsciously-the father-son tensions, the wis h fo r the com fo;ting, su pportive �other. 4 The notes arc part of b oth n1y
real childhood and my childhood as an anthropologist. J Since t hi s paper was written I returned to Afikpo for a \\'eek in 1 9�H� (see Otre n b cr g
1 987, 1 989b).
4Jean-Paul Du m ont (pers onal communi cati on) ha's sug gested
associated \Vith mother and breast. with
a
source front which
nouris hment in ,-..· ritings . O n the other hand, James thinks tha t sy m bol�cally they are feces� t h at
some o f the jokes an d phra ses
we: use
we
th at the no tes
.a rc
d ra\\' an thropolog•ca.l Cliffo rd (personal co m niun i<· ati on _) we
arc anal reten tive ab out them . and tha t
in speaking of our notes a re anal in qua lity.
Thirty Years of Ficldnotes 1 �, onder whether this is not true fo r at least some other anthropolo gists as �v e il . I am not s a y i ng that \Ve don 't overcome the experience or
�tegrat e it as \\'e rea ch middle age as anthropologists. Nonethel ess, our not es may all have a ps y c hologica l residue that influences the way we
"'' ri
t e, if not \vhat we write. For exa mple, it took me yea rs to look
my notes as more than facts and to u se them to create rich interpretati ons . on
Another aspect of the field experience connects with childhood. Like a ll g radu ate stu dents I took courses, wrote p apers, and did va ri ous things at the command of my professors, albeit '\"\"ith some nego tiation. Although a young man, I \vas a dependent psychologically,
which I resented emotionally. But in the field I ��as on my own. I made
decisions, within the limits of my funds, alone or
in consultation with
my anthropology student wife, Phoebe, also \.Vorking on her disserta
tion project. There \v as a feeling of exhilaration in this, dampened somc\vhat by the need to "report" to Professor Herskovits. Then,
during the Vlriting of m y di ssertation from these notes upon my return
to
the United States, I lost much of the sense of freedom of the
fieldwork situation. It \Vas as if I had developed my ov.rn ego as an
anthropologist and was then lo sing it. The notes were mine, but
Herskovits \va s still there; there was still that chil dhood position and
feeling. In defense, I believe that I overtreasured my notes. They early
took on a much too sacred character; they became an extension of
me-like an extra penis-that I planned to use for many year s to
come.
The early field situation resembles childhood in many respects. We a re in a strange world where we are in the pro cess o f learning the lan gu ag e and the rules, learning hov.t to live. Much of our previous
ex perience seems useless, unhelpful , or downright contradictory. We �re de pen dent upon others to guide us: pseudoparental figures such as
Interpreters, field guides, the persons \Ve live with , the friends we ma ke in the field. We are as children d u ring the time when we are learning the culture. As \VC acquire kno�..lcdgc and experience, we have a s ense of grov.rth, of adolescence, of maturation, much as chil dren do.
Ou r fieldn otcs reflect this cultural childhood. Th ey are "\Vritten t a te mpts to im pose order on the external \\'orl d of our research as well as on our personal lives in the field, to grow up through understanding
the cul tu re �·e arc stu dying, to perceive the realities of the interests and
o f those \vho interact \vith us in the field. Our o�vn Increasing maturation a nd understanding is reflected in the changing
� otivations
fiELDNOTE PRACTICE nature of the notes as the fie ld research progresses. Mine are docu
ments of my O\\'n anthropological mat uration at A fi k p o ;
thus their nature chan �es accor di� g t� the date \\'hen t� ey \Vere "i\ ritten . In using "
the m to \Vnte for pubhcat1on, of course, th1s fact must be taken into account.
Similar exp e riences recur in second and sub seq uent field trips to dif...
fering peoples , although no\\'
one has a sense from past experience of
the pacing of maturation in th e new cultu re that one lacked on the ftrst trip. And on e is freed from one's teachers. In lat er fieldwork elsc\vhere
I had a clea rer awareness
of my ov.,n transferences , of my reactions to certain persons I was stud ying and to their feelings toward 111e. Yet
there "i\ as still a sense of childhood
ssociation and of relivi n g adoles cence in lea rn ing another culture . It may be that our anthropological
�
a
ten dency to identify with the g roup we study, a seconda ry ethnic
identification (and I had it for many years '"''"ith the lgbo) .. is a conse
quen ce of this maturation process in another cultu re , a process that
duplicates to some ex tent our childhood experience. This strong iden tification with our "tribe" often influences our anthrop ologi cal
reason
ing in writing for publication. Our anthropologist's ego, th ro ug h res earch and fieldnotes, becomes overbound with the group
\Ve
our
study.
We cannot see the an thropo logica l forest for our tribe.
Death, Immortality and Success At the other end of the spectrum is the ques tion of d eath , immor talit y, and the fate of my· notes. For many years-in fact, almost from the first-1 have though t of my fieldn ote s as inv alu able documents. It
was unlikely at the time that anyone else would go to At1kpo, and later
it became clear that so much has chan g ed there that even if othe rs
"'rerc
the information I have. So I think about where I will leave mv note s , and I have chosen t\VO places that will tak e them and where � they \vill be
to do research the re now, they would have trouble d uplica tin g
available for schola rs.
I have had a related idea that it is imponan t to publish the inforrna tion on the Afik po as a record of a p eo ple. I am a war e that they arc an
obscure Igbo group, not at the cente r of things in Igbolan d and ccr
...
tainly not in Nige ri a as a
..hole. Ne·vertheless, I have s een my writ�1g
'\\�
as valuable, a record for Nigerians and th e Afikpo as '"'·ell
as
tor
professio nal anthropologists and students cvcry\vhere. I came to de light in making ·publications available for the Afikpo to read.
Thirty Years of Field notes
But n o\v
143
I think that my \vish to preserve my
notes and to make a b i re cord from them through publica tio n masks a dee pe r motiva pu l c se in my self the desire for personal immort al ity, a denial of tion. I sen rnY O \\'n eventual death. L ack.it1 g children of my ovln, I want my note s and publications to live on a s surrogate descendants. I sometimes fantasize about persons using my not es after my death and even think of pro vid i n g an expl anatory guide to them . It may be not so much the ..�fik po that I want to live fo rev er t hr o ug h my no tes as Ot t enbe rg . ��fik po has become a p rojection of m y self, my fi el dn otes inextricably a part of the process . The insistence of my p r ofe ssor that I s end home a set of no tes-a procedu re that I have carried out ever since, like an unthinking habi t inculcated in childhood-helped to ens ure my im morta lity by avoiding loss of the notes an d allowing them to be \\'rittcn up and p ubli s hed . My n o tes connect with death a n d immor tality as well as with chi ldho od .
To cont inue in this per s onal
w orkin g at Afikpo, persons there frequen tly demande d money or ass is tance in exchange for helping me. I took it to be their style, which in part it was . But they
vein,
vlhen I \Vas
pointed out that I was g oing to go back h ome and wri te a book abou t
them, and t hey believed that I \V ou ld become fa mous. A book \\"as a
big item in their largely nonlitcrate "vorld. On the first research trip I
protested that I was o nl y a student; on the second, that I was mere ly a young teacher. But the y \Vere right. Relative to their status and in come, I did well. I am somewh at known in my field; I have a comfort able job and a fair sa lary. Like the peopl e I s tudied , I l iv e in a hig hly competitive s ociet y that stresses up\vard m obility and per sonal su c ce ss. M·y fieldnotcs s y m boliz e to me a crucial asp ect of m)'· success , an ab solutely necessary part of my per son al progress as an individual t hrough life: they are the funda mental source of the publication s that hav e gi v en me tenu re and a modicum of re co gnitio n as a te acher and
university p rofesso r. M y fi eldno tes , then, have very str on g psychological r eferents for me: chi ldhood, death and immortality, and person al success. They are a key el e men t in my p er so nal l i fe. They stand for field ex p erie n ce as
Well-that seeming l y mystical experience , as outsiders see it. As a personal record of adventure, they· a re v ery much a part of me. I believ e that one rea so n it was so rare for anthropologists to co mment pu bl icl y on their field research until the 1970s, and on their notes until even m ore recently, is the very internalized and p er sonal qu ality of res ea rch . I believe that this is cha n g i ng now, no t o n ly because of gro wi ng criticism '\Vithin and beyond anthropolo g y as to hovv re-
fiELDNOTE PRACTICE
144
search is conducted but because the more problem-oriented nature of field\\'ork today and the move tO\\'ard fiel d experiences in the 'W'est
make for differen t so rts of personal identification vvi th the peopl e that we study, and thus with our fieldnotes . The " my tribe"
people" syndrome is disappearing.
or
Htny
The very" personal nature officldnotes and their asso ciation with
o ur
egos suggest that \\,.e vvill have tov�rard the m s trong feelings-endear
men t, rejection, hostility, preciousness, or \Vh atever-and th a t the writing-up p rocess may require some wrestling with personal en10 ..
tions of these so rts . One reason \\'e \Vrite up so very little from
our
total fieldnotes is the cons iderable ego stren gth needed to do so; the notes are, after all, very autobiographical, ho\i\o"cvcr that aspect is disguis ed .
Headnotes There is another set of notes, however, that an thropologis ts might
consider to be incorporeal property. These are the notes in my mind,
the memories of my field research. I call them my headnotes . As I col
lected my written notes, there were many more impressions, scenl�,
experiences than I \\trote do\i\o"n or could po ssibly have recorded. In deed , I did not keep a diary and only occasionally in corporated diary type material into my fieldnotes, a fact that I very much regret today.
But we Vlcrc brought up in a pos iti�;stic age \i\o"hcrc person al impres sions �..ere seen as less important than the ''facts out the re, " which had a
sense of reality that some anthropologists fi nd misleading today. Since
I do not have a diary to j og my me mory of personal experience, my fieldnotes seem distressingly "o bjective." This is , of co urse , an illu sion.
But the notes are also in my hea d. I re member many thing s, and some I include when I �·rite even though I cannot find the m in my fieldnotes, for I am certain that they are correct and not fan tasy. I remember a great deal of haggling over payments for informatio n, but
my notes reveal little of this or of t he anger that it brought me. Nor do my notes reflect the dep res sion occa sioned by my linguistic failures.
My written notes repressed i mportant aspects of field research . Bu t my headnotes are also subject to dis tortion . forgetting, elaborat ion, and I ha�..e dc�·cloped stereotypes of the people l study as a
cot:
sequen cc of usi�g this mental material over the years: Otten bergs
Thirty
Years
of Fieldnotes
Afikpo arc essentially a highly democratic people; they are more richly metap horic than we Americans are; they are extremely talkative and demanding of others (including me); they are entrepreneurial. Some of these features may be true or not, but they provide a satisfactory image for me, as if I have completed the jigsavl puzzle that is Afikpo culture and so ciety and can see clearly V��hat they are like. I also have certain stories that I have undoubtedly elaborated on, extended, made richer th rough the telling of them to students , colleagues, and friends over the years: the time that I �,.ent to a diviner to discover \\'hy I had not h ad m ail from my mother in some months; the proverb that my carver friend repeated to me when he discovered that I had sho\vn his masks to my wife even though he had ins tructed me not to do so. In short, the processes of reflecting, ordering, suppressing, and connecting go on not only in the process of \Vriting from notes but in teaching, in reading anthropology, and throughout my everyday life experience, when I sometimes compare my lifeway vlith that of the Afikpo. And the published record that dravls upon my headnotes and my written notes is, in a sense, a sort of storytelling, much as Bennett and Feld man (1981) argue that storytelling goes on in American courts. It is a construction of reality out of my t\vo sets of notes . Except for some pre-research impressions through reading, my views of Afikpo culture developed in the field. I began early to create conceptions that bordered on stereotypes . I \vas fortunate to have my anthropological wife with me. We have different vieV��s of Afikpo culture, partly deriving from the fact that I worked extensively \Vith males and she with females, and each sex there had some differing viev.."s as \veil as sharing others . Partly it was also because of our personal natures. She sa\\' more deviltry there than I did, and I thought that she \\'as too suspicious of people's motivations. I \vas too amiable about conflict and deviousness on the part of some persons there. We co ntinued to correct each other and to argue these points as ·\�le pu b lished joi ntly or separately until the mid-196os, "vhen we divorced. We h ave had little anthropological cooperation since, and from then on I ha ve had fe\v checks to my headnotes of this kind. I go on my v.lay convinced of their accuracy. As I matured and began to develop some small influence in the anthropology circle at my university, my headnotcs began to change. I ca me to see the Afikpo as not so democratic: v..'eren' t there some auto cratic leaders who stood above democracy? As I went through sev eral marri ages vlith not al\\rays shining success, I began to reflect
145
fiELDNOTE PRACTICE
differen tly on Afikpo marriages a n d on the fate of ma tes in their so ci ety. As anth ro p o l og i cal theory has change d , so has the way I look at both my headnotes and my \Vrittcn notes. In short, as my O\vn life unwinds, I naturally see and reflect u pon Afikpo life d iffe rentl y. I a111 constantly reinterp reting Afikp o, ever looking at my fieldnotcs in differen t ways. There is no constancy except their yellowing pages as ph ys ical objects.
my w ri t ten notes stay the same. E xce p t for a few additions written several years ago, when I h ad a chance to discuss some elements of the cul tu re \1.rith an Afikpo student at my university, the notes have not cha n g e d . But my inter pret a tions of them have as my headnotes have a l tered . My headnotes and my wri tten n otes are in constant d ialogue , and in th is sense the fi el d experien ce docs not stop. Thin gs that I once read in my ficldno tes in one �.. ay, I now read in another. E·vidence that I though t excellent, I no\\t ques ti on . I don�t believe th at I am more objective novl than then, only that my inter pret a tion s are more accurate; that I really ''see" Aftkpo no\\· in n1y middle-aged m a tu ration ; that I can reflec t now as a s age , \vhereas my you thfu l interpretations were less intelligent, more hesitant. Through more than thirty years of using these notes , I have been � ork in g \\'ith ma n y texts and many interpretations. Yet the words in
·
�'riting L1p in the Field and at Home
have twice written articles in the field, one '\\tith mv \\'ifc during our second stay in Afikpo in 1959-60 (Ottenberg and Ottcnberg 1962) , and one while I worked alone in Sierra Leone (O tt enberg 1983). In writing in the field I fo u n d that I was \\'restling \Vith inco ns i s ten ci e s in my notes and tri ed to u n tang l e these by g o in g out to do n1ore research . But this experience too left puzzles . What I \Vrote somehow still did not express the irregularities of the culture; the publications became too re g u l a r, too ordered. It has been more comfortable to deal with inconsistencies and disorder while \vriting in America! Her e they don't seem as penetrating, as disturbing . Lani Sanjek has suggested t o me, I belie,te correctly, that one reason it is difficult to �..rite in the field is that Vle h;r\rc personal contacts there: \VC need d is tanc ing from them before Vle can \vrite. This again sug gests the latent emotional quality of collecting field data as against its supposed object�ve nature. I am reminde d of the late J)r. R. E. BradI
Thirty Years of Fieldnotes
147
bury, who studied Benin cul t u re but \\'ho lived in Nigeria so close to the Edo for many years that while there he could not fully write up his work. Unfortunately, he died before much of his very impo rtant research was ever pu blished. 1 sus p ect the fact is that most of the cul tures we s tudy are much less consistent, have m u ch gr eat e r ir r egulari ties than \Ve admit to ou rselves in our drive to conceptualize them, to order and t o "invent" them
(Wagne r 198 r ). But whether in the fi eld or o ut , the ficl dn otcs represent di so rder and irregularity, in contras t to the publications gro\\lmg from them and to the headnotes. Ther e is a cons t an t tension, then, between ficldn otes and h eadnotes , perhap s reflecting a vie\\' of the fieldnotes as a physical sy mbol of childhood g ro wt h and the hcadnotcs as the maturing, in creas ingl y indep ende n t adult ego of the anthropologist.
At the ver y least, there is a con tinuing dialogu e between the t\vo As soon as I le ft the fi eld the first time, and again the secon d, I \Vas no longe r in contact "'·ith Afikpo e xc ep t for an oc casi on al letter. The .
dialogue among my written no t e s m y head no t es , my ,
\V ife 's
views
and note s and th e vicV�'"S of the people I \\'as stu dyin g \\ as rep l a c ed by another dial ogue in \Vhich the A frican was missing and my profess ors and fello\v students app eared It became easier, a\vay from the field, to put asi de tha t inconsistent datu m in my fieldnotes , to dismiss certain data as obviously in error in my drive for order and consisten cy· Der iving from my grO\\ling s te reoty pic vision of Afikpo, my pu blica tions create the illusi on of cultural c o nsi sten c y. In this sense my head notes h a ve come to domi nate m y written notes. In the dialogue be t\veen th e tvlo, the \Vri tten form is l os ing out to my head. I believe th at the headnotes are al� ays mo re im p ortant than the \Vrittcn notes Only after their author is dead do \\ ritten notes become Primary, for then the h eadnotes a re go n e H e ad notes are th e dri ving force, albeit subject to correction by the fieldnotes. The V�'"ritten notes have a s acred quality that is also an illusion. The process o f employ ing fi el dn o tcs should make them an adj un ct to the mo re primary head notes, \\' h ich lead the written form, even tho u g h for living anthropol o gi s t s, w r i ting up head notes without \v ritte n notes-as \vhcn the la tt er are l o st p resents immense difficulties. Only a fe\\1· have attempted it. For most o f us , bo th arc required But does not the primacy of h e adn o tes as th e driving force over the written form suggest that \Ve are cl os er to the nonlitc rat e p eople we stu d y t h an VlC arc \Vill ing ,
'
.
.
..
.
'
.
-
.
to admit?
There is a
paradox, then.
We need to be away from the peo pl e b ei ng
FtELDNOTE PR '\CTICJ: ..
follo\V reinforced by the relatively short time most of us can financially affor d to remain in the field and by other necessities, such as vlork. Yet thcr studied in order to V�"rite. This is a pattern that most of
us
�
is �eed to be with the people we_ s� �dy in � rder t ? che�k our writing _ Betng a\·vay allo \\'S for the posstbthty of mcrcastng dtstortton in ou
r
hcadnotes and thus in our interpretation of the written notes, thou h it g provides us a fine chance to order our data. Writin g in the field creates conflicts of time and energy,
as
against doing field researc h , and
a
bombardment of data \vhich makes it hard for u s to see order and arrangement without falsifying. I note that most of us have been
trained not to write for publication in the field but to prepare \Vritten notes there and to do our formal \vriting away from the field. Perhaps the ideal solution is to have one or t'"'"o extensive field periods in
one
place and then return to it for short periods of time over the years� allowing u s to check on ethnographic material. But this has not been a typical model for anthropology.
Scratch l\lotes My fieldnotes themselves are based upon ''scratch" notes taken in longhand \Vith a pen on small pads of paper and th en typed up in my
"free time"-often in the late evening \\l·hcn I \Vas quite fatigued. The
hand\\'ritten notes arc brief sentences, phrases, \\'ords, sometimes quotes-a shorthand that I enlarged upon in typing them up, adding what I remembered. Obviously, selectivity \1tras involved in this typ ing process. I forgot or repressed s ome things and distorted others. I was aware of it at the time and tried to avoid it, but I don't believe I fully succeeded. So my handwritten n otes are my original \vrittcn text, and my typed notes are a reinterpretation of the firs t interpreta tion of what \Vas in my head \Vhen I pro duced my hand\vritten notes. My dissertati on \¥as a third, my published \\'o rk a fourth. For n1any
years I kept my handv,"ritten notes and occasionally referred to them \vhen something was o b s cure in my typed no tes. Be cause I usually
discovered that it \Va s also ob scure in the hand·\\lr itten version , I finally
abandoned this practice a n d threvl the scratch notes a'"'"ay. I am sorrY
no�·. Eliminatin g the hand'\.vritten ones _has reified th e typed form d The hand notes \\'o uld make an interesting comparison with my type notes.
Thirty Years of Field notes
l49
Orgatlizing Data any things that my written notes left out or minimized still exist M fuzzv form in my head. These include the details of endless negotia
.
:ons 0 �er rewards for help given, problems of leaming the language,
critical comments about my research abilities, and the details of my
disagree ments \Vith my vvife over interpretations of our data. Such omissions protect the ego of the researcher but make for poor, non
reflective notes. 1 find that my data on any specific topic arc scattered about in my \�1itten notes. I come across key passages here and there, some com mcants a
I don't easily understand today, some contradictory data, maybe
fe\V helpful photographs that have a reality my notes lack
(I employed
photographs a great deal in my book on Afikpo masquerades; sec Otten berg
1975).
I begin �·ith a focus for my \Vriting and then organize
the key categories in my data, with other categories grovving out of my
ordering of the notes. My ficldnotcs tend to be nonreflective and
noninterprctivc, \Vith simple analyses at best-an observation or two
that I did not get from other persons. With little overt interpretation or analysis in my notes to dra\v upon, except for some informant vieV�"S
and understandings, what I do is to create my interpretations out of
(1) existing ones that I have carried in my head from fieldvlork days or earlier, (2) my mind's reactions and reflections on the data, and (3) so cial science ideas prevalent at the rime I am writing.
is,
Out of these clements I construct an organization of the data-that an
ethnography, \vhich is already interpretive-and then an inter
pretatio n of this, vv·hich I see as my final analysis. The first step, the organization, helps me spot contradictions in data and try to resolve them, or eliminate them by discarding some information. Otherwise,
l tend to treat the data as factually correct or as the evident interpreta _ tion of inform ants. I generally feel that my descriptive account of the data is objective, and this allo\vs the interpretation to come second. To rne, all this has a comforting positivist feel to it. Of course, even these d ta con a stitute the endpoint of a complex process of selectivit)" in fieldwork on my part and on the part of my informants. And I am aware that even \Vith discarding and reinterpreting, there are still gaps.
lio\v do I recognize a gap? Clearly, because I have some scheme, some
order in mind. I may search my notes again for data to fill the gap, and occa sion ally I succeed in finding some. But generally I do not, and I
fiELDNOTE PRACTIC[
ha ve to leave questions unanswered or tnake in terpretations that
are
unsure . T his became parti cul a rl y f ru st r atin g after the second field trip, \Vhen I realized that I had still not filled in all the gaps, for ne\\' ideas con cerning neces sary da ta a ro se in the \\"ritin g process even then .
When I \\'as doing research in the tlcld, is mostl y ethno g raph i c and an objects. 1
I am a compul sive collecto r.
I collected fi eldn otes; novl it
have alw a y s had the need to coll ect lots and lots of notes , perhaps
o riginally because I wante d to sho�y the Hcrskovitses that I \Vas a dutiful a n thropolo gical son, but also because i t is my nature . In both Afikp o field t rip s I took p rid e in my massive collection of no tes on a \vide range of topics . I felt I might employ them all some day but had no idea at the time ho\v to do so. Unlike my headnotcs , my written notes have little obvious order; they were typed and filed day by day a nd paged as t y ped They arc a thicket of ethnography. In order to begin to make sense of my notes , in the field I kept an .
index on small cards . This gave me a rough idea ofho\v many pages of material I had on any topic but no notion as to its quali ty. My catego
of ind e x in g thou gh I made
ries
altered d uring the cou rse of the first fiel d trip, and
adj ustments to the index as I \Ven t along, it had
pr o blem s After l ea vin g the field I re\vorked it entirely. .
I follo\ved
a
si milar p r o cedu re on my second Afikpo trip, finally in te g r a ting the tvlo indexes completely.
The in d ex reflects my need to collect fieldnotes extensively,
ever oth er
purpose it
serves.
V\7hat
It is now the heart of my w ritten notes,
though as my ideas as to what and how to write about Afikpo changed� its categories \Vere not always a pp ro p riate But the index is a vita l, .
time-saving pa rt of m·y notes .
cal categories and
It reflects my substantive anthropologi
subcategories-family, descent, as sociation groups� leadership-rather than hi ghl y theoretical ones . The job of devel oping
the index �·as long and time-consuming, since many data fit many
categories, but it has p ai d off in the writing-up stage. The index has
a
qu alit y; it is the key to locating the " facts,'' not ideas. I defend my co mp ul sion to collect ethnographic data. I bel i ev e it is done less by an thropologists today than b y th ose of my generation.
pos i tivist i c
which was not so much concerned with theory. For me , this con1pul
si on has been coupled \vith a second one-to \vrite a
So, I have 1975, 1 9 89a) ,
thus tum notes into lots of publications .
books on Afikpo (Ottenb er g 1968, 1971, articles . Except those of recent ·years, my
g rea t deal and published four
pl u s nun1erous p u b li catio n s arc heavy in
ethnography, a�d much of the theory is implied,
covert,
or
shyly
Thirty
Years of Fieldnotes
re sented. This suggests a h ypothesis: those who p roduce ethno
p
�
ra hic, nontheoretically oriented notes �"ill produce ethn o g raph c g p . wr it ings; those �"ho produce problem-onented or theoreti cally di recte d notes will produ ce like \Vritings. The no tes arc signs of the na ture of the scholar.
Colonialis1n Nigeria became indepen dent on Octobe r
1,
196o. Most of my
fic ldnot es on Afikpo \Vere obtained before that date. They a re colo ni alist docu men ts, and I a m a colonialist anthropologi st, I a m told by
som e of my colleagues no\vadays! I thought not. Imbued \vith the spirit of cultural relativism, so carefully and thoroughly nourished by
Professor Herskovits at North\vestern, I v�rcnt to the field to "unde r stan d" another people and to \\"rite abo u t them. I hoped to bring some sensible co mpre hension of them and their v·.ray of life to a largely nonunderstanding Wes tern worl d, some appreciation of the values o f cultural differences , so me nonracis t, nonp rimitive views o f Africans. That I have succeede d only in bringing s uch vie \\"S to the attention o f students a n d some o f m y colleag u eS-\\rho, by and l arge, already agree with the m-is beside the point. I \Vent to the field holdin g these views and also a considerable suspicion of colonialis m. It is evident that through m y notes I '•captured" and took a�·ay the Afikpo , a "subtribe" of the Igbo. They became mine, "my people., Anthropo log ical colonialism? Yes, but also personal possessiveness. But of course, I \Vas inevitably trapped in the colonial '�reb-in soci al relationships \Vith the Brit i sh colonial officia ls; in African per ception s of myself and my wife as essen tially Britis h in culture; in a research fo cus on traditional politics rather than on the colonial world as pa rt of that politics; in seeki n g to study the upu rc'' native rather than
the dc tribalized" to \vnsmen, as colon ial officials referred to the m; in a failu re to u n derstand full y the economic consequen ces of colonialis m. u
I al so shared the naive optimism of most of my African ist colleagues ,
hut not of colonial offi cials, that independence for African count ries Would have a smooth cou rse and that post-independence governments �auld be successful and lar gely dem o cratic. We thought th at colonial Ism
h ad provided a start in the right d irection \\'hich would con tinue
W ith indep endence. I have no shame or remorse fo r ha";ng held these v alues in the pas t. I
FIElDNOTE PRACTICf
\vas a product of my ti mes . Those scholars today \vho are critical of
the colonial mentality of that time are ju st as likely to be blind to the cu r rent political realities in which they are entrapped and for \vhich they will be condemned in twent y or th irty years . The more difficult problem is perception of the current v�rorld one lives in; the past seems
much easier to understan d fro m within the frame\vork of the present. But how do \Ve get a rou nd the errors of m isperception of our \\'orld today and their influence on ou r research , on the nature of our notes and on our interpretations of them?
My notes arc colonial documents , refl ect ing attitudes of th at ti n1c;
they are archives that I have to translate in terms of p re sen t values, standards , and views for my \vriting based on them. My headnotcs.
h ovlever distorted and reinterpreted through time, are me n tal archival
resources . Historical scholars working \Vith archives do not usually
empl oy materials that they· themselves have ��ritten! They have
no
headnotes coeval with the docu ments , onl y those they begin t o de vel op as their heads carry out dia logue �vith the archives and those a rising through previous experience and conception s . But these
ar
chives arc mine . They include th e little govern m ent archival material that I ��as able to obtain, but this is supplementary m at e rial at best.
The advantage of using one's own archives is that one can better
unders tand the ci r cu m stances in which they vverc written, despite the
distortions i n the head. The disadv anta ge is th at one is terribly inclined not to be too critical of one's own archives . They are too m u ch a part of one's person , one's ego, not only becau se of the hard vlork and struggle to obtain them but also because, as I have indicated, they n1ay rel ate to childhood identity, t � c striv'ing fo r succes s , and the wish for immortality.
Fieldnotes as Archives Only recentl y have an thropologists had much interest both in using
archives in thei r research and w riting an d in viewing their o\.vn field
notes as archives . There is also con cern now about the ulti mate preser d v ation of fieldnotes . Our a rchives have not yet generally· assume commercial value except occasionally for tax p urp oses in inheri tance matters . The "co mmodifaction of ev e rything (Wal le rst e in 1983: r6I7), so characteristic of ca p ital ist society, has little touched our fieldnotes yet; they ar� not being auctioned off at Sotheby's or Christie s. In "
Thirty Years
ofFieldnotes
153
fa ct , \\'hen I \v as youn ger, I would have felt uncomfortable at the thought of someone else using my notes, '\\l·hether I \\ras alive or dea d- they are so m uch a private thing, so much an aspect of pers onal
field experience, so much a private language, so much a p art o f my ego, my childhood, and my pers onal matu rity. But now I have shown
them to graduate students preparing to go to the field; a student of mine in ethnomusicology read my 1978- 80 notes on the Limba of northern Sierra Leone before doin g field research there, an d e""en took a cop y \vith him. The p rivate natu re of our largely "loner" res earch ( anthropologists
rarely do fieldwork in g roups) and the idea that unless you tho roughly
experience the culture yourself you cannot know it make sharing notes \\'ith others difficult. Only occasionally has so meone edited for pub lication the field\\'ork of a deceased anthropologist (see Pehrson 1966;
Bradbury 1973). Wri tten notes are a private language, a speci al l an guage for interacting with the headnotes . They are not intended for
pu bli ca tio n Yet novl, along v.rith pho tographs, letters fro m the field, .
and material objects col lected during research , they have beco me of value as archi vcs.
I have to bring the critical eye of a pos tcolonial anthropologist to my colonialist archival notes . It is difficult . When I ��as doin g my field work and \v riting, there was little criticism o n the part of o ther so cial scientists of my kind of liberal political leaning; novl, in an thropology
there is . When I \Vas doin g my fiel d res earch, very few of the people I
was stu dy in g could read or write; no\-v many can, an d they h ave read
wh at I have written about Aflkpo. Some are pleased to have this obs cure corner of Africa "on the map ; some are happy to see their "
own names or photographs in prin t. Some are critical of my inter pret ations or my data; others feel that they are accurate. So me Igbo
scholars (no t from Afikpo) have cited my published work, and I am now in a dialogue '\\l" ith them. Their in terpretations of their notes are ma tched to my interpretations of my notes. But v.then I was doing field res earch, there \\'as no such dialo gue \•.rith lgbo once I had left the fiel d . There was only the silence of the "native," characteris tic of the anthrop ological research and ��ritings of the colonial period . I find that I have had to struggle with these i ssues a s I employ my field n otes and my headnotes in my ""·riting. I have had to deal with the
over c onfi dence that silence from the "native" brings, and later with �he critical dialogue oflgbo anthropologist s over my work. I can refer 10 m y publications to the specific time I am writing about and make
154
fiELDNOTE PRACTICI�
the usual anthropological apologies about the "ethnographic present•' in which I frame my materials. This is, of course, subject to criticistn today for its unrealism. I can \\'rite as a historian, citing my own notes and memories as documents. In fact, all anthropological writing is history, for even as one leaves the field, the culture is already changing , and by the time of publ ication it is not the same. My p roblen1 has become ever more severe; \Vhat I am \\"riting is ever more historical as the origin point of my fieldnotes recedes in time. I cannot go back and check my data; there has been too much change in Afikpo. I have virtually the only data that exist in the world on Afikpo except for some government documents that survived the Nigerian civil \var. Unless the Afikpo \\'rite their own memories of the past-\\l'"hich they have not done, but which I would encourage-there remains only rny interpretation of their past. I consider this an immense responsibility. I do not denigrate my Afikpo fieldnotes because of the colonialist nlilicu in which the y were \Vritten, but thev do remain the same, while n1v headnotes alter through my o�·n exposure to new ideas and ne\\r politics. -
.
Atzthropological Theory
What is true of politics is true also of anthropological theory \Xlhen I gathered my Afikpo fieldnotes, they related to the major con ten1 po rary theories in anthropology. In America there \Vere the competing concepts of culture of Herskovits, Kroeber, Kluckhohn, Boas, and others. Ideas of centrality in cultural features �"ere predominant patterns of culture, ethos, value orientations, and Herskovits's cul n1ral focus, which I and all his students tried to employ in the field. There was a holistic attitude to\vard field data as there "\Vas in these analytical approaches. Ideas of cultural relativism abounded and were openly debated. And there \Vas British social anthropology, in \Yhich I was very poorly trained-though I learned much of value from this ap proach on my own and \Vith the help of personal contacts \Yith l\1cyer Fortes and \Vith students and faculty at the University of Chicago before ffi)'" second Afikpo research trip. It was from these encounters that I was able to work out the complex double Afikpo unilineal descent system later on (Ottenberg 1968). In both American and Bri ti sh anthropology there was the vie\V o� the tribe as a separate, distinctive group. There "\vcrc crude theories ot ...
Thirty Years of Fieldnotcs
ISS
cUl tu re contact, culture ch ange, and acculturation . There \Vas little in the �vay of his torical orientation, little Marxism, little study of aggres sion and m ilitarism, little symbolic analysis� there were no conscious
emic an d etic perceptions as yet . Despite the presen ce of influential
wom en in the pro fession , anthropology w as male-oriented in prob lem. and research. I did my Afik po field\vork at the end of the age of positivism in anthropology. Where are all the theories today that existed then (and some seemed quite exciting to me at the ti m e)? They
are
gone , dead as a doornail. Positiv ism is largely gon e, s·"rallo\ved in
hermen eutics and the text, in the replacement of the biological analogy
and metaphor in anthropology \Vith hu manistic ones: the trope, sym bol, and the text. My fi cl dnotes rep resent dead tra d itions. I have considered that it might be better simply to put aside these
early fieldnotes: to let other scholars , w hen I
am
dead, puzzle over
what the info rmants V.."ere like \\'hose na mes appear in the interviews; to
let others \vork out the obscurities of cenain details in the text
without knowing whether these matters ·\vcrc really obscure
not. Leaving my notes with the possibility that no one
to
will
me or
ever be
interested in looking at them at all -the ultim ate death! Still, I could go
on
to other field research based on the ne\ver theories and ideas in
anthropology, with the current criticisms of the politics and "colonial ist mentalities"' of earlie r anthropologists in mind. In fact, I have done so with my o\vn research into aesthetics and sy mbolism among the
Limba of northern Sierra Leone in 1 978-So. But even after th at trip I \\7Cn t back to my fieldnotes and headnotes to write one more book on Afikpo, on the life of boys from binh through initiation (Ottenberg 1989a) . I see my notes as so much a part
of my childhoo d and li fe in anthropology that i t is hard to g rov,' up. This is personal idiosyncrasy, not necessarily co mmon to other an thropologists, though I doubt that i t is rare . The writing of this last major w ork of the Afi k po, which itself connects \\'ith ch ildhood, is
rny most personal anthropological docum ent o f all; I used my notes, b th w ritten and in my head , to explore my o""'ll past through the o chi ld h ood of Afikpo persons . The t\vo became intertwined . I used the not es as text for unders tanding both my self as a child and the Afikpo b s oy -their initiations, their development through childhood . But o nl y the Afikpo side comes out directly in the �·riti n g . So instead of PUttin g aside my colon ialis t notes \Vith their old-fashioned theorv, I hav e empl oyed the m in order to understan d myself, including �y Afikp o an thropological childhood. My earlier \vriti ngs V.."ere also self-
f i EL D N O TE P R A C T I C E
serving but more i n the interest o f personal advancement and s u c c e s than of self-understandin g. I am not much worried about success now� , I don't expect to become more or less than I am . I can be anthropolo gically cynical about all of this . If her me n e u t ic s and the study of the text tell us that textual analysis is all interpre t a t io n . and that perhaps the best we can do is to give some idea of ou r b i asc � and our own rules of interpretation, or try to follo\v some more o r l es s standardized rules of interpretation (Ricoeur 1 97 1 ), '\\rhy sho ul dn� t 1 make use of my own colonial era archives? So I go ahead. The fact is that cultural relativism h as been replaced by te xt u a l relativism. We have moved from ideas of the relativism of the cultu res of the people ,,.,e study to concepts of the relativity of interpr et at i on and the interpreter. That is possible because \Ve have moved from employing scientific metaphors, particularly those relating to organic qualities (organic solidarity, society as a metaphor for a living animal) to using humanistic metaphors drawn largely from literature, li terary criticism, history, and drama (symbols, the text, performan ce). Field notes have gone from being viewed as scientific data to being s een as interpretive text in the years that I ha,,..e been \\'riting up my Afikpo research . Anthropology has shifted fro m questions of the accu racy of the data in the notes to m atters o_f hovv· one interprets them as text . No\v everything is interpretation: culture is a text to be interpreted: fieldnotes are a text; we are in a world of hermeneutics, symbolic and metaphoric analysis; and there is a strong turn to examining the self as anthropologist, as recent "vriting about fieldwork indicates (Dumont 1 978; Wagner 1 98 1 ). Curiously, all this allows me to keep w riting. I consider my fieldnotes as text, where a positivist m ight obj ect that my data arc outmo ded and not systematic. My positivist notes have been saved by the concept of the text. An ironic , unexpected twist! Despite my own changing interpretations of my headno te s and written notes, I believe the y have some consistencies that anch or them through time, and these are probably rooted in my particula r pe rs on ality. On the negative side the·y include poor linguistic skills , an u n ea sy relationship to the oral arts in contras t to visual arts, a tend e n c y to underemphasize conflict and aggression , and a failure to ta ke a s se riously as I might the obvious meanings of informants' statem e n t s . On the positive side there is a considerable sensitivity to status a nd r ole differences and to their meanings for the persons I study, a great delight in participation in their culture, and a strong need to che c k d ata against the vie\\'S of others. Such consistencies as these must be re-
T h irty Years of Ficldnotes
fle eted in many of my publications, vvhatever my changing interpreta tions o f my OVJ!l mental and written texts. Despite the demise of positivism in much of anthropology, espe cial ly in symbolism and art, th e fields that interest me to a large extent t oday, I am left �vith a nagging residue of positivistic feeling. Is this the c h il d h ood that I can never shake? O r is something more? It is hard to tell . B ut I have found that some of my data, collected \Vith other theori es in mind and du rin g a colonial period, can nonetheless be rein terp reted in the present political vlorld and in terms of current theory. Not as \veil as fresh data, perhaps, the results not as original but p ossibilities exist. I \\l·ould argue that despite the ridicule of past scholarship � hich m arks much of social and cultural anthropolo gy to d ay, we can-because vtc study the past- make use of our O\\'n s c hola r ly past if we are sensitive to the nature of our anthropological texts, their complexities and their limitations. I have been able to p ublish enough material from my compulsive fieldnote-taking to be lieve that there is a certain minimal sanctity to a collection of field data. I t does have unexpected uses; it is an unknovvn mine for interpretation . In fact, I have probably used only half of my \Vritten notes, if that much . It is the fate of most notes to remain silent forever, like the native before literacy. Realizing how m uch of what we write is not really obj ective but interpretive leads us to a better understanding ofhow \VC do fieldwork, which should therefore come to be carried out more fruitfully than in the past. The approac h provides us rich insights into the mental pro cesse s of analyzing our data and writing them up. But it is also part of present Western society 's preoccu p ation \\'ith the self, a narcissism in which the "native" becomes secondary, while concern \\7ith our anthro po lo gica l and personal processes beco mes primary. Those of us \vho beco me so textually involved-unlike Marxists , World System theo ri sts, deve lopment anthropologists, ecologists, and ethnoscientists c an av oid some salient facts about the people we study. For exa mple, physical aggression and militarism were \videspread . T �n h ird World areas in the precolonial period . Their decline occurred tn col oni al times folloVJmg the initial, sometimes brutal, aggression of t h e colonialists. During this colonial time much of anthropology that \Vas p ublished \Vas without reference to militarism, despotism, and a ggr es sion ; ou r fieldnotes reflect the rather amiable view of the native \Vor ld that many of us held. But in our neocolonial times, aggression and militarism and autocracy are considerably on the increase again in ..
1 57
F t ELD N O T E PRACTI C E
the Third World, involving both the peoples there a n d the G r e a t Povlers . Food s hor t ages are \v i d e sp re a d ; Western medicine has n o t brought a desirable standard of health; Third World c oun tries ra rel y control m aj o r aspects of their economies, and their cities are in ch ao s . Mean while. we talk of the decline of positivism and of ourselv es
as
only interpretiv·c ani mals, a l t ho u gh som e are quite skilled .
I suggest that our turn t o the a n t hro po log y o f ourselves, o f our
o \\�n
anthropological pro cesses , to reflexivity, to the text, is partly an avo id ance of these u nha p py is sues , a defens e mechanism a g ainst our o\\�11 disappointment \v ith the p rese n t situation of many of the peoples th a t Vle h ave traditi onally studied. It is related to our sense of an inabili ty
.
to
con trol these condition s . E i ther \Ve react to them by moving to \vard
develop ment theories, M arxis m, cthnosciencc, ecol ogy, and
so o n ,
��here Vle believe that �v e see realities (though ide ol ogi es may obscure
them), in \Vhich case our field notes are generally said by the ir makers to reflect obj ectivity, positi v i s m and the like; or �·e withdra�� into the ,
ex amina tion of ou rsel ves as anthro polo gists throu gh a strong con cern \Vith sy mbolism , stru ctur ali s m, deconstruction, and the like , a V��ith d ra\val from facing the re al i ties of the condition of the people
we
s tud y Insofar as we take this second course . \v iii V��e be revealed in the .
fi c l d not es
Vlc
collect as any l ess blind than the col onialist a n t h r o po l o
gist who studied the native outside the context of the col onial situa tion? To me the challenge fo r the textual, reflexive view is to discover ho\v can it be, and ho'" should it be , rel a ted to the realities o f the Third
World toda)". All o f this i s linked very closely to the nature of our fieldnotes-ho \v they are c o l lec ted and how they are used . Fortunately, our field is s elf-oriented no\vadays no t only with re ga rd to the anthro pol ogis ts and their o\vn experien ce but also in
te rms
of the selves of the individuals vle s tudy, particularly through an interest i n the p erson and a phenomenological appr o a c h (Rics man
1 9 86). This imp o rt an t aspect is large ly absent in my notes and in rhe fieldwork and \\'riting of my generation . Anthropologists �"ho
exa nl
ine their own s elves may also be led to the selves of those they stu d y. Insofar as Vle conn ect the two kinds of sel f-studies, I think th is is
highly desirable . Insofar as �·e focus mainly on our own selves, I th ink it is self-defeating . Riesman ( 1 986: 1 1 0) c i tin g J ules-Rosette 's st ud y ,
( 1 975), indicates that " it makes eminent sense to s tudy on es el f in o rder to knovl the other. '' And Riesman ( 1 986: I 1 2- 1 3 ) ��rites that \ve st u dy
other sel ves in order to fmd meaning in our own lives . It seems
mo re
Thirty Years of Fieldnotcs
1 59
i.Jnpo rtant to anthropology to be con s cious of this process novl than
when I did my O\Vn A fikpo ficld�"ork . We are on a m ov ing escalator with our fieldnotcs. They change during the process of field research
as
\Ve mature in the fiel d. They are
in a changing relationship to the na tive as \\'ell a s to our headnotes . As our s o c ia l milieu alters through our lifetime maturation, our relation ship to our notes alters . As the political and intellectual climate of our scholarly field changes, our relationships to and uses of our fiel dnot cs
change . Positivism al lowed the ill u sion of the permanence of fieldno tcs . Now we sec ho\v relative the text is to the situation at hand . But paradoxi cally, I hope that we can ultimately han dle this movin g escala tor, this continual change in relationships to the fieldn otes, in a more objective manner than we have done befo re .
REFE RE N C E S
Bennett, W. Lance, and Martha S . Feldman. 1 98 1 . Reconstructing Reality in th e Courtroom . Nc\v Bruns\vick, N .J. : Rutgers U n iversity Press .
Bradbury, R. E. 1 973 . Bmin Studies . Ed . Peter Morton Willi a m s . London : Oxford University Press for the International African Institute . Dumont, Jean-Paul . 1 978 . The Headman attd I . Aus tin: University of Texas Press. Jules-Rosette, Bcnne tta. I 97 S · A_frican �4postle.s : Ritual Con versiofl in the Church of john �WtJranke. Ithaca : CorncU University Press .
Ottenberg, Simon. 1 g6 8 . Double Desctf!l in an .4Jrrcan Society : The Afikpo- J,?ilJage Group. A merican Ethnologi cal Society, Mono graph 47. Seattle : U niversity of
Washington
Press.
. 197 1 . uadersiJ ip and A uthority in an Aftican Societ)l : The Afikpo- Villa�e G roup . American Ethnological Society, Monograph ) 2. Seattl e : U niversi ty of Wash ington Press. . 1 97 .5 . The �Wasked Ritua l.s of .4_{ikpo: The Context of an African Art . Seattle :
-
--
University o f Wash in gton Press.
. 1 98 3 . Artistic and Sex Roles in a Lim ba Chiefdom. In Female and Afale in lVest Africa, ed. Christine Oppong , 76-90. London: Allen & Unwin .
--
--. 1 987 . Return to the Field : Anthropol ogical Deja Vu. Cam bridge Anthropol£'gy 92 (3) : I �] I .
--. 1 9 89a. Boyhood Rituals in an African Society: A n Interp retation. Seattle: Uni versity of Washin gton Press . --. 1 989b. "We A re Becoming Art Minded '' : Afi kpo A rts 1 98 8 . Ajncan Arts
(4): 58-67,
88.
22
fiEL D N OTE P R A C T I C E.
1 60
Ottenberg . Simon , and Phoebe Ottcnberg . 1 962. Afikpo Ma rkets, I 90o- I 96c . In �\�fa rktts in l\_lrica, ed. Paul Bohann an and Geo rg e Dalton. I I 7-69. Evan s ton Ill. : Northwestern University Press.
'
Pehrson, R ob e rt N . 1 966. The Soc�/ Organization o_fthe J\'la"i Ba lucll . Co rnp. and ed. Fredrik Barth . Chi cago: Aldine .
Ricoeur, Paul. 1 97 1 . The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered
as a
Text. SocU11 Res ea rch 3 8 : 5 29-62. Riesman, Paul . 1 986. The Person and the Life C y cl e in African Social Life a n d Th ou gh t Aftican Studies Revieu} 29 (2) : 7 1 - 1 3 8 . .
Wagner. Roy. 1 98 1 . The In ven tion of Cultllrt . Rev. cd . Ch ica go : Univ ersity o f Chicago P ress . Wallerstein , Im manuel . I 983 . The Capita list ��ilrld Economy. Cambrid ge: Cam bridge University Press.
ALLEN ORNA R.
JOHNS ON J OH NS O N
Quality into Quantity : On the Measurement Potential of Ethno graphic Fieldno tes Anthropology straddles the border between the s ciences and the humanities (Bennet t 1 976; A . Johnson 1 9 78 : 6o-74 ; Sh\veder 1 986; Servi ce 1 9 8 5). This is an awkvlard stance to maintain , and some anth ro pologists resolve the tension by moving resolu tely to one side o r the other. B u t most anthropologists accept the situa tion because \\'e "W""ant a science of humankind capable of studying whole pers ons vlithin a framework of hum anistic values . Nonetheless , this border-s traddling entails no end of con tradictions, and no\vhere are these more evi dent than in ethn og raphic fieldnotes , perhaps our single most crucial reposi tory ofkno\\'ledge. Fieldnotes provide scientific data to the extent that they contain intersubj ectively reliable descri p tions of beliefs and be havior of individual s in other cul tures ; and they are humanistic docu ments to the extent that they enhance o u r u ndersta11ding ofbehavior and beliefs by illuminatin g their meaning \Vithin a cultu ral con text of related meanings . What makes j oining the scientific and humanistic tr a ditio ns in anth ropology so challengin g a task i s that like oil a n d water
�h e t wo do not
mix \Veil: every step to\lva rd scientific reliability s eems Ine vi tably to be a step a\vay from hu manistic intimacy, and the achieve me n t of many-laye red hum a n i s tic interpreta tion seems possible onl y at th e ex p ense of scien tific precision . Ethn ographic fieldno tes" serving these incompatible masters si mul161
FIELD NOTE P R A C T I C E
1 62
taneously, cannot alvlays be faithful to both . Let u s begin by exan1 in .. in g their short comings from the standpoint of s cientific research . Firs t, they are usually p rose texts that record o b servations
or
i n 1_
pres sions and are inten ded to describe diverse events , recollec t io n s
'
thought s , and feelings . Although the notekeeper may have va ri o u s s chemata in min d for future organization and reduction of the co nt en ts of the fieldnotes , t here is no obvious coding scheme or scale at h and
allowing for immediate q uantification, or even for s imple grou p i n g �-
i n to analy tic categories .
Second , the looseness o f most qualitative research designs results in a labor-intensive, vacuum-cleaner-like com p rehen si venes s that gener ates enormous numbers of data, even i f data on any specific point tnay be skimpy. Furthermore, the voluminous data generally req u i re n1 any hours of an alysis for each hour spent in collecting them . Third, when field\vork consists of the usual participant-observ ation in a small community of ind ividuals V�"ho come to be w ell knov.rn to the ethnographer in the course of l ong-term research, the observations recorded in the fieldnotes repeatedly describe the same persons
o ver
ti me , violating the stand ard of " independence of obsen.. ations" de m anded b y proper sampling procedures in quantitative social research .
Since observations a re biased to\var � , indeed usually limited to, mem bers of a single com munity, the research findings cannot be generalized to a la rger popul atio n , such as a region o r a community type . This leads to the familia r criticism that anthropological research in a s mall co nl munity reall y contributes only one case to our cro ss-cultural s tore o f kno\vledge. I n the view o f a social science statistician, those h und r eds or thousands of pages of fieldnotcs
we
collect in a year or
n1 orc
of
fieldwork amount to a sit1gle observation ) ho�·ever rich an d co mple x � I t should not b e surpri sing, therefore, that ethn ographic fi cl dn ot es
are so often considered to be "soft, " nonquantifi able data, use fu l fo r providing back g round informa tion and illustrative case materi als b ut incapabl e of pro viding numerical descriptions . But now let
us c on
sider the difficulties from the humanis tic side. Say \\'e do res trict o ur fieldnotes to data based on proper sa mpling an d measure m ent . T h e n the follo\\l;ng criticisms apply. First, num ber-crunching behavioral scien tists , by sa mpling ra n domly and maintaining independence of observations, never ge t to kno�.. their research subj ects . This raises several related p roblems :
Subjects \\'ho d o not pers o n al l y kno\\' the resea rcher a re likely to hide or distort informa tion becau se they do not trust the research er or
Quality into Quan tity
the u ltimate purposes of the research , and there is no reason to believe
that field w_o rkers who are not trusted ,,,ill ever dis cover that they have given inaccurate information. When subj ects are studied at only one poin t in time ( the mo men t of
th e interview), the d i rect experience of people 's lives as continuous
throu gh time, \\tith \\"ide-ranging connect ions to o t he r persons and p ast and future events, is lost. Questionnaires can atte mpt to co rrect th is defect, especially if constructed late in the fieldwork, but re
questionnaires are no substitute for the rich contextu ali za cion provided by an experienced et hnog ra p h i c field�\rorker \vho has witnessed c om mu ni t y members' b ehav i o r day in and day out, through ordinary and ex traordina ry e ven t s . There are consequently fc\v checks on the validity, as oppo sed to reliability, of quan tifi e d sunrey data. That is , survey m e tho ds may produce reliable results in the sense that a se cond researcher may be able to replicate the res ults of a first by follo\v ing t he same resea rch methods. But the ques tion of validi t y remains : are the res ults true as descriptions of c ommuni t y members' thought s and actions? Recent studies su g ge s t that survey research methods, no matter hoV�" reliable , give poor measures of actual behavior and in that sense arc in v a lid (Bernard et al . 1 984) . It is an axiom of qualitative research that if we are to develop authentic descriptions of individual beh avior and beliefs, w e must accompany the subject into the several signifi c �nt settings that evoke the many facets of the whole person. We must knovv· our subjects well , and be '��"e ll known to them, if \Ve are to obtain the most valid in fo r m a t i o n about them. The second criticism is that the tight, deductive research designs of the beh avioral s cien t is t are neces sarily reductionistic. They focus re search efforts on the small num her of variables that have been deter mined to be of theoretical relevance. In this, such designs try to mirror the id eals of laboratory science, where all but two va riable s (one 'd ' e pen dent " an d the other "i nd e pen dent, " so that unilinear causality is ass u m ed from the outset) are held constant in the artificial en�;ron rnent of the laboratory. Again, field experience teaches us that theory rarely identifies in ad van ce all the variables that \vill determine or expl ain any given behavior. Anthrop ologists generally agree that most h um a n b ehavi or is overdetermined , serving multiple purposes or re fle ctin g multiple meanings simultaneously. A resea r che r's proper s tance is not to limit theoretical possibilities in advance but to be open to many complemen tary perspectives simultaneou sly. sponses to
f i E L D N O T E P R 4� C T I C F
is th rough this maze of con tradictions b et\\' een s c i e n ti fi c and humanistic crite ria of w h a t " good field research" is that the an t h r o po l og i ca l fieldworker must find a path . That this is not a nc\v pr o ble m either fo r an t h ro polo g y (B e nn et t 1 976 : 4-5 ; Serv i ce 1 985) or for t he l a r g er c o m m u n i t y of s chol ars (Snovl 1 959) is somewhat re a s s u ri n g ; i t suggests at the very l ea s t that no e a sy solutions for it exist. B u t t he t e m pt at i o n i s al w a y s there to fmd q ui ck relief from the c o nt r ad i ct i o n s by e m b raci n g one side or the other of the dich oto m y. For example, tho s e vlho empha si ze t h e hum a n is t goal of st udyin g systems or s tru ct u re s of meanin g t en d to vie\\" q u a n ti t a ti v e resea rch methods a nd d at a (i den t i fi e d with the scientific wing of anthrop ology) as ha rd ly relevant to a m odern , i n te rpre t i v e , critical discipline (Ma rcus and Fi s ch e r 1 986; S a h l i n s 1 976 ; S hw ede r 1 986} . They sec positive s c i e n ce as ha·ving o ccu p i ed a comp arati vely brief mo m e n t in an thro po l o g y which we have m o ve d b ey o nd \Vith the hermeneutic and reflexive m e tho d o lo gi es no\v av ai l a b l e to us. S ci en c e, in the usual sense of the word , ha s been no t so much cr itici zed a s pa s s e d by, although Sahlins ( 1 976) re v e al s a d eepe r a nt i p at hy t han mo s t by seein g s c ie n tifi c research as cu ltu ra ll y b o u nd to " bo u rgeois" industrial tech n o l o g y and class exp l oi t a t i on . But rather than disappearing, as· s o me i n te rp re t i v e anth ropologis ts mig ht wish, the s ci e n ti fi c �;ng has pe r sisted i n a k i nd of p a rallel develop me n t, as indifferen t to th e achievements of i nte rp ret i ve an thropolog y as the interpretive w i n g has been to developments in scientific t h eo ry and met ho d in an t h rop ol og y. Such mu t u al indif ference most l ik e l y derives from the habit of " t a l k i n g p a s t " one an ot her t ha t co mm only ch ara c te ri zes p eo p le \\' orkin g fr o m fu n da m en tall y diffe re nt a s s u mp tio n s as to wh a t is worth k.novving abo u t in the universe (Sn ov.r 1959). It
Counting on Fieldnotes
Cu riousl y, n ei the r ca m p ha s much s pe ci fi ca ll y to s a y abo ut fi e ld notes, a t le as t n ot abo u t t he broad-r an g in g notes that are the m ain fo cu s of our discu ss i on here . One thing all anthropologists s ee m to sha r e is a cert a i n s h y n es s about their fieldnotes. We arc hopeful tha t this volu�e w il l help re·versc this pu bl i c n eg lect . We sus p e ct that both hu m ani s ti C and s c i e n ti fic anthropologists keep their notebooks in roughly c o mpa rable \\'ays : that i:;., as re l ati ve l y uncensored and u n s tr u c tu re d r ep os ir o -
Quality into Quantity ries for events, experiences, and musings that have struck the re
ar h throughout the day. Open dis cuss ion of our fiel dnotes-'V'I"hat s e c er t hey are, ho\\' they came to be, and '\\th at has beco me of them-might re veal more similarities between varieties of anthropologists, illumi natin g the bases that unite us as a p rofession rather than splitting us into feudi n g clans (Goldschmidt 1986). At the very least, a more open a ttitu de toward discu ssing anthropological f1eldnotes \Viii expose cru cial ep is temolo gical questions that both camps no"v tend to avoid: the scientists by mini mizing the use of qualit ati""e data in their research
p a pers , the hu manists by asserting tha t ethnography is really just fiction any\vay ( Sh\\'eder 1 9 86) . In any case, the hu manistic wing of anth ropology appears to have rejected all fo rms of qu antification , and qualitative fi eldnotes are gen
erall y taken to be part of the nonquantitative side of anth ropology. We
argue here that such dich otomizing is too extreme, that qualitative
f1eldnotes can be collected in such a �vay that some degree of qu an tification is possible, even th ough it may not conform to the standards demanded by statistical methodolo gy. We hope it \Vill be obvious that we
do not view such efforts at quantification either as anti-scientific
oust because they do not meet the most ri gorous criteria of statistics)
or
as antihu manistic G us t because they p ropose to quantify aspects of
human behavior and belief) . Qualitative data can be transformed into
quantitative data 'V'I'ithout abandoning an integrative position between science and the h umanities . By "fieldnotes" v.re mean main ly the information collected during
participant-observation within a face-to-face community over a long term
of research . The field'\\l·orker u suallv has manv notebooks or fli es : som e may be in the form of ques tion� aires or s � rveys that lend themselv es easily to quantification ; others may be devo ted to particu
lar qualit ative tasks such as collecting folktales, life histories , or tax
onomies . But in the midst of these special-pu rpose files there is usually on e g en eral-purpose notebook in \vhich the fteld\vorker records " ran do m " obs ervations, bits of conversation, and ins tances of even ts or
�deas
t hat are subsidiary to the main fiel d\vork goals yet somehovl In teres ting or suggestive of unanticipated new directions for the re sear ch. This file, 'V'I"hich 'V'I"e call " the notebook , '' is such a hodgepodge of h a p ha zard information , collected without anv di scernible method ot her tha n our being there and taking notes , that it has never seemed to offer mu ch pos sibility fo r systematic quantitative analys i s . Yet there a re \V ay s to reduce the h aphazard aspect in favor of more order and
fiE L D N O T E P R A C TI C I-:
1 66
completenes s , and this can be done quite effici e ntly with rel at i vel v
little addi tio n al effort in the field.
�
The p roblem is not tha t there is nothing to count in such a n o te book . We could a lways count the number of times the Vlord " n1ai ze " appears , for e x amp l e , or the difference in the average length of en trie s
on S u nd ays as oppo s e d to those on other days o f the week. The rap id ly
groV�mg technology of text pro ces s i ng a ct u ally makes su ch countin g very eas y, onc e the field no tes have been entered into a database m ana g e m en t system (�,.e briefly discuss bclovl an example of appro priate computer soft ware) . The di fficul ty lies rather in establishing that such c o unti n g has value. There are many reasons \�lhy an e thnog r aph e r m i g ht enter the \v or d ' ' maize" i n a noteb ook: the grain could b e i n seas on o r not in s ea son; it could be a m aj o r cro p or com p l e tel y absent; it co uld be served for d inner , given to livesto ck, or offered t o the harvest deity. A
in the noteb ook \vould be q ua n tita tive but pra ctic ally useles s . In o rd e r to interp r et a count of occurrences in fieldnotc s , we would have to be l i e v e that the fieldno tes w ere an a dequate sample of meaningful ob se rv at i ons of a universe that \.Ve coun t of the freq uency of " maize"
want to kno�· about.
The q uestion we need to a ddress, therefore, is ho w a notebook can
b eco m e a meaningful s a mple of cultu ra l events . It can , if certa in
p ro cedure s are follo,ved. First , ou r notebook can be a representative
sampl e of events occurrin g in the lives of the members of our resea rch c o m mun i ty if Vle are u nbiased in our expo sure to all mem be r s of the co m m uni ty. Second, our notebook can be a re p resentative samp l e o f are alert to and willing to re cord \Vi tho u t b ias a ll aspects of our subj ects' l ive s . Third, our notebo ok can ge nerate m eaningful counts of even ts if we c l as si fy its conten ts in
those even ts to the extent that
'\\"C
theoretically appropriate ways before cou nting them . We no\\' e lab o rate on these answers, with examples .
J1lhatever Happened to Holism? Whereas the third ans wer refers to a measuremen t problem (and will be a ddre s s ed shortly), the firs t t\\'O ans\\'ers refer to s a m pl in g
problems . As it happ e ns , the more closely V�"e a p p ro a ch th es e tV"'� s o lutions , the more \Ve embrace the anthropological ideal of "h o lis m as a research s tr � te g y. This should be a con gen i al idea to anthr o pol o--
Quality into Quantity gi s ts . Yet \\�hile continuing to proclaim holism as an identifying sym bo l of our discipline, anth ropologists are in fact becoming less and less hol is tic in both theory and research methodology. Holis m has a number of specific meanings in anthropology, not all of which are compatible Qohnson 1987). Here we focus on the endur ing core meaning of holism for anthropology : that culture is an inte grated \\'hole and that individuals can be understood only within the con tex t of that whole. In order to study this context, it is necessary to adopt approaches specific to many other disciplines: biology, prehis tory and history, language, the several social sciences, art, literature, and so on. Anthropologists criticize dis ciplines in '"'·hich single as pects of cul ture, such as economy or mythology, are isolated and analyzed for committing the . reductionistic error of mistaking the part fo r the �rhole . Holism is not merely an idea or technique but a basic co mmitment, a component of identity fundamental to anthropology amon g the sciences and the hu manities. An thropological fieldwork is historically holistic, and fieldwork notebooks are the key repositories of holistic information. Whether originating in scientific or humanistic concerns, and no matter ho�· sharp the initial problem focus, the best anthropo logical fieldwork is holistic, if for no other reason than that our subjects' lives constan tly present us \\lith o ccurrences that arc more or less tangential to our research focuses yet obviously important to them . To exclude such occurrences from our fieldnotes �·ould be tantamount to turning away from the people as guides to their cultures as they live them; it would raise the question \vhethe r any truly anthropological research was being done. In the second half of the t\ventieth centurv, ho\vcver, there h as been a d e facto shift a\vay from holism in anthropology (though \Ve suspect t h at fieldnotes remain more holistic than published ethnography) . � onsidering the significance of this change, there has been surpris Ing ly lit tle discussion and certainly no outcry. Introductory textbooks still rou tinely mention the b readth of anthropology, usually in the first fe w pages. Yet even the term "holism" seldom appears in print today; of a dozen recent textbooks on our shelves , onl y one actually uses the \\"or d (E mber and Ember 1985: J ). The fullest discussion of holism we have n o ted is in an out-o f-print textbook (Friedl 1 976), where a full page i s dc·voted to the subject. Anthropologists appear to have reached a p oin t o f thinking that though holism sets anthropology apart from other s ocial sciences, it is no longer feasible to do holistic research or to I
f i ELD NO TE PRACTI C E
168
t rain our stu de nts to do it. The Embers ackno\vledge that anthro po lo
gists are beco ming more specialized than in the past but add , o p timistically in our vie\\', that the "discipline . . . retains its ho li s ti c
orientation" ( 1 98 5 : 3 ) . We wonder. If individual anth ropol o g i sts
arc
losing their commitment to holism in practice, just '"rhere does th at holistic orientation reside? To some , t he d rift away from holism is the result of the gro\�tin g com mitment
of anth ropology to a scientific methodolo gy. A scien tific
research design narrovls the focu s to a fraction of the whole: Anthropolo gy as a discipline [ has u n der go n e a] sha rpening of problc n1s
and a decrea s ed em phasis on the h olis ti c approach as a fundamental goal of all field work. Th is in tu m has l e d to more d e tail ed and sy sten1ati c research on limited sectors of a cu lture or on a n u m b e r of c u ltu r e s , using a comparative ap proach. . . . Mo re l i m i ted problems demand n1 ore rigorous and system atic r e sear c h techniques and method olo gical st rat egies [Naroll an d Cohen 1 970 : 4) Viewed from the standpoint of the scientific paradigm , holism i s
a
(Phi l l i p s 1 976). This \\'Ould appea r t o leave the guardianship of holis m in the hu manist \Ving of anthropology, but · the humanists have lost track o f holism just as much as t h e scientis ts have . Roger Kees i n g anticipated vague and confusing notion, ultimatel y indefensible
the developments of the past decade when he embraced the definitio n
of culture as id eational sys tem, distinct from social s·ystem, biolo g ical
s ys tem , ecosystem, and so on. Although he hoped that an thropolo gis ts would co ntinue , holis tically, to examine hu man beings in the
context of all these systems togethe r, he see med to sense that they
might not: "To study cultures as ideati onal systems �'"ithout m a p p ing
the complex cybernetic circuits that
link them to social systems, to
ecosystems , and to the psychology and bi ology of individu als ,,,ould turn
cultural analysis in to an arcane p u rsuit isolated from surrounding
disciplines"' ( 1 974 : 9 r ). Significant examples
of in terpretive theorizing (as distinct fron1
ethnography) have since ranged from radical denial of the relevance of
biology, ecolo gy, and society
(Sahlins
1 9 76) to seeming indifference
1 986). We stres s that these events have t e n d ed to occur at the level of abs tract theory. Moving the contested ground to (Marcus and Fischer
include fiel dwork and fieldnotes, \\'hich concern all ethnographers , might help clarify what i s most at stake in cu rrent theoretical deb at es .
h a s ha pp ened in anth ropology since 1 9 50 is a huge gro""''"th in th e number o f anthropologists, lea ding to a r a p i d We surmise that what
Q uality into Quantity elab oration of subficl ds and specialties . This kind of niche speci aliza ti on is common to all ecological communities as they beco me more crowded with competitors; it is actually a way to minimize competi
ti on (see Goldschmidt 1 986). Depart ments of anthrop olog y do seek to hire general-purpose anth ro pologists on occasion , but the dominant
tren d is to advertise for specialists to fill g aps on the departmental te a m. For the individual an thropologist, especially the ·youn g profes
siona l trying to find a place in the job m arket , acquiring a specialized, fo cused expertise is the best '\vay to be unique and noticeable in the
thron g ofjob applicants . The inevitable outcome of such p rol iferation is that each of us individually is less fully informed about an thropol
ogy as a \vhole than "\Verc our founding ancestors .
This ne\\' expertise change s ficld�,.ork in several ways . First , tying
fieldwork plans to a focused resea rch design builds in a lack of holism
from the start. In our ov.tn experience , graduate students' research
proposals a re eve r more narrow, often limited entirely no\vadays to
discussion of a single research question : What is the medical belief
system of the " X " ? H ow has recent economic change affected social
stratification? A side from th e obligatory sentence claiming that th e research method will be participant-observation, no real attention is
devoted to holism . In fa ct, it is our impression that a firmly s tated commitmen t to do holistic research would hurt rather than help a proposal durin g the funding review process .
Second, being a specialist, the modern fiel dworker may feel obli
gated to pay scant attention to events or statemen ts that fall outside the
scope of the research design . "After all , " we appea r to be s aying, " y ou cann o t study everything (as old-fashioned anthropologists believed
they co uld), so why try?" These changes in the professional strategies
of anth ropologists amount to a license to bias their research in the di re cti on of their specialties .
Thi rd , and partl y as a result of the first tvlo changes , fieldwork no tebooks may themsel ves have become less \vide-ranging and , prob ably, less voluminous . The evidence, of course, i s by it s nature closed
u s , but we hazard that although holism su rvives in anthropology �ainl y in its practitioners' notebooks, even there its vigor is steadily
to
diminishing. . We accep t these developments as desirable to many and probably Inev it able, but �·e do not willingly accept all the consequences th at the y imply. We prefer to think of anth ropological fiel dwork as having
�wo aspects .
One is the speci al focus of th e researcher, Vlhere the best
tn mo dern techniques of description and analysis may be brou ght to
f i ELDNO T E P RA C T I C E
bear; the other is comprehensive , holistic, general-purpose descrip tion . The first aspect may be thought of as pertaining to the i nterests of the researcher; the second , to the interests of anthropology as a \\' h o le Each of us needs to be reminded from time to time that his o r he� immediate professional interests do not alone justify anthro polo gi c al ficld\vork . We share a common responsibility to provide dat a on th e context that surrounds our particular research focus so that o u r c o l leagues have a chance to criticize and expand our analyses, usin g t he holistic data Vle have collected . The payotT to the individual rese ar c her is also there: collecting holistic data helps us to expand o u r o wn analyses, as others comment on our vlork and as our pro fes si on al careers mature. ...
Hol istic Field lvlethods
The modern move avlay from holi s m has lessened the i mportance of the most holistic of fieldwork documents, the notebook. Yet for both scientific and humanistic purposes, the notebook has the n1ost underutilized potential . All of us can and should put more into ou r notebooks and make more use .of them . It is possible to develop strategies in the field that increase the rep resentativeness of the note book as a sample of community life. We discovered this indirectlv in the course of our research on time allocation in a Machiguenga community Oohnson and Johnson 1 987). The time allocation study originated in ecological concern s, as one method for estimating labor time in all areas of Machiguenga life (see A. Johnson 1 975). It scented important, therefore, neither to de ci de in advance which activities \vould ultimately be analyzed as "\vork ,' no r to assume in advance that only some kinds of individuals wo uld be doing "\vork. " We therefore selected a sampling procedure tha t in cluded all co mmunity members, all kinds of activity, and all observ able times of day. We realized later that we were overcon1ing two sources of bias in fieldnote-taking that had not really concerne d us before. �
Bias in the Locus of Descri p tion
Any biases affecting when and \vhere Vle make the observa tions that enter our fieldnotes \vi i i naturally be reflected in the data \Ve extract
171
Qual ity into Quantity
la ter fro m those notes . Unless steps arc taken to avoid them, such biase s ar e inevitable , simply because we tend to be creatures of habit: to fo ll o\V predictable routines that have us in set places at set ti mes; to seek o ut certain congenial co mmunity members and avoid those with ,.lhom so me tension exists; to stay indoors in inclement Vleather. As a result , ou r fieldnotes will be filled �vith observations and opinions of our n e xt-door neighbors and best friends; fe'\\" observation s �"ill be made before, say, eight o'clock in the morning; evening observations \1\!� U tend to focus on special events such as religious ob servances; and fa ir-w eather settings \vill be overrepresented . We cannot eliminate such biases, since routine is as necessary to field workers as to an y othe r human beings, but we can be aware that they are constan tly shaping our fieldnotes and take steps to alleviate them. For exa mple, it is neither difficul t nor ti me-consuming to intro duce elements of randomness into field routine. One method no�· in common use is to make random behavioral observations as part of a rime allocation study (Gross 1984). Using the method of spot checks of randomly selected individuals at randomly selected ti mes of day (A. Johnson 1975), the fi eldv-'orker V�"ill , with some predetermined frequency-such as once per day or three times per '''eek, depending on the other goals of ficldV�"ork-pay a random visit to some individ ual or househ o ld (it could be anyone) at a rando m moment (these may be selected ahead of time using a table of rando m numbers) . The effect of this procedure is to move the fiel d worker \videly and unpredictably th rough the scene of fieldv.lork . All times of day (it is not usually feasi ble to make these observations at night) will be represented equally, and all members of the communitv \vill be included in the observations . This is an advantage to any anthropologist, �"ithout regard to theo reti cal p reference. Although time allocation research originated in stu dies of human ecology and socialization, the benefits of the field W ork er 's wide-ranging presence in the research co mmunity are no t rest ricte d to scientific ones. The opportunity to meet, talk to, and ob s�rve the whole range of members of our co mmunity, in all the �e �ttn g s to which we can gain admittance, is desirable for the human lStJ c ally oriented as �·ell . I t increases the number of opini o ns we are expos ed t o, and the num ber of opportunities to sec how cultural m e ani n g s are expres sed in verbal or ph·ysical behavior. In a phrase, it is COn t ex t -b uilding, fo r hu manist and scientist alike. The ra ndo mness of observations during a time allocation stu dy is "
f i E L D NOTE P R A C T I CI-:
the basis on \vhich a statistically valid picture of community b ehavio r may be constructed. The results of such randomized observ ation s a re often surprising and counterintuitive. For example, in our resea r ch with the Machigucnga, v.;re noticed on innumerable occasio ns that people were sitting indoors during the rains, and \Ve rea ch e d t h e plausible conclusion that they \Vorked harder during the dry s e a so n. But time allocation data showed that people actually \\"orked n1ore hours per day during the wet season , and this made sense \\'h e n \•,re recognized that the labor-inten sive acti\l;ties of cultivation are co ncen trated in the wet season . Similarly, casual observation gave us the impression that the M a chiguenga have a separation of \\'ork bet\\rcen the sexes. Yet the ti m e allocation data showed that although men and \\'Omen do perfo r n1 different tasks, a husband and vlife spend much tim e together, keeping each other company while performing complementary tasks (Johns on and Johnson 1 975) . We also discovered a further division of l abor in polygynous households . Younger wives \vith one or two young chil dren spend more time a\vay from the· house with their hu s bands, \vhereas senior co-\vivcs stay home and direct the labor of their nla tu r ing children (0. Johnson 1 975). Such misleading impressions and overlooked patterns can be very difficult to discern by field,vorkers who, after all, can claim to have "seen" the behavior in q uestion with their o \vn eyes. And the nlisin formation, in the absence of methodological checks, \viii persist to confound future efforts at analvsis . In a similar though less rigorous \Vay, \vhen observations made during random visits find their way into notebooks, a measure of serendipity is added to the fieldwork. Fieldnotes become more repre sentative of the entire life of the community. Our random visits fo rced us out sometimes early in the day, sometimes during rainy pe riod s. Otherwise, \Ve would nearly al\vays have spent the hour bet \v ec n si x and seven in the morning in our O\Vn rituals of waking and cati11g� a nd we \Vould have missed many opportunities to observe ho\v th e �1a chiguenga spend the early morning hours : the foods they eat, h oW often they are already out in quest of \vild food, hov�,. much v is it i ng goes on, who is asleep and \\rho already busy, and so forth . Si m il ar ly, \Ve observed the great variety of rainy-day activities, fro m ma n u fac cures to indoor games and storytelling, that the M achiguenga cnga gc . in . In visiting homes we might fmd u n expected visitors, or quant i ues of certain foods such as game or bananas, which otherwise w e wo u ld �
...
Quality into Quantity
1 73
have mis sed co mpletel y. The seren dipity of expo sure to unexpected
i nfo rm ation through random ";sits is one of the most useful side ben efits of the p ro cedure ( Hames 1 9 79) . Bias in the
Content of Description
Anthropologists have often thought of them selves as a rriving in the field unbiased by preconception s , allowing the people and their cul tu re t o lead them to develop relevant research questions (e. g . , Wolf an d H ansen 1 972 : 76). But this is somet h i ng of a conceit of ours, for no on e- certainl y not a \veil-trained cul tural an thropologist-arrives in the field naive and free of bias . I n crea singly, v.r e arrive with \veil formula ted re search designs focused on so restri cted a set o f resea rch questions that a sufficient abun dance and d e tail of data can be collected ''rit hin the relatively short space of a year or so in
the field .
As \\�"e \Vondered above, " Whatever happened to holism ?" Prior to
19()0 a significant n u m ber o f ethnographies were broad-ranging and
holisti c in their descriptions , \Vi th remarkably similar tables of con tents, listing geography, his tory, langua ge, physical type , economy, social organization , p olitics, religion and \\'Orld vic\v, and , often , a chapter on recent cultural change. No"v, virtually the on l y form in which such comprehensive accounts arc still published is the abbrev; atcd case stu d y for teaching purposes. The typical nevv-stylc ethnogra ph y ma y have a "setting" ch apter in which the ethnography of the co mmunity is
sum marized in a fe\\1· pages , but the remain der of the
v-'ork is devoted to some focal issu e� such as the prestige econom y (Cancian
1 965) or the healin g system (Katz 1 976).
The ethnographic sum mary outl ined in the Royal Anthropological lns ti tu te •s Notes and Queries on .t4nthropology ( Seligman 1 95 1 ) �"as re
quir ed reading for a generation of anth ropologi sts but is rarely cited
anymore. Ins tead, a sort of legitimized bias is restricting the s cope not on l y of special fieldnotes bu t also of general-pu rpose notebooks, if for
no oth er reason than the "selective fo rgettin g'' that affli cts all re sea r ch ers '"'...hen they attempt to describe events that do not fit their no tio ns of what "ou ght" to have happened or \vhat is "relevant •' {B ern a rd et a l . 1 984). Wh ethe r one's research proceeds from humanistic or from scien tifi c con cern s, "ve hold that the time has come to rethink the bal ance we are achi evin g in ethno graphic fiel dwork bet\veen old-fashioned holism ( w ith its l ack of deductive theory) and modern specializa tion ("vith its
1 74
fiEl D N OT E P RA C T l C E
corresponding lack of comprehensiveness) . Researchers should a r ri ve in the field with both special problems to focus upon and a ho l i s t i c checklist to remind them of what else to notice while keeping field notes . ,\lotes and Queries is still a valuable resource and ought t o be included in graduate student reading requirements. The appendix to this essay presents the topics (but not the actual questions) fro n1 a cultural summary checklist that we have used in our time-allo c at i on r es earch It is a reduction from the more than Sao var ia bles tha t �' hit e et al. ( 1 98 3 ) have compiled from a large number of cross- cu ltura l studies published over the years . We recomn1end that frequently, perhaps once a day, this or so m e similar checklist be used as a mnemonic aid \Vhile notes are writt en up. If, as we \Vrite, we run our eves down the list and ask , "'Did I le a rn anything ne"v about that topic today?" \VC will be more likely to remember events outside the boundaries of our research design and to include them in our notebooks A checklist like this is useful becaus e it reflects the concerns of man y diverse anthropologists across decades of research; reviewing it reminds the field\vorker of the questions t hat have persistently interested the discipline at large . Our checklist is likely to seem too general in some areas (es p ecially those in which \Ve are experts) and too detailed in others (tho se that hold little interest for us as research topics). But this \�lould be true of any checklist, for its purpose is not to match the research interests of the field\\'orker but to indicate vvhat a general-purpose summary of the culture, useful to the larger community of scholars, might look like. Anthropology is unusual among disciplines in the uni q u e n e s s of each researcher's field site. Others cannot verify our findings or l ook for new ones simply by reconstructing the circumstances of our re search, as laboratory scientists do. We should not let excessi\tC individ ualism, an American culture trait (though not exclusively American), overpower the place we each occupy in the historical strea m of anth ro pology and the responsibilities it entails. .
.
Processing Ho listic Fieldnotes
So far \Ve have considered the problem of keeping a fic ld\\'or kA notebook that \Viii be minimally biased by the natural ten d ency ot fieldworkers to focus on particular indi vi duals or neighborhoods �nd on the topics closest to the researchers' main interests. The q u cst1°11
Quality into Quantit y
I75
rem ai n s whether the resul tin g fieldno tes can be p r oces sed later in such
a
way as to p roduce useful quantitative data. We may examine three
obj e cti ons to such proc es si n g . The first invol ves th e question of whe t her such data m ee t statistical criteria; the second, '-\'hether it is le to identify units worth counting in such data ; and th e third , po ssi b \Vhe th er it is feasible to do so, c onsid e rin g the costs in la b o r time involved . Whether these dat a ""'ill meet statistical stan dards is a somewhat
l oad ed question for anth ropolo gists ( not to me nt i o n other social scientists) oft en exaggerate the value and po\ver of statist ical tests of ,
signifi cance
.
Let us say we arc p r es ented with a table of nu mbers
sho\ving that the women in a peasan t co m m unit y \\'ork lo n ger hou rs
per day t han the men , \Vith the fa miliar a nno ta tion " p < . o s :' The
foUowing points arc relevant ( see A. Johnson 1 978 : 42-6o for the full argu men t ) .
To begin with the "p < . o s '' does no t tell us th at the difference ,
between m en s and women 's labor is meaningfu l or important, only '
that the chan ce s are less than 5 in 1 00 that the sex differences found in
the sample that we measured a rc g r eat l y different from th e sex differ
ences we would fi n d if we measur ed everyone in the large r popula tion
from which the sample was dr a wn. We still must decide whether the difference is large enou gh to be theoretically signi fi cant and statistics ,
offer no aid at all in this crucial ma t ter It is m islead i ng therefore, to .
,
present tests of s t atistical significance as though they esta b li s h the theoretical si g ni fican ce of a fmding .
Next , i f w e have meas u red labor ti me for a ll co m mu nity
then our
members,
is the same as ou r " popul a tion , and s tatisti cal tests of significance are meanin gless When reports of r es ea rch p rovide st atis tical tests of s i gn i fi can c e in s u ch cases , the y a re u s i ng a sp u riou s "
sam pl e
"
''
.
sta ti sti cal s i gnifi cance a gain in an effort to bolster the im p ressi o n that the da t a have theoretical signifi c ance Fi n ally, if we h ave taken our measurements on a sam ple of men and ,
.
Women t h a t was not d rawn ran dom!}· from the population-such as an '' opportunity sa m ple of i ndiv i du als available to the ficld\\'orker "
then
st a tistic al tests of signifi cance d o not apply, because such tests conce rn onl y relationships between populat i ons of o bj e cts and sam
ple s d ra wn
at
rattdom from them. Using tests in these cases is again an
effo� t to make so m e theoretical argument seem more p l a u si b le by ad dtn g statistics . C l earl y statis tics are often u s ed inappropriately b y sociocul tural ,
fiELDNO TE P R A CT I C E
anthropologists . This is due partly to misunderstanding abo ut ri g or ous samplin g requirements, partly to confusion bct'i'leen statis tica l and
theoretical significance, and pardy to the real di fficulties that an t h r o..
pological fieldwork places in the "vay of rigorous sam pling proce
dures . Yet anthropologists s till want to use s tatistics like th eir pr es tigious, quantitative sibling disciplines . Overdependence on inappropriate statistics has obs cured the bene
fits of quantification that exist apart fro m statistics . For one, sim ply
counting cases al lows greater p recis ion in specifying the patte rns t h at ethnographers usually express in such phrases as " most men " or " few
househ olds . " Instead of concluding , fo r example, that meat is r a rely
served except on high holidays or in wealthy households, \\7e should
prefer to report that of t\vcn ty· cas es '"'"here we observed mea t being
served at meals , fourteen were on high holidays and the o th er six
occurred in the two '"''"eal thiest hou seholds. Rando m sampli n g and
significance tes ts, when appropriate, might en hance the plausibilit y of such a finding , b u t the qu antification itself stands as an imp rovement over vague wording .
, Counting also keeps in vie\v the "negative cas es . that contradi ct our intuitions and help keep us "honest, in light of the uni versal tendency to forget selectively the ins tances of beha vior that do not conform to
ou r developing models of co mmunity life. Fu rthermore, counting cases contributes to the clarity of o perational definitions of theoret as
ically relevant categories . If we are to count meat-eating events,
in
the foregoing example, \Ve must be clear abo u t what is to be included as "meat" (do eggs co unt?), " high holidays'' (does Indepen dence l)ay
count?), and "'"'"ealthy households" (how wealth y is "vlealthy?"). In short , data in notebooks need not s atisfy th e rigorous req uire ments of statistical tests in order to be cou n ted and thus rendered
m ore
useful . Much use of statistics in anthropology is flawed in any ca se . If v.,re make fieldnotes representative in the t\\'O senses dis cussed earl ier so that all members of the community and all kinds of behavior ha ve
a
more or less equal chance of being rep resen ted-then \\'e may be fa i rl y confident that coun ting cases from fieldnotcs is an improvemen t
o ver
vague, impressionistic generalities that obscure negative cases .
The second objection asks \vhcther it is po ssible to identify un its worth counting in no tebooks . We saw earlier that simply cou ntin g freq uencies of words led no\vhere. But the answer to that obj ect io n is
already at h and in the indexing that we all do on s uch fieldnotes as a first step in " working them up. , Wh atever the speci fic meth o d of
1 77
Quality into Quan tity indexing may be (sec Otten berg, this vol ume) , the function is to label th e co ntents of the fieldno tes acco rdin g to theore ticall y relevant cate go ri es . Thus, "maize " as a major crop might be indexed under '' Econ o my, " \Vhereas " maize" as an offering to the harvest deities might be
in dexed under " Supernatural . " This done, \\'e are now counting not h a pha z ard appearan ces of the \Vo rd but th eoretically meaningful
e ve nts in which maize played a role. I t might be o f interest, for ex a m ple, to kno\v what proportion of inst ances indexed as " Super natu ral " invol ved offer i ngs of food, and vvhat proportion of those we re offerings of m aize.
This leads to the thi rd obj ection , �·hcthcr it is feasible to make these
co u nts, considering the labor cos ts involved. Levine
( 1 985) has shown
in s o me detail how proper coding and indexin g of fieldnotes enhan ces
both quantitative frequen cy analysis an d selection of text materials for
qualitative analysis . In the past, how ever, indexed fieldnotes could be counted only by manual inspection , even when indexing was done
with mechanical card-sort me thods . And if \VC subsequentl y �·ished to revise
our
coding scheme as our understanding chan ged, \VC were
faced �·ith a maj or invest ment of time in redoing the index. But today the labor cos ts of searching through indexed fieldnotes ha,te been radically reduced by th e advent of computer datab ase management systems. By allowing us to enter our eth nographic fieldnotes as texts
by word processing and then to in dex them j u st as we would h ave done in the past by hand , data b ase programs make it possible to leave a ll the tedious searching , cross-referencing, and even some of the re indcxing to be don e by computer.
Figure 1 gives t\VO exa mples of sorted outp u t from compu terized
journal notes . The computer program used, called the Ethnograph
(Seidel 1 98 5), accepts fieldnotes that have been entered into a word
processing program, permits these notes to be indexed by bracketing section s of text and labeling them , and then offers an array of searches that can be done on the indexed notes . In this exa mple, notebook
entries fro m our field\vork among the Machiguenga in 1972 -73 were en ter ed into the Ethnograpll . Figure I a sh ows an exam p l e from a search fo r al l entries indexed as AGRIC (agriculture) for the month ofJanuary
1 973 - The entry is interrupted befo re the last line because that part of
th e n otes was also coded ENV (environment) . Ou r personal computer n eeded less than five minutes to search for and print all entries coded
AGRIC for the month of January.
Figure 1 b is an exa mple of an entry that is ind exed under t\\'O
f i E L D N O TE P R A C T I C E
SORTED
Pa ge 5
OUTP UT FOR F I LE JA NUARY SORT VARIABLE: AGRIC
Ia
+ TRI A L RUN
JA NUARY E : *- US E: $-DAY r s E : # -JA NUARY
C:
0/o - AGRIC
SV: AG RIC
.
mo rn i n g s in t e rv ie \vs . E v er y o n e seems t o cut the co m stal ks and pile them at the ed g es of the field s. This s u r pri s e s me since the stalks left to rot \vould, one might ass ume, p ro vid e some nutrients fo r future vcars and slow erosion s ome'"'hat (fear o f !-E N V s nak es ?) . Te mp 5 :42 26 . this
'
JA NU ARY
29 9 300 301 3 02
# $ 0/o * (Q; � : _ o/o - *
303 3 04 305
0/o 0/o 0i'o' 0/o 0/o o/o
3 00
:- S-0/o
+ TRI A L RUN
tb
E : 0/o - U S E : # - DAY22
C: S-AGRIC
S-SUPERN AT
S V : SUPE RNAT
$ 0/o : - $-o/o s $ $ s
# Roberto. He says th at you should plant t sota in the full m oo n, and m aize in the nev-,' moon (i mar ani kashiri and itiomi ani k ashiri, respectively). Also, he said o n e should not go into a corn fiel d on a hot day. I have the greatest difficulty, de s pite his ex cel l en ce as an inform ant, in getting him to talk about taboos of any sort.
567 568 569 5 70 57 1 5 72 5 73 5 74 575
*
�·
�
s s s
:- s
S o rted output of Ethnograph pro gram : 1 a is a section of fieldnotes from Jan u a ry 1 5 . 1 97 3 , concernin g agricul tu re (AGR IC) ; r b is an example from January 22, 1 97 3 , c od e d both ACiRIC and SUPERN AT (su p ernatural) . Figtlre
1.
1 79
Quality into Quantity
headin gs, AGRIC and SU PERNAT (supernatural) . The EthnograpiJ a llows complex searches, combining index categories using logical operators. In this case, the search is for "AGRIC & SUPER N AT, " and the p rinted output includes all entries that are indexed under both headings . The Ethtlograph is a flexible, povlerfu l text database manage01en t system that simply computerizes a standard procedure for index ing fieldnotes. It is easy to use because the procedure is natural and familia r, and it is a tremendous time-saver. Since Vle can only expect the pe rformance of such programs to improve in the future , \Ve can be con fid ent that if the other t'"'"O objections to counting from fieldnotes have been met, the labor costs will be relatively minor.
Conclus ions In sum , we have argued three main points. First, counting cases is a \Vay of improving both the precision and the completeness of ethnographic des criptions . This is obviously of interest to one who is scientifically oriented, but it should also attract the humanis t. After all , the things Vle are counting (assembling might be a better word) arc extracts from the qualitative record (observa tions, speculations, snatches of conversations) which hold clues to the comp lex puzzle the ethnographer is trying to piece together. Since counting from ethnograph ic fieldnotes may raise serious sam pling issues and does not allo\v statistical tests of significance to be perfor med, a little self-ob servation '"'ill shovl that many anthropolo gis ts use statistics inappropriately: either the data were not collected randomly or else the data refer to a whole population rather than to a sample of a population. There arc times \Vhen numerical data can and sho uld stand alone , \\l·ithou t the possibly false enhancement of statis tic s . Second , the possibilities fo r counting cases from fieldnotes are infi ni tely greater now than before, o\ving to the ne\v generation of text man a g ement computer soft\\' are. Tabulations th at had to be don e t e d iously by hand can no�v be left to the co mputer, freeing the re searcher to focus on the meaning of the numbers and the possible so u r ces of bias that might be affecting them . Third, although ethnographic field�vork has been and is inevitably . btased- in the past by the implicit assumptions and the goals of the res earcher; today by explicit , theoretically focused research designs-
f i E LDN OTE P R A C T I C E
1 80
i t i s possible to introduce relatively inexpensive procedures t o n1a k c fieldnotes more representative of the entire social and cultural life of a community. Broadly, \\'e need two kinds of techniques: rando n1iz ing methods, such as the spot checks used in time-allo cation studies , \V h ic}; place the observing fieldworker at representative times an d pl a ces throughout the research, avoiding the bias introduced by routine a nd a host of personal attitudes and habits on the p art of the researcher; and a holistic checklist to remind the fieldworker of events seen or e xpe ri enced during the day but othervlise likely to be fo rgotten in th e necessary preoccupation with the special topics of the research design. Following these recommendations should not occupy so much fi el d .. time as to distort the ficld\vork greatly a\vay from the central research questions or problems. Rather, these techniques should allow the researcher to balance special interests vlith the broader concer n s of anthropology as a discipline, \vhich requires that s p ecial topics be set in a holistic ethnographic context and that fieldworkers bring back to t he discipline information about cultural practices in their com munities that may be co mpared \Vith life in other communities . The payoff for the researcher \\'ill include, in addition to the sat i s faction of doing broadly useful and relevant field research, a ne\\' level of quantification achieved by using fieldnotes as approximately repre sentative samples of community life, from '\\"hich instances may b e counted and tabulated to strengthen arguments and interpretations . A PP END IX : S u MMARY O F C uL TURAL CO NTEXT C H ECKLI ST This appendix presents only the topic headings fo r the Cultural Context Check
list . Fo r the detailed checklist, p l ease write the authors at the UCLA Ti1ne Allocation Proj ect, Department o f An thropology, University o f Cali fornia. L os Angel es, CA 900 2 4. I. 1. I
Geography and Environment Geography 1. 1. 1
I. 1 .2 I. 1.
1. 1
.
1. I.
3
4 5
I. I .6 1 .2
reg1on
immediate loca tion accessibility
means of transpo rtation u sed by c o m munit y members
po pulation density natural res ources
Environment 1 . 2. I
map
Quality into Quantity 1 . 2. 2 1 . 2. ]
181
location of s tudy co n1 n1 u n ity altitude of study co mm unity
1. 2.4
rel ief of local environment
1 . 2. 5
topography
1 . 2. 6
dominant regional
1 . 2. 7
0/o cover by environment types
1 . 2. 8
� io mes
locally recognized (ernie) environ ments
I . J Cl imate 1 . 3 . I amount of precipitation
2· . l. I
1.].2
seasonality of precipi tation
1.3-3 1 . 3-4
seasonality o f temperature
temperatu re
Subsistence and Economics Predo minant Ty pes of S u b sistence 2. 1 . 1 2. 1 . 2 2 1. .
3
crops a nd ag ricultural p ractices ten mo st important crops domestic animals
.2.. 1 . 4
five maj or domestic an imals
2. 1 . s
fish and fi shing techniq ues game an d hunting techniq u e s food gather ed seasonal availability of food
2..
1 .6
2. 1 . 7 2. 1 .8
2 . 2 Food Storage 2. 2. 1
list food s stored , len gth of time� and locus
2.. J Building 2.. 3 . 2. .
1
3.2
and Constru ction
ty pe of building materials type of structures
2. 4 Money and Credit
2. 4. 1
2. 4- 2
forms of currency type of credit
2 . 5 Markets 2
.
.s . 1
cha racteri stics of maj o r e x change places
2 . 6 Trade 2. 6 .
1
2 . 6. 2 2. 6 . 3
imports 3 maj or im po rts
exports
2. 7 Political and Economic Incorporation 2. 7 . 1
7.2
levels of effective political incorporation
2. 7- 3
wage labor activities wage labor locations
2.
forms of economic organizati on
2.
7- 4
2 . 7. 5
2. 7. 6
paym e n t of ren t by co mmunity members
typ es of taxes paid by c o m m un i t y members
fiE LDNOTE P R A C T I C E
182 Social Structure
3·
3 . 1 Settlement Patterns 3.
1. 1
fixity of settlement
3. 1 .2
sp a tial di stribution
J. I .3
size o f communit y
3 . 2 Hou sehold Form 3. 2. 1
3·3
household com position
Marriage
3.3. I 3 . 3.2 3 . 3. 3 3. 3.4 3.3.S 3. 3 .6 3-3-7 3.3.8
marriage practices marriage arrangement for male marriage arrangement for female ma rriage pay ment attitudes toward divorce
fre q uen c y of divorce grounds fo r divorce by m ale g rounds fo r divorce by fem ale
3 . 4 Postmarital Res idence 3 · 4· 1 residence practice 3 · 5 Kinship and Descent
3· 5·
1
kin terminology
3.5.2
descent rule
3 . .S . 3
descent groups
] .S - 4
functions o f desc ent group
.
3 . 6 Non-Kin Organizations
J . 6. I
non-kin or g anizations p resent for males and fem ales
3 . 7 Ceremonies Atlinning Solidarity or Status pro minent co mm un ity ceremonials
3 .7.2
ceremonial elements
Political Org a nization
4·
4-
J.7. I
1
Political History
4· 1 .
1
political autonomy si nce I 9 5 0
4. 1 . 3
past trend in con qu e ring and col on izati o n before 1 950 history of being con quered or colonized by other societies befo re 1 9 5 0
4. 1 . 4
dominant contacts
4·
4-
1.2
I.
5
effects o f contact
4. 2 Communi ty Leadership
4· 3
4· 2. 1
t'ype of leader
4. 2.2
selecti on of leader
Stratifi cation 4· 3 . I ty pe of strati fi �ti on 4 . 3 . 2 land tenure 4 · 3 . 3 land trans fer rules
Quality into Quantity 4· 4 LaVt." and Order institu ting of societal rules 4 · 4· I 4· 4· 2
mechanisms to enforce social rules
4 · 4· 3 4· 4· 4
dispute settlement
4· 4· 5 4· 4· 6
forms o f p unishl]lent
personnel "'"ho enforce penalties p revalence of dev iant behavior in the com 1n unity
4· 5 Wa rfare
5·
4· S . I 4· 5. 2
history of warfare
4· 5 · 3
what is / v."as the frequen cy of warfare for the avera ge adult?
4· 5 · 4 4· 5 - 5 4· 5 . 6
what i s / \\"as the death rate due to \Varfare?
type and scale of \Varfare
what are/ were the gains from warfare? what is / v."aS the aftermath of combat?
Fa mily Life
5 . 1 Reproduction s. I. I
menstruation
s. I .2
conceptton
S. I . 3 S. I .4
pregnancy
5. I . 5 s. 1 . 6
s. 1 . 7 s. 1 .8
child birth a bortion
and infanticide
infant and chil dh oo d mortality
major etic ca us es of in fa nt / child mortality so u rces of v a ria tion in child mortality
s . 2. Ch ildhood
s . 2. 1
s . 2. 2
5 . 2.3 s . 2. 4 5.2. 5 s . 2. 6 s . 2. 7 5 . 2. 8 s . 2. 9
ceremon ies performed d urin g in fan cy an d chil dhood in fant carryi n g p racti ce s sleepin g p roximity to child
wean 1 n g
emot ional role of fathe r du ring i n fa ncy
em otional role of father du ri ng early childhood
normal extent of ag gressi ve behavio r in early ch ildhood pu ni ti ve behavior tov\tard children general permissi v e beha vior of parent s
S . 2 . I O affective behavior of parents
5 . 2. I I evaluation of ch i ldre n by society S . 2. I 2 age and sex associations s. 3
D om es tic R ela ti on s s. J. I
S. 3.2 S. 3.3 S. 3.4 s. 3-5 s. 3.6
s. J . 7
husband-wife eatin g arran gements wife beating female production
fe mal e control over production and wealth female influence male solidari ty groups female solidarity groups
fiELD NO T E P R A CT I C E 5 - 4 Sexuality
S . 4.
talk abou t sex sex seen as dan gerous
s . 4· 2 S . 4· J
premarital sex
S . 4· 4
ex t ra m a ri t al sex
S . 4· 5
homosexuality
Welfare. lllness , an d Death
6. 6.
1
I
Social Welfare 6. I . 1 s ocial problems 6. 1 2 social services •
6 . 2 lll ness
6. 2.
I
common types of diseases
6. 2 . 2
rank most important diseases
6. 2 . 3
believed sources of illness
6. 2 . 4
m edi ca l
personn e l
6. 3 Death 6. J .
I
conception of death
6. ] . 2
funeral practices
6. J . J
m o urnt ng
7-
Recrea t ion
7. 1
Leisure 7·
I. I
7- 1 . 2
g a m es
7- I . J
s po rts
7 - 2 Arts 7. 2 . 1
decorative art
7. 2 . 2
music
7. 2 . ]
dan ce
7- 2 · 4
d rama
7. 2 . 5
o rat or y
7. 2 . 6
literature
Religion and Cosmology
8. 8.
lei su re acti vi tie s
r
Reli gious Beliefs
8. 1 . 1
p rominent rel igion (s) in c om muni ty
8. 1 . 2 8. 1 . 3
degree of faith gen er al character of the c os mo l o gy
8. 2 Ecclesia stical Organization
8. 2.
I
8 . 2. 2 8 . 2. 3 8. 2. 4 8 . 2. 5
sp iri tual pe rso nn el levels of worship
l ocus of relig ious education types of rituals religious artifacts
Qual ity into Qu an tity REfEREN CES
Bennett, John W. 1 976. Tl1e Eco lo�ical Tramition . N ew York: Pergamon Press. Bern ar d, H . Russell, Peter Kill\\'Orth , David Kroncnfeld, and Lee Sai ler. 1 9 8 4. The Problem of Inform a nt Accu r acy. ..4 nnual Reviw of Anthropology
r
} :49 5-
5 1 7. Ca ncian , Frank. 1 965 . Econom ic.s and Prestige in a lvfaya Comtn unity. Stanford , Calit� : Stanford University Pres s. E m ber, Carol , and Mel vin Ember. 1 98 5 . Cul tural Anthropology. 4th cd. Engle wood Cliffs, N .J. : Prentice-Hall . Friedl, Jo hn . 1 976. Cu ltural Anthropolo�y. New York: Harper & Ro w. Go ldsch m idt , Walter. 1 9 86. Clan F�sion a m ong the Y golopo rthna : A Study in D ys fun ctio n . Ameria2n A nth rop ologi.st 8 8 : 1 72-7 5 .
Gross, Daniel . 1 9 84. Time Allocation: A Tool for Cultural Analysis. ..4 nltU4ll Ret1 iert'
o_f�4nthropology
1 3 : 5 1 9- 5 8 .
Hames, Raymon d . 1 979. A Co mparison o f the Effi c iencies o f th e Shotgun and the Bow in Ncotropical F ore s t Hunting . Human Eco log}' 7 ( 3 ) : 2 1 9- 5 2 . Johnson, Allen . 1 97 5 . Time A l location in a M achi guenga Co m m unity. Ethnology 1 4: ] 0 1 - 1 0. --. 1 97 8 . Qua ntijication itJ Cu ltural Anthropology ; An ltttroductiotl to Research Des ign . Sta nford , Calif. : Stan ford U nivcrsity Pres s. -- . 1 987. The Death of Ethnography : Has An thropolog y Bet rayed Its Mission? The Sciences 27 (2) : 24-3 1 .
Johnson , Allen , and Orna H. . Joh nson. 1 987. Tir:ne All oca tion among the M achi guenga of Shimaa. In Cro$.5- Cu ltural Studies in Time-A IIocatiotl , vol. 1 , N ew Haven, Conn . : Human Rel ations Area Files. Johnson, Orna R. 1 975 . S hiftin g Hierarchies in Polygynous Households among the Ma chiguen ga of th e Peruvian Amazon. Paper presented at the 74th annual meeting of the American An th ropological As sociation , San Fran cisco. Johnson, Orna R . , and Allen Johnson. 1 975 . Male/ Female Relat ions and the Organization of Work in a Machiguenga Com munity. ..4 men'can Erht�ologist 2:63 4-4�t
Katz , Ric hard.
1
9 8 2. B o ilin� En e rgy : Com mun ity Healing a»tong the Kalah ari ! Kung .
Cambridg e , M ass. : Ha rvard University Press. Kecsin g, Roger. 1 974 . Theories of Culture . Annual Review of Anthropology 3 : 7 3 97. Levine, H a rold . 1 98 5 . Pr i nciples of Data Storage and Retrieval for Use in Q ualita tive Ev aluations . Educatiot1al Evaluatiott and Poli cy Analysis 7 : 1 69- 86.
Marcus , George E. , and Michael M.
J.
Fisch er. 1 98 6 . Anthropo logy
as
Cu ltural
Critique: An Exp erimental A1om ent in the Human Sciences . Ch icago : Universit y of
Chicago Press . Na roll , Raoul, and Ronald Cohen , cds . 1 970. A Handbook of A1erh od in Cultural A n rl�ropology. Ne\\' York : Colu m bia University Pres s.
Phillips, D . C . 1 976. Holistic Thought in Social Science . Stanford , Cal if. : Stanford University P ress .
f i EL D N O T E PRA C T I C E
1 86
Sahlins, Marshall . 1 976. Cu l t u re a nd Practi€421 Retlion . Chicago : U niver'iitv J
Chicago Press .
Seidel, John V.
1985.
The Elhnograph. Version 2. 0. Computer
so ft w ar e .
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
on
t�
Litt1eton
Co lo. : Qualia Research Associates {6 1 1 E. N ichols Drive; 3 0 3 /79 5 - 5 3 7 R ) .
Selig rna� Brenda Z . • ed. 195 1 . J'Jotes and Qumes
0
'
.&4 nthropolog)l. 6th cd. London:
Service, Elm an. 1 9 8 5 . A Ce n tu ry of Controver5y . Ne\v York : Academi c Press . Shweder, Richard . 1 986. Sto rytelling among the A nthropologi sts . �'eu, �"ork Time.s Book Review, September 2 1 , pp. 1 , 3 8- 3 9 . S no \\" , C . P. 1 959. The Two Culture.s and the Scientific Rtt1olution. Ne v.' Yo rk: Cambridge University Press.
White, Douglas . Mich ael Burton, and Lilyan B rudner-White. 1 9 8 3 . A1ECCA Codebooks : �wu rdock and
�'hite's S tanda rd Cro$5-Cultural Sample. Project MECC A
(Max im u m Extensibility for Cross-Cultural Research). Irvine: Univ ersit y of California School of Social Sciences .
Wolf, Eric, an d Edward Hansen . 1 972. The Human Condition in LAtitl l\ m erica. New Yo rk : Oxford University Press .
RO GER
S A NJ E K
The Secret Life of Fieldnotes
It would be futile to posit a "typical '' an thropologic al mix of s c rat ch notes, fi eldnote s proper, re cords , texts , and other fiel dwork \Vritings . Yet there is far less of th e totally individualistic, 1-d i d-i t-m y-way
,
a-thousand-fio�"ers-blooming , endles s sinking-or-swimming that an thropologists tend to allege abo u t field\vork conduct . If Vle ask how anthropologis t s have transcribed, ins cribed, and desc ri bed
,
we see
pat terns , but we also see change over one hund red years of fieldwork . The ans,\rer to the ques ti on of what fi eldnote practi ce is m u st be a historical one
.
The sou rce s for this hi s to r y, at present, are not fiel dnotes them selves . As James Clifford (this volume) point s out, " M ost of th e actual
practi c e and advice is unre co r de d or ina ccessibl e .
"
A few an th rop ol o
gists, we have seen, have given e x tract s o r s n i ppe ts of fi eld not e s in various ethnographic, personal and didacti c w ritings Yet the pur ,
.
poses for these offeri n gs have n ot been histori ca l record , nor is the reco rd sufficient. Fc'\v an th ro p o l og i s ts have seen fieldnotes before doing fi cld v- ork Unles s it was some secret London School of Eco "
.
nomi c s (LS E) rite, Jere m y Boissev ain's obeisance at the Malino\vski icon \v as unusual : The o n l y anthropolo gist s field notebook' I '\vas ac tu all y able to t ou c h and look at, and this only aft e r m any unsucces s ''
'
'
ful re q ues t s \Vas one of Malino\\'ski 's old field noteboo ks from the ,
D e p a rt me nt s museum'' '
( 1 970: 79).
r M8
f i EL D N O T E PR o\ C T I C E ..
"While historians of the discipline have approached aspec ts o f i ts development, " Stocking \Vrites, "there is as yet no general his to ri c a l account of the modern anthropological ficldv.." ork tradition" ( I 98 J b : 9). But sources for a conjectural history of fieldnotes there are-i n the stream of personal accounts of field v.rork that began \Vith Cushing, in the more reportorial collections of essays and accounts, in preface s a n d appendixes to ethnographies, in methodologically aimed volun1e s and essays, in some historical studies of anthropology, and in the let ters and diaries of Cushing, Boas, Malinovlski, and Mead. While mo st of this literature is not directed to fieldnote practice, bits and piec es he re and there afford material for a provisional outline. A full history of fieldnotes would have to consider the notes in spired by the nineteenth-century ethnographic fact-gathering guides \Vhich �..ere designed for travelers , missionaries , and administrators by Joseph-Marie Degerando, Lewis Hen ry Morgan , James Fraz er, and anthropologists from the British As sociation fo r the Advancement of Science and the S mithsonian Institution (Evans-Pritchard 1 9 5 I : 70 ; Pelto and Pelto 1 973 ; Urry 1 973 , 1 984a), but these are beyond our co n sideration here. We turn first to five founding figures of field"vork based anthropology: Frank Hamilton Cushing (b . 1 8 5 7), Franz B o a s (b. 1 8 s 8), w. H. R. Rivers (b . I 864), Bronisla�\t Malino�rski (b . I 8 84), and Margaret Mead (b . 1 90 1 ). Fieldnotes fi gure pointedly in \vrit ings by and about them , more so than for their less innovative or controversial contemporaries . Others \\�·ill have to uncover the field note practices of such late nineteenth-century field workers as James Mooney and George A . Dorsey among native A merican groups, and Alfred Cort Haddon among the Torres Straits Melanesians and Aran Islands Irish (Hinsley 1 98 1 ; Urry 1 984b), or A . R. Radcliffe-Bro \Vn, Alfred Kroeber, Robert Lo"\vie, and other early twentieth-century anthropologists . Mead continued her fieldwork and her vlritings on fieldnotes after her jam-packed Samoa, Ne\\' Guinea, and Bali years in the 1 920s an d 1 93 0s. No figure as significant as Mead , ho\vever, enters our ovcrvie\V of fieldnotes from the 1 930s through the 1 980s. For these decades, rather than seeking the example of a fe\v to\vcring figures, �..e tum to a survey of professional practice . We face the practical problem that perhaps upeople \Vho publish autobiographical accounts of their O \Vtl fieldwork are somcho�.. different from the average ethnographer'� (Pelto and Pelto 1 973 : 247). Average or not, nuggets of candor are what we have, from the fiel dwork literature and from the contribut ors
Secret Life of Fieldnotes
th is volume. When future his torians of anthropology examine the real thing in archives-or break into the L S E vault-this first sketch of ro
fiel dn ote history may be a contribution to their headnotes .
Fl"ank Cushing In 1 8 79, t\.venty-two-ycar-old Frank Hamilton C u shin g arrived at Zu ni Pueblo , hav·ing traveled by railro ad from Washington, D . C. , to Las Ve gas and by m uleback from there. He 'h"as posted by S mithso
nian Institution secretary Sp encer F. Baird as part of an expedition of th e new Bureau of Am eri can Ethnology (B AE), founded earlier that year. "I want you to find out all you can about some typical tribe of Pueblo Indians, '' Baird tol d hi m . " You will proba bly be gone three months" (C ushing 1 8 82-8 3 ; Green 1 979 : 46) . Cushing stayed four and
a half years , making one t rip east in 1 8 82 in the compan y of five of his Zuni hos ts and publishing his pers onal accoun t that b rought him notoriety, "My Ad·ven tures in Zuni., " in 1 8 82 and 1 8 8 3 . At firs t, Cushing expressed anxiety over the task of salvaging a disappearing way of life, a disappearance to be hastened by the arri val of the railroad in 1 8 80 (Green 1 979: 1 3 5 - 3 6) . Yet he soon assumed a s tyle o f partici pant-observation far different from th at of his S mithso nian colleagues and closely watched from Washington ( Cushing 1 8828 3 ; Hinsley 1 9 8 1 : 1 93 -200) . He learned to speak Zuni , and in 1 8 8 1 he was
indu cted as " Son of the Parrots'' into a Z u ni clan and then into the
Bo\\l pries thood . " I would be \\7illing to devote , say, a year or t\vo more to it, '' he wrote Baird that year, " to s tudy for a period almost as great, from the ins ide, the life of the Zunis, as I have from the outside,
(Green 1 979: 1 5 0) . P u blications on Zuni religion, myth, agri cul ture, fo od, and crafts \vould follo"\\1·.
If "Cushing h ad fc\v models for his ficld\vork'' (Hinsley 1 98 3 : 5 6) , h e certainly had fe\\' also fo r his fieldnote practice, a t least at first. The
what to record was laid do\vn by the BAE director John Wesley
Po\\'cll. Extensive documentation \Vas called for, so th at "by follo\\'
in g Po\vell's lead , Cushin g gained information not only on art and technology but also on language and conceptual catego ries . . . . Powell w as so su ccessful in requiring uniformity in the notes taken on collect ing trips that the field lists of M atilda Coxe Stevenson at Zia in the
1 890s and at Taos in the early 1 900s are remarkably similar to those made b y Cushin g at Zuni in 1 8 79 and 1 8 80, (Parezo 1 9 8 5 : 765 -66) .
f i EL DNOT E PRA C T I C E
1 90
Cu shin g s assignments from Po \Yell in cluded an 1 8 8 1 ce nsu s t h a t a mo un t e d to 2 1 0 pa ges and , presum a bl y m o s t of the other items listed '
,
in his 1 8 8 5
"
S chedule of Zuni Material Collected by Frank H a milto n
Cushing and Tu rned In to BA E . '' A mong these were records on cards
of the members , landholdings ,
1
,6ty
of each clan; a c e n s u s of the "Esoteric Societies, gi ving also ranks and ti tles of Pries ts'� ; and " notes" on dance organiz.ations, chiefs, ceremonials, an d judicial c o un cils (Green 1 979: 1 48 , 1 5 1 - 52). The hou' of taking fieldnotes is a m o re complex story. The anth ro pological standard of the time \vas transcription with a key info rmant; in subsequen t yea rs BAE anthropologists \\'auld e·vcn b ring Dak o ta, .. Omaha, Ponca, Quapa\v, and Winnebago informants to Washin g ton to depose texts (Hinsley 1 98 I : 1 74, 1 8 7) . On his a r r i v a l at the pueblo and houses
..
Cu shing s poke no Zuni or Spanish, and his hos ts no English . Through a Mexican S p a n is h in te r pr e ter the B A E party con v eyed to the Zuni ,
th ei r mission to collect and document artifacts (Green 1 979 : 59). Cush
ing played an active role in this work, but his principal ass i gnment
was
as "ethnologist . , He w a s instructed by Powell to remain after the
collecting party left Zuni and to s tu dy the pueblo 's art , language, mythology, and sociology
(Parezo 1 98 5 : 766) .
Even while the BA E group \Vas .ca mped n e a r b y, Cushing began
observation within Zun i ,
o penl y sketching and writing fieldnotcs.
Zuni disapproval ensued , but Cush ing p e rs ever e d . When I took my s tatio n on a house-top, sketch-books and colors in
hand , I was s u r p ri s ed to
sec
fro\\·ns and hear explosive, angry ex
postulations in every direction. As th e day \•lore on this indignation incr eased un ti l at last an old, bush-h eaded hag a p p ro a ched me, an d .
scov.,lin g into my face made a grab at m y book and pantomimically tore it to pieces . . . . The sketching and n ote-taking were essential to m y
was determined no t t o give them 1 979: 6o-6 I )
\\'Ork . I
"
up.
[Cushing 1 882- 83 ; Green
Without invitation , Cushing next moved into the house of the g o ve rno r, " a high-ranking Zuni . He v�ras under cons tant s u rv eil
lance, but his wri ti n g-in to the night-continued (Cushing 1 8 �2-8 3 ; Green 1 979: 67) . He soon concluded that his approach to field ,y o rk
\Vas s o mething new. He '"'"rote Baird in October 1 879: "My m e th od must succeed. I li""C among the I n di an s I cat t heir food, and slee p in their houses . . . . On account of this, thank God , my notes '"'·ill co n ta i n ,
Secret Life
of Field notes
191
rnLlch that those of all other explorers have failed to communicate" (Green 1979: 1 36- 3 7) . Cushing was also learning Zuni. After ten onths' residence he reported to Washington in r88o: "M·y rev-lard is Jll that today ... I speak a strangely complicated tongue, not perfectly but fluently and easily" (Hinsley
1
98 3 : 57).
]t is not clear whether the notes C.ushing took openly as he mo""ed
about Zuni were narrative descriptions or scratch notes to be turned
into descriptive fieldnotes during the evening \vork he mentions in both "My Adventures in Zuni,. and a letter to Baird (Green 1979: 67. IJ8). The "notes" produced in the c""ening sessions may Vlell have included the narrative reports to Baird and the BAE, among them the "sixty-eight closely Vlritten pages" lost in the mail to Baird early in 1881 (Green 1979:·146; Parezo 1985: 767), an 1884 draft report (Pandey 1972:
325n; Green 1979: 27), and the documents listed in his I 885
\\ ere
devoted to working on descriptive accounts of data acquired
''Schedule of Zuni Material:' At least some of the evening sessions
..
through interaction vlith informants, though how scratch notes, tran scribed texts, or memory figured in this we do not know. In
I
8R 1,
\\'hilc working by day on the census for Povlell, he wrote Baird: By night I am as busy v-'ith my more proper pursuits. I am making more r ap i d
progress in the study of the it1ner lifo of these \Vonderful savages
during the past fe\v days than ever before.... I have not until within a week s e cu red anything like a complete vocabulary of their consanguin ity terms, or any conception of their true belief in immortality. [Green I979:
148)
Later that year he wrote Baird again that the priests of the Bo\v Society "have required me already to \vrite carefully" ten prayers and songs "embodied in ancient and obsolete language" (Green
1
979 : 149).
Whether Cushing wrote any additional fieldnotes beyond the un
published "notes" listed on the r 88 5 ''Schedule" and no�· at the South west Museum is a matter of controversy. In 1956 Edmund Wilson contended that Cushing destroyed his fieldnotes on "the secrets that he
had lear ned
in his capacity as a priest" {qtd. in Pandey
1972: 326).
While it is ''hard to rule out the possibility that Cushing destroyed
some of his notes," Pande"'.. writes .. he also relates that "there are some prayers and other esoteric texts in the Cushing Papers �·hich the South"'..est Museum bought a few years ago" (1972: 326n). I
In January
1
.
884 Cushing \vas recalled to Washington, follo\ving
an
FIELD�OTE PRACTICE
192
affair in vvhich his advocacy· for Zuni land claims antagonized influential senator and (Gronewald
1972: 46;
r884
a
�
Republican vice-presidential candidat
Pandey
1972: 325-26).
two years, \vriting only one article on Zuni. In
He remained there for
1886,
with the backing of Boston philanthropist Mary Hemen\vay, he returned to the South
..
\Vest to direct a program of archaeological and allied research. He \\'as replaced as director by Jesse Walter Fewkes in 1889. Although Cush ing accused Fewkes of seizing some 1 ,ooo pages of his notes, appar ...
ently neither Cushing nor Fe\vkes produced much at all in the
\Vav
of
fieldnotes from this work. Frederick Webb Hodge, Cushing's broth er
in-law, vlho prepared his posthumous Zuni publications and was also a member of the Hemenway project, recalled years later that Cushing
took no fieldnotes and expected to rely upon his memory and annota tions on maps for the later \Vriting he never completed (Green 1979: 13-14,
28-31;
Hinsley
1981: 200-204;
Hinsley
1983: 6o-66).
Cushing returned to the BAE for a fcvl years of productive Zuni eth
nographic \Vriting in the early
1
89os and attempted another (aborted)
archaeological project, in Florida, later in the decade. In 1885 James Mooney, another y oung BAE ethnographer \vho
would be more prolific if less controversial than Cushing, received the advice of Washington Mathe\vs, an ethnographer of the Navajo and
a
friend and defender of Cushing. "Mathe\vs offered Mooney four points of guidance for field work: learn the language; be authoritative but sympathetic; record everything precisely; and avoid preconcep
tions" (Hinsley 198 r:
210).
To these Cushing had added the ingredient of participant-observa
tion (Pandey 1972 :
322n). Whatever was thus gained in descriptive
fieldnote practice by Cushing at Zuni, howcv·er, \\'as a false start for anthropology. He died in
1899 at age fort)"-two.
But perhaps little was lost.
lifetime, the im pression \vas strong among his colleagues that he was with h oldin g a g reat deal of information to be \Vritten up in the future. C us hing himself contributed to this belief by m enti on i n g in a lm os t every piece he wrote for scholarly journals that the present In Cushing's
a sort o f preliminary j o t ting do \\ n to be follo\-.·ed later by fu r ther detail from his large st o re of materials. . There can be no
effort
\\tas
'
,
.
doub t (ho\vever] that much ofhis [Grone\�.rold 1972: 37, 441
.
knowledge was never \Vri t te n down.
Secret Life of Fieldnotcs
193
Frar�z Boas While Cushing \Vas in his final year at Zuni, t\venty-five-year-old
franz Boas began his 1883-84 field research among the Baffin Island
Eskimo. Like Cushing, Boas studied a living culture; and like Cush ing, Boas produced ethnographic \Vritings (Boas 1 888), a published personal account (in Stocking 1974a: 44-55; cf. White 1963: 17), and letters (Cole 1983) from v.rhich we may assess his ficldnote practice. Be cause his geographical objectives led him to travel 3,000 miles during his research, hovlever, he did not gain the intimate, situated
cultural knowledge that Cushing came to value. Nonetheless, Boas's Arctic fieldwork came much closer to participant -observation than
did the Indian studies on the Canadian northwest coast for which he is more famous. The letters, actually one 500-pagc document added to incrementally over fifteen months, \vere delivered to Marie Krackowizer (later Boas) only after the Arctic sojourn.They \\'ere vlritten in pencil on notepads roughly three and a half by seven inches in size, as presumably· \Vas the chronological fieldnote "journal'' Boas also kept (Cole
1 983: I 6- r 7).
Some of the letters duplicated fieldnote entries, but the "letter-diary'� (as Cole labels it) clearly also functioned as a personal diary. For us, its abridged, published version provides a \\'indo\v through vlhich to view Boas's first ethnographic experience. As \Vould be regular practice in his later field"vork, Boas intcr vievled informants about topics of his own priority. "I am ... busy \Vith questioning the natives \vho are giving me information on all parts of their homeland." But the exigencies of \Vorking in a living culture also brought information not sought directly: "Evenings my good friends came to tell me something or sing to me. Whether I wished to or not I had to \.Vrite down vlhat they told me." Boas also observed an ongoing \\ray of life: "Signa builds the iglu in four and a half hours"; "Today I hunted just as an Eskimo, \Vith a spear and all that goes with it. I sat beside the \Vater just as patiently as they do.... Oxaitung was the only one who caught anything, t\vo seals .... Metik Was here this evening and told an endlessly long story'" (Cole 1983: 24, 25, 28,
40).
There is one indication in the letters that Boas took notes while observing and listening, but this \Vas no doubt indoors. During much of his field\vork the \\'eather did not permit outdoor notetaking; even
fiELDNOTE PR.-\CTICE
194
indoor w r iting time \\�'"as limited: ''No\v that \\l'"e have been in the igl for four hours. it is warm e no u gh to write ." It was in the evenings thau he "organized" his notes In the six-week summer period spent \Vait� ing for a ship home, Cole tells us, Boas "settled do\vn to \\'ork on his ethnographic material" (Cole 1983: 44, 28, 48, 49). Boas's ethnography The Cet1tral Eskim o, published in the liAE,s 1888 annual report, reflects his field\\'ork \veil. It covers E ski m o geo graphical distribution, subsistence, material culture, observab le cus toms,,, and songs and traditions. There is balance between wh at he heard and \vhat he sa\v. The songs and traditions make up less than one-eighth of the report; the circumstances of their reco rdi ng are unclear. Boas's personal ac count of his fie l d w o rk "A Yea r among the Eskimo" (Stocking 1974a: 44-55), s u g gests that he recorde d tales during performances rather than with an informant apart fro m this soci al con tex t . .
·�
,
The Eskimo ... have an enormous stock of folk-lore, of which I succeeded in collecting a considerable amount. The scene when tradi tions are told is extremely interesting, and I \velcomed such occa sions.. . The man who relates the tradition strips off his outer jacket and sits do\\o'"n in the rear of the hut facing the wall. He pulls up his hood, puts on his mittens, and prepares himself by a brief song. The audience stand or squat on the floor of the huts, and now the lamps are lowered, a dim light only filling the small r oo m. I shall tell here one of the most characteristic of these stories, as I heard it in a village on Davis Strait. (Stocking 1974-a: 53 I .
Whether Boas ''welcomed such occasions" or "wrote do\vn what they told me \vhether I \�rishe d to or not," it is not clear that his mastery of Eskimo permitted him to transcribe spo ken performances. When he arrived in Kikkerton in Septem ber 1883, he foun d th at "almost all the Eskimo understand English and I can deal \Vith them v e r y \vei l ." On D ecember 23, when he had moved north to Anar nitung, he \Vrotc: "The Eskimo are now sitting around me , telling one another old tales. Too bad I cann ot understand them." Yet in one-to one intervic\v situations, he tried to usc Eskimo. Still at Anarnitung, December 30: "Yes terday evening I had a long conversation \Vit h an old woman, who came here from far in the north . I a m gradually lea rning to make myself unders tood somewhat by the Eskimo and to understand them. The l angu age is dreadfully difficult." A month and a half later, on February 16, 1884, his Eskimo had improved, bu t he .
.
.
195
Secret Life of Fieldnotcs
could s ti ll not record texts. "I listen ed to s to ri es and Vl rote do\¥n word s . My gloss ary is really gro\ving." La ter the same da}·, he also w ro te of hea ring "all k inds of s to ri es told in p i dg i n English used by the Eskimo who kno\v English \Vords" (Cole 1 98 3 : 2 1 , 33, 34, 4 1 , 42). On May 18 Boas reached the Davis S trait, where he remained until lea vi n g Baffin I sland in August. He brought no Kikkerton Eskimo co mp an ions and the letters do not state "vhether the Davis Strait Eskimo also sp oke Engli sh Perh a ps Boas's Esk i mo was no\v su ffi cient to record the t ale as sp ok en ; p erh aps the unpubli shed j ourn al reveals other ci rcum stances of its recor di ng In any event, the Davis Strait fol ktale is presented in English narrative form, not in the literal w ord for-word translation that \\'ould mark his north�·est coast publica "
"
,
.
.
tions.
Boas on Boas's
the N ort h west
Coast
fou r and a half decades of north\vcst c oa s t resea r ch
began in Berlin in 1885, th e year after he left the Ar c tic. There he in terv ie v.. e d several Bella Coola Indians, part of a travel in g "exhibition,'' and wr o te four short a rticles tha t \V ere p ublished in 1 886 {Boas 1 966: 3-4; Knig ht 1 978: 45-46; White 1 963 : 1 8) . In S e ptem b er 1 886 he a rrived on Van cou v er Island for his first th ree mo nth field trip. In all, Boas \Vould return twelve times, fo r a total of twenty ni ne months. His m ajor fieldw o rk from 1 886 to I900, \vas conducted between the ages of twenty-eight and fo rt y t\vo in eight t ri ps oft��to to fou r months each . He returned again in 1914 for three weeks, three times in t h e 1920s f or a total of three m onths, and fo r three month s in 1930-31 at the age of sevent y t \vo Of e q ual importance to this ficld\vork was his work and cor respon d en ce v.. ith local northvlcst coast collaborators particularly George Hunt, Henry Tate, and James Teit-\vhich ex tended from Bo as s first meeti ng with Hunt in I 888 th rough their last work session in 1 931 (Rohner 1 969: 90-9 1 , 300). The resul t i ng publ ished work is enormou s : Io,ooo p a ge s , half in 175 p u blications on the K\vakiutl and hal f on oth er g roup s (Codere 1 9 59: 6r , 1 966: xix; R ohner and Rohner 1969: xxiii). Boas p rep ared material fo r publication until his death in 1 942; his Ku1akiutl Tales (Part 2) ap p ea red in 1943. Some of his unpublished \Y ri ti ng was incorporated by Code re into Kwakiutl Ethnograp h y (Boas 1966). He also left un published letters, diaries, and fi el dnotes . An I 888 field j ou rna l and letters to his fa mily written from the northwest coast bet\veen 1 886 ·
-
-
,
-
-
,
.
..
'
FIEL D N O TE PRACTJ(�l-:
and 1931 have b een translated from German to English and con1piled in a volume that is revealing of Boas's field\\'Ork and fieldnote practice (Rohner 1969). The 1886-1900 research involved t\\'0 goals: first, survey \.Vork to determine variation and relationships in the language, physic al charac teristics, and social customs of the Indian groups; second, "a presenta tion of the culture as it appears to the Indian himself, " for \vhich the Kwakiutl \\'ere the focus of attention (Boas 1966: I-6; cf Richards 1939: 280-81). Boas had achieved considerable progress in the first goal by the mid- 1 890s, as summarized in his report to th e British Association for the Advancement of Science (Stocking 1974a: 88-Io7; . see also Boas 1 966: 7- 1 4) . I n the survey work it had been important to documen t myths and tales because Boas saVv" a comparison of their elements and motifs as an index to historical rel ationships (Jacobs 19 59; Rohner 1969: 29, 38, 545 5, 63). Yet these traditional narratives \\'ere also crucial for Boas's shi ft during this period from distributional concerns to focu s e d K \Va kiutl ethnography (Codere in Boas 1966: 299n; Rohner 1969: 21 5-16). Myth, he came to see, was "adapted and changed in form according to the genius of the people who borrowed it" (Stocking 1974b: 96). By 1900 his second goal \Vas accomplished. To\vard the end of a summer of field�·ork in Kwakiutl art, language, and plant uses, Boas \V rot c : "I can now prepare a description of the way of life of this tribe, and perhaps have it printed next year . . . . Then, I think, I will have ftnally finished with this tribe" (Rohner 1969: 262). "A description of the \\'ay of life of this tribe" for Boas did not mean \Vhat he had observed of ongoing K�vakiutl beha\l;or during 18861900. The balance achieved in his Eskimo ethnography between what he heard and what he sa"",. now tilted steeply toward what he heard or, better, what he asked to hear. "Like most anthropologists of this period, Boas directed his stud·y to the past rather than the present'� (Stocking 1 974 a : 86). But it was a past from \vhich one hundred years of Western contact Vlas filtered out. An international maritime fur trade had flourished on the northwest coast between 1 785 and 1 82 5 . In the 1820s, land-based tra ding pos ts were es tablished, and the Hudson's Bay Company "effectively became the colonial government " of British Columbia until the 1 8 sos. Va st changes occurred among the Indian societies with the advent of fire arms, fortifications, political destabilization and realignments , and, later, epidemics and depopulation. British na\l·al patrols from 1848
Secret
Life of Ficldnotes
1 97
shelled native settlements: "Two separate naval expeditions \Vere sent tO b ombard the K \vakiutl villages in the Fort Rupert area in 1 8 so- I 8 5 I , after t he murder of three British sailors who had j umped ship. . In 1 8 58 the British Columbia gold rush began, and the �"hite population of less th an eight hundred increased by more than I,ooo percent. Chi nese, Hav.laiians, Black Americans, Chileans, and Japanese appeared 00 th e scene. Indians remained the majority, ho\\'ever, until the mid1s8os , '"rhen completion of the Canadian Pacifi c railroad brought a \\'ave of European immigrants-and young anthropologist Franz Boa s (Knight 1 978: 21 9-44, 30 1). The K Vlakiutl '"rere one of the more traditional Indian groups, and this at tracted Boas (Rohner 1 969: 13). But they had not escaped the massive transformations around them . By World War I, some K wakiutl groups had a forty to fifty year history as coal n1incrs, handloggers, commercial fishermen, and entrepreneurs... . Thc[ir] parents and grandparents ... travelled to the canneries, sa\vn1ills, hopyards, and cities of Puget Sound and the Fraser Valley for seasonal jobs from at least the 1 &7os. A largely K \vakiutl-operated sawmill and cannery functioned at Alert Bay from the early 188os. Kwakiutl men and women had worked as seamen on coastal vessels_ as sealers ��lintcr ing over in Japanese cities. and had attended Fairs and Expositions in Chicago, St. Louis, New York and other cities. (Knight 1978: so)
None of this escaped Boas , as his letters reveal. They note de nominational and ecstatic Christian churches , missionary influence, Indian mixed farming, migrant farm\\l·ork, sa\vmills, \\l·ork camps , salmon canneries, racial mixing, a European-style wedding ceremony, celebration of Do minion Day, and an 1 890 reunion v.lith the Bella Co ola-now cannery workers and migrant laborers-he had met in Berlin (Rohner 1969: 21, 22, 76, 86, 92-94, 96, 99- 100, 1 27-3 2 , 1 40, 15 8, 1 65). A vivid account in 1 900 of the Alert Bay salmon cannery, \\'it h its Chinese/Indian division of labor, is a gem of ethnographic descri ption (Rohner 1 969: 25 1 - 5 3 ) . But all this is in letters, not in field no tcs. What Vlent into his fieldnotes? Texts, \Vith fe\v exceptions . The recording of texts vlith the help of bilingual key informants \Vas a common ethnographic procedure in th e late nineteenth century Uacobs 1 9 59: 1 1 9; Rohner and Rohner 1969: xxviii) , but Boas " made them the keys tone of an ethnographic st y le" (Stocking 1 974a: 85). As his pool of informants, al\vays paid, narro'\vcd from anybody he could find on his earlier trips to a few key
fiELDNOTE PRACTICE
infor mants in later work, so his procedures of "transcription,"
as
he
called it from 1 8 86 (Rohner 1969: 63 , 7 1 ) also chan ged. Although his Columbia University students attest that he gave them little method ological advice, did not discu ss methods in his "Methods', course which was about theory (Mead 1 9 59a; cf. Boa s 1 9 3 8), and "left
,
no
explicit statement of his field technique " (Smith 19 59: 53), his letters do shed light on his fieldnote practice.
On his first trip in 1 8 86 he moved from community to community, contacting local whites to help locate "his Indian, for the next day or so. He then spent long hours transcribing, either in English or, as he preferred , in an Indian langu age, followed by his informant's transla.
tion into English. Th ese transcriptions \\'ere then reread and recopied at night. Boas Vlrotc several times of falling behind in his "copying,'' and he noted in his le tters the progress of"my manuscript'' from r6o to 212 to eventually 3 26 pages, with some material saved to be "vvorked over" in New York. He intended to publish these recopied transcrip tions first as journal articles and then as a book.
On this trip he secured
texts in Bella Coola, Comox, and three other Indian languages (Roh ner 1969: 19-77) . O n later trips his methods were similar, al though by 1890 he could usc the Chinook lingua franca for work \\'ith some non-Engli sh speaking Indians, and he would occasionally trans cribe first in English and then have his informan t translate back into the Indian language (Rohner 1969: 1 1 7, 166). In 1 900 he spent time with inform an ts revis ing K wakiutl texts he had recorded earlier. A page from his K wakiutl fieldnotcs, reproduced in
Kwakiutl Ethnography (Boas 1966: vi), sho\VS
the results: lines of K wak\vala and En glish alternate in neat hand"vrit ing on lined paper. In 1900 Boas recorded fieldnotcs on Kwakiutl art ( Rohner 1 969: 2 46-47), but certainl y the bulk of his fieldnotes consists of texts, plus his separate no tes on Indian material objects, and hu man and skeletal measurements.
Boas and Hunt The major change in Boas's text transcription methods came \vith his collaboration with George Hunt, just three years ol der than Boas (Codere 1 966: xxix).
Of a K\\7akiutl- �1etis Fort Rupert family, Hunt ..
\\'as employed as an interpreter for the governmen t Indian Reserve Commission in
1 879
and had begun \\'ork on K\�lakiutl traditions
on
his o�·n before meeting Boas (Knight 1978: 52, 275). They met
on
Secret Life of Fieldnotes
Bo as's second trip in r 8 8 8 , for one morning ' s \v ork ; Hunt \v as th en work ing as a court inte r preter (R ohner 1 969: 91). He is no t mentioned in the I 889 or 1890 l ette rs and no letters from I 89 1 are included in Rohner's co mpilation. In 1893 , \vhile cu rating a Vancouver Island exhibit at the Chic a go World's Fair, Boas again met his "former inter preter, " so it is likel y the)· had by then had more th an on e m o rning 's con tact. In Chi cago Boas taught Hunt to write K \vakiutl texts in the manner Boas had himself devised (Boas 1 966: 4-5; Co dere 1 966: xv, xxviii). In r 894 Boas returned to the north\vest coast for his only fall-winter trip since his firs t in 1 8 86; all the othe rs were in summer months. He met Hunt in Fort R uper t , a nd they \\'orked closely t o geth e r, es pecial l y during the Winter Ceremonial activiti e s . It was a tense relationship, Boas's letters reveal: "He knows exa c tl y how I depen d upon him" (Rohner 1969: 1 8 3) . In I 894 Hunt also began sending Boas texts by mail and their corres po ndenc e continued until Hunt's death in 1 933 ; over these years Hunt s upp lied Boas \Vith tvlo-thirds of his published K\va k iutl data (Rohner and Rohn er 1 969: xxiii, xxviii; White 1 963 : 3o-3 3). On his 1 897 fiel d trip Boas reviewed Kwakiutl texts with Hunt, i ncl u ding ones he had sent to Boas in Nevl York (Rohner 1 969: 2 1 1 - 1 9). O n Boas's 1 900 trip, �· hen Hunt an d his fa mil y were work i ng in the canneries (su mmer emplo ymen t for many K \\' aki u tl) , the tvlo men worked together on K wa kiu tl text revisions in the evenings and for a few d a ys at the end of the season ( Rohner 1969: 246-62). Boas no\v felt comfortable having Hunt continue locally on his own: "I hope Ge orge Hunt will be able to do by himsel f many thing s �·hich yet ha ve to be done. I revised much of what he had done and can see that he does everythi ng properly and that he does n o t pull m)· leg . I find him qu i te dependa ble , more than I had tho ught " (Rohner 1969 : 261 ). Hunt would visit New York in 1 901 and 1 903 (White 1 963 : 3 3), and Boas v..�ould meet him a g ain in Fort Ru pert in the 1 9 20s and in 1 93 0 . As Hunt's texts c ame in , the Kwakiutl volumes came out ( White 1963: 2 3 -33). The fi rst, The Social Organization and Secret Societies ofthe Kwakiutl Indians (428 p ages ) , p u bli shed in 1 897, was based upon Hunt's \vork, as the p r eface ackno\vledged. The t wo volumes of Kwakiutl Texts ( 79 5 pages) publis hed in 1905 and 1 906 were also Boas's editions of materials Hunt had collected between 1 895 a nd 1 903 . B o a s next turned to his own field\vork materials and p u bli sh e d in 1 909 The Kwakil4tl of Vancouver lslatld (222 pages on crafts , art, food, and tech,
,
,
,
199
FIEI.DNOTE PRACTICE
200
nology, including many texts) and in 19 1 0 Ku,akiutl Tales (495 pages), his own texts and translations . Three more volumes of Hunt texts and translations appeared in 1 92 1 , I92S, and 19 3 0: Ethnolo�y ofthe Kwakiutl (1 , 418 pages), Contributions to the Ethnology ofthe Kwakiutl (3 5 7 pages), and The Religion of the Kwakir-ltl Indians (S72 pages). Boas's final t\vo volumes were again his own work : a second collection of Ku·akiuti Tales (458 pages) was published in English translations in 1935 and in K\vakwala in 1 943 . Evidently Boas placed a higher p ublishing priority on Hunt 's work than his O\\'n . If tex ts are a type of fieldnotes, then most of these K \Vakiutl vol umes consist of edited fieldnotes. They are presented with fe\v syn.thesiz ing passages: " Boas's conclusions on . . . various aspects of K w akiutl culture are austerely restricted to those he can base on docu mentatio n he can share \Vith the reader" (Codere 1966: xx, xxiii). The corpus is loosely organi z ed ; the Boas volumes se pa r ate tech nol og y from folktales, but the Hunt- derived volumes, published as m ateri al arrived, mix together a variety of topics (Coderc 1966: xxx; White 1 963: 24-30). Kw ak iutl Ethnography (Boas 1966), the posthumous vol ume edited by Helen Codere , is much the sa m e , not "the summary, synthesizing volume on the Kwakiutl" that Boas had planned to \\'rite (Mead 1 972: 1 8 3 ). It is b ased on manuscripts that covered several topics and were left with no chapter outline ; Coderc (1966) added sections from earlier Boas publications to give it coherence . The Kw a kiutl texts are depositions transcribed by B oas or Hunt as recited to them by informants; others , based on his own reminiscence, \Vere compos ed by Hunt directly. They concern techniques no longer practiced ; memories of events and customary behavior; narrations of ceremonies and speeches recall ed for the ethnographer's transcrip tion (Boas 1966) . They are not ·verbatim reco rds of ongoing social pe rfor m ances. "He never intensively considered style in oral literature Boas . . . appear[ s] to have lost sight of audience and comm u ni ty as loci of many of the factors which determine style'' Qacobs 1 959: 13435). Boas did not attempt to s tudy oratory until his 1 93 0 field trip and found then that he could not record it; his K \vakwala abi lity \vas sufficient for seated informant narrative but not for natural con versa tion or formal spe eches (Rohner 1 969: 290-97; cf. Boas 1966: 352-54). Perhaps because Hunt produced such a harvest of texts, Boas di d not follo\v the stricture of cross-informant checking which he urged upon others ( R ohner and Rohner 1 969: xxi). In Boas's Tsimshian te xtual work \\lith Henrv Tate , even more rules \vere broken; tales were .
.I
.
.
·
Secret Life of Field notes
201
written by Tate firs t in English and then in T simshian, and some even appear to be based upon texts Boas himself recorded before meeting Tate (Maud 1 989). It is difficult to sustain the argument that Boas's texts "present Kwakiutl culture as it appears to the Indian himself," or th at they are ''a solution to the problem of acquiring ethnographic data as free as possible from the certain self-contamination of the data by the eth nographer" (Codere 1 966: xv). In pursuing his goals on the northwest coast from 1 886 to 1 900, Boas was selective and worked from his o\vn list of priorities (Smith 19 5 9: 5 5). In an 1888 letter he "\Vrote: "Tomor row I shall have reached the point where I shall have no more ques tions and will have to allo\\' myself to be guided by the Indian. This is usually the point at \\'hich a brief survey beco mes unprofitable" (Roh ner 1 969: 1 0 3 ). Hunt's texts also \Vere produced in response to ques tions from Boas (Boas 1966: 3 s). Back to Participant-Observation
The one exception to the textual method is Boas's remarkable parti cipant-observer account of the 1894 Fort Rupert Winter Ceremonial (Boas 1966: 179-241 ). Boas earlier published text-based passages from Hunt on this ritual cycle, including one on the 1 895-96 Winter Cere monial , in his first major K vvakiutl volume in 1 897 and another in 193 0, both reprinted in part in Kwakiutl Ethnography (Boas 1 966: 24298 ). T hese arc flat and dry compared to the vivid description of the November 3 -December Is events that Boas v.ritnessed in 1 894. November 19 .. . . In the fourth song the word "raven" occurred. As soon as it was heard, one of the Cannibal dancers of the Koskimo became excited. He jumped up, crying , "hap, lulp, hap,'' trembling all over. His attendants rushed up to him, the people beat time violently, and the drummer beat the drum, v.. hile the Cannibal dancer tried to rush up to the people and to bite them. But he \vas held back by his six attendants. Slowly he moved to the rear of the house, \vhere he \1\.'ent once to the left, once to the right; then he continued his course around the fire. When he came to the door, he went out, follovvcd by hi s attendants. The Koskimo called four times, "yro�!" [Boas 1966: 186] ..
Boas includes a section in which K V�"akiutl masqueraded as V�"hite policemen and a judge, and an allusion during a performance to fear and defiance of the police (Boas 1 966: 196, 234-35). By this time these
202
•
fiELDNOTE PRACTICf.
performances had been outla'\N·ed (Codcre 1 966: xxviii; Knig ht 1C)7�. 268) . Presented in dated installments, the account reads like fieldnot�s� I doubt that Boas kne\.\1" exactly \vhat to make of these notes . Thcv cover only part of the Winter Ceremonial period and have none of th� finality in tone of presentation that the text-based, "full" accounts do. They account for half of the unpublished "Kwakiutl Ethnography', manuscripts that Boas left , and appeared only in 1 966. Boas's field letters , published three years later, reveal the circutn stances of recording the 1 894 Winter Ceremonial sequence. The first day's feast \Vas paid for by Boas: $1 4. 50 for a round of hardtack and molasses for 250 Indians. This netted him a set of reciprocal in vitations. To keep up, he '''as forced to take "stenographic notes�' scratch notes-\\'hich he �·ent over with Hunt follo\ving each event. Hunt \vas also employed to recall speeches fo r transcription; on f)e cembcr 1, when Hunt \vas not \Vith him, Boas \\'rote, "I did not kno\v what Vlas going on" (Rohner 1969: 1 77-89). The pace �vas taxing. i\t his busiest, on November 23 , Boas produced a IO, OOo-'\vord descrip tion of the day 's events (Boas 1 966: 2or-r7). But the opportunity to see Kwakiutl ceremon y in performance did not thrill Boas as one might expect. "There is never a quiet n1on1ent here. I will be glad when this is all oyer, '' he wrote November 28. On his last day he lamen ted, "Toda y is packing day. I have not done n1uch, , though. , And on board the steamer: "My stay in Fort Rupert \vas not at all agreeable, although I sa\v and learned a great deal " (Hoas r966: r 86-90). Without his accustomed text transcription practices to rely on , participant-observation left Boas unsettled and agitated. At home, he returned to the Hunt texts and the "emotional release" he enjoyed in editing them Oacobs 1 959: 1 20). The 1894 fieldnotes remained un published during his lifetime, nor did he return again in fall or winter months to witness Kwakiutl ceremonial activities until 1 93 0, vlhcn he filmed them-and unfortunately lost the fum (Boas 1 966: 1 7 1). His one other '\\linter trip, for a month in 1 923 , vlas spent \Vo rking on Kvlakiutl texts \�lith Hunt in Bella Bella, not at Fort Rupert (Rohner 1 969: 277- 87). ''Participant observation was much less possible for hin1 than for most of his students" (Jacobs 1 9 59: 1 27). Boas's texts represent his attempt to salvage the culture of the nonh\vest coast from the acculturative pressures he noted in his let ters and, on occasion, in his published general statements (Rohner 1969: r 3). The exigencies of the situation could be severe; only three K ath lamct speakers� for example. remained \\�"hen Boas c ollected texts in
203
Secret Life of Fieldnotes
that language (Stocking 1 974a: I 1 6). But the cultural life he recorded was in reality that of the earlier nineteenth cent u ry, and a product of rhrec gene rations of fur trade transformations ( K night 1 978 : 2 1 8) . Boas himself was aware o f the shaky foundations o f his enterprise. " It mu st be r e membered that these events occ u rre d about 1 870 or 1 874, and that they ""�ere told bet\veen 1 900 and 1 925-time enough to allo\\' the imagination fre e play with the actual occurrence, " he wrote of Hun t's texts on Kwakiut l shamans (Boas 1 966: 1 2 5). The maj or loss for anthropology, which Boas \vould influence enor mo u sly in the early decades of the t\ven tieth century, was that the s al vage enterprise " led to a disto rt ed notion of the separation of cult u re from society, practice from pe rson " (Gruber 1970: 1 297). Participant observation led to descripti ve ficldnotcs on Signa building an iglu and Oxaitu n g catching seals an1ong the Central Eskimo. That course would lead to po li ce m as querades in Winter Ceremonials and In dians at \Vork in canneries among the K wakiutl. Boas chose to transcribe and edit te x ts instead. J¥. H. R. Rivers
While Boas \\'as shaping the de velopment of an thropology in the United States in the first t\vo decades of th e twentieth centurv, in E n glan d his counterpart �vas W. H. R. Rivers, the m ost i n fluential figure in Bri tis h anthropology until his death in 1 922 ( Fortes 1957: 158 ; Stocking 1 984a : I 3 8). As Alfred Cort Haddon in the 1 8 90s had moved the center of g ravity in profe ssio n al British anthropology from arm chair th e oriz ing to field surveys, so Rivers moved it further from survey to intensive fieldwork (Stocking 1 9 8 3 a; Urry r984b). The list of anthropologists \\'hose careers he influenced, both in and out of "t he Cam b ridge school, " includes a g e neratio n of p re- and post World War I field\vorkers novl largely unread, with the e x ce pti ons of Rad cliffe-Brown and Malino\vski (Langham 1 9 8 r : 1 71-77, 202-300; Sl o bodin 1978 : 40-4 1 , 48; Stocking 1 98 3 a : 8o- 8s; Urry" 1 984a: 47-48) . A lready \\ idely traveled, and \Vith professional acco m plishmen ts in neurophysiology and psy chology, William Halse Rivers Rivers signed o n with Haddon's Cambridge Anthropolo gica l Expedition to Torre s Straits in 1 898 a t age thirty-four ( Slo b od in 1 978 : 1-26; Stocking 1 98 3 a: 75-77). As a psychologis t , Rivers was r e s pon si b l e fo r te sts of color and s patial percep tion, and his results were inclu de d in the second of I
,
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fiELDNOTE PRACTICE
204
the expedition's six published volumes. But more important for the development of anthropological field research was his \Vork on g en� alogies among the Torres Straits Melanesians. While other members of the team traveled to the Papua coast of Ne\\' Guinea and to Sara\\'ak, Rivers remained continuously on �1er Island from May to September 1898; he then traveled with fou r others to Mabuiag Island for five more weeks of research. The ficldvv ork \�'as not participant-observation ; it was conducted in pidgin English and drc\v heavily upon information from local \vhite residents (Stocking 1 983a: 77). Through formal inter,dc\vs with Mer and Mabuiag island ers Rivers secured the data on kinship, naming, marriage , and social . organization included in Volumes 5 (1904) and 6 (1908) of the expedi tion's reports. This material \vas obtained through the genealogical method that Rivers "perfected" on Mabuiag (Siobodin 1978: 25-26). Rivers published the first account of his method in the journal ()_fthe Royal Anthropological Institute in I 900. His "Genealogical Method of An thropological Inquiry" (1910) was \Vritten after further usc of the approach in his 190 1-2 lndian and 1907-8 Pacific field research. In it he states explicitly how genealogical records are to be transcribed in ficldvvork . In collecting the pedigrees the descendants in both the male and female
lines are obtained, but in writing them out .
one sheet only the descendants in one line \\'ith cross-references to other sheets for the descendants in the other line. I have found it conve nient to record the names of males in capital letters and those of females in ordinary type, and I al\�lays put the name of the husband to the left of that of the \\;fe. In polygynous or polyandrous marriages I include the .
.
.
it is well to record
.
on
.
names of the wives or husbands in square brackets. [Rivers 1910:
98-99)
For each individual in the genealogy, information should be listed on localities of residence and origin, totem, clan membership, adoption, and "any other facts about each person '"''hich may possibly have any social significance." Genealogies should be taken from at least three persons in a community, with experts in such kno\\'ledge sought our and young men avoided as informants. Kin terms used for non-kin should also be asked about follo,�ring the genealogical interrogation (1910: 99-102). When the overlapping genealogies of all members of a community are collected, a "register of m arriages," past and present, results . Rules regulating marriages may be formulated, \vhethcr or not such rules
Secret Life of Ficldnotcs
20 5
ex i st in the cultu re studied; confl i ct between established cultural rul es an d practice ma y also be anal yzed . In add ition, genealo gical data can
be u sed to s tudy inheritance, n1 igration , ritual roles and obligati o n s , dem ography, heredity a n d other topics ( Rivers 1 9 1 0: 1 03 - 7; see Hack en b erg 1 97 3 : 293-96). With Rivers's fo rmulati o n , genealogies as a
for m of fieldno te record beca me a fixture in an thropological research. " I ntensive"
Field"""ork
Three years after the Torres Straits expedition, l�ivcrs a rrived in so u th I ndia in 1 90 1 for a su rvey o f the five " tribesn living in the N ilgiri Hills . He began "\Vith the comparatively \Y ell-docu mented Toda and recorded the genealogies of all seven ty-two fa n1ilies , which he in cluded in his 8oo-pagc monograph of 1 906. The analyses of his meth od's results constitu te in David Schneider 's view "the first careful field studies of kinship"
( 1 96 8 :
came to include religion
I s; as
cf. Fo rtes 1 9 5 7: I 5 8). B ut Rivers's efforts much as social org anization. Unlike the
To rre s Straits, \vhere " ceremonial had disappeared, and the o n l y rec ord of it to be obtained was that de rived from the memories of the oldest inha bitan ts, " Toda ritual and religiou s life \v as in fu ll blo o m around him . With more than enough t o occupy h i s stay o f about five months, Rivers ab andoned his s u rv ey for intensive study (Rivers 1 9 0 6 : 1 -4; Slobodin
1 978 : 2 8 3 0 ; S tockin g 1 9 8 3 a : -
89 ; Walker 1 986: 1 -9).
The Toda is revealing of Rivers's ficl d \Y o rk practice ( I 906: 2- 3 , 71 4, 462-66). He worked \\'ith three assistants . Two, a forest range r and a catechist , were primarily interpreters, though one of them later sent his O\Vn fieldnotcs on Toda ethnography to Rivers . The third, hi mself a Toda, s ecured inform ants for interviews and provi ded R i v ers with oral reports of rituals at "W·hich he had been pres ent . In his first fe\v \Veeks, R ivers spoke freely with Toda "in p ublic" about "aspects of social life and religion , " questioning bystanders and p articipants in ong oing activities . Finding that man y m atters could not be pursued in this \vay, ho,vcvcr, he turned to afternoon "private intervie\�.ts" \Vith one or two info r m ants on reli gion and genealogy. In his morning sessi ons , open to "anyone �,.ho ch ose to co me , " Rivers conducted ps ychological tests and g athered ethnographic leads to be followed in
his afternoon \Vork . His genealogical met ho d \�.ras com p licated by the Toda taboo on speaking the n ames of dead ancestors . The data for each fam i l y were o btained from members of o ther fam i l ies and cros s-checked with
FIE LD NOTE P R A C T I C E
206
several inform ants, a s were his finding s on ritual . As they
vv e r e a c
qui red th e genea l o gi cal records were also u tilized during t he fo r n1 al mtcrvtcws . ,
.
.
An account of a To da funeral , for instance, with its many dramari"
personae would pro bably have baffled m y po wers of com prehen sion i f I had not had m y book of genealo g ies for reference. I al \\tay s \\"orkcd with this book by my side whenever I V\'as in ves ti g ating an y ceren1o nia l in which the social side oflife was concern ed . I asked for a descri ption of some ceremony recently performed of \vhich the me mories were fresh . The chief actors in the ceremony \Vere always men ti oned by name; and Vlhenever a name o ccurred, I look ed up the cl an an d family of the person in question and noticed his relationship to other pers ons \1\tho had taken part in the ceremony (Rivers 1 906: 466) .
Rivers's
"
n o t eboo ks
''
came to in cl u d e many Toda words , and he
quoted a sentence from his fieldnotes to esta blish this p oint ( 1 906 : 9).
in clud ed bot h cul t u ra l p resc rip tions and case accoun ts ob ta ined in his interviews, and some information from ob servation s an d qut.� tions an s \vere d at ri tu als and sa c re d sites . From �·hat Rivers wrote about his " m ethod of i n d i r ec t corroboration , " it is likely that his His fi eldn o tes
fieldnotes \V ere organi zed ch ronologi cally rather than topically: "The \v ho l e of Toda ceremonial and soci al life forms
such an intricate web of
cl o s e ly
rela ted pr act ice s that I rarely set out to investigate so me one a sp e ct of the life of the pe op l e w i th o ut o b tainin g information bearin g on many other w holly different asp e cts (Rivers 1 906: 1 0- 1 1 ) . "
Notes and Queries 1 907, after Volum e 4 of th e Torres Straits report an d Tile Toda h ad been p u bli sh ed , the British A s soci a tio n for the Advan cem e nt of S<..:i ence fo r med a committ ee inclu ding Rivers , fo r a fourth ed iti o n of i\lotes and Queries on Anthrop olo �Y· This guideb_o ok for ethnogr ap hic c. fa c t fmding b)· tra v e l e rs and lo cal amateurs had first appeared in 1 874 (Richa r ds 1 9 3 9: 273 ); th e new edition, in wh i ch Ri vers took a leading role, \\l·ould be used by professional field \i\ o rk e rs (a mong t he m M al i nows k i ) as \veil. Ap pe aring in 1 9 1 2 , it epi to m i zed the metho dolo gic al les sons Rivers h ad learned in the N il g i ri Hills (Lan gham 1 98 1 : 1 99, 274, 297, 3 27; Sl o b o di n 1 978 : 46-47; St o c k i ng 1 9 8 3 a : 89-93 ; U rry 1 97 3 ). A precise statement of \\'hat Rivers meant by in tensi ve fi el d work follo �·c d in 1 9 1 3 . In
,
-
"
''
"
207
Secret Li fe of Fieldnotes A typical piece of intensive work is one in which the \vorker lives for a year or more among a communit y of perhaps fou r or five hun dred people and studies every detail of their life and culture ; in \\'hich he
every member of th e community personally, in which he is n ot conten t with generalized information, but studies every feature of l ife and cu stom in concrete detail and by means of the vernacular language. . . . It is only by such work that it is possib le to discover the incom plete and even misleading character of much of the vast mass of surv e y \vork which forms the existing material of anthropology. [ qtd. in K u p e r 1 973 : 20 ) comes to kno\\'
But it was others who would apply Rivers's dicta. In 1 907- 8 he spent a year in survey \Vork throughout Polynesia and Melanesia (Richards 1 9 3 9: 277, 299 ; Slobodin 1 9 7 8 : 40-43). He \Vas now more · "committed to the i dea that the elemental social structure of any group \\'Ould be systematicall y revealed in its kinship terminology" (Stock ing 1 98 3 a: 8 6) than he was to doing intensive holistic research himself. His interest in rules versus the discrepancies of individual cases was abandoned as he converted to historical and diffusionist causes. ln 1 9 1 4 he vvrote: " One who ap p li es a given term of relationship to another person has to behave towards that person in certain definite ways . He has to perform certain duties towards him, and enjoys certain privi leges (Rivers 1 9 1 4 : 45). The results of his retreat from the textures of "intensive'' field'V'I..ork to the flatness of genealogical surveys were presented in his controversial History of lvtelat�esiatl Society in 1 9 1 4. During the World War [ years Rivers's wartime medical vlork re kindled his psychological interests. In the period up to his death, an thro pology \vas only one interest among many, including psy chiatry, the study of dreams, and a 1 92 1 Labour Party parliamen tary candidacy-later assumed (unsuccessfully) by H. G. Wells \vhen Rivers, then president of the Royal Anthropological Institute, died five months before the November 1922 election ( Si o b o din 1 978 : s 8 8s ) . Bronislaw £�alinowski
Malinowski was born in Poland in 1 8 8 4 , the year Cushing V'l..as recalled from Zuni to Washington and Boas concluded his Eskimo fieldwork. He is viewed by his students and students' students as "the founder of the profes sion of social anthropology in Britain" (Kuper
FIEL D I'\ OTE PRA CT I C E
208
1 973 : 1 3 ; cf. Evans-Pritchard 1 9 5 1 : 93). Unlike C u sh in g t Boas . o r Rivers, however, his field\vork was in fact precede d by profe ssion a l t rain in g in anthropology. A l re a d y inoculated to the subj e c t b y S ir James F ra ze r's Golden Bough , an d at \\'ark on l ib rary resea rch t h at would lead to a book on the Australian A b ori g i nal family i n 1 � 1 3 , Malin o \v ski arrived for po s tg rad u a te study at the London Sch o ol o f E cono m i c s in 1 9 1 0. He s tu di e d \Vith Edward Westermarck, v.th o had conducted fiel d \vo rk u si ng the lo cal l an g u a g e (Arabic) i n Mo r occo, and C. G. Seligman, v eteran of the Torres S t rai ts expedition an d s u r v e y ethnographer of New G uinea Papu an s , Sri Lanka Ve d d as , a nd, later, pa g an tribes" of the Sudan. H e also read an d met the C amb ridge anthropolog i sts Haddon and Rivers ( Fi rth 1 967, 1 9 8 1 ; Kuper 1 9 73 ) . In September 1 9 1 4 t at age t hi r t y Malinovvski arrived in N ew Gui ..
"
.
,
nea and spent six month s on the s o ut h east coast, most of this tin1e amon g the M ai l u . A 2 1 o-page re p ort on M a i lu \vas rapidly con1 p letcd befo re he began his first year of fieldwork a m o n g the I , JOO Trob rian d Islanders in June 1 9 1 5 . He left in M ay 1 9 1 6 to s p end the next sixteen months in Australia. With the help of h i s future \Vife Elsie Mass on , herself au th or of a 1 9 1 5 b o ok on A u s t ralia's Northern Territory and knowledgeable abo u t Abori gi nes, he so rted through his fieldnotes and dr a fted the l on g essay " Baloma; The Spi rits of the D ead in the Tro bri an d Islands" ( 1 9 1 6). In October 1 9 1 7 he returned to the Trobriands for a secon d year of field\vork. His first Trobriand book, Argo11au ts of the Western Pacific-again wri tten with Elsie's assistance-\vas pub lished in 1 922, the year of Rivers's death A tea chin g career at the Lon don School of E c ono mi c s in the 1 920s and 1 93 0s, the training of v i rtu ally all the nex t ge ner a tio n of Br i tish anthropologists, a n d a stream of Trobriand publi c ation s c u lmina ting in Coral Gardetls a11d Their Mag ic in 1 93 5 , \\'Ould follo\v (Firth 1 967; K abcrry 1 9 5 7 ; Kuper 1 973 ; Richards 1 93 9: 293 n ; S to cki ng 1 9 8 3 a ; Wa y ne 1 98 5). In 1 967, long after his death in 1 942, M al in o\v sk i s diaries were pu b lished, co v ering all his 1 9 1 4- 1 5 (M ailu ) f1eld\vork and most ofhis sec ond Trobriand year, 1 9 1 7- 1 8 . Controversial for many reas ons � they are valuable for. many others (Geertz 1 98 8 ; St o ck in g 1 974b; Wa y ne 1 9 8 5 ). With the methodological passages of 4 rgonauts and Co ral Ga r dens, they o pen up MalinoV�"ski's fi cl dvlo rk practices and p e rm i t us to evaluate his d i stin ct contributions from the vie\vpoint of '\"\"hat \vent in to and ho'\.v he use d his fiel dn o t es The first scene of fiel d note \\"ritin g , just t\vo days after Malino\\' ski's S e p te m b e r 1 9 � 4 arrival in New Guinea, is in a Motu village n car .
'
..
.
Secret
Life o f Fiel dnotes
Po rt Moresby. At the home ofAhuia Ova, \\l"ho had been an informant for Seligman, the old men had gath e red to g i v e me information . They squatted in a row along the \Vall . . . The bamboo pipe circulated rapidly. A little intimidated by this conclave, I sat down at the table and opened a book. Got information concerning iduhu [Motu social groups] , genealogy, asked about the village chief, etc. A t sundo\\"n the old men left. [Mal i nowski 1 967: I o] .
After a �·cek of vlork "'"'; th Ahuia, including visits to gardens and ho mes, Malinowski identified "t\\I"O basic defects" of this -w·ork: ''( I ) I h ave rather little to do with the savages on the spot, do not observe them enough, and (2) I do not speak their language . . . . although I am trying to learn Motu'' ( 1 967: 1 3 ). Correcting these rn·o defects \Vould lie at the core ofhis Trobriand successes, forming one of Malino�vski's t\\'0 principal contributions to anthropology. In mid-October of I 9 1 4 M alinowski arrived in Mailu . His work there �·as conducted in silent dialogue with Seligman and Rivers. There are diary references to "Seligman �'-his survey volume Tl1e Welatzesiatzs of British Neu' Guinea ( 1 9 1 0)-being used to prime Mali no\vski for visits to the village or inspire his \Vriting ( I 967 : 67, 90; for Trobriands, see I r 3 - 1 4). More telling, and more frequen t, are refer ences to "Rivers" and to l\'otes and Queries, the I 9 1 2 edition in which Rivers's fullest vision of anthropological field�"ork vlas adumbrated . Malino\vski read "Rivcrs"-perhaps The History of Jvtelatzesiatt Societ}' published in 1 9 1 4-on the ship to Ne\\' Guinea, and certainly 1\J,.otes and Queries during his Mailu field\\'ork ( 1 967: 5, 30, 64-67; for Tro briands, see 280) . Again this reading affected his fieldnotes, as may have conversation vlith Haddon, to \vhom he sho\ved his notes \\'hen Had don visited Mailu in November 1 9 1 4 ( 1 96 7 : 3 6) . Malino�"ski also made diary entries about "synthesizing, " " \vork in g on, " "looking over, '' and "rearranging, his Mailu fieldnotes ( 1 967: 3 0, 40, 67). Although this fieldwork resulted in a 1�Totes and Queries directed ·ethnography (Kaberry 1 957: 8o; Stocking 1 9 8 3 a: 96), the revie\\i·ing of his fieldnotes in the field preftgurcs the second principal contribution to anthropology that his Trobriand \\'o rk vvould make. The importance to Malinowski's research of analyzing fieldnotes in the �(ield is evident in many retcrcnces in the I 9 1 7- 1 8 Trobriand diary ( 1 9 67: 13 3 , 1 4 6 , 1 5 3 , 1 5 5 , 1 5 9-6 1 , 1 8 8 , 2 1 7, 249 , 2 89, 292). F or ..
209
f i EL D N O TE P R A C T I C E
210
e xa m p le , Janua r y 1 8 , 1 9 1 8 : "Decided t o s pend the day revie\vin g n1 v n o te s and listing problems . This Vlent s l o \\ l y at fi rs t , then spccifi.c r
p rob l e ms e m e r ged
"
( 1 967: 1 8 8) . The diaries also indicate how
re
hut" transc ri p ti o n (Ric ha rd s 1 93 9: 298n; S t o ck in g 1 98 3 a: 95 96 ) \Vas the p r o c es s by which dat a entered t he notebooks . Intervievls with seated i nfo r m an t s were s t i ll used to fill in such deta i l s as the ter m in olo g y of garden in g o r sailing c anoe parts ( 1 967 : 1 84- 8 5 ; cf. N a de l 1 9 3 9 : 3 1 8 ; Richards 1 9 3 9 : m O'\o C d from ve randah su rv ey or "o ld men in a "'
-
3 00 ) , but discoveries �"ere m ade by particip ating an d ob s e r v i n g . De
ce m ber 20, 1 9 1 7: At I 0:30 they decided to go for a poulo [ fi sh i ng expedition ) a n d I set ou t with the m . Afegwa [ magic] in the house of Yosala G a v.' a. . . . Rode in a boat . M a n y observations . I learn a great d e al . . . . I observ e tabu. Technology of the hunt, which would have req u ir ed \\"ccks of research . Opened-up ho rizons filled me wit h joy. [ I 967: I 5 8 )
the next two da y s ( 1 967 : 1 5 9-6 1 ; cf. 267 on ta r o g ar d en observations and fieldnotes) . A fe w references to cop y i n g and "loose notes , ' ' hovv Fieldnotes were written n o t on the spot but from memory "
ove r
"
ever, suggest that he ma y al s o have made scratch notes on occasion . ( 1 9 67 : 2 5 5 , 2 70-7 1 ) . 1
M ali n o \v s ki s p ub l i s hed p o rt rayals ofhis field\vork meth ods-hero '
i cal l y i n A rg onauts ( 1 9 2 2 : 2 - 2 5 ) , m o ck h umbl y but more re v e a l i n g l y in -
Co ral Gardens ( 1 93 5 , vo l 1 : 3 1 7-40, 4 5 2 - 8 2) - represent m u c h that w as co m m on to the po s t Rivers g enerat i o n if no t also to Rivers (St o cking 1 9 8 3 a: 1 0 5 1 1 0- 1 1 1 ). By app r o p riat in g too much , th ey obs cure MalinoVv·ski's si g nal contributions. If he did s o more fully and c onsist e n tly he \V a s by no mean s th e fi rst to li v e among the natives, observe o n go i n g rituals, collect concrete cases, induce p a t te rn s from data, write chronological field n o te s record native vie\\l·s , s p ea k the native lan g ua g e, or p r o d u ce a corpus of texts (Malinovvski 1 9 22 : 2 -2 5) ; Cushing, Boas , Rivers, and o th e rs c o l l ect i v e l y had done all t h ese thin gs . But in d o in g them all himself, plu s using the native lan guage to pu t speec h in action" (Rich a r ds 1 9 3 9 : 3 02) into his ficldnotes and cre a ting positive feedback be t \v ee n hi s fiel d notes and his field \\'ork, Malino wski did achieve s o me t h in g no v el .
-
,
,
,
�
,
,
"
.
1 In his 1 940 Mexico
fieldwork 1\1 alino wski recorded notes dirccdy in t he m arket
place (Malino,.vski and de Ia Fuente 1 9�2: 64) .
Secret Li fe of Fieldnotes
21 1
Speech in Action
In 1\lla n and Cr.tlture (Firth 1 9 5 7) , the collective eval u ation of M ali n o \v ski by his s t u den ts , Edmund Leach asked, "W hat was M ali
n ow ski s really fundamental contribution?'' His ans wer ·�ras "in two thing s : . . . the s ev erel y cu rtailed u sc of the p rofes sional i n fo r m a nt, and . . the theoretical as s ump t i o n that the total fiel d of data under the '
.
observation of the field-\vorker must s om eho"\\1 fit tog ethe r and make ·
sense" (Leach 1 9 5 7 : 1 2 0) . Leach's second poi nt embodied in Mali ,
nows k i s functionalism , arose for M alino�·ski, I suggest, becau s e of the ki nd of fieldnote s he recorded in the Trob rian ds but not in M ailu . This \\'as d epend e n t u p on t he a b il i ty t o sp eak the lang u a ge co mfort ably, �vhich he achi eved du ring the first s i x months of his second '
·
Trobriand year (Malinowski 1 93 5, vol . guage \vas
a m eans ,
4 5 3 ; vol . 2 : ix) . But l an
1:
not an end. Leach's first point is correct in tha t
Malinowski moved a\vay from the question-and-ansvler use of the
seated informan t Rather than "cu rtailin g " the role of the info rmant , however, Mali no\v ski r a d ic a lly ex pan d e d and redefined i t . To enc o u n t er th e i n fo r m an t or, in th e pa r l a n ce of l ate r social an th ro pology, the actor Mali n o wski embarked on "a new m e t h od of collect ing evi de n c e ( 1 926: 1 46) . The anthropologist .
,
"
must go out into the villages , and see the na tives at \Vork in gardens, on
the beach, in the j ungle; he must sail with them to distant san dbanks and to foreign tribes, a nd observe them in fi s h ing , tr adin g and ceremonial overseas expeditions. Information m u st c o m e to him full-flavored fro m his O\Vn obser vations o f native life, and not b e s queez e d ou t o f reluctant informan ts as a trickle of t alk. ( 1 926 : 1 47; cf. 1 922: 6- 8 ]
As M a li n o w s ki did this, " his first line o f evidence V�·as always firs t hand observation" (Leach 1 9 5 7 : 1 20) . p h as is on practice .
.
.
"
W h a t is s i gni fica nt is the em
as the re a li t y o f s o c i a l life, as aga i n s t . . . the
merely ve rbal formulation"
'
'
( For tes 1 9 5 7 : r 6o; cf.
Ortner 1 9 84). So
observations of fi sh i n g and taro g a r denin g as his di ary shows, \Vent in to his fieldnotcs . But j ust as significantly, he op ene d up the " tri c kl e of t a lk" to a fio\v. As he o b serv e d he al so l i s t ene d ,
,
.
For Mal inowski, to '' speak t he l an g ua ge meant " to think the cul ture. " He cou l d point to local "vhites '�rho co uld do the first but not the "
second ( 1 9 1 6 : 272- 73 ; c( 1 92 2 : s - 6). What made the difference was the si t u at ion s of s p eech in \·vhich M ali no wski p l aced himself. "Lan-
212
f i EL D N O T E P R A C T I C E
g u age , n he ar g ued, "exists only in act u a l use vvi thi n the con text of r e al uttera nce " ( 1 93 .s , val . 2: v). As he "put a s i de camera, note boo k an d p e n ci l . . . to join in him s elf in \v h a t [ was] g oin g on, '' he \\7oul d ' � si t d o \v n and li ste n and share in their co n ver sa tions " (1 9 22 : 2 1 ) . T he "imponderabilia of a ctu a l life and of t y pical behavior" he rec or de d included observed action and heard speech . Both \Ve n t into fieldnotes "put down more and more in Kiri\v ini a n , till at last I found mysel f Vlritin g exclusively in that lan g ua g e, rap i d l y taking notes , word for Vlord, at e a ch statement" ( 1 922: 23-24) . Ma lino\\ s k i did record texts in interview sessions vvith individual informants ( 1 922: 24; 1 967: r 6 r , 270), but texts �..ere also elicited in conversations at the site of action .and written as fieldnotes later, to be checked with the inforn1ant a s ne ce s s a r y { 1 93 5 , vol. 2: 4-fi, 2 3 -25; S tocki n g 1 98 3 a: 1 02) . It �.. as Ma l ino � ski s student Audrey Richards ( 1 939: 302) \Vho called the app roach "speech i n action, : "Besides questioning h i s informan ts , the anthropologist l i stens to s p eech between natives in the natur a l context of d a il y life . . . . [T h i s p rov i des 1 inform a tion unlikely t o be g iven in direct answer to a q u es tion, but sometimes vouchs a fed durin g the perfo rm ance of an a s s o ci ated act, or overhea rd in casual conversa tion. " Recording such data, as a di s cov er y p ro c edure , was essential to M alinoVv·ski 's effort uto g r as p the native's p o i n t of \tie\V, his relations to l i fe, to realize his v i s i o n of his \Vorld'' ( 1 922: 2 5 ). It is also at the heart of \vhat anthropologists me an today �.. hen they s pe a k of partic i p a nt observation, \vhich is in la r ge measure situ ated l iste ni ng a Ia M a li no\vsk.i. The observed and heard , Malinowski wrote, "can and o u g h t to be scienti ficall y formulated and recorded " ( 1 922: 1 9). It is from such "richly documented " fieldnotes , as opposed to the "schematic" n otes of Rivers (Stocking [ 1 9 8 3 a: 99] has ex a m in ed both), that I su gg es t Malinowsk i ' s functional a ppro a ch arose. At its least elab orated and most po\verful, it is the "consideration of the same data consecutively fr om a number of poi n t s of ""'ie\v, such as the environmental, the structural, the normative, the tec h no l o gi cal, the do g m a tic " (Richards 1 957: 26) . Thus Malinowski could ";e,v the same fieldnotc descr i p tion-of a ga rden ritual, s a y - in i ts eco n o m i c , politi c al , legal, magi cal , educational, mythical, an d othe r aspects . Fieldnote entries of the matured Malinowskian approach \Vere ne ve r discretel y abo u t ma g i c , or fi s h i n g , or social control, or the fa mily. "The mass of gears all t u rnin g an d grindi n g on each other, " as Ralph Linton put it (qt d . in. Piddington 1 9 5 7 : 5 1 ), t rav e led fro m observed and '
·
'
Secret
213
Life of Fiel dnotcs
heard social r ea l ity into ficldnotes, and into functionalist ethnography. To his students it \v a s an inspired, and productive vision (Fortes 1 957: 1 64; K aberry 1 9 57: 8 1 - 82; Kuper 1 984: 1 98-99; Powdermaker 1 966: 3 8 ; R i c h ar ds 1 9 5 7 : 1 9, 25 , 26). Not a general theory, Malinowski's fu nctionalism �"as "a theory of ethnographic field-work" (Leach 1 9 57: 1 1 9; cf. Beatti e I 96 5: 6). Fieldnotes-Field'"J'ork Interaction
Cro ss-cutting the several functio nally integrated aspects of individ ual Trobriand events and conversations '\"\"as Malinowski's concept of institution, better exem plified in his monographs than defined in theo retical \\'ritings . In i\ rgotJau ts, the ku la trading institution is shown in its technological, social, political , economic, and magical compo nents . In Coral Gardens, analysis of the institution of horticul ture leads to consi deration of " the family and kinship system, political organiza tion, land tenure, technical processes, r eli g iou s and magic beliefs, and the langu age of magic used in gardening" (Richards 1 957: 27-2 8). In the ethnographies, institutions also "grind on each o ther What connects the ethnography and the events is the fieldnotcs. Each fieldnote entrv relates to several institutions; each institutional ethnog raphy dra\�lS on the same bod·y o f fi eldnotes and analyzes the " functional" relations the focal institution has to others. But ho"v did the fieldnotes come to have the richness that made all this possible? The point that investigating one aspect of social life led to another had already been made, as \Ve have seen, by Rivers in The Toda (cf Kaberry 1 95 7 : 76n). Malino\\7 ski could have controlled and screened this out, as he undoubtedly did in '\\rr itin g his topical Mailu mono graph. Instead , he chose to maximize the multiple-aspect nature of Trobriand events and conversations in his fieldnotes. Malinowski had apparently begun his note-taking �"ith topical files ( Richards 1 9 5 7: 2 5 ), but in �4rgonauts he advocated chronological field notes , "an ethno graphic d i a ry, carried on systematically throughout th e course of one's \Vork" ( 1 922 : 2 1 ). At some point he had con c lu d ed th at pre-indexed fieldnotes \\l"ere inadequate for the so ci al reality he \Vas seeking to re cord I have suggested that recording "speech in action'' as much as " going out into the village" vlas involved in this change. Next, the frequent " working on " and " rearran g in g " of his ficldnotes became a ne\\' fo r m of mental indexing. It also identified g aps and problems. ."
�
.
f i EL D N O T E PRACT I C E
214
So did the cha rts he
developed to list, sort, summarize, and presen t field notc data ( 1 9 1 6: 2 1 2 ; 1 922 : 1 4- 1 6 ; 1 93 5 vol . 1 : 3 2 8 -29 , 3 3 9), w hich made a deep i m p res s ion on his s tudents (K uper 1 984: 1 98 -�9; Ri chards 1 9 57: 25). Malinowski began th i s charting from his fiel d n o te s du ring the first Trobri a n ds fi eld trip ( 1 93 5, vol. 1 : 463 , 466) . He als o u s ed the month s in Austral ia bct\veen his t\VO Tr o briand ficld \v o rk peri ods to analyze his notes ( 1 93 5, val . 1 : 3 28, 467). During thi s t in1e he \v r ote "Ba loma, " \vhich systematically e x hausts data avail abl e in hi s first year's fieldnotes. He also wrote "an ou tline" of the ku la, to be redrafted several times during his se con d fieldw o r k year ( 1 922: 1 3 ) In the Trob rian d s , Malino\vski came to rea lize that a ficld\vork fieldnote dialectic \Vas an integral p art of the d oing of fi el d \vo r k . ,
.
.
In the field I al\vay s found it an in valuable device to m a p out the facts alread y obtained, to con sider ho\\' they were rela ted to each other and to pro ceed with the in ves ti gation of the bi gger, more \\.'idel y integ rated typc of facts thus arrived at. [ I 9J .5 , vo l .
I:
457)
The greatest source of all the inadequacies and ga ps in m y o\vn ficld �'ork has resu l ted from the dire method ological fallacy : get as many "facts'' as you can \vhilc in the field, and let the co nstruction and o rganis ation of your evidence wait till you \vrite up your materia l . [ 1 9 3 5 , vol .
r:
467]
Audrey Richards's dictum " Spend
one \\7eck anal ys ing ma terial to every three spent in observ ation " ( 1 9 3 9: 3 08) may \V eil have come fr om her teacher. Malinov..' ski also concluded that ethnography, as fi eld vl ork proce ss and as \V ritten p ro du c t was something to be cons t ructed not merely conducted and reported (Lea ch I 9 5 7: I 3 4) . ,
,
While making his observations th e fi eld-\vorker must cons tantly con struct: he m ust place isolated data in relation to one ano ther and s tudy
the manner in �rhich the y integrate . . . . The princip als of soci al organi zation, of legal constitution, of econ omics and religion have to be constructed by the observer out of a multitude of manifestations of varying significance an d relevance . . . . H e mus t constantly sw i tch o ver from observation and accu mulated evidence to theoretical moulding, and then back to collectin g data again. [ M alino\vs ki 1 9 3 5 , vo l .
]21]
1:
3 1 7,
The achievements were ev;dent in Malino \v ski 's ethnographies
,
\vhich live on des p ite "needs" and o t h e r l ate r theoretical develop-
Secret Li fe of Fieldnotcs
21 5
ments (Firth I 9 57). Yet the sheer artistry of it all did not escape Audrey Richards, as devoted a Malinowskian as there would be (Glad stone 1 986; Richards I 957; Way·ne 1 9 8 5). In her positi,re assessment of ''speech in action, , identified as Malinowski's contribution, Richards \Vrote: "To decide �·hich remarks are 'typical ' or 'atypical' in any given s ituation . . . the anthropologist must rely in the last analysis on his own judgment matured during months oflistening to similar conver sations. . . . It is here that anthropologists need to assess far more accurately than they have done their selective interests and povlers of memory" ( 1 93 9 : 3 02-3). The assessment is not over. Malinowski's fieldnotes embody both the greatest strengths and greatest vulnerabilities of eth n ographic field work. ,
�\1argaret 1\lleiJd
Malino�·ski 's fieldwork practice, even acknowledging its distinctive features, presents many continuities \Vith that of Selig man, Rivers, and their students , more than the hallowed British social anthropology Trobriand origin myth (Holy 1984: 1 5- 1 6; Kuper 1 9 7 3 ) would sug gest. On the contrary, M argaret Mead's identification as a Boasian, which she certainly Vlas, docs not do justice to the radical b reak her fieldwork p ractice made with that of Boas and the cohort ofstudents he trained before she b e gan her work with him in 1 923 . From 1900, vlhen Boas compl eted his major northwest coast field work, up to the 1 920s, it was his approaches to cultural distributions, material culture, salvage ethnography, and texts that his students such as Alfred Kroeber, Clark Wissler, Robert Lowie, and Edward Sapir carried to the field (DeMallie 1 98 2) . Even Ruth Benedict, whose later concern with configurations and holism is \Veil known, was a field worker in the Boas mold. After her first exposure to anthropology in 1 9 19, Benedict came to Colu mbia in 1 92 1 to study \Vith Boas , just t\\'O years before Mead. " In her \York with North American Indians, contemporaneous \Vith Mead "s fieldwork in the 1 920s and 1 93 0s, "she always had to work through interpreters and to seek out the par ticularly knowledgeable ind i v i dual who \\'as also amenable to the task of sitting and dictating while, \Vith Hying pencil and achi n g arm, she \Vrote dovvn verbatim h u ndreds of pages of translated tales (Mead 1 959b : 202- 3 ; cf. 2 8 7, J O I -2; 1 974: 29- 3 0) . "
f i EL D N O TE PRACT IC E
216
If Benedict's fieldnotes were like those of B oas, Mead's V¥·erc n o t Her first fieldwork, for nine months in 1 925-26, \Vas in Samo a! a living culture far removed from the Native American memory c ul tures that the senior Boas students labored to transcribe. Mead's pre fieldvlork doctoral thesis had been a lib rary study of Polynesian cul tural variability; her familiarity with the extensive li terature on San1oa made it possible to focus on the problem Boas selected, the cult u r al expression of female adolescence (Howard 1984: 62-64; Mead 1 969 ; Mead 1 972: 1 26-29 , 1 3 8 ; Weiner 1 98 3 ). With little preparation fo r doing field\vork from either Boas or close friend Benedict, Mead , a s she tells it ( 1 9 7 7 = s), independently invented participant-observation. �There were no precedents, '' she said : I learned t o ea t and enj o y
Samoan food . . . . I could \\ a nde r freel y abou t the vil l age or go on fis hin g trips or s t op at a hou se \vhere a \\'oman \\' as w e a ,rin g . Gr adu a ll y I built up a cens us of the \\'hole village. [ M ead 1 972: I5 1] '
My ma terial comes no t from h a l f a dozen informants bu t from scores of
individuals. With the ex c eption of tw o inform ants, all work was done in the native lang uag e . . . . Very l ittl e of i t was therefore g a t hered in formal interviews but w a s rather devio�sly extracted from the directed conversations of social groups, or at fo rm al recep t i on s \\'hich the chiefs of a village accorded me on account of my rank in the n at i ve so cial organization. . . . This co n cen tr a t i on upon a s m all co m m u n i t y and de taile d observation of dail y life pro v i ded me \\'ith a kind of field material r a rely acces sible to the field et hno gr a pher [Mead 1 9 3 0a: 5 ] .
Shades o f Malinows ki? Probably not . Mead apparently had not read Argonau ts of the Western Pacific (Malino\vski 1 922 ) and its famous fi rst chapter on his field\\'ork methods, before arrivin g in Samoa. Another student had presented the work in a seminar she attended , but the session had focused on the kula trade, not field\vork meth ods (Mead 1 969: xv, 1 972 : 1 59). She had read a 1 92 3 paper by Malino\vski, published in 1 927 as Tile Father in Primitive Psychology, \\7hich Boas recalled to her attention in a letter he wrote her just before her Samoan research began (Mead 1 95 9b : 289-90). This essay, however, says noth ing about Malino\vski's metho ds; her later statement that she "did not know how he had used the Trobriand language" is credible (Mead 1972: 1 3 9). Her utilization of "speech in action " in S amoa mus t be accepted as uninfluenced by MalinoV¥·ski.
Secret
217
Life of Fieldnotcs
But wh at Malino\vski tho ught of this , or when Mead
finally did
read �4 rg onauts, is not revealed in her autobiographical wri tings or Ho�rard's
( 1 9 84) biography. Ruth B enedict �·rote Mead in Samoa
about M alino�"ski's co rdial visit at C olumbia in the spring of 1 926 (Mead
1 959b:
3 04-6) , but this letter reports none of the disparaging
rem arks about her ongoing field\\'Ork that Mead asserts he made at that time (Mead of
1 972: 1 6o). When she met Reo Fortune in the su mmer
1926 on her return from Samoa, he \vas fa""orably impress ed vlith
Malino\\'ski's work though antipathetic to him p ersonally; he \vould refer to A rgonauts constan tly in his Dobu field\vork during the first half of
1 928 (Mead 1 972: 1 59), but his animosity toward Malino\vski
would increase du ring the years of his marriage to Mead , which ended in
1 93 4. In sum mer r 92 8 , \\�"hen her
Comin� oJ·�4ge in Samoa \\'as p u b lished,
Mead \\�"rote Malino\\tski a flattering letter, and asked for his criticis m of the book (Ho \vard
1 984: 99) . She does not reveal if or how he
responded, but b y spring 1 92 9 , as Raymond Fi rth remembered, both Mead and Fortune were convinced that " Malino\\'ski had no ideas, (Howard
1 984: 1 1 3 ).
That same spring Frederica de Laguna, a Boas
stu dent , attended Malinowski's London seminar and encoun tered his "violent hatred of Dr. Boas" and low opinion of Boas's training o f stu dents ( d e Laguna
1 977: 23).
The Malinowski-Mead antagonis m widened i n
1 93 1 \vhen Mali
no\vski apparently encouraged one of his s tuden ts to �·rite a negative rev'ie\v of Mead's second book, Growing l...lp in l\lew G u in ea (see Mead
1 972 : 1 60, 1 9 3 ; 1 977: 1 0 1 ). This s tone may have been an attempt to hit more than one bird, for Malino wski's rival A . R. R adcliffe-B rown had selected the site for Mead's and his student Fo rtune's Manus field\vork, which her book repo rted on (Howard
1 9 8 4 : 99, 1 02; Mead 1 978 : 1 02) .
Mea d responded to the rev ie\\,.'s dig that she did not understand the Manus kinship system \\'ith her mon ograph Kinsh ip in the �4dmiralt}'
Islands ( 1 934), written in consultation with Radcliffe-Bro�·n �·hile he tau ght su m mer s chool at Columbia in
1 93 1 (Ho\vard 1 984: 1 27; Mead
1 972: 1 63 ) . And her " More Comprehensive Field Methods" contains dis p araging characterizations of Malino \vski 's Trob riands research in relation to her o""'""
( 1 93 3 : 6-7, 9).
Yet early in 1 93 6 , perhaps after reading M alino""'"ski's Coral Gardens and The i r i\llag ic ( 1 9 3 5 ), Mead \Vrotc Fortune, " I am convinced all over again that Malino \vski was perhaps the most thorough field v_rorker
f i EL D N O T E P R A CTI C E
218
Go d e v er m ad e" (Ho w ard 1 984: I 76). Then , later that year, M ali no wsk i 's introdu ction to Firth's JJ�, the Tikop ia pooh-poohed M e a d's I93 5 book Sex and Temp eramen t itt Three Prim itive Societies, alon g w it h the work of Greg or y B at es on ( \v h o would be her th i r d h us b and) an d o f Benedict (F irth r 936: vii-viii). This must have done it . M e ad's later comm en t s on Malinowski, whom she finally met in 1 939, reverted to tes tine ss and a sh arp differentiation of their approaches to fiel dw o rk (H o \var d 1 984: 3 1 9; Mead 1 940: 3 3 4 , 1 972 : 209). In fa ct , their field'\\l·ork practices h ad much in common, as both of them must have known (and Me ad did admit once; see r 93 9 : 1 90). Only ego and a mbi ti o n p r e v ent ed e i t he r from ac kn o w l edging this � th ou g h Malinowski may h a v e been justifiably annoyed th a t Mead�s announcemen t of h e r O\Vn field\vork innovations ( 1 92 8 : 2 5 9-6 5 ) d i d no t credit his Vlork of a d eca d e earl ie r. Ce rt a in l y others knew. In 1 93 9 the Malinowskian A u dr e y Richard s listed Coming o__f Age in Satnoa, along with Malinowski's own m o n o gra ph s and t h o se of his s tu dents , as an e x a m p l e of Hfunctional ana l y s i s, , ( 1 93 9 : 2 8 5 -86) . Firth, following his te a ch er's dismissal of Mead just a few pages before, spoke approvingly of her \\7ork on kinshi p ( r 93 fi : xvi) . But Mead, having broken �;th Boasian p ra ct i c e and spurned by M alinowski, e ven tua ll y constructed an anthropologized fam i l y lin eage for her appro a ch t r a cing it to her gran d m o ther' s "notes . . . during a v i sit to P h i ladelp hi a " her mother's " notebooks" on youn g Ma rg are t and her broth e r and ''field\vork" as a social work er a m o n g immigrant s , and her father's " field tri p s' �vhile te a chin g about small bu s ines s at the U n i ve r sit y of Pennsylvania ( 1 972: 46 , 6 4, 2 5 7 , 26 1 ; 1 977= 8). Despite the si milarities in app ro ach . Mead's ficld\vork in Samo a u•as different from Malinowski's in one major \vay. It �·as focused u p o n a problem , whereas Malinowski had been concerned to s t udy "the tot al ity of all social, cultural and psychological aspects of the c o m m unity" ( 1 922: xv i ) . M al ino \v sk i w as fu n ded thr o u g h six years o f field research and a nal ysis ( 1 922: xix), b u t only l ate r did h e conceive his "i n s t itu tional" studies of t r a ding, law, myth, the fa m i ly, and horticultu re. Mead, on ce assigned her topic b y B o a s , a pp l ie d to the N at io n al Re se ar c h Council for a nine-month fello \\l sh ip to s tu d ·y ''the r el at i v e strength of biologic al puber ty� and cul tu r a l pattern " (Ho\vard I 9 8 4 : 54). She did no t la ter si ft t h r o ug h her fieldnotes \V i th a n o r ga n i z i n g topic; she had o ne from the be gin n in g , and her fi e l d no te pract ice r e fl ec ted the fact . ,
,
'
Secret
Life of Fieldnotes
219
Mead's Early Field\vork Mead spent s i x m onths s tudyin g sixty-eigh t girls bet w een the ages
of nine and twen t y, all res idents in
three co n tiguou s
v
illa ge s on the
S a m oa n island ofTau . She observed interaction and listened to co nv er sations among these girls, and between the m and
y oun ger and older
resi dents of the villages . As th es e data entered her fieldnotes , she also kept record s on each girl's sexual ma turati on an d experience, educa tion,
"
ju d g m ent s on individ u a ls in t he village, '' p e rfo rm ance on vari
o us ps ychol o gica l tests, and p r acti ce and k nowledge of adult cultural rou tines and norms. These data were back g ro u nded by a s tud y of the
household composition a nd social roles of all 6oo re s iden ts of the t hree
v i l lages ( Mead 1 928 : 2 5 9-6 5 , 282-94) . In addition , and against B o as s advice, Mead recorded data on Sa '
moan po l i tical and ceremonial structure a nd other t op i cs . This inves
tigation was lo� er in priority than her funded research topi c , and ·
much of it was done in visits and interv i ew s i n
v
i lla ge s other than the
three where she stu died the young girls ( 1 9 2 8 : 2 5 9, 262; 1 96 9 : xiii-xiv, xviii) . As much social anth ropology as Boasian ethn o l og y this work ,
was p ubl i s he d in h e r
Social
Organ iza tiotl
of A1anu 'a ( 1 9 3 0a ) .
General
in v e s tig a t io n s of the culture , albeit \Vi th i m proved methods, came first
for Malinowski, and funct i onal studies of se pa ra te ins titutions second . M ead wo rked in the opp o s ite \vay: th e problem s tru ctured the re search, a nd correctly
"
''
ge t tin g the whole configuration of the cu ltu re down
was
"
bootle g ged
"
in (Mead 1 9 72:
1 44).
Bootlegging \vas not n eces s ary \Vhen Mead and F ortu n e went to Manus fo r ei g ht months in
1 9 2 8 - 29 .
Fo rtune conducted the uinves
t igation of the ge n e r a l cultu re, '' \vhich, unlike that of Samoa, �"as little kno\\'n (Mead 1 93 2a: 1 02), vvhile Mead,
w ith
Social Science Research
C ouncil fundin g again conduct ed problem-focu sed research. Mead felt that her Samoan ex pe rience did n o t support assertions in t he work ,
of Freud, Pia g et
,
an d L evy-B ruhl that the "animistic" thin king of
Wes tern chi l d ren and neurotics \Vas si milar to that of Hprim itive peo pl es . " In Melane sia, conventionally vievled as animism-ridden, the
qu es tion that framed her pro p o sal was " l f 'primitive' adults think like civilized children and neurotics , how do p r i m itive children think?'' (Mead 1 93 0b : 28 9-90; 1 962 : 1 2 3-2 4; 1 978 : 97- 1 0 2). The tvvo a nt h r opolog is ts settled amon g the 2 r o
v
illa g er s of Peri.
They were equipped with materials \vhich h ad been carefully planned by Professor Radcliffe-
f i E LD NOTE P RA C TI C E
220
B ro\•ln for the use o f students \Vorking in connection \Vith th e Austra a
lian National Research Council . These inclu ded
s pecia l type of large
p aged book vlhich could be used in de v elo pin g the ramifications of
a
genealogy so that they \Vorked ou t in bo th directions from the center ; li n g uist i c slips in three co lors abou t fi ve inches by two, notched to
receive a rubber band so that they could be bound; and a s e rvicea ble type of reporter's notebook. [ Mead 1 940: 3 26; see a ls o Powdermaker 1 966: 66 ) 2
Mead focused on forty-one children between the ages o f rn," o and twelve . Her fiel dnotes included observations of •
a grou p of chil dren , or of a chi l d an d an adult , or a group of ch i ld ren an d adults , etc. , in some o r din ar v social situation �
.
.
.
.
I han d led this material
in the form of running not e s \\'ith time records in two-minute inter vals .
fo r certain types of p la y groups. It included q u es tio n s from chil dr en to adults , children 's r es p ons es to adult commands, explanations , etc . . children's subterfuges , childre n s responses to si t u a tions of emotion al '
st ress
,
such as quarrels, severe illnesses, accident, fear dis played by
adults , stran gers in the vill ag e ; birth and death ; childr en s res pon se s to '
st or m , cy clon e ani mals, fish, birds , shadows , re flection s, scenes be ,
tween p ai rs of age-mates , bet\veen elder and younger children , bet \\·een fath ers and c hil dren , bet\veen mothers .a nd c hildr en , bet\\'een children
and infants . [Mead 1 93 2a: r o4)
She also amas sed reco rds : psychological test results, the remarkable " Views of the Village as Seen by Two Children , Aged Five and Eleven, " and some 3 2 , 000 pencil drawings by th e children (Mea d 1 9 3 0b : 2 90 -9 1 , 3 3 2 - 5 9 ; 1 9 3 2 a ; 1 9 56: 490) . 3 Mead wrote scratch notes in her noteb ook and even typed notes directly in front of the children ( 1 9 3 2a: 1 0 3 ) . In addition to her chrono logical, typed " running notes , " of which a Jan uary 1 929 example is given in 1'lew
Lives for Old
( 1 9 5 6: 482- 8 3 ), Mead filed dyadic and
2Nancy Lutkehaus co m m ented to me th at when she looked a t M argaret Mead,s fieldno tes a t the National Archi ves, she was struck that some of M ead's notes fro m
the
early 1 9J Os were V.'ritten in the same type of no tebook th�t Wedg v,roo d had used. Like Me�d and Po\vdennaker (and no dou b t Bateson, Firth. Hart. Wa rne r, and others), Wedgwood \Vas eq uipp ed
for fieldv.'ork by q ua r te rma ste r A. R. Radcliffe-Bro\v n.
3 '' The evidence of observa tion w a s confirmed by the e v idence from the drav.rings .
There wer e no �nimals acting l ike hu man being s . no composi te animal-human figu res, no personified natural phenomena or humani zed in an i m a te objects in the enti re
set
of
drawings . . . . The M a nu s child is les s spontaneou sly animistic and less t raditionally animistic than the M anus,adul t " (Mead 1 93 2a: r r o , I I ,5 ) .
Secret Li fe of Fieldnotes
22 1
small- group observations, recorded on hundreds of hand \\7 ritten slip s , under " fathers and children, " "older and younger ch ildren , " "inter p retation of failu re, " "imaginative play, " and othe r headin g s ( 1 9 56: 48 3 , 489; I 940: 3 26). She also organized some pages in her fieldnotes according to topic , \Vith extracts from informant intervie\vs on, for example,
"palits [ghosts] and Soci al organization'' ( 1 9 56: 4 9 r ). For
tune 's fieldnotes concentrated on illnes s episodes, quarrels, and rituals , with a full record of such events in Peri over four months; each of these accou n ts-some events �·ere recorded by Mead as \\tell-ran up to six pages . Fortune also transcribed sean ce texts as recalled by his infor mant Pokanau after performances (Mead
I 9 3 3 : I I ; 1 95 6 : 4 82-8 5 ; 1 972:
1 74). Both ethnographers �·ere deliberately recordin g "a great number of minute and consecuti ve o b serva tions" s o that '' the inexplicit, the unformalize d , the uninstitutionalized '' patterns of Manus life \vould emerge, those not recoverable in intcrvie·\¥S or directly deducible from single instances . Fieldnotes should be used to generate ethnographic realities articulated b ehaviorall y, not verb ally : "Only from the records of individual visions, from a running record of the lives of individuals , can an adequate picture of the structure of religion' '-or child social ization and m aturation, or kin term u sage, or Manus trade-be for mulated, Mead would argue ( 1 93 3 ). M ead's
I 9 J O summer fieldwork on an Omaha Indian reservati on
\Vas " depressing " comp ared to the " living cultu res' , of Samoa and N ew Guinea. Her mission, which she did not reveal to the Omaha, \Vas to stud y women ,
...hile Fortune \Vorked openly on the more
�
con ventional ethnological topics of v·isions and secret societies (Ho\v ard
1 984: I 2 2- 2 5 ; Mead 1 96 5 , 1 97 2 : 1 89-92) . Lit tle direct observ·ation
en tered her ficldnotes . In a compact Nc\v Guinea village, one could see what was happening an d later one co uld in tcrvic\\" the participants abou t the details of an even t . In c ont r ast, among the An tle rs [ O maha ] , who lived s ca t ter ed
l a rge reservation, we could observe very fe\v actual events and instead had to depen d o n a cc o un t s given us by others . [ Mead r 96 5 : xiii]
o ver a
Even so. in tervievls \Vith seated informants \\�"ere not the method Mead used. She fa miliarized hers elf as much as possible \\tith res ervation residents and then relied upon conversations, p articularly with key i n form ants, to provide data for l ate r fieldnote en try. "The Indians . . . believ ed that I
was
merely k illing time in idle conversation
f i EL D N O T E P R A CT I C E
o r attendan ce at ceremon ies .
For the most part, no notes were tak en
in the informants' presen ce but conversations were written up im mediately afterwards . " The convers ations, " speech in action, '' were nevertheless steered and directed by Mead 's interests in domestic life and interpersonal relation s :
[The] special informants, with whom I grew m o re intimate th an v.rith the majority of the Antler '-" o m en . . . I u sed to ill u minate the p r ob le m s \1/·hich were especially relevant t o their position in the t ribe . . . . I spent a great deal of t im e acquiring, w i t h apparent casualness, the pe r so nal histories of people whom I had not yet met-so that when I met t h em, I could divert the conversation along rev eal in g lines . In this "''ay, ch a nce contacts at dan ces, in a store, at someone else's house, co uld be u tilized. [ 1 96 5 : xxi] ·
4
Mead distinguished her fieldnotes on con temporary Omaha l i fe fro m the "collection of traditions , once integ rated, now merely coexis tent, " which Fortune transcribed in Boasian fashion . (Benedi ct, in deed, had selected the pro bl e m and secured funding
for Fortune . ) " One must differentiate clearly between accounts of e vents in the lives of kno wn persons, where the a ctors and narrators are alive and known, and accounts of events recorded from the memories of the old, �...here the actors remain unknown " ( 1 965 : xiii).
The Mountain Arapcsh A little more than a year after leaving the Omaha, and with three
two Omaha books completed, Mead and Fortune began a three-culture studv on the island of New Guinea in December 1 93 I . Manus and
�
An American M useum of N atural History Voss Fund grant gave
way sex roles were stylized in different cultu res" (Howard 1984: 1 27-28) . The first eight mon th s were spent i n the 21 2-person Mountain Arapesh village o f Alitoa. Fortune focused on Ara pcsh language and external relations, Mead on everything else . From this w o r k, in a culture Mead found with " fe\V ceremonies and little elaboration , very thin " ( 1 972 : 1 9 7 ) , she would publi sh 700 double-column pa ges, a massive five-part ethnography that tells us much about how she p roduced an d processed her fiel d no tes (Mead 1 93 8, 1 940, 1 947, 1 949}. 4 She wro te only a little, and Mead considerable freedom to study "the
• Only Part I
(Mead 193 8) is not printed in double colu mns.
Secret Life of Fieldno tes
22 3
Fortune nothing at all, on the other tv.ro cultures they would "do, " the Mundugumor and Tchamb uli . s In Alitoa Mead kept four categories of fieldnotes, each retyped from
the han dwritten notes she recorded on her notepad as she moved through the village or interviewed informants . First was a chronologi cal account of vill a ge life. I spent a good part of the morning in the village, sitting v..; th the people , pl ayin g \\'ith the children , watchin g some craft, or casual ly questioning about some ev e nt . . . . During th e day I recorded everything which seemed significant. I n the late a fte rn oo n I \\'alked throug h the vil lag e and checked up on every hou se and i ts inhabitants to find \Vhere they \Vere and where they had been that day. .
.
.
A lis t of nineteen types of data ansvlers the anticipated question of what she considered '' significant" events ; it includes the presence or absence in Alitoa of each resident , speeches , quarrels, visitors, an nounced plans, and " governmen t demands which upset the ordinary routine"
( 1 947:24 1 ). 6
This account form s the basis o f "The Record of Events , " some 1 1 2 double-column pages co vering January
28 to August
1 6,
1 9 3 2 ( 1 947:
276-3 8 8). To it, Mead added material from her second category of fieldnotes , slips describing informal behavior and "discrete items which come up in the course of group conversa tions, but are essen tially accidental to the trend of that conversation"
( 1 940: 326-27, 3 29) ;
and from her third catego ry, descriptions of longer even ts such as seances ( 1 947:
242). The "Record"
is thus a slightly amended rep ro
duction of her chronological fieldnotes . Mead admits that "for the reader, a detailed presentation such as this is bound to be tedious and unmanageable"
( 1 947 : 242) . Accordingly, she pro,rides a villa ge plan,
prose portraits of Alitoa residents , a checklist of inhabitants of each household, and
a
table of ma rriages .
Mead vic'\ved her Arapesh ethnography with its division into gener alizing sectio ns and supporting materials-descriptive data, texts, li s ts, and the " Record "-as "an experiment in method of p resenta tion" (Mead 1 93 8 :
1 5o- 5 1 ; 1 947: 1 73 ; cf. M cDowell i 98 o) . It can also
50n the fieldnotcs from this research , ( 1 9 80 : 2 9 5 and n. 2 3 ).
sec
Ho\\rard ( 1 98 4 : I J 9 . 1 42)
and
McDowell
6ln May, Mead discontinued n oti n g the presence or absence of villa gers ( 1 947: 3 59). She appends to ''The Record of E vents'' (see next para g raph) a record of her observa
tions of fifty minutes of village life ( 1 947: 4 1 4- 1 5).
f i E L D N O T E PRAC TI C E
224
be read as a critique o f Malino\vski 's multivolume presentation o f h.i s fieldwork data. M ead recognized, o f course, that events have m ulti p le ,
functionally related aspects-"As co mplicated an event as a qu a r r e) between kindred in which so rcery is in voked a fter a feast is in pr o g r es s has manv facets"-an d intended the '' Record" to ill u strate this fa ct Rather than describe more than on ce any feast-qua rrel-sorce ry ev e n t, .
..
however, Mead refers repeatedly to the " Record " in the fi rst th re e topical parts of
The Mounta in "4.rapesh . " Use of an event to illus tra te ..
first one type of dis cus sion , then another, necessarily makes for n1u ch repetition . The
Diary presentation is designed to obviate all these difficulties" ( 1 947: 1 7 3 ). ..
Mead 's fourth category of fieldnotes com prised transcription s o f h e r
s i x "sessions" \\'ith Un abelin, a twenty-yea r-old from a neigh boring Arapesh village who �vas fluent in the pidgin he h ad acquired during two years in the gold fields (Mea d
1 949). P roduced " \vhen he
\V a s
seated with me at the table at the back of th e verand ah, " these \Verc neither Boasian texts nor a life hi story but rather - 'accu mulated n o tes', of myths, intervie\v responses , comments on events and cu s to m s , and personal na rrative. Retyped in pidgin from scratch notes \vhil e Mead \Vas in Alitoa, they are p resented in English translation. 7 At 63 p ages , more than half as long as "The Record of Events , " the " Sessions with Unabelin " arc a fieldnote appendix , mu ch less integrated than " The Record " \\lith the preceding parts of the ethnography. like M alinowski, Mead is explicit that she worked constan tly vvith her fieldno tes while in the field, and she includes examples of the feedb ack bet\veen da ta collection and evolving generalization
( 1 940:
3 26-3 5). " I spent hours analyz ing data or p reparing lists s o that I could get the largest amount of material in a few minutes" ( 1 940: 3 3 8). She als o mentions her reading of Geza Roheim while in Alitoa, and the stimulus this p rovided to data analysis ( 1 940 :
3 3 r ). On a negative note,
she states that she did not have access to Fortune's fiel dnotes, as he did to "seventy-fi ve per cent of mine" (the chronological fieldnotcs and l onger event records), ,�rhen she dra fted Pans I- IV of The iWo unta itt
Arapesh in 1 9 3 5 -36 (Mead 1 940 : 3 26n) . By that time Gregory Bateson had entered their lives, and Mead and Fortune had s eparated and divorced . 8 a passage typ<.� fro m �cratch notes onl y in 1 946 (M ead 3 66) ; this is the lon ges t admitted interval I h:.vc come across bet\veen recording
7The sixth session in cludes 1 949:
scratch notes and typing them .
a nd antong the Nev..' This in v ol ved extensive use of photography, and the
RBateson and M ead conducted fieldw ork togcthcT in Bali Guinea latmul du ring
19 ]6-39·
22 5
Se cret Life of Fieldnotes
Mead's Reflection s on Fieldnotes In 1 9 5 3 Mead returned to M anus . Her ficldnote p ractice ( 1 956: 4 8 1 50 1 ) \vas much like that of her earli e r research , although she noted ho\\1· much more detailed her d es c riptive notes \vere than those of 1 928-29 . She also did more direct typing of informant statements, as she had in Ia tmul in 1 9 3 8 ( r 977 : 297). For this fiel d trip Mead kep t a j ournal, briefly listing the m aj or even ts o f the day, and she had adopted the term "scenarios" to refer to titled observ ation episodes included in her " Run ning Account . " It is ironic that M ead , who so valued and indeed pioneered probl em oriented ethn o g raphy earl y in her ca reer ( 1 9 3 3 : 9, 1 4- 1 5 ; 1 962 : 1 2 5 26) , turned ag ain st it i n l ater years . She found the quantitative, experi ment al-model ap proaches of Clyde Kluckhohn , John Whitin g , and others misdirected ( 1 962 : 1 3 4-3 5) and den igrat e d the kind of tes ting and systematic data-gathering that, in essence, defined her o�·n firs t field\\l·ork in Samoa (as di rected by Boas) and in Manus, if not in Alitoa or B ali ( 1 972 : 1 44) . In a 1 96 5 letter written in Manus she expressed preference for empathy over controlled fieldnote reco rding . "If you su rrender fully enough to the culture , this vvill itself inform your further choic es and provide new problems , home-gro\vn fo r the fieldworker's pe rception'' ( 1 977: 2 82). Mead's final s tatemen t on the subject , "The A rt and Technology of
Fieldv..t o rk, affirmed \Vide-ranging field note atten tion to " gras ping as much o f the �·hole as possible" over p roblem-oriented fi c ldno te rec ords ( 1 970: 25 0, 2 54, 2 5 6- 57). Instead of the directi o n in \vhich her n
own \vork had pointed , and which the profes sion in large part fol lowed, she argued at las t fo r the more protean Malinowsk ian ap proach . The field worker is engaged in building a systematic unders tanding of the culture he is s tudying, \veighin g each nc\v item of information, reacting to each discrepan cy, constructing hypotheses about \\-·h a t he may encounter next. This sy stematic understan din g-his total apper ceptive mass of kno\vled gc- provides him \\"ith
a
living , changing ,
analy ti cal s ystem \\-·hich sim ultaneousl y correctly or incorrectly files information received . . . and so defines the search for n e\\r information .
As he is attemptin g to build an understan ding of th e whole, before s pecializing in an y aspect , it follows that the g reater the degree of resul ting ethnogra phy featured interpretations of their vis ual data
(Mead 1 970: 2 5 8 -59�
Pl ates 1 -X V I ; 1 9 77 : 2 1 2- r 4) ; the role of field notes in this research is considered briefly in the essay '" Ficldn otes and Others, " in Pa rt IV. of this volu me.
f i E L D N OTE
226
P RACTI C E
simultaneity o f observations o n many aspects of the culture, th e higher the chance of using the cross-referencin g provided by parallels . . . or by
contrast. [ 1 970 : 247]
good description of headnotes, perhaps, but a much "'·eaker direc tive for \Vriting and typing than any of Mead's pronouncements on fieldnotes bet'"'·een 1 92 8 and 1 9 56.
A
From the 1 920s to the 1960s
.. The years 1 92 5 -6o have been characterized as the "classical pe riod " of American and British "socio-cultural anthropology" (Stock ing 1 9 8 3 b: 8) . During these decades ficldnote practice assimilated the advances of Malinowski and Mead (even if she received less profes sional acknowledgment) , though the approaches of Boas and Rivers main tained currency as \-vell . 9 Voget ( 1 960) identifies a shift from the 1 925-40 "culturalism-functionalism-holism''-in ·"vhich British func tionalism \Vas complemented by A merican concerns for pattern and cultural consistency-to grovling interests during 1 940-60 in inter action, individual behavior, and complexity. Nonetheless, concern with "all aspects of the life of the people, " with "the \vhole cultu re'' (Bennett 1 948: 672; cf. Evans-Pritchard I95 1 : 77), persisted through these decades, and �ide-ranging fieldnotes appear to have been the goal of most ethnographers. American and British holism had their differences, ho\vever, \J.rhose origins may be discerned in the institutional analyses of Malino\vski and the problem-focused studies of Mead. John Bennett, in a 1 94 8 revie\\l of fieldwork methods, noted the tendency of American an thropologists to begin their fieldwork \Vith a particular problem , a11d widen from there; he cited Robert Redfield's studv of the folk-urban continuum in Yucatan as an example. British anthropologists, with Bateson 's l\'aven the example, preferred to narro"\-\" their research dur ing the course of fieldv.rork, allo\\'in g problems to emerge in the field . "These two approaches both p roduce meaningful studies'' (Bennett 1 948: 6 8 I -82). Evans-Pritchard, a Malino'"'·ski student, was emphatic that the in stitutional focus "on a people's la'�,., on their religion, or on their "
�The myth of Cushin g's "'goin g native" remained a cau tionar y warnin g about the litnits of pa rticipa nt-o bserv�tion .
S ecret Life of Fieldnotcs
227
economics , describing one aspect of their life and neglecting the rest, " was a post-field\\l·ork decision about \\'ritin g ethnography; holistic fieldnotes should cover ''their entire social life and . . . the \vhole social structure'' ( 1 95 1 : S o . See Marcus and Fischer 1 9 86: 56; Kuper 1 947: s 7) - Postwar social anthropologists \vould amend this position : the ethnographer might structure ficld\\'ork around problems as long as those problems arose " from the people themselves, " from "the grain of the field" (Beattie 1 96 5 : 2-3 ; Beteille 1 97 5 : 1 02; Middleton 1 970 : I , 6; Srinivas et al. 1 979: 8 . See also Evans-Pritchard 1 95 1 : 75). Whatever its roots, by the 1 960s the '' methodical ethnography" (Beals 1 978) or "problem-orien ted'' study had all but chased out the "holistic mono graph " (Tax 1 976: ix-x. Cf. Johnson 1 98 7; Le\vis 1 95 3 : 1 5 ; Powder maker 1 966 : 237). As British anthropologi sts adopted more pointed fteld\vork prob lems and more Americans ventured beyond summer fieldwork sea sons in familiar North American terrains, " there was a gradual con vergence . . . in the strategies adopted for field\\'ork and similarities in the techniques employed" (Urry 1 984a: 6o). What is remarkable is that this occurred \Vith so little training of students in fieldwork practice. ''For the most part . . . fieldwork training was a matter of learning by doing, . . . of 'sink-or-s\vim. ' . . . Ficld\\l·ork \vas enacted more than it was analyzed" ( Stocking 1 98 3 b: 8; cf. Mead 1 972: 1 42-43). The in attention to fieldvvork training under Boas at Columbia continued to mark the department ( Freilich 1 970b : 1 86; Landes 1 970 : 1 2 1 , I 22; Wagley 1 98 3 : I ), and there are at least four different stories told of Kroeber's lack of interest in discussing fieldwork methods with stu dents (Agar I 980 : 2; Jackson, this volume; Nader 1 970 : 98; Wagley 1983 : I ) . Beattie remarks of the early postwar years that "it was unusual in English anthropology courses at that time (it still is) to give very detailed formal instructions on methods of field research " ( 1 965 : s ; cf. Middleton 1 970: 3). In both the United States and England, despite the flurry of personal fieldwork accounts from the 1 96os on, training remained "informal" at best (Stocking 1 98 3 b : 8). In the Manchester "Field Seminar" in the late 1 960s, Shokeid recalls "almost no referen ce to the process of data gathering" ( 1 988 : 3 2). Perhaps the most important teaching channel during all these years \\tas contact bet\vcen stud.e nts just returned from the field and those about to leave. Wagley's mention of this, and of advice from experienced ethno graphers in New York and upon arrival in Guatemala in 1 93 7, is especially revealing ( r 9 8 3 ) ; so is Beattie's
fiELDNOTE P R A C T I C E
22 8
account of similar experiences at Oxford and in East A frica in the earl y 1 950s ( r 965: 5 , 6, 3 7, 39). Developing Fieldnote Practice: The United States The decades from the 1 920s through the r 96os encompass massive change in the field'"'..ork practice of American anthropologists . These years saw a number of shifts: from salvaging the past to studying the present; from s tudying the total culture to a focus on problems; fro m interest in customs to concern for social processes; from reliance o n the seated informant to participant-observation; from paying for infor mant time to a concern �;th rapport; from trans cription to inscrip tion and description; from texts to fieldnotes and records; "from ethnology to cultural anthropology" (Stocking 1 976: 1 3 ). Ethnography based upon texts from one or a few seated informants by no means ended with Boas , althou gh others, like Lowie ( 1 96o) Vlould produce less raw, more readable results. It \Vas Cornelius O s good, however, a 1 930 University of Chicago Ph. D . , �"ho out-Boased Boas with his three volumes on Canadian lngalik Indian culture. This remarkable salvage effort during 193 7 \\'as based upon more than 500 hours of transcription \\'ith one informant, \vho was paid by the hour. Osgood's questions opened the process, but Billy Williams eas ily caught on, having learned the culture in similar session s �·ith his grandfather, and Osgood read back his fieldnotes to Williams for correction and expansion (Osgood 1 940). Casagrande's single informant work in 1 94 1 also h arked back to Boas, as Ojib\va Indian John Mink \Vas urged, successfully, "to understand our interest in the general culture pattern rather than the particular instance" ( 1 96oa : 472). Working \Vith paid informants was still acceptable fieldwork prac tice into the 1 9 50s (Friedrich 1 986: xvi) . Perhaps the mos t Boasian u s e of informant-text transcription V\ras the \\'Ork of anthropologists it1 Chiapas , Mexico , in the 1 950s and I 9()os. Reviewin g a study ofT:z.otzil medicine, Vogt reveals : Fo llo�'ing a research strategy that al l of us from Chica go, Harvard, and Stanford have found to be p roductive, Holland located a biling ual info rmant and trained him to operate a tape re corder and to tran scribe tapes of cu rin g ceremonies into written Tzotzil and to type the materials with an interlinear translati on . [ 1 96 5 :
52 5 l 1 0
tOVogt's later account ( 1 979) of th e Harvard C hi ap as ran gin g field work method s .
Project
detail s more \\�i de
Secret Life of Fieldnotes
2 29
Trans cription of texts as an occasional m ethod , subordinate to partici pant-observation, of course con tinued to be used by most anthropolo gists, as in Watson's sessions on Agarabi initiation (discussed in "A Vocabulary for Fieldnotes, " Part I I , this volume) or Mitchell's t\vo hour trans cri ption of an account of a Ne\v Guinea Wape feud ( 1 978 : 9 1 ). The more usual approach has been problem-focused participant observation, \\7ith \vide-ranging fieldnotes and separate records of particular types of data. Kluckhohn, spending summers in field\\70rk among the Navajo from th e 1 9 20s on , began in 1 93 2 to focus u pon \vitchcraft, within a broad array of ethnographic interests. His book Na vajo Witchcraft scrupulously details i ts ficldnotc sources : ( 1 ) field note.,� ·"rritten during I 3 2 interviev.rs v.rith ninety-three informants, mos t conducted with an interpreter, ranging from 2 to 9 r pa ges in length ( tv�renty-fi vc of these, focused exclusively on vvitchcraft, \\'ere conducted during the early 1 940s) ; (2) fieldnotes from conversations, mainly in N avaj o, '\i\" ritten soon afterv.tard, ranging from a fevl lincs to 10 pages; ( 3 ) notes on witchcraft from � hites; (4) notes on overheard Navaj o gossip about witchcraft; (5) 87 pages of fieldnotes from eleven other ethnographers , including the "running notes" of Alexander and Dorothea Leighton (Kiuckhohn 1 944 : 1 5 - 1 7, 244- 5 2). Like Mead's tvtor-uztain Arap esh \Vith its use o f supportin g materials, Kluckhohn's monograph is divi ded into topical and interpretive sec tions, plus appendixes that reproduce "al most all statements of any len gth '\i\rhich have been made to me about N avaho '\\titchcraft" ( 1 944: 2 1 ) . He adm its that these fieldno tes , set in double columns and small type, arc "enormously detailed . . . and not easy to read . " Fe\v eth nographers \\'auld ever again be as candid about their fieldnote evi dence. Tax's research in a Guatemalan municipio took place during field seasons from 1 93 5 to 1 94 1 �·bile he \\'as on the Carnegie Institution staff. His earlier participant-observation prepared the v�ray for his collection in 1 940-4 1 of extensive economic records of land o�·ner ship and use, agricultural lab or, yields, prices, and measures of\vcalth ; these are the heart of his ethnography (Tax 1 95 3 : x, 1 8 8-9 1 ) . His fieldnotes v.rcrc micro filmed and made available to libraries in 1 9 50 ( 1 953 : x, 224) ; this alternative to Mead 's and Kluckhohn 's docu menta tion has also been a rare occurrence. The Spicers' 1 93 5-36 fieldwork in a Yaqui Indian neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona, demonstrated the infusion of British social an thro pology that Radcliffe-Brovln's 1 93 1 - 3 6 stay brought to the Univer..
FIEI. D � OTE PRACTICE
23 0
sity of Chicago (Spice r 1 940 : xxiv-xxvi) . Like their fello\\1" Chicago stu dents the E mbrces, in the field in Suye Mura at the same time , t he Spicers' wi de-ranging field\vork produced chronological fieldno te s o f the ev ents, ritu als, and conv ersations they observed and heard
o ve r
one year. These �vere supplemen ted by records filed under each per son's name, seated interviews fo llowing events observed , and l i fe histories ( Spi cer 1 9 8 8). Interviews \Vere \vide-ranging at first an d
narrovlcd later; notes were written follo\ving the interviews.
Charles Wa gley's 1 93 7 and 1 93 9-40 field\vork illustrates ho\v the changes in field\\'ork practice \vere occu rring even without direct British influence. Wagley (see 1 9 8 3 ) was a student of Benedict 's and part of a group that she and Boas sent to \Vo rk amon g Brazilian Indians (Landes 1 970:
) Mead's \Vork had no direct influence on
121 .
Wa gle y ;
she gave one lecture on field methods at C olumbia during his stu dent day s , but he did not attend. He did "of cou rse" read Malino\-vsk i ,s ll rgona r4ts . His first six-month field trip to a Maya-speakin g Gu ate
malan commu nity utilized paid informants , an interpreter \vho l ater became an assis tant and
..rote fieldnotes for Wagley, text transcrip
\\�
tions, and also participan t-observation in homes, the town hall, fields, and rituals . In his Tapirape research he had to learn the language, and he could not pin do'\vn informants for interviews or transcription even by paying them. The Boas ian touches disappeared as pa rticipant observation and wide-ranging des crip tive fieldnotes took over, sup plemented by records of the daily activities of ten Tapirape men (Wag ley 1 9 77:
19-20, 5 3 ) .
While Wagley was i n Guatem ala and B razil, William Fo ote Whyte spent 1 9 3 7-40 in a Boston I talian nei ghborhood doing research fo r
( 1 9 4 3 ) , u in many ways the sociological equivalen t Westent Pacific" (Van Maanen 1988: 3 9) . Wh y te read
Street Corner Society
of ll rgona uts o..f the
Malinowski , but the personal links from Radcliffe-Brovm to Warne r to Chapple and A rensberg were probably mo re influential ; only later did he take his
I 95 5 :
2 8 6-87;
Ph. D . in sociology rather than anthropology (Why te 1 9 84: 1 4- 1 5. Cf. Kelly 1 9 8 5 ). With ample support and
freedom to follow his instin cts, Whyte made the most of speech-in action, learning to watch and listen at street co rners, gamb ling loca tions, bo,vling alleys , and p olitical meetings
( 1 95 5 : 298, 3 0 3 ) . Reports of this activity, rather than formal intervie\vs, form ed the bulk of his chronological fieldnotes , \v hich he typed im mediately follov.ring particip ant-observation episodes ( 1 95 5 : 297, 3 02 , 3 07) . As secreta ry of a club and a politi cal cam p aign, he o ccasionally took notes during events , and he transcribed texts of political speeches
as
he heard them
Secret Li fe of Field notes
( 1 95 5 : 3 0 5 , 3 1 2). He used records only for some 1 06 positional map pings and for initiation interaction sequences at club meetings, based on scratch notes and memory ; these data, collected over six months, were used to generate group structure and revealed the emergence of two factions ( 1 9 5 5 : 3 3 3 - 3 5). Like Malinowski, Wh·yte constantly ana lyzed his data \vhile in the field ( 1 95 5 : 280), also developing an index that I return to in the essay "On Ethnographic Validity" (Part V, this volume) . Th� gro\ving significance of records in American fieldwork is par ticularly evident in Oscar Lewis's research in Tepotzlan, Mexico, in 1943 -44, 1 947 , and 1 94 8 (Le\\l;s 1 9 5 1 : ix-xxi). What had been in tended as a problem-focused "personality s tudy, " utilizing Redfield 's 1 9 26 ethnography of the village as a base, was transformed into a holistic "historical, functional, . . . and configurational " proj ect as the impact of change and doubts about Redfield's characterization of inter personal life registered with Lewis. In 1 943-44 his team of fifteen professionals and students, plus local assistants, assembed an eth nographic census, psychological tests , and quantitative records on land, labor, and \Vealth . The primary focus for wide-ranging field notes was a series of seven family studies conducted by Lewis, a colleague, and five Mexican students . These averaged 250 typed pages (Lewis 1 9 50), and one became the beginning point of continuing research by Lewis through 1 963 (Le\vis 1 959: 2 1 -57; 1 964) . By the 1 950s, problem-focused research was the norm, and field notes in the Mead pattern-problem first, general culture second were the practice. Clifford and Hildred Geertz were part of a six member team studying the Javanese town of Modjokuto in 1 95 3 - 5 4 . Each member had a separate project : the Geertzes covered religion and the family (C. Geertz 1 960; H. Geertz 1 96 1 ) ; the others investigated marketing , rural villages, town organization , and the Chinese minor ity. Clifford Gecrtz's chronological fieldnotes of events , conversa tions, and seated interviews '\\" ere typed from scratch notes and written progressively more an d more in Javanese ( 1 96o: 3 8 3-3 8 5 ). Hildrcd Geertz 's fieldnotes focused on participant-observation and interviews with forty-five families . Roland Force's problem-focused 1 9 54- 56 research on leadership in Palau , in Micronesia, similarly resulted in typed ficldnotes originating in scratch notes, but his were organized according to topics . His most significant records \\'ere notes on Pa lauan concepts mentioned in earlier ethnographies and copied by him onto cards to u se in intervie\vs ( 1 960: 1 77- 80). By the 1 960s the practice of return visits and continuing long-term
2J I
fi E L DNOTE P R A C TIC E
232
research-like that ofKluckhohn and Le,�ris-had become more con1mon. Masses of fieldnotes accumulated, but accounts are fevl of ho\v they are organized and used in \-\"citin g. George Foster ( 1 979a) h as \Vritten a comprehensive overview concerning his research in T zin tzuntzan, Mexico, \\rhich began in 1 945-46 and continued annually from 1 95 8 . By the 1 970s his files consisted of ten boxes of five- by eight-inch sheets. Four were fieldnotcs proper: three of "basic data of many t)"pcs" organized according to the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) categories he had begun using in r94 5 , and another of notes on health and medical topics. The six boxes of records comprised one of 400 dreams, one of Thematic Ap perception Tests (TAT), t\vo of \;ital statistics for t\-\"O hundred years of the village's history, and tvlo of individual data on 3 , 000 persons ( 1 979a : 1 69-70). Dev eloping Fieldno te Practice : British Social Anthropolo gy The cohesiveness of Boasian anthropology in the United States "\v a s dissolving by the 1 930s; tours and stays by Malinowski in 1 926, 1 93 3 � and 1 93 8-42 and by Radcliffe-Bro\vn in 1 926 and 1 93 1 -3 6 constituted one competing source of influence (Ebihara 1 98 5 ; Jackson 1 986: 1 I o ; Kelly 1 985; Stocking 1 976; Urry 1 98�: 59). In Britain the cohesive ness of Malinowskian anthropolo gy, later consolidated (or narrovlcd) by Radcliffe-Bro\vn (Fortes 1957; Hackenberg 1 973 : 303 -7; Kuper 1 973 ; Stocking 1 9 84b: 1 79), emerged \Vith full force in the 1 930s and continued into the 1 960s. The medium of transmission for Malinov\rski's fieldwork practice \-\"as his LSE seminar, vlhich began in 1 924. Here the reading aloud of Malinowski's \Vriting projects , as \\'ell as his pontifications on methods and fieldnote analysis, set standards his students -w·ould attempt t o meet, and surpass. Among the earliest students were E. E. Evans Pritchard , Raymond Firth, Hortense Powdermaker, Isaac Schapera, and Audrey Richards. Others would include Gregory Bateson, Camil la Wedgwood, C. W. M. Hart, Lucy Mair, Edmund Leach, Max Gluckman, and-among the Rockefeller-funded International African Institute cadre of 1 93 3 - 3 4-Meycr Fortes, Hilda Kuper, and S. F. Nadel (firth 1 9 5 7; Hart 1 970; Kuper 1 973 ; Kuper 1 984: 1 9 8-99; Lutke haus 1 986; Richards 1 939: 29 1 ; Salat 1 9 8 3 : 63 ; Stocking 1 9 8 3 a: I 1 1 - 1 2; Wayne 1 98 5 : 5 3 6-3 7). The early fieldwork of this group still s howed traces of the Brit-
Secret
Life of Fieldnotes
ish anthropology in which Malino\vski had been trained. Evans Pritchard, in his 1 926-30 field\vork among the Azande, relied heavily upon informants and transcribed texts, including those recorded by his Zande clerk (£\tans-Pritchard 1 93 2 : 294-98, 3 3 6; 1 9 37: 2 , 7; 1 940: 9, r 5) . Unable to live in a Zan de community, Evans-Pritchard found time on his hands, he later told Hart ( 1 970: I 5 5), "and had only been able to combat it by a rigid determination to take notes, about some thing, no matter hoVv· boring or trivial, every single day he was in the field. " Schapera, from 1 929 on, co mbined fieldnotes based on particip ant-observation \Vith heavy reliance on text transcription from key· informants, including literate Ts\�tana assistants \vho \vrotc their own (Comaroff and Comaroff 1 98 8 : 5 5 8-60; Schapera 1 93 5 . Cf. Ku per 1 947: J). Generally, ho\\l"ever, texts of oral performances such as folktales dis appeared from social anthropologists' fieldnotes; not until the late 1 96os did interest in rhetoric, delivery, an d audience response lead to a revival of textual attention (Finnegan 1 969). Genealogical method also continued to be important to the Malino\vski students (Evans-Pritchard 1 940; Hart 1 970: 1 60-6 1 ; Kuper 1 947: 3 ; Powder maker 1 966: 78), and, with greater attention to recitational pragmatics, it would remain so into the 19 50s (Lewis 1 977; Madan 1 975 : 1 3 7-3 8, 1 42-46; Middleton 1 9 70: 3 2- 3 .s ) . Firth 's 1 928-29 field\\'ork, for which his teacher was "saving" Tiko pia from other researchers (Larcom 1 983 : 1 76n), was a comprehen sive demonstration of Malinowskian speech-in-action participant ob servation; notes \\"ere taken in view of the Tikopia (Firth 1 93 6: 5 , 6, 10). So \\'as Evans-Pritchard 's Nuer field\vork in visits bet'\veen 1 93 0 and 1 9 3 6, even if the Nuer themselves-rather than Malinowski, with who m he had broken-pushed him in that direction ( 1 940: I 1 , 1 3 , 1 5 ). The students \Vere also beginning to define problems earlier, even be fore fieldwork, and to acquire masses of quantitative records . Focusing on diet and crop produ ction among the Bemba, Richards ( 1 93 5) advo cated quantitative analysis of marriage, divorce, and labor migration rates, using s·ystematic village censuses and "not merely a set of the most voluble informants \vho are only too ready to haunt the tent door. " Firth, in his 1 93 9-40 study of Malay fishermen, collected extensive economic ''records , " as \Veil as fieldnotes from wide-ranging participant-observation ( 1 966: 3 5 7-6 r ). Postwar social anthropology" consolidated these gains of the 1 930s, as Beattie's and Middleton 's valuable accounts of their earl y 1 950s fieldwork in Uganda illu strate. Doing holistic research, '"'·ith prob-
23 3
f i E L D f' OTE P R A C T I C E
234
lems emerging from "the grain of the field, , both anthropologists also collected extensive quantitative records on household composition � marriage, and career histories of chiefs (Beattie 1 965 : 3 4, 3 6- 3 7� 3 9 4 1 , 54; Middleton 1 970: 3 , 65-66). In the Malinowskian pattern , t he periods bet\vccn "tours" \Vere used fo r preliminary analysis and r e ports, but fieldnotes \\'ere also analyzed in the field (Beattie 1965 : 8 , 24 ; Middleton 1 970: 1 , 59-6o; cf. Evans-Pritchard 1 95 1 : 76). Middle t on rewrote his scratch notes soon after taking them ( 1 970: 3 3 64) , but Srinivas, bringing Radcliffe-Bro\vnian social anthropology to India i n 1 948, found this impossible; he was not able to return to them fo r analysis until 1 950 ( 1 987: 1 39-40) . Suffering a similar lack of privacy i n �vhich to read and �"rite, Maybury-Le�·is, in his Shavante field\vork i n 1 9 5 8 , could not analyze his fieldnotes based on speech-in-a ction unt i l after he left Brazil ( 1 967: intro. (n . p. ]). After \vorking over their fieldnotes, both Srinivas and Maybury-Le�vis returned for further field\\l·ork. In 195 1 and 1 967, and again in 1 9 84, groups of British anthropolo gists registered their collective prescriptions for field\vork practice. Published in 1 95 1 , the sixth edition of J.'\7otes and Queries o n linthropolo.f!y (Seligman 1 95 1 ) had been under a committee's revision since 1 93 6, interrupted by World War II. 1 1 Radcliffe-Bro\vn played a key role , a s did the Malino\\'ski students Firth, Evans-Pritchard, and Fortes . Un like the original of 1 874 , this edition \vas aimed at professional an thro pologists. The section on fieldwork methods began on a Malinowskian note: "Direct observation supplemented by immediate interrogation is the ideal course. " Only two pages \\7ere devoted to fieldnotes : it was recommended that notes be v�lritten as soon as possible, in public if the informants did not object, and should cover "events observed and info rmation given " ; records of "prolonged activities or ceremonies" and a journal (in the strict sense) should be kept as \veiL Scratch notes ,
1 1 The vol ume dearly looked back ward rather than forward . Among its reco m men dations: "A
s porting rifle and a shotgun are, ho wever, of grea t assistance in rnany
districts where the natives may wel co me extra meat in the shape o f ga me killed by thei r visitor.
.
. . A s a rule bea ds, cotton cloth and coloured handkerchiefs arc
valued
as they are already local articles of trade; preferences can be discovered from the traders in the nearest market to wn . . . . If it is impossi bl e to have local nativ es as attendants, it is better to have " boys, \\rho regard the natives as dan gerous, or e ven a s cannibals, rather than tho se \•.rho despise the1n a s s laves or inferiors. I f the servants an."" not nati ves of the district, it may be advis able to camp \veil a\\'ay from the vi llage and t o allow them to go into the village only if they a re on a defi ni tel y friendly foo tin g v.'ith the natives'' (Sehgntan I Q) I : 29, 3 3 � 4 1 ). Me Tarzan, you jane? See C ri ck 1 9�2: I t\ . inasmu ch
Secret Li fe o f Fieldnotes
23 5
recorded during events \Vcre ad,riscd, to assist later questioning of "observers or parti cipants . . . and to obtain fuller details and e x p lana tions (for this, see Kobben 1 967: 42). Just one p aragraph addressed texts. Six p ages , in contrast, were devoted to the genealogical method, V�.,.i th some passages p ar a ph r as in g Rivers . Three pages featured an excellent discussion of sampling, covering its powers and limitations ( S eligman 1 9 5 1 : 2 7, 3 6, 45-46, 49- s o , so- s s , 56- 5 8). The Craft o_f Social At1 throp olo�y (E p stein 1 967) was the product of Max Gluckman's Manchester students and colleagues . It included papers on quantitative approaches to census and household records, sampling and surveys, divorce and genealo g ies , and economic data. Other cha p ters covered " case" records in studies of law and \Vitch craft. Gluckman's introduction and the paper by van Velsen were concerned with ho�... "extended cases" recorded in chrono lo gical field notes could be analyzed in ethno g r a p hic \\'riting; I retu rn to these ideas in Part V, in the essay "On Ethn o g raphic Validity. " Certainly a con solidation of approach, based on considerable ethnogra p hi c work by its authors in South Africa, Zambia, Mala\vi, and India, and with full control of the British literature, it \vas a volume firmly in the Mali no,�lski t radition. The first in a series on research methods, Ethnograph ic Resea rch : A Guide to General Cottdu ct (Ellen 1 9 84) , dra\vs heavil y on the American fieldwork and personal account literature , and reveals few after-effects of the transactionalism, structuralism, structural Ma r x ism , and sym bolic anthropology (Turner variant) that captivated British anthropol ogists in the 1 960s and 1 970s (Ortner 1 984). Ellen's view of the vari eties of fieldnote data is consistent with this volume's essays; it is cited accordingly in my essa y uA Vo c abulary for Fieldnotes" (this volume, Part I I). The volume's quantitati ve profile is smooth, assumed, charac teristically BSA. Holy's ( 1 984) chapter on theory is a well-argued, lo\\'-key presentation in the interpretive vein more assertively repre sented in American anthropolo gy by the 1 980s (see also Tonkin 's contribution in Ellen 1984, and Crick I982). Malinowski would rest easy \vith this book.
Frotn the 1 960s to the 1 980s
Fieldnote p r a ctice to the 1 960s, as we have seen, can be traced in p re faces and appen dixes . For the 1 960s, 1 970s, and 1 980s the picture is
fi ELDNOTE PR A C T I C E
murkier, d e s pite the many personal accounts . The histo ry of th ese postcl ass i cal years is so far one of theory rather than of field work p r a ctice Tellingly, O r tner is able to review the th eore tica l " m o v e me n ts of these years \Vith reference to few e thno graphi e s Struc tu ral ism and Schncider-sty·le s ymbolic anthropology had little or no need for wid e-ranging fieldnotes (Ortner 1 984: I 36, I 3 0. C( Marcus and Cushman I 982: 3 7; Va n Maanen 1 98 8 : 1 30). Neither did cult u ra l ec ol ogy ; to the extent that it sponsored fiel dwor k it l ed more to recor ds th a n to fieldnotes proper (Ortner 1 984: 1 3 4. Cf. John son 1 987: 28-29; Marcu s a n d Cushman 1 982: 6 1 -62). 1 2 Cognitive anthropology, not reviewed by Ortner, has been similar l y oriented to formal records (Ag ar 1 9 80; Conkl i n 1 968: 1 74-7 5 ; Van M aan en 1 98 8 : 1 3 0-3 1 ) . Struc tural Marxism and political economy bo t h p roduced their exemplary work by u s ing historical docu ments or reanalyzing ethn o graph i c cases (Ortner 1 9 84: 1 3 9, I 42) ; thi s is also true of Sahlins's practi ce model (Ort n er 1 984: 1 5 5 - 5 7). Fieldnotes p l ay ed a more s i g n ificant role in the ethnographic inter ests in public beh avior and rituals fou nd in the symbolic anthropo logies of Geertz and Turner and their followers . Yet Ortn er notes a v,�eak and d ecl ining s ys tem atic sociology" in this \\ ork ( 1 984: I 3 1- 3 2 , I 3 4; cf. Johnson 1 987: 29), as she also does of cultural eco l o g y an d poli tic a l economy ( 1 984: 1 3 4, 1 43). The remed y is in an e merg in g focus on pract i c e " : on "praxis, act i o n interaction , activity, ex perien c e performance" ; on ''the doer . agent, actor, p er s on self, individual, subject" ; and on " transactions, proj ect s careers deve l opmen t cycles, and the like" ( 1 984: 1 44, 1 5 8 ) . 1 3 All this ce rta i n ly po int s i n the direction of rene\ved need for ""'·ide-ranging fieldnote s . T'�lo bodies of \vork p erhaps also pointin g in this direction are those of I 96os transactional ism, only briefly mentioned by O rtner ( 1 984: 1 44-45 n. 1 4), and femi nist ethnography, oddly left out of her canvass (see Caplan 1 98 8). Two othe rs \vhich Ortner clearly favors, arc an ethnography-bas ed historical approach and a renascent psychol o gical anth ropolog y ( 1 984: 1 5 8-5 9 1 5 r). Thes e bodies of work , some richly ethnographic, are rev i ewed at len gt h b y M arcus and Fischer ( 1 986) u n d e r the bann er of .
.,
.
,
"
"
"
'
"
,
.
,
.
,
,
,
,
,
1 2The exception , as Ortner mentions, \�w·a s Rappaport's Pigj for the .4 �tcestors ( 196 �). See also Lee (1979) on wide-rangin g ecologicall y ori ented V\tork by the K ala h ari Research
Project.
1 3 This c ontra sts v.dth the ethno graphically dead hand of the ne\llw· historical an th ro polo gy an d its focus on "time, process, dura tion , re p roduction, ch ange , development� evolution, transformation" (O rtner r 9 84 : r 5 8).
Secret Life of Fieldn o tes
23 7
''experimen tal eth nography. '' Ass aying its development bet\veen I 97 3 and 1 9 82 , they argue fo r a theoretical rapprochement b et\veetl inter pretive ethn ography and political econo my. To the extent that they dis cuss how fieldnote materials a re used in textual con stru ction , they limit themselves to intervie�·-driven \Vo rk, particularly tha t of "the Morocco Trio' '-R abino\\l, Crapanzano, and Dwyer (sec also Clifford 1 9 8 3 : 1 3 3 - 3 5 ; Gcertz 1 9 8 8 : 9 1 - 1 0 1 ) . An assessmen t of how fieldnotes
are used in the more ethnographically �;de-ranging work th at Marcus and Fischer rcvie�v ('\\'ork by Robert Levy, Waud Kracke, Gananath Obeyesekere, Edward Schicffelin, S teven Feld , Bradd Shore , and June Nash) is sorely needed . 1 4 So is a ne'\\' body of retrospecti ve accounts of field\vork p ractice like those that hel p make possible a history of ficldnotes for the "classical period , " or fo r the ethnography of the 1 970s and 1 9 80s represen ted in this volume (see Fried rich 1 986 for a model). Unfortun ately, most of the " confes sion al" personal accounts from the 1 970s and 1 980s tell us little or no thing ab o u t \v riting fieldnotes (A Hand 197 5 ; Barley 1 98 3 , 1 98 6 ; Cesara 1 9 8 2 ; Gea ring 1 970; Mit chell 1 9 78; Romanucci-Ross 1 98 5 ; Turner 1 9 8 7 ; Werner 1 9 84) .
Fieldnotes and Science Ten sion between s cien tific and h u manistic defmcrs o f an thropology has long wracked American anthropology ( B errem an
1 968 :
3 68-69 ;
Ebihara 1 98 5 : 1 1 4 ; johnson 1 9 78 : 42 -4 3 , 6o- 64, 20 5 -6 ; Lewis 1 9 5 3 : 4s ; M arcus and Cushman 1 9 8 2 : 4 5 ; S tocking 1 974a: 1 7- 1 9). A " hard
science" challen ge in the 1 9 50s Oohnson 1 9 8 7) provoked the fierce deb ates (and ethnographic retreats) of the 1 960s and 1 970s that Ortner ( 1 98 4) so ·"rell survey s. From the 1 970s on an equally challenging "interpretive response" (John son 1 9 8 7 . See Hol y 1 984; Ma rcu s and Fischer 1 986) h as fueled new and old fi res . Battle lines, name-calling, and mockery,. abound. A participant in an A merican Anthropological Association meeting told Agar, " If one more person calls me a logi cal positivist I ' m going to punch them in the nose " ( 1 9 8 0 : 1 76). A 1 989 AA A panel was devoted to "Anti-Anti-S cience. "
The implication of the scientific-qu antitative appro ach is to dev alue 14Wnat is "experimental '' (see the Marcus
and Fischer 1 9 86 sub title) is, of course, in
the eye of the beholder. Let us resist premature canon ization. O ther noteworthy e thnog raphies i m portant to assessing the 1 973-8 2 period that Marcus and Fischer su rve y
include those listed in Part A of the A ppendix to thi s es sa y.
F I E L DNO T E PR � CTI C � ..
wide-ranging fieldnotes and t o focus field\vork practice upon record collection . A nod is given to the results of p articipant-observation but only for the exploratory or background qualities it provides for the "hard data" of records , the object of nearly all "methodologi cal '' attention (Agar 1 980: 70, 1 1 2- 1 3 , I I 9, 1 3 5 , 1 77; Brim and Spain 1 974 : 96-97; Cohen and Naroll 1970: 9- 1 0; Edgerton and Langness 1 97 4 : 3 2- 3 3 ; )ohnson 1 978: 9- 1 I , 204-5; LeVine 1 970: 1 8 3 , 1 8 5 ; Le\vis 1 9 5 3 : 6; Pelto and Pelto 1 9 73 : 269, 274 ; Pelto and Pelto 1 978 : 69; Spindler and Goldschmidt 1 952: 2 r o; Whiting and Whiting 1 978: 5 8 . C f. Hon ig mann 1 976: 243 ; Hughes 1 960 : 5 0 1 ). Humanist-interpretive defenders of participant-observation have painted only a hazy, poorly focused pi cture of ho\\' wide-ranging fieldnotes arc utilized in the \\rriting o f ethnography (Geertz 1 973 : 3 - 30; Gcertz 1 98 3 : 5 5-70; Honigrn ann 1 970b; Nash and Wintrob 1 972; Van M aancn 1 98 8 ; Wolff 1 964 ; Cf Shankman 1 98 4). If "\Ve are to come back from the field with anyth i n g more than empathy, a rapport hi gh, and headnotes, then the relation ship of our fieldwork documentation to ethnographic writing must be clear and sharp. Too many of the attempts to reconcile the debated positions-"both sides are right "-amount to veiled statements that "my side is more right. " From the point of vie·\¥ of the user of \vide ranging fieldnotes , both sides are \Vrong. B ritish anthropology has been relatively immune to the in vective and trumpets of the American science-humanism debates. Malino\\" ski and many of his students '\\l ere trained first in scientific disciplines� counting and quantification, as we have seen, came almost naturally, part of business as usual . Bateson, trained fi rst in biology, \veil e x pressed the need both for "loose thinking'' in fieldwork and for "strict thinking" in formalizing and operationalizing ethnographic analy sis as one moves to \•.triting. Both \vere part of science, as he saw it; an d anthropology·, though concerned \\'ith the "feel " and "ethos" of a culture, was a science. "There is, I think, a delay in science \vhcn w e start to specialize for too long either in strict or loose thinking. '' In terms perhaps anticipating Thomas Kuhn, Bateson concluded: "\Xlhcn the concepts, postulates, and premises have been straightened our� anal ysts \vill be able to embark upon a new and still more fruitful org y of loose thinking, until they reach a stage at \\l·hich again the resul ts of their thinking must be strictly conceptualized " ( 1 94 1 : 67-68). The melding, or acceptance, of scientific and humanist perspect i ve s was also evident in Evans-Pritchard's authoritative pronouncem en ts. Within a single essay he could s t ate first, " Withour theories and b y..
Secret Life of Fieldnotes
23 9
pothescs anthropological research could not be carried out, for one only finds things, or does not find them, if one is looking for them'' ; and then, "The imaginative insight of the anist . . . is required in interpretation of what is observed . " The anthropologist, he asserted, must have "a feeling for form and pattern , and a touch of genius" ( 1 95 I : 64, 82) . Evans-Pritchard was an ethnographer, not an ideologue. To h i m the value of both hypothesis and art in doing field\vork and wri�g ethnography vlas self-evident . It is significant that an important push toward science in American anthropology came in the I 9JOs from George Peter Murdock (Ebihara 1 9 8 5 : 1 0 8 r r o; Stocking 1 976: 1 71 8), \vhose ethnographic experience \Vas minor. John and Beatrice Whiting, his students during those years, recall learning "ho�· to formulate and test hypotheses, the meaning of probability statistics, and the value of the experimental method" ( 1 978 : 4 1 -43 ). From Mur dock's interests in testing cross-cultural hypotheses arose the 193 8 clarion call for standardization, Outline of Cu ltural A1aterials (Conklin 1 96 8 : 1 74). Fed also through growing contact in the I 9J OS and 1 940s with sociologists and psychologists (Stocking I 976: 9- 1 3), the increasing pressures toward making anthropology more of a behavioral science \\'ere ready to burst by the early 1 9 50s. In a 1 953 review, " Controls and Experiments in Field Work , " Le\vis noted that only seven articles on field methods had been published in the American Anthropologist be t\veen 1 9 3 0 and 1 95 3 , and four of them had been about language. Recent trends stressing quantification could be pointed to, ho\vcver, and the gauntlet had been thrown down in 1 95 2 with the first pub lished American fieldwork report based on an explicit experimental design ( 1 9 5 3 : r 4, 6-9 , 20). That paper, a study of Menomini Indian acculturation (Spindler and Goldschmidt 1 9 52), utilized the rhetoric of beha,,;oral science: labora tory setting, control group, sociological and psychological variables, chi-square. But in fact , its sample "'..as not random, making the statis tical test dubious; and ethnographic knovllcdge Vlas used to supply the background, select the variables , and interpret the results, thus pro viding the validity that an abstract research design never has by itself. As an exercise in counting (see Johnson and Johnson, this volume) it was fme ethnography, but the role of headnotes and fieldnotes in structuring the study was devalued, despite lip service to " the time honored tools of the trade. " Many more hypothesis-testing studies ,
fi ELD NOTE P R A C T I C E
over the next three and a half decades would be les s charitabl e
to
ethn ograph y.
The radical impact of this behavioral scien ce ap p roach can be appre
ciated in David Aberle's narrative of the course of research for h is classic eth no graphy The Peyote Religion among the l\la vaho ( 1 96 6 : 22 7-
43 ). The Bureau of lndian Affairs (B IA) recruited Aberle to study the
peyote "cult, in 1 949 and supported his field\\' o rk durin g t\\'O sum mer seasons . From the beginning Aberle defined his obj ective as an
count of the differential appeal of the peyote reli gion. This led
ac to
interviews and participant-observation at pey ote rituals all over
the
one or t\\"0 co mmunities ��ould have yielded fi ner-grained data
the
Navaj o reservation . Whil e he acknowledged that intensive stu d y of on
interpersonal influences leading to peyote u se, his \vide-ran ging sur
vey made possible the detailed history of the movement and ap precia
tion of com munity variation on the reservation.
For the third season, lacking further BIA funds , he ap plied to
the
National Institute of Mental Heal th (NI MH) . On advice from quan titative experts, he prepared a detailed questionnaire and a stru ctured
interview; an assistant s pent the summer of 1 9 5 1 collecting intervic\�' S an d completed ques tionnaires, and A berle continued \\'ide-ranging field\vork.
The more detailed propo sal needed fo r N IMH rene\val in the sun1-
mer of 1 95 2 was cou ched in appropriate language: hypothesis,
vari
ables , operationalization . Nonetheless, Aberle decided than an open
ended topical interview w as vvhat he \\'anted; fieldnotes from four
these intervie\\'S are included i n a n appendix t o his book ( 1 966 :
of
3 8o-
98) . With a Ford Foundation Behavioral Studies grant to analyze hi s
data, Aberle consulted the Survey Research Center of the University
of Michigan . The Center lo oked askance at Aberle ,s intervievls, which
did not fall easily into codable "items . '' This fact, plus his contacts with
sociologists and social psychologists , led him to u se a standardized
interview schedule and a random sample in his 1 9 5 3 summer \Vork .
S tatistical analy·sis o f these data confir med a t " . 05 o r better" th at the
only significan t variable associated \Vith peyote acceptance was the government�nforced livesto ck reduction s cheme.
The host of social and cultural factors that Aberle had also investi
well covered in his richly contcxtualizcd monograph .. \vhich is the fruit of gated "had gone by the board, " he s aid . B u t these topics are
six su mmers of fieldwork and much mo re than a report on the res ult s of his 1 95 3 resea rch design . Though even that had not satis fied
the
Secret Life
of Fieldnotes
statisticians, Aberle's " Postscript, 1 965 '' pointed in the direction of greater utilization of fieldnotes , not more perfect records: I think this book might have been more evocative than it is. I am not sure that I have con v ey e d the dignified and serious atmosphere of a peyote meeting, the passionate and zealou s religi ous conviction that inspires so many peyotists, or their certainty th at through peyote they
have indeed found a cure of souls and bodies ( 1 966: 4 1 9]
I f by the mid- 1 96os some, like Aberle, \\'ere vie \v i ng quantitative hypothesis-testing as just another technique, and not the Ne\v Order, others "l'ere preparing for the high tide of science of the 1 970s . As the decade opened, in the preface to il Ha ndbook o_f i\,feth od in Cultu ra l Anth ropology R onald Cohen announced: "Our own desire is to see anthropolo g y become a progrt-'S sively more rigor o u s and scien tific branch of the social sciences. . . . We esche\v culture-specific studies with the explanation of the culture as a major g o al and focus instead on the nomothetic goals. " En u nciating a view more extreme than that of other quan titative proponents, Cohen made his choices clear: ''To study the Trobriandcrs is one thing; to st u dy their divorce rate and the theoretically predicted correlates of it is quite another" (Cohen 1 970: vi, viii, ix) . Opposed to those \\"ho used q u antitative records along vlith wide ranging fieldnotes was a new "quantitative extreme" \\'hose studies " consis t m ainly of statistical testing of theoretical constructs. Some anthropologists , \\'e suppose, \\tould not consider these \Vorks to be 'ethnographic' in any sense" (Pelto and Pelto 1 973 : 274; cf. Agar 1 980: 1 0). Bri m and Spain s Research Design itt �4tzthrop olo-=g y ( 1 974) set the standard for this cam p, one perhaps even stronger in the 1 980s than in the 1 970s (Agar 1 980: 76). Significantly, there is no mention at all of fieldnotcs in their book . Neither was there in Edgerton and Langness's .i\tlethods and Styles in the Study o_f Cultu re (1 974) ; as in the Peltos linthrop ological Research : Th e Structure of Inquiry ( 1 978 ; first edition 1 970 , P. Pelto alone) and Johnson's Qt4atttifica tion in Cultural Anthropology ( 1 978), the p rimary concern \\'as with techniq ues to produce pa rtic u lar forms of fieldwork records and their analysis . 1 5 The Peltos, hovlever, had a short s ection on fieldnotes, aimed at making description more concrete; they also ,
'
'
,
1 5 1 v-'as an enthusiastic parti cipant of this 1 970s movement . Sec Johnson 1 978 : x� 1 1 0- I J , 1 73 - 7 7 � Pelto and Pelto 1 978 : xii. 84-8 5 , 87� 2 1 3 � Sanjek 1 97 1 , 1 977, 1 97 8 .
FIEl D � OTE P R A CTI C E
had a valuable passage on "event analysis, '' a t the heart o f '\i\�hat goes into �ride-ranging fieldnotes ( 1 978 : 69-7 1 , 200-207). Johnson did n o t discuss fieldnotes, but he did present his random-visiting approach ( 1 978 : 8 7-9 1 , 1 06- 1 o), \\7hich can be used to organize participant obsenration and provide a measure of comprehensiveness to anthro pological fieldnotes Uohnson and Johnson, this volume). Even before the interpretive challenge gathered full steam in the late 1 970s, a humanist reaction to the scientific and quantitative arguments (not quite the same thing; cf. Friedrich 1 986: 2 1 1 - I J ; Johnson 1 97 R : 1 84; Johnson and Johnson, this volume) \\'as registered. Wolff pre sented \\'hat might be termed the "qualitative extreme, " arguing fo r a deliberate, gnostic "surrender-to'' the culture one studies, \\'ith Htotal involvement, suspension of received notions, pertinence of every thing, identification . . . . When some sort of order reappears, he ktlO\.vs he is emerging from surrender, and as he emerges he tries to recognize the differentiations in the new structure" ( 1 964: 23 7, 242-43 , 2 5 1 ) . Wide-ranging fieldnotes accompanied this process (Wolff 1 96o), but questions about reliability and ·validity \Vere beside Wolfrs point. Nash and Wintrob ( 1 972) advocated personal accounts of field\\'ork as an alternative to the ethnographic genre that most of the quantitative advocates (certainly Edgerton and Langness, the Pcltos, and Johnson) \\'ere attempting to expand . Honigmann ( 1 976: 244), a most seasoned field\vorker (cf. Honigmann 1 970a), reacted to the neglect of partici pant observation in Naroll and Cohen ( 1 970)-despite his O\Vn contri bution to it-and in Edgerton and Langness ( 1 974) and in Pelto ( 1 970). He stressed the role of "an observer's sensitivity, depth of thought, speculative ability, speculative freedom, imagination, intuition, intel lectual flexibility. " It is as difficult to deny the need for such qualities as it is to gauge their presence and force. But even before the 1 970s had begun, Gerald Bcrreman had pre dicted the future. Unless methodology is made explicit in ethnography, its practitioners
arc likely to diverge, on the one hand, into those (probably a large majo rity) v.,rho take refuge in scientism, \vho seek rigor at the expen se
of . . . content, insight, and understanding, and '"''ho get farther and farther a\\'ay from the realities of hum an soci al life- fron1 culture as it is lived . . . . On the other hand will be those (probably a mino rity) Vl.'ho
have no pretense to being scientific, \\'hose statemen ts , while they may
Secret
Life o f Field notes
243
be insightful, bear no demonstrable validity, \Vho are es sentially creative writers on anthro polo g ical topics.
[ 1 9 68 : 3 6 9] 1 6
One \vonders what the current hcadcount might be, and how many \Vould choose not to be counted in either camp. Identifying the "ex plicit" place of wide-ranging fieldnotes in ethnographic writing something other than hypothesis-testing or empathic interpretation is something we shall return to in the fmal section of this book.
Sp eech-in-Actio n and ltzterviet.t' Fieldtlotes
Informant verbal materials are grist for both the anthropological scientist's and humanist's mills . They arc entered in ficldnotes to provide "a description of the situation as the native sees it, looking from the inside out. " They complement observation, the description of the situation as the ethnographer sees it, "looking from the outside in" (Paul 1 953 : 422). But speech does not ftoat free. What a field\\'Orker hears an infor mant say occurs \vi thin a "speech event, " a happening composed of participants, setting , intentions, and other social and linguistic ele ments (Agar 1 980: 9 I -92; Briggs 1 986). From the earlier ethnographic days of inquisition, of merely noting responses to the field worker's queries, the range of speech events in \Vhich ethnographers listen has expanded. Mal inowski and Mead added speech-in-action events to the scheduled questions and text transcriptions with seated informants \vhich their predecessors had introduced. These advances no\v form the ethnographic commons (see Geertz 1973 : 1 7, 20-2 1 , 30, 45). The speech events of fieldwork range along t\\'O continuums. The first is situational :from speech events in which the ethnographer comes to the informant (in settings \vhere the informant \\'Ould be present any�..ay) to speech events in \vhich the informant comes to the eth nographer and as sumes the seated informant role. The second con tinuum is one of control: from events where the informant speaks freely to events where the ethnographer actively directs the infor mant's speech. 1 6 Today ethnog raphic creati ve v,rritin g is \\relcomed by the Smithsonian Institution
Press Series in Ethnographic Inquiry. Van M�nen ( 1 988) sees "Imp ressionistic Tales'·
f i E L D f' O TE P R A C T I C E
244
The situation continuum is split bet\veen the informant's turf "fin ding the m �"here they are" (Hughes 1 960: 496)-and the eth no grapher's tur( Sometimes , ho\\'ever, the ethnographer takes over the informant's turf temp orarily and talk s with the informant in her
or
his home, or in a church after the service . The turf then becomes th e ethnographer 's; the informant is not in exactly the place she
he
or
would otherv.rise be, doing Vlhat she or he wou l d otherwise be doing . Speech events that transpire on the informant 's turf are those appropri ately called speech-in-action . Those on the ethnographer's own
o,
appropriated tu rf are intervie\\' S (interven tions) . �he control continuum is di vided into sectors \vhere the inform ant controls \vhat she or he says; sectors where con trol is shared b y informant and ethnographer; an d sectors
\\I·
here the ethnographer con
trols the informant's speech, or attem p ts to. " Sharing " is alw ays nego tiation. Analy sts of p articipant-obs ervation have n oted both the value of "voluntcered, " spontaneous informant sta temen ts (Becker and Gcer
1 95 3 : 449) and the importance of directed intervie\vs (Bea ttie 1 96 5 : 2 5 , 30; Paul 1 9 5 3 : 442). A l ook throu gh this situa 1 96o:
2 8 7; Paul
tion / control frame may help us to sec ho\v verbal materials
en ter
ethnographers' fieldnotes and records .
Informanfs turf; ittforrnant in control.
Situated lis tening is an under
appreciated \veapon of ethnography (Powdermaker 1 966: 1 08) . In paper on intervie\vin g , Malino\�lski's studen t Nadel
( 1 939: 3 2 1 )
a
called
atten tion to the ficld,vorker 's o verheard "information obtained ad h oc from people v.rhom he '''atches at \vork or in the act of carrying
out
some p articular activity. " Kluckhohn's fieldnotes on N avaj o-N a v aj o gossip about �it chcraft ( 1 944) are a g o o d example . Nadel called these occasions "chance intervievls , " but they are neither intervie�·s n o r only the result of chance. Transcribing texts as they are performed is a deliberate research strategy (Whyte 1 95 5 :
305,
3 1 2). And more regu
larly, like Mea d among the Omaha, or Agar "hanging out '' wit h Nc\�7 York City j unkies ( 1 980: 1 09), or Middleton am ong the Lu gba ra
( 1 970: 63), ethnographers pu rposefully put th emsel ves in even ts \vh crc
they will hear, and later \\'rite \Vhat they hear in their ficldn ot es . Wh yte's prime informant, Doc, understood well the value of liste n Ing. one species o f ethno g ra ph y ; ethnography in i t s historic form has become " Re alis t Tales ."
as
·
Secre t Life
of Ficldnotes
Go eas y on that '\.vho,
''
24 5
" '"'hat. '' " \\rhy, " " \vhen . " "\\'here" stuff: Bill .
You ask those questions, and people will clam up on you. If people accept you,
you
can j ust han g around, and you 'll learn the ans'V\'ers in
the long run without even having to 1 9 5 5 : 3 03 ]
ask the questions.
[Qtd.
in Whyte
Too often '' the long run, is more time than an ethnographer can afford . Conversations V� ith informants in their habitual locations serve to teach the ethnographer vvhat to look and listen for, to confirm and disconfirm hypotheses and patterns, and to help plan future situated observation and listening (cf. Betcille 1 9 75 : 1 08 ; Po\vdermakcr 1 966 : 76) . "Acco mpanying an informant on a \valk through the village . . . \\rill stimulate conversation and provide an abundance of leads for later in tervie\vs" (Paul 1 953 : 446). This is the stuff of participant-observation, a basic source of fieldnote entries . As ethnographers learn the conventions ofl ocal speech events, they enter them appropriately (Briggs 1 9 86; Holy 1 9 84; Rosaldo 1 980), as Whyte learned to do from Doc. Listening and conversation then go hand in hand. In_(ortna nt 's turj; contro l sha red.
..
You might ask in formal questions while working with an inform ant on
a harvest; you mi gh t ask durin g a group conversation ove r coffee; or you might ask \\·hile wa tching a ceremony. . . . while doing minimal harm to the natural flo\v of events into which your questions
[Agar
1 980: 90]
intrude.
Directed questioning be comes more important as problems are followed, events connected, and holes in records identified. Ordinarily, ethnographers satisfy such needs in intervie\vs, but recourse to informants in their everyday settings may be used to obtain specific information as well. Middleton learned a great deal in this manner but ''vlould al\\ra ys try not to guide the conversation too much" ( 1 970: 64). In Alitoa, Mead writes, "the village was very compact and I \Yent the length of it to ask a single question" ( 1 940: 3 3 8). Ethnographers frequently gather census data over time rather than in directed intervie\vs (Spicer 1 940 : xxiv-xxv) ; requests for missing pieces of information to complete record files arc introduced into "natural'' conversations vlith informants (Mead 1 965: Inform an t 's turf; ethnographer itt control .
xxi). Ethtzographer's
tu�f;
informant in cot1tro l .
Nondirected sessions be-
f i EL D N O T E PRA CTICE
t\veen seated informants and ethno g rap hers are a usual ingredient of fieldwork (Midd leton
1 9 70 :
64-65). "Exten ded intervievls \Vcre . . .
conducted . . . in the homes of the villagers or of th e investigators . Chiefly the obj ective "vas to get the person interv·ie\ved to talk abo ut anything in \\7hich he \\tas interested . . . . The interviews took the forn1 of casual conversations" (Spicer 1 940:
xn·i). A litde further along the
continu u m, \vhen "the ethnogra p her may do nothing more than sug gest a broad area and sit back \vhile the inform ant talks for hal f
an
hour" (Agar 1 9 80: 1 05 ) , we ma y speak of an "informal intervie\\1·.
'�
Even more di rected "open-en ded interviews" are used when pa rt o f the int e rv ie wing task is to determine the areas and di men s ion s a l ong which interviewing is to proceed. The characteristic ap proach is n eith e r directive no r nondirective, b u t a co mpromise and shuttle b et w e en the two extren1 es; a question is asked or a topic sug gested , and the respon dent is al lowed to answer a s he sees fit . [Pau l 1 95 3 =
44 5 ]
Perhaps the best label for all po i n ts al ong this segment o f the interview continuum is "discovery interviews'' (Plath 1 9 80: 29) . Ethnographer's turf; control shared.
A s the research "funnel " narrows
(A gar 1 980: 1 3 . Cf. Bennett 1 94 8 : 6 8 7 ; B ohannan r 9 8 1 ; Middleto n 1 970) , intervie\v topicality becomes focused and nuanced from the
ethnog ra pher's perspectiv e, but the . inform ant is s till encouraged
to
expand and elaborate
as he or she sees fit. " The interview structure is not fixed by _predetermined questions, as it is in the questionnaire, but is designed to provide the inform ant with freedom to introduce mate rials that \\'ere not anti ci pated by the interviewer" (Whyte
1 9(So: 3 52).
The order of ques tions may vary; the in formant ma y introduce ad di tional topics , to be brou ght back onl y gently to the ethnographer's problem; the interview may be taped, or notes may be written as it transpires , or after�rard (Nadel 1 93 9 ; Whyte 1 960) . ·rhis is the eth no graphic intervie�r par excellen ce-not quite formal, no t really infor mal . Aberle's four Navaj o interview transcripts are
a
good published
example of its results ( 1 966: 3 8 0-9 8). It is used p articularly to lea rn more about observed events and informant interpretations (Beattie 1 965 : 2 5 , 3 0) , and to recov·cr similar information abou t events that oc
curred before the ethnographer's arrival or are removed in sp ace from the researcher's im mediate purvicvl ( Paul 1 9 5 3 : 442; Mead 1 940 : 3 3 6) . Eth nographer's tu rf; ethn ographer in contro l .
Formal in tcrvicvls "vith
Secret Life of Fieldn otes
247
sea ted informants are coercive speech event s , structured by the class and culture of the ethnographer, not the informant (Briggs 1 986). But even here there is a range- formal questionnaires permitting only short or even pre-set ans\\'ers are at one extreme ( A gar 1 980: go) . With formal interviews �ve are in the domain of records, as \VC m ay be also \vith notes on long ethnographic interviews (see Lederman, this volu me) . Anthropologists generally conduct fo rmal in tervie\vs only in conj unction with more wide-ranging participant-observation and fieldnotes (Middleton 1 9 70: 6 5 - 66), though the " q uantitative extreme'' may be an exception . Psychological tests, text transcriptions , and eco nomic, demographic, and genealogical records fall within the formal inter.v ie�,. sector. Less control and more conversational negotiation usually involving the ethno grapher's attuning the info rmant to inter view goals-m ark . life history intervievls (Adai r 1 960) and those on daily behavior sequences (Bohannan 1 9 8 1 : 42 ; Sanjck 1 9 78). 1 7
I suspect that much contemporary ethnog raphy, particularly in ur ban settings, is comp osed largely on the fieldno tes / record borderland of ethnographic interviews, often with topics established before field Vlork begins . To the extent that we avoid the discoveries of speech in-ac tion and move off the informant 's turf, ethnography is impov erished. With interview-based research, u the field" is approached indirectly o r even shut out (Po wdermaker 1 966: 2 2 2) . Ethnographers need to see as much of their informants' turf as thev can, even in urb an �
settings �vhere doing so is difficult (see Bohann an 1 9 8 1 ; Keiser 1 9 70; Wolcott 1 97 5 ) . We must not narro w the funnel too early. Mead was dissatisfied with intervie\vs, favoring ''the fine detail of behavior of identified persons'' ( 1 977: 275). We may no te that much of the presentation and recent discussion of " the Moro cco Trio " is focused on their "dialogic" and " interlocu tory" intervie\\' work, not on speech-in-action or obs ervations made on the informants' turf (Clifford 1 98 3 : 1 3 3 - J S ,
1 986 :
1 4- 1 5 ; Geertz 1 98 8 : 9 1 - 1 0 1 ; Marcus and
Fischer 1 986: 3 4, ] 6, s6- s 8 , 69-?J , I 8 J ; Rabinow 1 98 6: 2 4 )-46, 2 5 1 ; Van Maanen 1 98 8 :
I
3 7) . Rabinow's fie]d,vork consisted mainly of
intervie�,.s ( 1 977: 3 8 - 3 9, 1 04- 5 ,
I
1 9) ; his use of one paid "chief infor
mant " puts his fieldwork, with his reflection s on it, next to that of Boas and Osgood , not Malinowski, Mead, and their legatees. 1; Agar (1980: 1o6) characterizes my n e t w ork interviews (Sanjek 1 978) as "informal . " The y \verc n o t . Generall y, he applies "inform al interview ', to a much w ide r ran g e than I do-from situated li s te n in g to ethno g ra phic interviev.rs .
f iEl D � OTE P RACTICE
Funditzg Fieldnotes A mercenary
theory of fieldnotcs may seem outlandish at first, but
we a re looking at practice, so let"s get practi cal. Most anth ropologist s are paid to do thei r field\\'ork ("supported") ,
�rith more or fe"'ver
strings attached. Nowadays, most s pin their own strings in individual research proposals submitted (in the United States) to th e National Science Foundation or other govern ment and p ri v ate agencies . We not yet have a d etailed historical " p ol itical economy
''
do
of funding pro
cesses for anthrop ol ogical research ( S tocking 1 98 5 : 1 3 8), but from the 1 920s to the early 1 9 50s it \\'as usual for major funding sources to grant or ..establish large amoun t s in the departments and research organiz a tions
th at recruited an d regran t ed field�"orkers .
We underappreciatc
the extent to \\l·hich so much anthropolo gical fieldwork , inclu ding mos t o f the lastin g contributions befo re
the 1 96os , was tlot initia ted by individual researchers in individual pro p o s a ls Larger des igns and proj .
ects Vlere a cushion bet\\'een field\vorkcr and funder. In 1 920 there was a t otal of forty A merica n
Ph . D . s in anthropology Their research Vlas funded largely through mus eu m s p ri v ate benefac .
,
tors (inclu ding Elsie Clews Parsons, a Boas stal\vart), and the Bureau o f A merican Ethn ol o gy, still th e main sponsor of ficldv,'ork (Stock ing 1 976 : 9; 1 98 5 : 1 1 3 - 1 4, 1 40). Boas controlled o r influenced much of this research support, and his research a genda structured the professio n
.
During the 1 920s forty more Ph. D . s (in four fi elds) were awarded, and 1 5 4 during the 1 930s (Frantz 1 9 8 5 : 8 5). Margaret Mead s '
fello\vship
proposals-to the Rockefeller-funded N ation al Resea rch Council and Social S cience Research Council for her Samoa and M anus field work were the e x cep tion ; as with thei r p roble m fo cus , they were pre cu rsor s of anthropo l o gy in the 1 9 5 0 s and later. Even in the I9J OS ,
these individual fel lo\\l ships were " fe\v in number and highly c ompeti ti v e "
"
(Wagley 1 983 : 3 ). Not only Mead's early
tield \v o rk but the majority of fie)d,v o rk
projects of Ame rican 3J}d British anthropologists trained in the i n ter \Var years were funded by the Rockefeller Found ation and the Lau ra Spel man Rockefeller Memorial { Stocking 1 98 5 : 1 3 9). In
the United
States the sup port Vlas channeled through orga n i z ed programs : a Yale Am e rican M u seum of Natural His t or y Bis hop Museum co operati v e -
effort for Polynes ian
e th no gra ph y
fro m 1 9 1 9; the Laborato ry of An
thropology at Santa Fe, New Mexico,
for sum mer field\\'ork fro m 1 92 8 ; continuin g resea � ch blo c k g ra n t s t o the University o f Ch i ca go s -
'
Secret Life of Fieldnotes
2 49
department of anthropology and the Yale Institute ofHuman Relations from 1 929; and the Tulane Middle American Research Bureau from 1 93 I (Ebihara 1 98 5 : 1 03 ; Stocking 1 976: 1 1 ; Stocking 1 98 5 : 1 1 9- 20 1 22 , 1 2 5 , 1 29; Wagley 1 983 : 3 ) . Rockefeller funds for industrial re search at Harvard \Vere also available for anthropological fieldv..." ork under W. Lloyd Warner in Yankee City, in N atchez, Mississippi, and in Ireland (Kelly 1 98 5 : 1 25 ; Stocking 1 98 5 : 1 29, 1 3 9) . 18 At the Australian National Research Council some $2 50, 000 in Rockefeller funds for Australian and Melanesian fieldwork-including that of Firth, Po\vdermaker, Fortune, and Warner-was controlled by Radcliffe-Brown during his 1 926 3 I tenure at Sydney and by his succes sors (Firth 19 3 6: xvii; Kelly 1 98 5 : 1 24; Po\vdermaker 1 966: 42, 54; Stocking 1 985 : 1 2 r ). Under Malino\vski's direction, Rockefeller money funded the cohort of International African Institu te fellO\\lS between 1 93 1 and 1 936 (Stocking 1 98 5 : 1 23 -27). By the late 1 9 3 0s , \vhen Rockefeller larges se had ended, more than two million dollars worldV�"ide had gone to fund anthropological research in less than two decades (Stocking 1 9 84b : 1 77 ; 1 98 5 : 1 3 8). Other sources of funding also existed. Government funds \\'ere available in South Africa, the Sudan , and (from 1 93 8, "\\#'ith the founda tion of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute) in British central Africa (Comaroff and Comaroff 1 98 8 : 5 5 8; Evans-Pritchard 1 93 7: vii; Evans Pritchard 1 940: vii; Stocking 1 984: 1 77). The Carnegie Institution supported Meso-American research, including that of Tax (Stocking 1 98 5 : 1 3 9-40). Mead h ad American Museum of Natural History sup port in New Guinea and B ali ( 1 972: 1 96-97). The Columbia depart ment was less blessed than Yale's, Harvard's, or Chicago's , "\\#"ith only modest access to Rockefeller money (Stocking 1 98 5 : 1 1 8 - 1 9) , but Boas and Benedict \vere able to subsidize students \Vith small amounts from private donors (Mead 1 9 59b : 66, 341 -42, 3 5 3 ; Stocking 1976: 1 2 ; Wagley 1 98 3 : J). Willia m Foote Whyte ( 1 95 5) enjoyed a four-year Harvard Junior Fellowship. Field workers during those years \Vcre a scarcer com modity than today, and they controlled both ends of most of their strings, bein g relatively free to conduct wide-ranging studies ,
-
18 The
same Rockefeller foundation initiatives also funded the sociology prog ra m at
the University of Chicago (Bulmer 1 984). With Robert Park, father-in-l a\\' of Robert Redfield,
a a
strong field\vork orientation from
research tradition tha t shares the
ethnographic method \�tw· ith anthropology ftourished. In this volume, I drav..· upon VwTitings ofBcck er an d Geer, Hughes, Siu� and Whyte (who
invention) from Vw"ithin this tradition.
� me
close to independent
fiEL DNOTE PRA CTICE
250
and to record wide ran ging detailed fieldn otc s . Their circumstances \\'ere more like those of MalinO \\' ski 's Trobriand \vork than of the tightly controlled research de sign s required by fu n d i ng agencies in the 19 sos and later. American government funding of ant hropologic al field'"'·ork picked up so me of the sl a ck in the late 1 93 0s and early 1 940s, and more exten si v ely in the later 1 940s, as the g oo d ne i ghb or policy " led to Smithsonian Institution and State D epartment support for Latin American research , often in collaboration with local anthropologist s . B u t tensions bet\veen ethnographic interests i n \\'ide-ranging research and sh a pi n g by the fundcr li'i"Crc no\\7 becoming more evi dent ( Foster 1 �79� 1 9 79b; Goldschmidt 1 979; Kelly 1 98 5 : 1 3 4; Lewis 1 9 5 1 : ix; Stocking 1 976 : 3 3 -3 7) . Staff research p osit io ns all but disappeared by the early 1 9 5 0s, and increasing student enrollments dre\v anthropolo gists out of govern ment and into academia (Goldschmidt r 98 5 ) . University-based research projects in the late 1 940s and the 1 9 50s afforded many of the same holistic field\vork opportunities that t h e interwar ethnographers had enjoyed , though recruitment li'i" as by proj ect organizers who wrote the project proposals. Notable fieldwork projects included Stevvart's Puerto Rico team in the late 1 940s, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation (Steward 1 9 56: v) ; the 1 9 5 3 - 5 4 Har vard team in Modjokut o Java, organized by Douglas Oliver and funded by the Ford Foundation (Geertz 1 960 : ix) ; the Yale-Ha\vaii Bishop Museum project in Micronesia, funded by the Carn egie Foun dation in the 1 9 50 s (Force 1 960 : 7) ; and the Six Cul t u r e s project, \vith 1 9 54-56 field\vork s u per v i s e d by the Whitings and funded by the Ford Foundation ( W h i ting and W hi ti ng 1 978: 49) . Despite the continuing importance of similar research projects into the 1 980s, the dominant fo rm of r e se a rch support became the indi vidual grant, from the N ational Institute for Mental Health or the National Science Foundation or, particularly for "area studies, '' the foundation-supported S o cial Science Research Council . With i n creas ing competition for research funds from the 1 9 50s on, individual submissions became more pre cis e , more detailed, more problem focused, and no doubt longer. More s tring s tied the fieldworker. Consequently, records became more important in field research, an d the 1 9 70s me th ods literature grc\v in response; fieldnotes proper re ceded in pr o fessio nal importance to near-neglect. A similar transition took place in Britain. In 1 946 the nc\\' l y c r e at e d Col on ial S o cial S cie n c e Research C o u n c il (CSSRC) be g an to a\vard -
,
''
,
Secret Life of Ficl dnotcs
251
grants for anthropological fieldwork . Firth , Schapera, Lea ch , and S tan ncr were dispatched to Southeast Asia and to East and West Africa to su rvey research priorities . In 1 947 a grant \vas made to the llliodes Livingstone Institute for regrants to individual fieldV�"orkers; thes e became the core of the Gluckman-Manchestcr sch ool (Richards
1 97 7 :
1 7 5 - 76; cf. Epstein 1 967) . That same year Firth at the LSE found a
shortage of field work ers as he recruited four anthropologists to carry out studies Leach had identified in Sarawak (Morris 1 9 77: 203 , 205 -6) . In 1 949 Midd leton found CSSRC and other support for his Lugbara fiel d\vork " rela tively easy to obtain'' ( 1 970 :
2) .
But by 1 95 5 only one or
two "very competiti ve" C S S RC grants were awarded, and in 1 966 the program ended , though other govern m ent research funds repla ced it (Chilver 1 977; Le\\l·is 1 977). The Manchester extended team proj ect also ended as Zam bia moved to independence in 1 965 . Government funding o f individual grants steered anthropologis ts in the di rection of hypothesis-tes ting and experimental design (Gold schmidt 1 9 8 5 : 1 68 ; Le Vine 1 970: 1 8 4 ; Middleton 1 970 :
3). The flexi
bility that anth ropolo gists had enj oyed began to diminish in the early 1 9 5 0s {Paul 1 9 5 3 :
43 2).
Aberle's experience as he moved from old-time
field�·ork under waning Bureau of American Ethnology support to N I MH-funded random sampling is a microcosmic portrait of a shift affecting the en tire profession . Agar has sketched the realities of what government research applications and panels demand ( 1 980: 3 7 , 5 8 , 6 8 , 1 2 3 , 1 76; see Johnso n and John son , this volume) : "They \\'ill \Vant
to see some hypotheses, some operationally defined variables, a sam pling design, and a specifi cation of questionnaires and / or experimen tal procedures . I t Vlould be fo olish of an ethn ographer not to exp ect such questions" ( 1 9 80: 1 7 5). Man y anthropologists have embraced these changes in fie]d,vork s trategies . Cognitive and social factors have been involved as well as economic ones. The logic of ethnog raphic research drove Ri chards to raise the question of
why the ethnographer (Malinowski, or others)
cho se p articular events to record . Mead began her Samoa and Man us fieldwork w i th intellectual problems, and she con structed her pro posals and fieldwork around them. Socially, as Stocking points out ( 1 976 : 9 - 1 3 ) anthropolo gists in the inter\var years, particularly in both ,
smaller and in larger mi d\vestern departments , interacted more
fre
q uently with sociologi sts and psychologists. " Social science" called for more stru ctured , even quan tita tive evidence: for hypothesis-testing,
for fieldv.." ork data-sets, for records rather than fieldnotes .
252
fi ELD N O T E P R A C T I C E
The point , of c o u r se is not fieldnotes versus records bu t th e neglec t of the value of wide-ranging fie l dn o tes E thnography cannot live by rec o rds alone. The desirability of sys t em at ic, qu antita t ive field�"ork methods is acce p ted by nearly all anthropologists; wha t is a t issue is \\'hether t h e y are bes t employed in l a t er or earlier s tages of field\\'Ork (Agar 1 980; Bennett 1 948 ; Fi rth 1 966: 3 5 5 ; M idd l eton 1 970 : 6; Tax 1 9 5 3 : x; Whiting and Whiting 1 970: 2 8 8) . I return to the i m p o rtanc e of wide ranging fieldnotes for co ns t ru c ting ethnography in the essay "On Et h no gra p hi c Validity. " ,
.
-
A Return to Ethnography All roads lead to a return to e th n o grap h y in the 1 990s . I nteres t in ethn o gra p h y among the te x t ualists (Clifford 1 9 8 3 , 1 9 8 8 ; Clifford and Ma rcus 1 98 6; Geertz 1 98 8 ; Mar c us and Cu sh m a n 1 98 2 ; Marcus and Fis c her 1 986; Sh vl eder 1 986, 1988; V an Ma a nen 1 98 8) is obvious and is commented upon throu gh out this volume. By a " return, '' of course I do not mean that anthropologists have ever abandoned ethnography; a rich and dis tinctive ethnographic l i t er a ture has been bu i l d ing even in the years since those su rveyed (inc o mple t ely) by Marcus and Fischer ,
( 1 986). 1 9
We see in this Vlork, a s in that o f the 1 970s and early 1 980s (see note 1 4) a va rie t y of a p p ro ach es and often a blending in the same study of i nter es ts in his tor y, p o l i t ical and economic organizational constraints� i d e n ti t y and personhood, intention, and t h e interactional construction of social forms. Th i s b o dy of ethnography shows concern for both mo v es and pr oj ect s and "systematic s o ci ology (Ortner 1 9 84) \vhich a �vide-ranging but the o r y dire ct e d ethn o gra p h i c s c r utiny should en tail . If the t heoreti cal movements of the 1 960s and 1 9 70s undervalued ethnography, the et h n og ra p h y of t he 1 970s and 1 9 80s absorb s b u t often under p la y s those theoretical movements . Theory informs; it need not be worn on one's sleeve. There is clearly an opinion in t h i s collective \Vork that t heor y is a tool for ethnogr ap hic understanding and that such unders t anding is a v alu a ble goal in its own r i gh t . The 1 970 reveille calling for anthropol ogy to "eschew culture-specific stud i e s vlith the ex planation of the culture as a maj or go al and focus instead on the no mo t he ti c goals" "
"
"
-
,
t 9 See Appendix
to
this es sa y, Part B .
Secret
Life of Fieldnotes
(Cohen 1 970: viii) may novl be pl aying in reverse. No voice in the ethnographic chorus champions a study of the " theoretically predicted correlates of Trobriand divorce rates'' as more valuable than \Vhat Malino\vski taught us. There is also in this ethnographic vvork the hint that separate politi cal , symbolic, economic, legal , urban, medical , and psychological anthropologies ma·y be folding back into a broader anthrop ology. In a nc\v volume on legal anthropology the editors join those "vho ques tion whether an "anthropology of la\v " is not a narro\ving course. Studies ofkinsh ip, anthropological economics� " tribal " politics, and the anthropology of religion have also been criticized for being too isolated from major integrative theory in social anthropology. ()nee "narrow ness" \Vas useful for theory-building at a particular stage in social an thropology's developn1cnt. But many . . . have returned to studying the interrelatedness of institution s and social action as they bring history and political economy into their ethnographies . [ S tarr and Collier 1 989: 2- 3 ; cf. Goldschmidt 1 98 5 : 1 72 ]
Here "ethnographies'' are \\7hcrc theory \Vinds u p and demonstrates its Vlorth , not the other \vay round (Geertz 1 97 3 : 2 5-2 8; Marcus and Cushman 1 9 8 2 : 59; Marcus and Fischer 1986: 1 8 5). Several important theoretical \Vorks of the 1 980s share this concern for ethnography, not nomothetics ; for ethnographic understanding, not the explanation in one master theory· of everything that has ever hap pen ed to hum an beings in the past I OO,ooo years. 20 There arc indications too among the for-ethnography forces that the radical challenges of both 1 950s science and 1 970s interpretationism can be domesticated in an emerging ethnographic practice. Assessing them both, Allen Johnson writes: Today's ethnographies arc superior in their own special ways: those compiled by believers in the experimental method achieve greater pre cision in measurement and analysis than the Boasians ever thought possible, and those written by interpretationists often tak e us closer to the li ves of other peoples than n1ere numbers ever could. But practi tioners of both approaches have focused, almost without exception, on specific cultural practices, leaving no one to amass the comprehensive cultural descriptions that give meaning to those pra ctices . . . . There are still a few scholars-positivists and interpretationists alike-\.vho strive 20 See Appendix , Part C .
253
F I E L D � OTE P RA CTICE
2 54
for co m pr e hen siv enes s in their des crip tions of ot her cultures, even vvhile a dmitting this is an unattainable ideal , and who are eq u a ll y at ho me examining functional connections or interpretin g spoken and 1.tv ri t te n
texts . [ 1 987: 30]
From a British perspective, and com menting on a variet),.. o f inter
pretive ins ights , Pat Caplan con cludes: This cu rren t reflexive move ment should not be over-estimated; the number of p racti ti o n ers is relatively small, and the same names recur with al mos t monoton ous re gul a rity Furthermore, the number of those .
actual ly
\\· ri t i ng
"experimental e th nog raphy
.. po logy of ethnography) is even s maller.
.
"
(as opposed to an an th ro. . Nor should we over
est im a t e its innovati veness ; \\'e can find long-standing debates in an
th r o pol o g y w hich pres age these develo pmen ts. Qu estions s uch
as
.
.
.
whet her or not i t is p os s ib l e to do truly obj ective eth no g r ap h y have
been aroun d for a long time. [ 1 98 8 :
9]
It is fas c inating to sec ho \.v this domes tication \v orks itself out in Dennis Wern er's
4.mazon Journey : An 4nthrop ologist 's Year among Bra zil 's J\,1ekranoti Indians . A mong the most recent and most ethnographi ..
...
cally ri ch of the personal accounts it is \Vritten by one who admits, ,
"While I \Vas s till in graduate scho o l , a fello\v studen t once comp lained that every time I o p ened my mouth numbers came ou t'' ( 1 984:
1 0).
Werner u s ed severa l quantitative ap proaches in his fieldwork and , unlike the a u thors of other narrati ves in this genre , des cribed these "scientific" s tu dies and integrated their results in the text. His account of using Johnson 's random visiting method is pa rticularl y interestin g
( 1 984: 75-76).
Yet the " feel" of the field and of M e kr a n o ti cultu re also
comes alive in the book . Werner is su ccessful in
s ho� ing \\rhat it \Vas like to be confr on ted �'ith hundreds of ne\v people speaking a s t ra n ge language and do i n g str a n g e t hin gs . I tried to convey the bungling a\Vk\vardness of p l o pp i n g on eself down uninvited and '
ignorant, among a foreign people, and the sense of satisfaction in g rad ually growing to understand them .
[ 1 984: 9- 1 0]
A final theme in m uch of th e recent ethnog raphy, and one I h o p e will become even stronger in the 1 990s , invol ves its "critical flavo r '� and "political angle"
(O rtner 1 984: 1 47, 1 49).
I n typologizing eth
nography Van Maanen has m ade a mistake in c on trasting " realis t tales, , \Vhich are what anthropo l ogical ethno graphy i s , '\\ti th "critical
Secret Life of Fieldnotes
255
tales" that " shed light on larger social , political , sym bolic, or eco nomic issues"
(1988:
1 2 7). These arc not opposing forms. Ra ther,
a
critical elemen t may be either \veaker or stronger in any ethnography, but it is this element that gives the work meaning and purpose. Both our theoretical and ethnographic p roductions are , at last, su bordinate to the social, political . symbolic . and economic issues that move and motivate u s . These never permit es cape . There are Scien ce, and scien tists ; Interpretation . and interprctationists; (realist) Ethnography, and (critical) ethnographers . The "special quality of anthropology. " Goldsch midt \V rites , "is: holism, contextualization, the preserved sense of the human scene as exquisitely com plex and int ricate} y articulated" ( 1 98 5 :
I 72 ).
This eth
nog raphic chal lenge will continue n1 the 1 990s and beyond . We can only agree with Ortner " done .
( I 984: 1 60)
that "a lot of work remains to be
Bring out the notebook s . We \Vill continue to need fieldnotes to do it.
APPENDIX :
ETHNOGRA P H Y 1 9 7 3 - 1 9 8 8
Part �4 .· 1 9 73-82 Barth, Fredrik . 1 97 .5 .
R itu a l
and KtJowledge among the &ktaman of lVew Gu inea .
New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press. Beidelman , T. 0. 1 982 .
Co lonia l
Evangeli.sm : .-4 Socio-Hutorical Study of un East
A.fricatl A·fissiott at the Gra.s.sroots . Bloomington: In diana University Press.
Blackman , Margaret. 1 98 1 .
During i\fy
Time : Florence Edensluzw DtJtl idson, a Ha ida
Woman . Seattle : University of Washing ton Press.
Blok , Anto n . 1 974 . The
Afafia
of a Sicilitln Village, 1 86o- 1 96o: A Study o.f l7io lenr
Pea.sant Entrepreneur.s . New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Bluebond-Langner, M yra. 1 977.
The
Private Worlds ofDyinR Children . Princeton�
N .J. : Prin ceton University Press. Bond, George C. 1 976 . The Politic.s of Change in a 7.Am bian Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cohen , Abner. 1 9 8 1 . The Politics of Elite Culture: Explorations in tiJe Dra ma tu rgy of Power in a JWodem
Afr.ican
Society Berkeley: University o f California Press . .
Fernandez, James W. 1 9 8 2. Bwiti: An Ethttography of th e Religious lmaginatiotr in Africa. Princeton,
N .J. : Princeton University Press .
Freeman , James M. 1 979 . L'ntouchable: 4 n lndi�tn L ife Histor}'· Stan ford, Calif. : ..
Stanford University Press. Goldschmidt, Walter. 1 976. Th€ C u l tu re and Beha v ior of tht Se be i . Los Angeles: Universi ty of California Press .
f i E LDNOTE PRA C TI C E Gough, Kathleen . 1 9 8 1
.
Rr4ral Society in Soa4 tlu�rn India. Ca m br i dge : Cam b ridg e
Univ ersi ty Press. Harris, Grace. 1 978 . Casting Out .i\nger: Relig ion arnon.g th e Taita of Kenya. Cam bridge: Ca m b rid g e University Press. Herdt, Gilbert.
1 9R 1 .
Guardians o_f th e Flute.s ; Idioms o.f J\fasculinit)l. Ne\". York :
McGra\\"-Hill . James, Wendy. 1 9 8 0 Kwamin Pa : The Afak ing of the Uduk People. O xford : Oxford .
University Press. Ja nzen John M. 1 9 78. The Quest _for Therap y: .1\tfedica l Pluralism in Lower Zaire . ,
Berk eley : Un i vers i ty of California Press. Kleinman , Arthur . 1 9 8 0. Pa tients atul Hea lers in the Context o.fCulture: .4 n Explora tion of the Bo rder la n d between .A.1Jthropology, �1edicine, a1Jd Psychiatry. Berkeley: Universitv of Cali fornia Press. �
..
Lamphere, Louise. 1 977. To Run .A._(ter The1n : Cu ltural and Socia l Base� o_{Co op eratio n in a .1\Javajo Comm r�nity. Tucson: U niversity of Arizona Press .
Lee , Ri chard . 1 979. The lKung San ; A-1en, H'omen, a n d U�rk in a ForaRing Society. Cambrid ge: C a m b ridge University P ress . Lindenbaum, S hi rl e y I 979. Kuru Sorce ry : Disease and Danger itl the J'Jew Gu inea .
Highla n ds . Palo Alto , Cal i f. : Mayfiel d.
Meggitt, Me rv yn
.
1 97 7 . B loo d Is TIJeir Argument: �i'(u:_fare among the .l\t1ar En.f!cJ
Tribesmen of the �"lew Guinea High lands . Palo l\ lto, Calif. : M ayfield . Myerhoff, Barbara. I 978 J'Jumber Our Days . Nc\v York: Si mon & Schuster. .
Obbo, Christin e. 1 980. i\frica n J-1-omen : Their Struggle for EcotJomic Independence .
London: Zed. Ortner, Sherry. 1 97 8 . She rp as through TIJrir Rituals . Ne�' Yo rk : Camb r idg e Unj
v ersity Press. Ottenberg, Sim on . 1 97 5 . A-1asked Rituals o.f the .4Jikpo: The Con text of an ...4_frican
i\rt. Seatdc: University of Washington Press . Parkin , David. 1 978 . The Cultural Defin itiotJ o_( Political Re5ponse; Lineal Destitry among the Luo. L o nd on : Academic Pres s. Plath , David. 1 9 8 0. Long Engage men ts : �\tla turif)' in �"-'1odem japatl . S tanford, Calif. :
Stanford University Press. Robertson, A . F. 1 978 . Communil}' of Strangers:
A Journal
of [)isco very in lJg a 1J da .
Lon don: Scolar Press .
Roy, Manisha. 1 97 5 . BetJRali K�mtn. Berkeley : University of Ca liforn ia Press . S abcrn al S atish. 1 976. A1obile l\-1etJ : Lim its to Socia l Cha tJge in L'rban PunJab . Ne\�wy "
,
Delhi : Vikas. Scheper-H ughes, Nancy. 1 9 79 Saints, Scholar$, and Schizopl1 rrnics: .�1en141l lllne.u it• .
Rural Ireland. Berk e ley : Un i versity of Cali fornia Press.
Scudder, Th ayer, and El izab e t h Co lson. I 980. Seconda ry Education and the Form a tion oj- an El ite � The Impact of Eduaztion on Gwembe District, Zam b ia. Lon do n :
Academic Press. Sexton, James , ed . I 982. Sotl of Tecum l}man: ..4 Afaya lt1dian Tells His Lift Story. Tucson : University of Arizona Press . Smith, Robert ]. , and Ella Lury Wiswell. 1 9 82 . The U'omen �{SU)'e "\tlura. Chicag o: Universi t y of Chicago Press.
Secret Life of Fiel dnotes
2)7
Srinivas. M. N. 1 976. The Remembered ��illage. B e rk ele y : Universi ty of California Press . Wei ner, Annette. 1 976.
�Vom en of �� lue, l�·1en of Renown : l\'eu} Perspective.s on
Trobria nd Exchange. A us tin : University o f Texas Press.
Wikan, Unni . 1 9 8 2. Beh ind tiJe f/eil: ''H>men in OmatJ . Balti more, M d. : J ohns Hopkins Un iversity Press .
Witherspoon , Gary. 1 97 5 . l\'a vajo Kinsh ip and 1\farriage. Ch i ca go : University of Chicago Press.
Part B: 1 983-88 Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1 987. ��ei/ed Sentiments : Honor and Poetry itl a Bedouin. Society. Be rk e ley : University of Califontia P ress .
Ba rth , Fredrik. 1 9 8 3 . Sohar: Cultr�re and Society itJ an Omani Town . B al tim o re , Md . : Johns H opk in s Univers ity P ress . --. 1 987. Co.s mo l o.� ies in the Afaking: A Generative App roa ch to Cr� l tu ra l varia tion in
Inner l\'ew G u itl ea . Ca mbridge: Camb ri dge Universi t y P ress . Basso, El len . 1 98 5 . A Afu s ical V'ieru o.f the UtJ it1erse : Kalapalo A-1y th a nd Ritual
Per_(ormances . Philadelphia : Universi ty of Penns ylvania P ress . Beneria, Lourdes, and Mart ha Roldan . 1 987. The C ross roa ds oj- Clas5 and Gender:
Industn'al Homework, Subcontracting, a nd Household Dynamics in A1exico City.
Ch i cago : U nivcrsity of Chi c ago Press . Caplan, Lionel . 1 987. Cla.s.s and Cu lture in lJrban India : f�lo�ndatnetJtalism in a Chris
tian Com munity. Oxford : O xfo rd U nivers ity Press . Co marotT, Je4n . 1 98 5 . Bodr ofPouJer, Sp irit o ( Resi.stame: The Cr�lture and History of _
a S ou th African Peop le . Chicago : Un iversity of C hi ca go Press.
Daniel, E. Valen tine . 1 984 . Flu id Sigru : Bein,g a Person th e Tatn il n'af. Berkeley: University of California Press. Forrest, John. 1 9 8 8 . L o rd I 'm ComitJg Home: Everyday A es thet ic.s in Tidewater J'JorriJ
Carolina. I thaca: Cornell Universi ty P ress .
Friedrich, Paul . 1 9 86. The Princes o..f .''iaranja : Atr fu.sa}' in �4nth roh istorical 1'v1ethod. Austi n : University of Texas Press . Grillo, Ralph. 1 98 5 . Ideo logi es and Insr itu tio n.s in l.}rban Fratue: The Repre5enta tions of Imm igrants . Ca m bri d ge : Cambridge Univers ity Press.
H um p h re y, CaroJ ine. 1 98 3 . The Karl A4arx Co llectit-'e : Economy, Society atJd Reli gion itl a S iberi4ln Collective Fa rm . C ambri dge: C a mb ri dg e University P ress . Ja ckson , J ean . 1 983 . Th e Fish Prople: Lingro�istic Exogam y atJd Tu kanoun Identity in 1\'orthwe.it .A mazonia . New York : Cambridge University Press. Ku ge l ma ss , Jack. 1 9 86. The �.W iracle of Interva le ...4venue: "The Story o_( a ]etvish Congregation in the South Bronx . New York: Schock en .
Lan, Da vid . 1 9 8 5 . G u ns and Ra in : Guerrillas a nd Spirit .Mediums in Zimba bwe . Lon don: James Currey. Lede rm an, Re n a. 1 986. l"''hat Gifts Engender: Social Relation.s and Pol itics in A-1endi, High land Papua J'Vetv Guinea. Nc\v York: Cambrid ge Univ ersity Pres s. Lutz, Ka therine . 1 98 R . Utan a tu ral Em otio ns: li.v ery day Sentimet1ts on
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F t ELDNOTE PRA CT I C E .4 toll and Their Cllallen�e to l.f..estern Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press . McDonough . Gary. 1 986 . Good Fam ilie.s of Ba rcdo na ; A Social Hi.story o..f Power in the Indu.�trial ..4gr. Princeton, N .J. : Princeton U ni versity Press .
Ma cG a ffey,
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1 987. Entrepreneurs and /)arasitrs: The Struggle ..for lt1digenous
CapitalisJn in Zaire . Cambri dge: Cambridge University Press .
Moore, Sally Falk. 1 986. Socia l Facts and Fa bricatioru ; 41Cl4Stomary " Law on Kiliman jaro , 1 880- 1 980 . Camb ri dg e : C ambridge Univers ity Press .
Myers, Fre d . 1 986 . Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self: SetJ timent, Place, und Politics among �Ji'ste111 Desm i\borigines . Washington , l) . C . : Sn1ithsonian Insti tution Press . O bcy esekere, Gana nath . 1 984. The Cult
o.fthe Goddess Pattin i . Chicago: Univ ersity
of Chica g o Press . Ohnuk i-Tierney, Emi ko. 1 98 4. Illne.ss atJd Culture in Contempora ry japatl : ..4n lfn thropoloL�ical v'ieu'. Camb ridge : Cam bridge Uni versity Press .
On g, A iwha. 1 9 8 7 Sp irits .
of Resistance and
Capitalist Discipline: Pactory �Vom en in
l\�lalaysia . Albany : State University of New Yo rk Press .
lu g b y Peter. 1 98 5 . Perjistetlt Pastoralists . London : Zed . .
ll.osen, La wrence. 1 984 Bargainin� _(or Reality: The CorutructioJt .
o..f Social
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Sh okeid , Moshc. 1 98 8 . Children o.f Circumstances: Israeli Emigra nts i11 J\lew York . Ithaca : Cornell U niversity Press.
Siu , Paul C . P. 1 987. The Chiftese Laundryman : A St14dy
o..f Social
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Garvey. Whitehead, H a r ri e t . 1 9 8 7. Renunciiltion and Reformulation: A Study
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Yanagisa ko, Sylvia. 198 5 . Trarujonning th e Past: Trudition and Kit�ship among Japa nese Americans . Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press .
Part C:
Comparative and Theoretical JVork.s ,
1 980s
Ardencr, Shi rl ey, ed . 1 98 1 . �iJm m and Space: Ground R1�/es and Social 1\fap.s . London : Croom Helm . Brenneis, Donal d , and Fred M ye rs, eds . 1 9 8 4 . Dangerous K'<>rds: Latl�uage and
Politics in the /)acific. New Yor k : New York U ni vers i ty Press . Briggs, Charles . 1 986 . Learnin� to .4sk: A Sociolingu istic .�4ppra i.>al
oj.the Role oj.the
lnten} iew ita Social Science Research . Ne\v York : C ambr id ge U n i v ersity Pres s.
Callan, Hillary, an d Shirley Ardener, eds.
1 984. ·r11e
ltJcorp orated ��'ife. Londo n:
C room Helm. Collier, Jan e F. , and Sylvia Yan a g isako, eds. 1 987. Gender and Kinship: Essays toward a (}n•j1ed .4 nal)'si.s . Stanford, Calif : Stanford University Press.
2· 5 9
Secret Li fe of Field notes Fernandez , James . 1 986 .
Persuasion.s and J>erformances:
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Plc:zy of Trop es in Culture.
Bl ooming to n : Indiana University Press.
Hannerz, Ulf 1 980. Explori11� tht City: lnqu irieJ totvard an Urban At1thropology. NeVvr Yo rk : Col um bia University Press. Hol l and , D oro th y, and Naomi Quinn, eds.
Thought.
I 987.
Culturc:zl
"'1odels in Language and
..
New Yo rk : C a m b ridge University P ress .
Hol y, Ladislav, an d Milan Stu chlik . 1 9 83 .
�4ctions, �'Jonn.s , and
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F(.)Undati<ms ofA nthropolo�ica l ltUfuiry. Cam bridge: Ca mb ri d ge University Pre ss . Marcus, G eorge, ed . 1 983 . Elites : Ethnographic Jj_sues. Albuquerque: Un iversity of Ne,...,· Mexico Press . Ortner, Sherry, an d H a r r ie t
Whitehead, eds . 1 9 8 1 . Sexual A·teanings: Tl1e Cultural Comtruction of Gender and Sexua lity. C a m b ri dg e : Cambridge University Press .
SemcuJtic A n th ropology. L on don : Academic Press. Schneider, David M. 1 984. A Critiq rle o_.fthe Study o..f Kinship. Ann Arbo r : U niver
Parkin , D avid, ed. 1 982.
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1 98 5 . Cr41ture, Thought, and Social ..-4ction : i\n A nthropo
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White , Geoffrey, an d John Ki rk patrick ,
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PART
IV
Fieldnotes in Circu lation
After a fe\v months in India, I \Vas sittin g in m y hut read i n g a book by lantern , relaxing to the b a c kg ro u n d noises
of ev en i ng in the tat�da . Sudd enly the door opened, and tak i n g great liberties \\'ith translation , I heard 'Where's .
..
your notebook? We 're having an important ceremon y out h ere. What 's the m atter, yo u r e not working tonight?'' '
- M I C Hl\ EL A G A R
GE O R GE C .
BO N D
Fieldnotes : Research in Pas t O ccurrences
This essay constitutes a preliminary foray into a heavily gu arded, well-secured, and rarely exposed terrain . The terrain is one marked by secrecy and taboos, and what I have to say about it must be consid ered as tentative , subjective, perso n al , and s trictly confidential . I had thou ght of \V riting in Tu mbuka or, even better, a language without a script. Fieldnotes are an anthropologist's most sacred possession . They are personal property, part of a world of private memories and experiences, failures and successes, ins ecurities and indecisions . They are usually carefully tucked a\vay in a safe place. To al low a colleague to examine them \vould be to open a Pandora's box . They are, ho\\' ever, an important key to understanding the nature of \vhat anthro pologists do; they are the records of our findings , if not of our own self-discovery as artists, scientists, an d-more accuratcly-bricoleurs , assembling cultures from the bits and pieces o f p as t occurrences. They imply a degree of deception and a hint of imagination and fabricatio n . What are fiel dnotcs? Fieldnotes have a t lea st two sets of qualities; I am g ra teful to Lambros Comitas, Ro be rt jay, David LeVv"is, Terence Ranger, Roger Sanjek, and William Shack for their valuable co m men ts. Ro bert Jay and the late Lucy Mair and Ph ili p Staniford served as my trusted col leagues , friends, guides. critics� and arbiters . M any of the idea s that appear here were discussed v.rith them in the 1 96os .
27 3
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they possess attributes o f both \\lritten texts and discourses . They appear to have the security and concreteness that \\'riting lends to observations, and as \\"ritten texts they \\'ould seem to be permanent, im mutable records of some past occurrence, possessing the stamp of authority of an expected p rofessional procedure. But there is that personal , parochial , subjective, indefinable quality about them. They are shorthand statements, aides-memoire that stimulate the re-creation, the rene\val, of things past. For the field\\'orkcr, fieldnotes stimulate and are part of human experiences. The notes arc thus living, mutable texts; they are a form of discourse \\'hose content is subject to constant re-creation, rcne\\'al , and interpretation. The immutable documents and the mutable experiences stand in a dialectical relationship, denying the possibility of a single reality or interpretation . Fu rther, the document both as \Vrittcn text and as living occurrence is placed in j eopardy ""'·ith each additional period of field rc.,� earch . The immutable and the mutable arc refractions of historical situations; through published ethnographic constructions they may become part of local historical configurations. It is fieldnotes as part of local histor ical situations that I \\'ant to explore here, after putting fieldnotes into some sort of context as neither quite discourse nor fully text.
Fieldnotes : 1\leither Discourse nor Text
In his important article '' The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text, " Paul Ricoeur argues for applying the methodol ogy of text interpretation as a paradigm for interpreting meaningfully oriented behavior ( 1 98 1 a : 203 ). The exposition is subtle, complex, and, in Fernandez's view ( r 9 8 5 : 1 6), problematic for the colloquial orienta tion of the anthropological endeavor. Ricocur attempts to suggest the manner in which the temporally immediate, situationally and cultur ally specific subject may be removed to the nontemporal, subject dissociated, universal range of its self-created audience. The contrast is one between dis course and text. Discourse is an instance of speech or, for the human sciences , of meaningful action. It has the follO\\'ing four traits: it is realized temporally and in the presen t; it is sel f-referential; it is al�"ays about something, "a Vlorld that it claims to describe, to express, or to represent" ; and it is the medium of exchange for all messages ( 1 98 1 a: 1 98). It is of the same order as parole . Text is some thing more in th at it .dccontextualizes discourse, removes it from the
Research in
Pa st O ccu rrences
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particularities of s peakers at1d location (Fernandez's colloquial situ ation), and reconstitutes it as an clement in a linguistic or social system� situated outside of time. For Ricoeur, "the text is a discourse fixed by v,"riting'' ( 1 98 I b : 1 46). With \vriting, the discourse is transformed into something v.rith its o�vn four qualities : it is fixed, autonomous, impor tant, and open. So too �·ith human action. Ricoeur takes his four criteria for a text and applies them to mean ingful action ( 1 98 1 a: 203 -7) . Fixation entails detaching the meaning of action from the particular event of action. The transcendent features of discourse and of action become fixed , capturing the transient tracer elements like flies in amber. Through tcxtualization action becomes autonomous, detached from its agent, \Vith intended and unintended consequences . An event's meaning gains importance when it is eman cipated from its situational context, the social conditions of its produc tion . And finally, human action is to be taken as open \vork whose meaning is in suspense, allo\ving for interpretations. For me, fieldnotes lie betvveen discourse and text . True , thev are written materials and thus have the properties o f texts. They may be read, though not al��ays easily. According to Ricoeur, \Vriting calls for reading, and for him the \vriting-reading relation is not of the same order as "a dialogue with the author through his \Vork'' ( 1 9 8 r b: 1 46). He goes on to say in his article "What Is a Text?" that "the book divides the act of V�"riting and the act of reading into t\vo sides, between which there is no communication. The reader is absent from the act of writing; the writer is absent from the act of reading" ( 1 98 1 b: 1 46-47) . That this situation does not apply to fieldnotes points to their possible limitation and weakness as texts and yet their generality and strengths as selective observations of a fragmented reality. Fieldnotes are ��ritten by the reader who reads them, and in each reading there is a dialo gue, a questioning of their relation to reality, to a body of remembered experiences set within the larger corpus of field data. Fieldnotes fix a selected reality and lack autonomy in that they are tied intimately to situation and context. They are a constant source of answers and also of questions. Both answers and questions are related to the so ciologi cal im agination of the author-or an academic tutor or trusted col lea gue. But trust is not al\\'ays sufficient encouragement to expose one's unedited corpus of field materials, notebooks, journals, and diaries . The field worker is both an artist and a researcher, engaging in creative thoughts and constructions as \vell as makll1 g scientific observations ,
FIELDNOTES
I N C J R CU LATIO f\
and discoveries. Even tutors and colleagues are rarely allowed into this inner domain in \vhich personal experiences provide the basis of re corded observations . The questions of others do help to stabilize and structure a portion of the corpus, to link fieldnotes to anthropological issues and problems . Colleagues and tutors serve as guides, critics, and arbiters drawing acts of personal creation into the domain of public texts, as monitors helping the field worker to delineate the appropriate limits of generalizations related to his or her fieldnotes and experi ences . Fieldnotes are part of those experiences and establish a dialogue \•lith past occurrences. As texts, they only partially fix discourse. They are part of a complex personal and collective negotiation of some past reality that contributes to the recounting and making of history, not just to its description and analysis . As an anthropologist '\\'" ho has engaged in the continuous study of a population , the Yom be of north ern Zambia, and a community, the Chiefdom of Uyombe, I vie�· fieldnotes as experiments in interpretation . They arc partial construc tions of complex social and historical configurations . They are part of the process of a negotiated and refracted reality, constructed in the interplay with our local tutors and informants, our observations, and our theories . They contain principles that gain in interpretive force through observation, experimentation, and progressive contextual ization leading toward general statements. Fieldnotes, like texts, ha·ve the appearance of immutability. But like discourse, they appear to require contexts . Barth makes the point in his preface to The Social Orgatlization o...f the Nla"i Baluch . In 1 9 5 5 the Pehrsons had been doing fieldwork a mong the Marri Baluch for about eight months when Robert Pehrson died. On th e basis of their exten sive fieldnotes, Barth set about to wri te an ethnography of the Marri. Of his initial effort to do so, he ob served: My repeated attempts at writing up this material were most frustratin g. La ckin g any kind of connected analysis from Ro b e rt Pehrson 's han d, I found it impossible to work systematically \•:ith the notes; I finally decided that the failure might be cau sed by the lack of adequate political an d ecological data and that in any case the only hope of success lay in being able myself to visit the area. [ 1 966: ix] .
.
.
Only after spending five \\reeks in the field , retracing Pehrson's steps, \Vas Barth able to '\\}' rite. Even then, he found it difficult to identify the critical supplementar y data he needed to make Peh rson 's fieldnotes
Resea rch
in
Past ()ccurrences
into a monograph. He recognized that information vital to the task of anthropological analysis is "fairly consistently excluded from our field notes'' and that what is missing is not easily apprehended . The supple mentary data, he concluded, were " mainly connected \Vith the con crete 'stage' or setting in which social life takes place" ( 1 966: x-xi) . One may suggest that his fru stration and his dilem ma stemmed from his theoretical orientation and pe rspective, \•lhich emphasized the physical and social parameters related to decisions and choices. As Barth observed, " The interpretation of actions, both in a strategic means-ends perspective and as messages or communications, depends on this knowledge and case material remains highly ambiguous \�lhen it is lacking" ( r g66: xi). One may suggest that there is no cum ul ative effect of the "progressive contextualization" (Vayda 1 983) of recorded occurrences without some kno\vledge or understanding of basic local principles of sociocultural life. These are principles that the anthro pologist learns or acquires from observation and experience. A field Vlorker learns the basic rules or suffers the consequences, as did Evans Pritchard in his soj ourn \\'ith the Nuer. These rules , the parameters for choices , decisions, and other forms of meaningful action, do not always enter the pages of notebooks but remain part of the unrecorded corpus of things past . When \Ve review our notes, \\'e fill in the gaps; we give order to the immutable text. Our kno\vledge interpenetrates the fieldnotcs , transforming them into something other than \vhat they at first seem. And in this very process the reality of text is transformed into discourse and reinstates the primacy of interlocution and interlocation . And ·yet the text takes on new and rene\ved mean ing, transcending both time and place, both agent and message. It is, as it \Vere, freed from its parochial cultural moorings; it enters the do main of historical endeavors. In his book The Idea o..f History, Collin g\vood circumscribes the notion of a historian and prov;des a rudimentary basis for distinguish ing historians from field anthropologists . He observes simply that "the historian is not an cve\\'itness of the facts he desires to kno\v" ( 1 96 1 : 282), a view that I d� not fully share. Colling\vood is concerned with the idea of history and the locus of historical enactment-field n otes arc, after all , documents of past occurrences . For Collingwood , "the his torian must re-enact the past in his o\vn mind, " and though ?ne must treat this perspective \Vith caution , it points to\vard the In terp lay of the past and the present and the presence of memory. He mak es the point that ''h istorical knowledge is that speci al case of
2 ...,I ,.I .,
fiELD NOTES I I\ C I R C ULATI O N
·
memory where the object of present thought is past thought, the gap between present and past being bridged not only by the po\�lcr of present thought to think of the past, but also by the po\.ver of past thou ght to reawaken itself in the present " ( 1 96 1 : 294). Recognizing the limitations of memory, he requires evidence such as texts . But so too docs the field anthropologist require evidence to support the validity of his memories, and this evidence is provided in fieldnotes . In this manner the quality of sociological memory and of human experience is enhanced by materials �"ritten at the time of past occurrences. The one anchors the other, though sometimes in different configurations. That is, fieldnotes as selective records of refracted past occurrences may not always accord with memory. The stren gth or viability of one or the other may be explored by returning to the field. By nO\\' it should be apparent that I take fieldnotcs to be experimen tal forms that connect the ethnographer both to the particularities of the field and to the general contours of sociological theory. They are not only descriptions but also part of a process of translation (Clifford 1 983 : 1 27) and interpretation . They arc often the product of a negoti ated construction of reality. They are for me a refraction of historical situations and may themselves become part of historical processes. It is to this last assertion that I no\v turn·.
The HistoriCill Contex t
of Field Research
My initial tours of field\vork were undertaken in the 1 960s, a period marked by social and political protest but not, as some might claim, fundamental economic transformations. The his torical events of this period overwhelmed functionalism , exposing its limitations as theory, method, and ideology. They brought into question the possibility of an objective social science based upon Durkhcim's first rule that social facts must be considered as things, and its coroll ary that "all precon ceptions must be eradicated'' ( 1 95 8 : 1 4 , 3 1 ). .' 1otes and Querie.s enshrined these presupposi The six th edition of '\ tions and gave them an illu sion of impenetrable concretenes s. It made the claim that unless the investigator has received scientific training, "his observations will certainly be hampered by preconceived atti tudes of mind" (Seligman 195 r : 27) : it \vas indispensable for field �"orkers to distinguish clearly betvveen ob servation and interpreta tion, theory and fact; descriptive notes and records of inves tigation are ..
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an essential part of the facts . How it is possible to make such distinc tions and separations is not made clear in 1\7otes and Queries. Fieldnotes are by the ir very nature selective, negotiated acts of interpretation . We are not \vhat we observe, and only fragments of our observations find their vvay into our no tes. Of course, from a pe r spe cti ve outside an thropology, fieldnotes are mere sy mbols, but in the internal scheme of our endeavor they have become things in themselves , texts removed from the situation of their production. Never "h"as this order of confusion bet\\'een fieldnotcs and their production given more concreteness and elevated to higher authorit y than in the \\'orks of the lads of Manchester. There fieldnotes ·\Jvere treated as facts, as concrete things, as sources of authority, as weapon s in the struggle to gain the high ground of functionalist debate. Central Africa became the proving ground , an al most exclusive preserve of Manchester. Meticulous and detailed ethnographic coverage ofhuman activities �ras a standard to \\'hich one ,.vas expected to conform. Two properties of the Mancunian ethnographic and field method the extended case approach, and situational analysis-may be used to esta blish context for the discussion that follows . The first property is the interpretive, legal perspective employed in the careful a n a ly s is of case and extended case materials. It is intended to establish social pre c edent and regularities. The second aspect is the analysis of social situations to " sho'A' ho\\' variation can be con tained within the struc ture'' (Mitchel1 1964 : xiii). Van Velsen makes the point that "situational analysis is a method of integrating variations, exceptions and accidents into description s of regularities. " He claims that it is "particularly suitable for the study of unstable and non-homogeneous societies and communities'' ( 1 964: xxviii). The key lies in the fine-grained presenta tion of actors in a va riety of situations, and the means of this presen tation lies in the copious inclusion of ficldnotes in the etlmographic texts b oth as a record and as a check on the "author's interpretations and conclusions, ( 1 964: xxvii). Though one may qu e stion those inter pretations and conclusions, the fieldnotes retain an essentially funda mental, unquestioned integrity as facts . Ficldnotes enshrined in texts become immutable The reader, as in a work of history has the documents before him. Fieldnotes establish the authorit y of the eth nographer and his texts . Situational analysis includes the voices of the people studied and describes the si tuation of actors in immediate structures. It does not , ho wever, include the actors as sociological critics or relate their cir.
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cumstances and human condition t o historical processes. Sandombu (Turner 1 957), Chanda (Epstein 1 96 1 ), and Meya (van Velsen 1 964) are treated as symbols for a type of sociological analysis. There is here the inherent problem of appropriation and unwitting exclusion . Let me put this less cryptically. Fieldnotes cannot be the sole check, since they are themselves a fab rication, a construction based on a selected an u negotiated reality. I t is ��e \Vho fix them and m�ke them concrete. In doing so, we treat them as if they �"ere things in themselves, removed from historical and so cial circumstances . Fieldnotes embodied in text are explored for their sociological principles bu t not for what they may tell us about historv. Thus. Sandombu Chanda, and Meva are removed from time and rendered speechless, passive actors of the anthropological enterprise . My criticism of this Mancunian approach is intended as a salute to the excellence of its practitioners' field\vork and fieldnotcs and their subtle legal interpretive analysis of case materials . Their \vork formed part of the context for those of us who did research in central Africa in the early 1 96os . 4
�
...
tl
Fieldwork ofth.e Long Du ratio n In their introduction to Long- Terttt Field Research in Social A nthrop ol ogy, Foster et al. ( 1 979: 9- 1 0) distinguish three types of field studies: the single field study, the restudy, and the repeated or continuous study. The single field study is exactly that: one does field\vork among a population and does not undertake further study. I engaged in such a one-shot effort for ten months among the Mende of Sierra Leone. The restudy involves an initial maj or study \\,.ith a follow-up study some years later, chiefly to observe changes . The repeated or continuous study entails periodic return trips to explore change and to acquire "a deeper understanding of the culture itself. " My own research among the Yombe of northern Zambia falls into this last category; it spans a period of eighteen )�"ears. The major field\vork took place from 1 963 to 1 96 5 ; I returned for much shorter periods in 1 973 , 1 976, and 1 98 1 . The first trip, though oriented tO\\'ard a specific cluster of problems, pro vided the opportunity to collect basic data on a range of topics. Subsequent trips \Vere more focused and inten ded to explore chan ge and continuity as \vell as to deepen my understanding of Yombe society and culture. I� is from the perspective of such long-term study
Research
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of a population and a community that my assertions about the nature offieldnotes must be understood (Bond 1 9 7 1 , 1 972, 1 975, 1 976, 1 979a and b , 1 982, 1 987a and b). Foster et al. point to three personal consequences oflong-term study: changes occur in field\vorkcrs' research interests, skills, and standing as investigators ( 1 979 : 3 3 0-3 1 ). The researchers become known quan tities in the field and are treated as social persons . They have a place in the past, and their work is understood . They may negotiate their O\Vn past; they are of the community and yet beyond it . Their standing within society has changed and so also has their vantage point. There is much assumed common ground, shared knowledge and experience, a situation that does not obtain for beginners in the field. Field"vorkers must learn ho\\' to read human behavior and social situations. Thcv learn from experiences an d observations . The point is made more readily by a mistaken interpretation of an ethnographic situation than by a correct one . The following example \\'ill also help to illustrate the properties of fieldnotcs as an intermedi ate form between discourse and textualization, "';th attributes of both forms. In my notes of 1 96 5 I recorded this brief vignette (V�"hich I present in a truncated form) : I
a
man in h i s late 40s, stan d s in front of his store. His son Musu is playing with his friends. Kafa \val k s for\vard, It i s late evening and K a fa,
stops and calls Musu to come. He says "Z ane Kuno Imwe" ( C o me here you). He stands with his head slightly tilted, his eyes looking a w·ay and his h ands clasped before him . His knee is bent slightly for\vard .
Kafa says to h i s son
W her e is the s un ? " Musu replies " The sun i s so. ''
Kafa
"
"Where are the chicken s?''
Musu "They have gone home to roost:' Kafa
"Where should you be?"
M us u "At hom e. "
Kafa
"I \\'ill be home sho rtly to help you \\'ith you r schoolwork . ,,
Musu '"'ent home.
After recording this exchange, I approached Kata and asked him whether he \Vas al�...ays so attentive to his son. I h ad assumed that his behav;or was a display of fond fatherly concern. Kafa told me that he would beat his son when he got home; that fathers and sons were
fiEL D N OTES IN C I R C U LATION
adversaries, and grandfathers and grandsons friends, since they were brothers . The vignette and Kafa's explanation became a lesson in local custom, kinship, authority, and the symbolic significance of language use, posture, and gesture. A complex vvorld of subtle local cultural nuances had opened to me. The intellectually seductive qualities necessary for thick description (Geertz 1 973 : 3-3 3 ) through progressive contextualization and inter pretation are present here. So let me be careful and limit my exposition to a few brief comments. After initially recording the occurrence, the next task was to assemble its elements, guided by my observations, by Kafa's interpretation, and by a given body of sociological description ..and theory-a body of theory that in m y opinion must be treated with caution. Kafa's usc of language, postu re, and gesture reversed one order of authority and yet at the same time ackno\�tledged another one in the making , the one contained in the progressive development of the other: men gro\¥ old and gradually relinquish their social position and authority to their heirs apparent. I have moved rapidly and precipitously from a man disciplining his young son to a social and human condition. Let me explain. The elements of this unit of discourse included language, posture, gesture, and other forms of meaningful social action . In Tumbuka the use of the second person plural-uzani Kuno, lm\ve"-is the polite , respectful form, indicating social distance. The singular form " Za Kuno , I we" is usually used by a man to his young children , other minors , peers, and friends; it expresses social intimacy or subordination. A man expects his son to tilt his head, shift his gaze, clasp his hands , and bend his knees, leanin g slightly fo r\vard-but not the reverse. During the conv"ersation I recorded, the immediate (or present) ordering of au thority and seniority had been reversed: the father assumed the cul tural manners expected of a son , with all the animus that that implies . Substance belied cultural form, however; there \Vas a tension between the form and substance of authoritv, but \Vithin the form there �·as anticipation, a recognition of future relationships . With gro\ving age a man gradually relinquishes his social position and authority to his heir apparent. The prospective heit becomes a quasi-father to his siblings and the father a quasi-grandfather. At the level of discourse, however, the vignette was one of a father reprimanding his son . The message ""'"as simple and yet co mplex. It \\'as situational, yet it formed the basis fo r generalizable statements about Yombe kinship . �
Res ea rch in Past Occurren ces
structure and culture. The vignette was one occurrence , an experiment in individual and collective interpretation. It was a shared experience, a negotiated constructi on of a speck of cultural reality. I subsequently discussed the inci dent �vith Kafa, and his interpreta ti on in bits and pieces entered ffi)" fieldnotes . Thus, my notes contain mv observation and initial interpretation, Kafa's interpretation, and a fu � her accumulation of recorded materials. I have no�· added one more interpretation, and I am sure there could be others. In 1 98 1 (sixteen years later) I again met Musu, \\'ho did not remem ber this specific incident. My fieldnotes had retained the vignette and j ogged my memory; the memory and the vignette �vere now mine and not his ; both he and Kafa accepted the authority of my fieldnotcs and memories . I had entered their personal (or individual) histories and , in a minor way, framed the events of their past. My ficldnotes had become a minor force to be reckoned Vlith. My interp retation of Musu 's progression was given some credence; by 1 98 1 he had assumed many of his father's responsibilities and was treated as a quasi-father by his younger siblings. Over the period of a lon g-term association with a population and a community, the fieldworker enters into a special relationship with local history. He or she becomes a chronicler of events and assumes a degree of authority o ver the past, especially in a situation of rapid social change. Scudder and Colson make the interesting point that in long-term studies "the people \vho are the focus of the study become more the product of their O\Vn history and less the exemplars of cultural patterns" ( 1 979: 25 1 ) . When applied to the Yombe of northern Zambia, this observation makes a great deal of sense. The anthropolo gist is also a part of that production, ho'Vll"ever. This brings me to the second situation I wish to consider, one in which ethnographic materials enter into and become part of the for mulations of local political history. During my fieldwork in 1 963-6 5 , one of the topics I investigated \\'as the nature ofYombe politics (Bond 1 9 76). The political situation in Zambia and Uyombe �vas complicated and multifaceted. One important facet of politics centered on the chief and the royal clan. The royal clan consisted of six agnatic branches. Each branch had its o\vn territorial base and rights and privileges related to chieftainship and the royal clan council. These rights and p rivileges ha d become fixed only during colonial rule, ho\vevcr, and their legality and legiti macy remained a constant issue. There \.vas much intrigue and maneuvering as each branch sought to strengthen
F I E L D N OTES IN C J R C U L.'\TIO I' its political position and its authority and po\ver. The political s trug gles of these branches in volved not only Uyombe but also the col on i al and, after independence, the Zambian state. The histo ry and genealogy of any branch \V ere essential items in its claims t o royal status, ri ghts , and privileges . They \Vere treated as
a
fo rm of valued property held in t rust by senior men as the heads of royal branches and by p rominent , loyal " sister's sons . " These men were local historians '�thorn the Yombc treated as authorities on local custo m and practice . Many became my tutors, instru ctin g me in various fi elds of Yo mbe social life. In 1 964- 6 5 I traveled through Uyo mbc, recording branch histories and genealogies as told by these senior men. The fa ct that , unfort unatel y, most of these men are no\v dead has lent an u nintention al degree of au thority to my vv ritten versions of their oral accounts . In their oral form these historical accounts had the properties o f a kaleidoscope with elements being rearranged into different configura tions from one royal segment and b ranch to another and from one period to the next. They were mutable, plastic forms vlhose shapes were nevertheless governed by literary and structural p rinciples . They were thick descriptions of Yom b e histo ry and politics. The clements were neither fixed nor autonomous but o ften m an ipulated to accord v�rith political interests, shifting political alliances and opportunities, and power relationships . Textualiza tion fixed these historical a ccounts and removed them from the burly-burly and histo rical p rogre ssion of Yombe politics . The written texts h ad cap tured and preserved a mo mentary reality, remov·ing human action from historical rime. The message of the \Vord, of speech, had been rel eased from its human authors and their social condi tion, rendering it \Vi thout force, po�"er less in political contention. Or so I thought . I had m yself removed these historical accounts from the realm o f discourse, inscribed them in my fiel dnotes, and then p ublished the m as part of an ethnographic s tudy. Interp retations might change but not the written texts. But the Yom be have their own views about history and the perma nence o f texts. They restored the mutable attributes to these recorded materials and returned them to the level of discours e and fieldnotes, a condition intrinsic to my monograph. I h ad entered into their collec tive histo ry and returned their text to them , and unwittin gly my monograph had become a p art of their history. In 1 979 Chief Punyira died. He had ruled for more than fifty years, and duri n g his long. reign most of the senior local historians had died . Fro m his death throu gh 1 98 1 there ensued a bitter battle over su cces-
Research in Past Occurrences sion to the chieftainship. The s truggle \Vas \\'aged in the N ation al Assembly, the courts, and the pres i dent of Zam bia's office , to say nothin g of Uyombe itself. My m o n ograph became an important source of historical materials and \Vas brought into the fray of local politics . It could be used by either maj o r faction \Vithout jeopardizing their claims . What was in j eopardy \\'as the his torical materials it contained and my rendering and interpretation of them . By 1 98 1 one faction had gained the upper hand, a nd their man \Vas tentatively recognized as the chief by the central government . The new chief, Edwall, arran ged fo r his inauguration , in··v·itin g important regional Zambian dignitaries . H i s supporters and sisters' sons returned home from the copper bel t to as sist in the preparations . I \vas assigned the task o f typing up the history of the ro yal clan a n d Ed\\l"all 's ro)ral branch . The writing \V as t o b e undertaken b y t \VO o f his branch 's sisters' sons, one of whom would be m aster of ceremon ies and read the prepared historical accoun t . The evening prior to the inauguration , I was h anded
a
copy of my book \\l"ith slight but sig
nificant lette red chan ges in events and characters : the opposing fac tion had been transformed into usurpers and made into com moners, th ough the basic principles of my analysis had been retained an d accepted as the frame\\'Ork of Yombe history. I was told to put the changes into my fieldnotes an d incl ude them in the next edition of my monograph . The next day the history \\'as read at the inauguration ; copies Vlere distributed to government and party offi cers and sent to the appropri ate govern ment ministries in Lusaka. Their, my, and now our text had beco me part of Yombe histo rical reality and h ad acquired a temporary auth oritv-but not as a document removed from its authors and their ,
political situation . In its enactment at the inauguration the historical account h ad been reinstated as discourse, fieldnotes , and text. I t \\'as no\v a Yo mbe his tory, a docu ment produced by Yombe, and had itself contributed to their histo ry. It had been restored to its cultural setting, representin g the multiple voices of its autho rs and their relation to p o \ver.
ltppropriation and Excll-lsion I have attempted to explore the nature of fieldnotes as discou rse and as text. I have done so b y sea rchin g for the meaning of fieldnotcs as a fo rm that brid ges the gap bet\vecn an idea ofhistory and the pra ctice of
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286
I I'
C IR C U L ATI O N
an thropolog y Fieldnotes arc a pr odu ct o f p ast interactions and co n t a in .
a refrac ti on of past o ccurrences . They arc n either fu l l y discourse nor full y texts but possess attributes of both . They un i t e the cu l t u r all y and
histo rically s p e ci fic �"ith the analytically general . The y are tied into a
local worl d of kn o \v le d ge and yet t ran sc e nd it, pro vi ding the pre l i min a ry base for synt h eti c cultu ral constructions . They are fiXed , autonomized, a nd open , yet they a re mutable, d epe n den t a n d c l o sed . ,
p ro d u c ts of mu l ti v ocal i ty, the creation of a number of vo i ces . T h ey arc the arena of ex p erimen tation, t r a n s la ti o n an d inter
T h ey a r c t h e
,
p re ta ti o n T h e y are ac ts of collaboration , n ego t i a t e d constructions of .
specks of rea l i ty \Vho se re a l i t y is not al"\vays discernible . Th e y bare the
..\veaknesses and s t ren gt h s of an h onor ed me tho do logy, p a rticip a n t observation. The i n v es ti g a t or the filter t hr o ug h which observations ,
are made and notes inscribed , is at last the prin ci ple agent of h is or her own recorded r ea l it y
.
The vie\\' of field n o te s I have e x po u nd ed reveals the ideo l o g ic al
nature of a central a nt hro pol o g ic al claim that
an th
r o p olo g y is h o l i s
tic . 1 Fie l dn ot es take the measure of this a s ser tio n The notion of b ei n g .
hol istic is based on the m o s t im p re c i se of i ns t rumen t s tifi cally trained i n v es t i g a tor
, "
and the
m
,
the "s cien
ost fr a gm e n ta ry of e v id ence ,
fieldnotcs . An i ron y lies in t h e fact tha� as \VC have in c re asin g l y refined the rese arc h techniques that mi g h t enable us to e n c o m pa s s the v-"hole, we have progres si vely moved away fr o m our holistic assertions. Per
h aps it is o u r s o ciologic al i m a g in a t i on s and ou r constant soj ou rn s \Vith his tory that enable u s to be master builders . It is cer t a in l y not our fieldnotes that allow us such liber t i es of social an d cu ltural cons t ruc
tion
.
Fieldnotes are wri tten te x ts but texts of a p a rt i cu l a r type . As n o te s
,
the y may serve as a ides-1n em oire, stimu lating me mory of past occu r rences and a\vakening sociolo gi c al i m a g i n a tion
.
They
m ay
interact
with the knowledge o f social and cu lt u ral principles that the in vestiga
to r has learned as an obs erv er of an d a pa r t ic i pa n t in a \V a y oflife. They may also interact with the memories and on going o c cur re nces of local tu tors and informants . But me m o ry for all of us, is often an u ntru s t ,
worthy companion and r e q ui re s the w r i t t e n texts as ev idence of some
past occu rren ce. It is
i t h in ficldnotcs that
Vl
\Ve
fi n d our ovln voices a n d the v o ices of
our t u t or s and the o t her people with whom we have l i v e d and studied . 1 I am in debted to Professor Comitas for poin ting out th e relation offieldnotes to
n o tion
of
a
holistic
anthr�pology.
See also Johnson and Johnson in
this volume.
the
Research in
Past
Occurrences
These voices a re sometimes hars h and di s sonant. The p ro d u c tion of fieldn otes, a form of text, need
not be predicated
on common un de r
stan dings and a sh ared tradition , as R abinow suggests; the un d erstand ing may be on e- sided and the traditi on theirs , not ours . But Rabinow is recogniz ing a larger point: nam ely, th e risks of distortions
in
'' mak
ing textual p roduction the guiding metapho r of the anthropological enco unter" ( 1 98 5 : 6). Fieldnotes reco rded by the field\vorker are re fractions of so cial life but not t hemselves that social life. They are recorded fragme n ts of past occurrences .
Fieldnotes run the risk of being a form of ap pro p ria tion . M y field
notes contain fragm e n ts of the his tories of individuals and colle c tivities . These frag m en ts may be minor vignettes , forgotten individuals i n volved . They gain
p e r s isten ce
by having
b een
by
the
recorded
in fieldnotes and may have their m eaning en h a nced through progres sive ethn ogr a phic and theoretical contextualization and i n terpretation .
fmd their way into pu bl ished materials as "apt illustra tions" of so c i ol ogical pri n cip les . But these examples and the principles they illustrate m ay be pl aced in j eo pardy when the y a re reintroduced
They may even
into their o r iginal cultural milieu . In their turn the local population may use the text and reinstate it as discourse, tions possible. But the text treated as
making n ew in terp reta di s cour s e has ceased to be sol ely
theirs; our sociolog)p enters into and becomes a featu re of their history. The re v erse occu rs very infrequently; rarely does their sociology shape our histo ry. Aut h o r ity, a p p ro p ri a tion , and exclusion thus be come central i ssues in the a n th ro p ological endeavor. Clifford has writ ten persua s i vel y on ethnog r aphic aut hority, so I
here . But exclusion
a dem y Rabinow
ac
an d
n e ed
not pursue it
app ro priation re main d ark areas within the
and deserve some
brief
men tion . To get at these issues ,
sees the n eed for an anth ropology of anthropolo gy: that is ,
an explo ration of the
c o mplex
constraints vvithin which knowledge is
produced and received. He makes the int eresti n g observation that t h e
the p roductio n of texts denou n c ing colonialism ''
taboo against s pecifying the po\\'er relations in "is mu ch g reater than the st ri ctures ag ai n st ( 1 986:
2 5 3).
R abino·"r fails to gras p the significant point that the poli
tics of the academ y is the politics of society ( or of societies) e x p ressed
e x clu sion . As Ellen Carnegie Cor po ra tion
in various fundamen tal forms of appropriation and Lageman makes clear in her hi story of the
( 1 987, 1 98 8)
and Joan Vincent in
her broad,
s '"'·ecping an a lytic social
history of the d evelopme n t of political anth ropolo gy ( 1 990), the poli
tics of kn o wledge is a cen tral fea ture of p o w er r e lati ons . A p p ropriation and exclus i on are too co m p l e x to probe deeply in
a
28 8
f i EI. D N O TE S I N C I R C UL A T I U N
di scu ssion p ri m a ril y concerned \Vith the personal docu ments that an thropologis ts ge n er a te and then usc to construct the socie ties and
c u ltu res of others "
. ,,
In a most r u di m en t a r y and yet complex way,
fieldnotes are a means of thinki n g and speaking about local p o p u l a tions . The ethno g ra phi c text ba sed upon these thoughts and \\'O rds, h o w e v er becomes a way o f a cting to vv ard an d upon them . Since it is ,
very
r
a r el y p l a ce d in con t en t i o n
,
redu ced to discourse, it becomes a
th in g in itsel( The c rit i c a l voices of i n d i g e no u s scholars a re usu a ll y absent from the field of academic discourse. The integrity and ac
cu r a cy offieldnotes are rarely subjected to i nd i g en ous scrutin y. Under these and other conditions it becomes com p arativel y easy t o a p p ro p r i ate the hi s to r y of oth ers as, at the same time, our hi s t o ry a n d s o c i o l o g y beco m e s i nc r e a s i n g l y theirs. The a c a de m y remains one of the central b as tio n s fo r de fi ning the other, and anthropology one of the cham
ptons.
R E FERE NC E S
Barth , Fredrik . 1 966. P re fa ce . In R obert H . Pehrson, The Sociill Organization o.fthe A1arri Baluch , co mp . and cd . Frcdrik Barth, vii-xii. C hi c a go : Aldine.
Bon d, George C. 1 97 1 . A C au t ion to BJack Africanists . Phylon 3 2: 94-9 f t --
--
. 1 972. K inship and Conflict i n a Yombe Village . Aftica 42 : 275-8 8 . . 1 975 . Minor P ro p he t s an d Yombc Cultural Dyna mics. I n Colonia lism a nd
Change , ed . .� axwell 0 \\'u su , 1 45 - 62. The Hagu e : Mouton. --
. 1 9 76. The Pol i tics oj-Chan.f!e in a Zatnbian Cc•nJ munity. Chicago: University of
Ch i c a go P ress . -- .
1 979a .
R eH gi ou s Co-existence in No rthern Zambi a : Intellectualism a nd
M aterialism in Yom b e Bel ief
A nnals ofth e !Veu,
}'ork l\cadetny o_{Sciences 3 1 8 : 23 -
3 6. --. 1 979b. A Prophecy That Failed: The Lumpa Church
of
U yo m be , Zambia.
In African Ch rijtia nit}': Patterns ofRel i�ious Continuity in ...4.fnca, ed. Geo rge Bond . Walton johnson , and Sheila Walker, 1 3 7-60 . New Yor k : Academ ic Press . . 1 98 2 . Ed u ca t i on and Social Str atification in N orthern Z ambia: The Case of U yo mbe In Social Stratification and Ed1� cation in .A.frica: ed. G eo rge Bond . Specia l
--
.
is sue, A n thropology and Edu cation Qua rterly
1
3 :2 s I - 6 7 .
--. 1 9 8 7a. R el i gi on , Ideology, and P rop e rty in N o rthern Z a m bia. In Stu dies in
Power and Class in �4Jrica, ed . I. L. Markovi tz , 1 7o-88 . New Yo rk : Oxford Universi ty Press. --. 1 987b . A ncestors and Protestants . ..4 rnerican Ethtroio.�ist 1 4 : 5 2 -77. Cl ifford, James . 1 9 8 3 . On Eth nographic Au t ho ri ty. Rep resnt tatiotl.�
1 8-46 .
f Hijfory. Lon don: O xford U ni vers it y Press. The Ru les ofSodolo.(!ical �\�fethod. Glencoe. Ill . : Free Press.
Collingwood, R . G . 1 96 1 . Th e ldei1 Du rkheim , E m i l e . 1 95 8 .
1 : 1
o
Research in Past Occu rrences Ep st ein , A . L . 1 96 1 . The Net�·ork and U rb an Social Or ganization . Rhodes Liv ing.stone ltJstitute Journal 29: 28-62 .
F ern andez, James W. 1 9 R 5 . Exploded Wo rl ds-Text as a Metaphor fo r E thnog ra p h y (and Vice Versa) . Di4llrctical �4 nth rop ology r o : r 5-27. foster, Ge orge M. , Thayer Scud der, Elizabeth Colson , and Robert \l. Kemper� eds. 1 979 Long- Term Fi eld Rt.sea rch in Social A nthropolog}'· Ne\\o' York : A cademic .
Pres s .
Geertz, Clifford. 1 973 . The Interpretation of Cultu res . New York : Basic Books . L ag ema nn. E . C. 1 9 8 7 The Poli tics of Kno�·ledge : The Carnegie Corpo ration .
an d the Formulation of Public Pol icy. Hiitory of Edr�cation Quarterly 2 7 (su m
mer) : 2o6- 2o . -
. 1 98 8 .
The Politics o..fKnou,fedge: A His to ry
ofthe
Ca rn egie Corp c,ration o�f."Jeu'
York . Middletown: Wesleyan Universi ty Press . Mitchell ,
J. C.
1 964 Foreword. In Jaap van Velsen , The Politic.s o.f Kinship, v-xiv. .
Manchester: Manchester University Pres s. Rabi no w. Paul . 1 98 5 . D iscourse and Pov,,rer : On the Lim i ts of Ethno graphic Texts . Dialectica l ..4 nth rop ology I o: I - I 5 . --
. 1986. Representations Are Social Facts: Modernity an d Post-Modernity in
Anthrop ology. In U.'riting Cultr4re : The Poetics atJd Po/iti(s o�( Eth no._� raphy, cd. James Clifford and George E. !'viarcus, 2 3 4-62. Berkeley: Un iversity of Cali for nia Press. Ricocur. Paul.
I 98 1 a.
The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered
as a
Text. In Thompson 1 9 8 1 , I 9i-2 2 2 . --
. 1 9 R 1 b . "What I s a Text ? Explanati on a n d Understan ding. " In Thompson
1 98 1 . 1 4 5-6 5 .
Scudder, Tha yer, and Elizabeth Colson . 1 979 . Long-Term U.csearch in Gw cmbc Valley, Zambia. In Foster et al . 1 979, 227- 5 4.
Selign1 an , Bren da Z . ed .
I 95
1 . J'Jotes and Qr4erie.s on A nthropolo�y. 6th ed. London :
Routledge & Kegan Paul. Thompson,
J.
S. , ed. 1 9 8 I . Pa u l Ricoeu r, Hermenerurc.s , and the HunJatr .Science,L
Cambridge: Camb ridge Universi ty Press. Tu rner, Victor W. I 9 S i· Schirm and Continuity in an l\Jrican Society. Man ches te r: Manchester U niversity Press.
Van Vclsen , Jaap. 1 964. The Politics ofKinship . Manchester: M anchester University Press . Vayda, An dre\\' P. 1 98 3 . Pro gressive Contex tual ization : Methods fo r Researc h in Hu man Ecology. H11man Ecolog}' I 1 : 265-8 1 . Vin cent, Joan . 1 990 . 4 n th ropology atJd Pol itics: (/'r.sions, Traditiot1.s , atrd Trends . ..
Tucs on: Un iversitv of A rizona Press . I
C H R I S TINE O B B O
Adventures with Fieldnotes
This essay presen ts m y experiences a s a ficldnote-taker, both in A frica and in the West , and considers the inte rest of others in my notes-city offici als and foreign colleagues in Uganda, and co mmu nity information brokers and academics in the United States . As an
anthrop ologist I have faced the same issues that confront many others : issues of protecting my data from misuse and of protectin g m y infor mants in a highly charg ed p ol i tic a l situ ation . But as a Thi rd World
anthro p ologist, I have found my experiences with Western academics also mirroring the historical relationship bcrn"een the West and the so called " p eople �;thout history'' (Wo lf 1 98 2 . Sec also Asad 1 973 ; Chi lungu 1 976; Gough 1 96 8). My fieldnotes were
a
record of my findings
and feelings , )�"et on occa sion they seemed to take on a life of their own in the social situations th at surround fieldwork . Sometimes they were perceived by other s
as
tokens of power. My adventu res Vlith field
notes opened fo r me a �;ndov.." on the politi cs of anthropological knowledge .
To Share or !\lot to Share The concern ov,c r who sh o u l d have access to fieldnotcs is
an
e t h ic al
problem for all anthropol ogists . Once others read then1 , the uses made 290
Adventures \Vith Fieldnotes
of fi eldno tcs are no longer controllable by the ethnographer The problem is threefold. First, in the cutthroat, publish-or-perish climate of academia, some schol ars may be ruthless in us ing someone else's .
fieldnotes to advance their o\vn careers; others, fearing the vlorst may ,
worry unduly about protecting their \\'ark. H owe ver, considerations of self-pro tecti on in relation to fieldnotes are important, especiall y in
the early stages of one's academic career. After all, fiel dnotes are not copyrighted Second, anthropologists increasingly \Vork in settings \\l·here the p eople studied can read \vhat is vlritten about them. Even .
when pseudonyms arc used in publications, communities and infor mants are often identifiable in fieldnotes. An indiscree t reader of oth ers' fieldnotes may put field\\"orkers or their sources in trouble by re veali ng the names of informants, especially in conn ection \Vith un
savory activities or the confidential revelation of community ''se crets." Third, \Vherc economic re prisal o r political danger is an issue, anthropologists have a duty to protect their inform ants, parti cula rly V�·hen work ing in countries with fascist or other sorts of authoritarian regimes. I o ften had access to info rm ation about emba rra ss ing or illegal activities of poor urbanites '\-"\"hich I did not '�rant to publ is h for consumptio n by the political re g im e or non-Africans. As a non-Western an thropologis t, I have faced two problem areas in addition to these three. First, Western c olleagues conducting parall e l research have on occasion attempted to get an assistant on t he che ap by rea d in g my fieldn otes \Vith the intent of using them. Second, West erne rs both academics and others, have responded to my field ...
"
,
Vlork in their home countries in ways that reveal their discomfort when the accus to m ed power r ela ti onships bet\veen anthropologist and ''native" are reversed. The fieldnotes of a non-Westerner study in g Americans upsets and makes them anxious because they feel that their culture is on th e line.
The Employed and the Unemployed Like most cities, Kampala, the capital of Uganda, has its employed and u nem pl oyed u rbanites (s ee Obbo 1975, 1976, 1980). The em ployed stereotype the u ne mpl oy ed as the poor, thieves, or prostitut es
,
regardless of the empirical evidence in their own everyday lives. It
Was not surprising, there fore, when I decided to study Wabigalo Namu\\ on go, one of the l o\v-income suburbs, that s ome of the offi cials at the National Research Council were patronizing and dismisr
fiELDNOTES I� CIRCULATION
292
sive. They �·ondered \vhat there \vas to study among the people they viewed from their office windo\�ls as "barefoot, most often drunk." The City Council officials assumed the same attitude: ''W hat is the use of studying
'''hat
is known? The poor are a nuisance who blight the
city streets as they ha\\7k food and other merchandise." A fe\v \\'eeks after I started my study, I began to seize every oppor
tunity I could to convince city officials that the lo\v-income urbanites among whom I \vork ed were la\v-abiding persons engaged in legiti mate economic activities. W hen I accompanied trade license applicants from my field\vork neighborhood to the City Council offices, I would press the point that Wabigalo-Namuwongo people desired, above all, ..
to operate legally. I had discovered that most low-income dwellers who operated without licenses did so because of the whims of bureau crats, not because of their desire to avoid licensing. City officials \Vere content with this state of affairs. It enabled them to perpetuate the public m·yths about the unemployed while privately
supplementing their incomes by e x tra cting payments from license
applicants-both successful and unsuccessful: poor city d�·ellers had to pay bribes to license-granting officials as \veil as legal license fees. Further, it \vas no secret that those without licenses could avoid police raids only by paying protection money to city agents. Whether one \\'as taken to court and fined or paid someone to avert a raid , the result \\'as loss of money. Consequently, when City Council emplo)"ees
demanded bribes for licenses or protection, the poor '"'�gly p a id up.
People borro\ved money and often \Vent heavily into debt to speed up the processing and granting of licenses for house construction, beer brewing, alcohol distilling, and food vending. Unlicensed, these were the activities subject to fines or protection pa yoffs to chiefs, police
men, or licensing officers. While a fe\\' informal-sector operatives went unlicensed because they objected to paying bribes for licenses,
the majority
of those oper ating illicitly could not afford bribes and
thus had no choice. Yet sometimes an unlicensed self-employed opera tor would lose up to three months' earnings in a day. If the poor were not "unemployed," city officials were nonetheless busy in keeping the "unemployed'' poor. As one person put it, "The rich want to keep us poor all the time. We work hard to improve our lives, but they do not want to see us with inoney." I wa s caught in
a double bind.
On the one hand , I \Vanted to correct
the official stereotyping of low-income urbanites as unemployed la'"'" breakers . On the other hand, I kne�· that calling attention to their _
Adventures with Ficldnotes
293
economic success made them even more vulnerable to extortion and raids. The poor vlho were trying hard to survive in the city fo u nd their
economic contributions dismissed, and their incomes arbitrarily and
coercively appropriated. Having licenses did not mean an end to exploitation for restaurant O\vners, distillers, bar ovvners, furniture makers, shoe repairers, and market vendors, \Vho had to rene\\' their licenses periodically. In addition, goods or services extracted from
them \Vithout pay ment by city agents represented losses.
Some busi
ness operators told me that in order to make up for exploitation by city officials, they overcharged all other elite and nonncighborhood cus tome rs. In 1973 there \Vas a shortage of rice, sugar, and cooking oil in Kampala. The traders in the low-income areas seemed to have limitless supplies that they continued to sell cheaply. The prices did go up, however, \vhen elite customers began flocking to the areas for pur chases. By 1974 the economic situation all over Uganda had deterio rated. Do\\'ntown merchants accused low-income ha��kers of hoard ing essential goods and depriving the merchants of business. Several police and military raids on lo\\r-income neighborhoods follo\ved. These incursions did not discriminate bet\veen established operators and those havlkers whose downtown dealings were the target of the merchant complaints. Local dressmakers lost sewing machines, and distillers had equipment damaged. Many local operators then stopped dealing \Vith outsiders or �·ith people who had kno""'"n or suspected connections to city agents. Most informal-sector operators ·\vent underground. They restricted their dealings to net�vorks of friends and friends of friends, and even
these customers could make purchases only by prior arrangement. Food sellers, however, could not really go underground� and their patronage expanded. Consequently, O\\'ners of downto\vn restaurants
complained that "their" clients \Vere being "stolen" by "illegal" food sellers in ''the slums.'' These vociferous restaurateurs were African businessmen who had benefited from the expulsion of Asians and \vho
had hoped to make fortunes. The elusive customers were mainly salaried workers in the citv, \Vho went to the low-income area food sellers to eat or to make g�oup arrangements for lunch deliveries to
their \Vorkplaces. One told me, "The food Vlas appetizing, the food Was fairly priced-really underpriced-and it \Vas tailored to the cli ents'
tastes." Bv contrast, food in the do\vntown restaurants \\'as "greasy, expens i ve, sn1all portions of meat or chicken, and not var-
fiELDNOTES I� CIRCUL �TION
294
..
ied. '' Since mat1y of the restaurateurs were soldiers or their relatives, armv raids and destruction of food sellers· shacks in the lo\\'-incon1e ,
areas became common. As the economy of Uganda deteriorated to the collapsing point (see Southall 1980), the informal sector of petty production, reproduction, and distribution in the lo\\o"-income areas replaced the downtO\\'n busi ness area as the hub of the econon1y. People invented new words to describe business activities. Owners of do\\onto\vn shops, for exam ple, \vcre labeled
majuta
mingi (''a lot of oir'), comparing them to oil
prospectors bent on pumping out as much wealth as possible before
l\-fagendo \Vcre srnugglers \\-·ho sold manufactured goods at exorbitant prices. Bayaayf their \veils-the former Asian�\\l·ned stores-dried up.
referred to unemploy ed youth \vho harrassed anyone with wealth and often joined the army of General Idi Amin, Uganda's ruler. By 1979 downto\-vn Kampala looked like an extension of the lo\\1- income areas. Salaried municipal and state government \Vorkers \Verc driven by inflation to supplement income through informal-sector activities conducted during normal work hours. Many who had the financial capability smuggled in consumer goods, which they retailed at high prices. Hov�7ever, the production of many comn1odities (such as candles) and services (such as -automobile repair), remained in the hands of operatives \\'ithin the lo\v-income neighborhoods. As a stranger in Wabigalo-Namuwongo claiming to study people's activities, I was an object of suspicion. The military dictatorship de pended upon spies. The people among whom I worked knew that and told me there \-Vere spies in the area. The t\vo Wabigalo-Namuvlongo chiefs, police officers, and other city agents frequently visited me to ask what I was writing about and \vhat I had discovered. When I first arrived in the neighborhood, I had V�"anted to maintain independence and so had refused lodgings in the house of one chief and a rented room suggested by the other. I had also brought my own research
assistant with me. The chiefs therefore had no influence over \vhere I lived or \vhom I employed. This, I �·as told later, had established my neutrality in the eyes of local people. One woman told me toward the end of my fieldwork in 1973, ''We were being harassed before you came." Still another considered it important to repeat in 1979, "Your initial actions earned our trust." The chiefs nonetheless a ttempted to use me as a source of information on illegal bre\\-·ers, gin distillers, and dealers in stolen goods who \vorked at night and "sat" or slept by day. I V�"as fortun�te that the chief who was most curious about my
Adventures V\'ith Fieldnotcs
d �vho often glanced over my field notes, could not read. fmdings, a11 e After discov ring his \\'eakness, I coul d afford not to hide my notes ot provoke his curios ity. I lear ned to a void providing and hence n direct answers, while appearing to be coo perati v e with these officials whom I was dependent for security and, to some extent, good \\7ill. I knc�· that shar ing my findings \\'ith the officials \vould only have helped them target their harassment of "illeg al" brewers and traders, 00
,vhosc safety and good '\\"ill \Vere of major concern to me.
Research Assistant
otz
the Cheap
I \\ras privil eg ed to attend Uganda's Makererc University, \Vhere
field research was emp hasi zed and encouraged. Since th e 1950s the Makcrere [ former ly East African] Institute of Social R esea r ch has
playe d an imp ortant role in foster in g anthropological field\\'Ork in East Africa. Africans themselves, howe ver, did not become primary
investigato rs until the mid-196os; until then they were employed only as r esearch a ssist ants. D uring the late
1 9(jos
and the
1 970s,
the period
of my fieldwork, the research assistants were male, with no more than a j un ior
high school education. While investig a tors trained their assis
tants in data collection, it vvas clea r that distortions resulted from the double impact of a foreig n researcher who did not sp eak local lan
guages and assistants with l imited skills in English. Unlike other social scientists, anthropologists who could not learn
the local lang uages were troubled by such bar riers to their understand ing of t he actors' cu ltural points of vievl. Still more severe distortions of information resu lted when rese arch assistants con sci ou sly or un
conscio usly ignored, interpreted, or re formulated the responses of informants who (the assistants felt) had not pro vided a proper image of their society. Since in formation �·as only as good as its method of collectio n, shre\vd investiga tors sought out local colleagues \vho would un w itting ly play the role of unpaid research assistant. The mid morni ng and midafternoon tea hours at the Institute were social
opportunities for conversation and brainpicking among field\vorkers. At ti mes, a foreign researcher who had reached a point \vhere it \\'as difficult to g et any more informati o n, \vould make attempts to gain
access to a colleague's fieldnotes. As a first-time fiel d \vorke r, I nov..." realize, I had the role of ''ass istant on the cheap" thrust on n1e by a fo rei gn colleague who \Vas working in
fiEI.DNOTES IN CIRCULATION
a lo\v-incomc neighborhood similar to mine and who did not speak the local language. I often talked \Vith him during the tea breaks and even took him on a tour of my field\vork site. Some time later I learned that he was verifying my findings v,ith the Institute•s research assistants. Some of the assistants had friends and relatives in Wabigalo Namuwongo, a multi-ethnic neighborhood where my own ethnic group was not represented. While it might seem innocent to ask, "Christine savs such and such; is it true?" this behavior threatened �
confidences I had labored to establish and the rapport I had gained in a neighborhood vlhere many residents did not trust elites-African or otherv,"ise-and resented new investigators asking even more ques tions. Furthermore, the research assistants my colleague \vas using to verify my findings \\7ere all from an ethnic group diftcrcnt from mine. My colleague was a\vare of the inter-ethnic antagonisms in Uganda and kne\v that some of my findings might be misinterpreted by ethnic chauvinists. It seemed to me that he was jeopardizing my relationships both with the Institute research assistants and with my informants. Luckily, my multilingualism and the trust I had already established carried me through this episode. I took it as a vote of confidence in me when one day I overheard a Wabigalo-Namu\vongo vloman advise another, "Tell him [the foreigner] \vhat he wants to hear.·' The as sistant, who either shared the sentiment or did not care about the content of the answers, did not translate this remark to my foreign colleague. I was upset \Vith my colleague. While scholarly exchange and even field site visits arc valuable, he had jeopardized my \\'Ork unneces sarily. It \Vas clear to C\teryone that ethnicity '"'"as highly politicized, that the antagonism of the masses to'\vard elites was mounting, and that Uganda's fascist regime \vas actively promoting distrust and eth nic hostilities among the populace. It was thoughtless to play dan gerous games �;th other people's field\\7ork. This \Vas not the end of the matter. At an international meeting the colleague read a "vell-received paper. Some sections sounded like \ter batim passages from my fieldnotcs. I was flabbergasted as I listened. After the session he came up to me and said , "You are probably upset that I used ·your data . I \\'rote the paper at the last moment, and I did not have time to sho\v you." His stance \Vas that it had been "fun" to analyze my notes. My research assistant told me that a week before the meeting this man had sat do\\t"n in my office and read my fieldnotes.
Adventures \\7ith Fieldnotcs
297
had thought that he \vantcd to chat and did not �uestion My assistant
my back I had been reduced to a research assista nt, a him. Behind international division of labor in \\'hich natives provide pa,vn in th at dat a and Westerners analyze it.
Continuing interest in my fieldnotes presented me with more prob lems \vhen I started \Vriting my dissertation. A senior professor, '''ho
had heard from a colleague what I \vas \vorking on, wrote to me� instru cting me to send him all my data. My supervisor \\'as astounded. Even a supervisor does not make such a demand.
Some time later I had as a house guest a foreign anthropologist working in the same geographical area and
\\l
..
ith interests similar to
mine. One evening she did not accompany us out to dinner, becoming
violently ill at the last mon1cnt. When we returned and told her vlhat
a
good time we had had, she was upset, and in her anger made a "slip" of
the tongue: "W here do you keep y our fieldnotes? I could not find thcn1 any\vhere." I did not ans\\rer, but I \Vas privately amused. Because she had earlier demanded access to mv ficldnotes, I had locked then1 in a �
trunk when I knc�.. she \Vas coming. Later, after rcftection, I was angry. We had talked a lot-mostly, I had answered her questions yet someho'"'" she felt she had to sec my notes. Worse still, this particu lar anthropologist had no need to do so because she '"'"as a competent fieldworker \vho "spoke the language like the natives." It
\\I·
as simply
the old instinct that Western anthropologists \Vere better at analyzing data than their counterparts from developing countries.
The foregoing incidents \Vould appear trivial and funny but for the
political implications of such acts. I suspect that many similar episodes mark the professional careers of other Third World anthropologists. Anthropology� has been and still is a radical discipline. It is the only discipline that can competently study the "other" humanity not cov ered by the Western discourses. Although the consultant "band�ragon" to the Third World in the last rn"o decades has produced many reports, most of them have been superficial "quick and dirty" research. At best, th ey have depended upon reworking and rephrasing anthropological
\\'ritings. Fo reign consultants often make a pretense of collaboration \Vith local scholars for a week or a fe\\' months in the host country. When they return home and write their reports, the local experts \vho assisted them fail to be ackno\\1·-ledgcd, even in a footnote.
The omission reflects the persistent attitude that Westerners are best suited to interpret other peoples' actions and beliefs. This attitude beco mes even more problematic when Western anthropologists dis-
FIELDr\OTES IN CIRCUlATION
regard fellovl anthropologists from these other countries. I believe that anthropological training gives Third World anthropologists a double consciousness that should make them ideal analvsts-close to �
the experience, yet distant e no ugh to analyze it. After all, the Western jus tif ica tion for studying others has often been that it would enable us to understand oursdves better. Should the rules change when the anthropologists \Vho seek to understand themselves are not West e rners ? Understanding ourselves through anthropological experiences may have been an ideal of the founders of anthropology, but in the intense competition to "be an expert," many anthropologists pay only lip service to this ideal.
In the '�'est Fe\v an thropologists are comfonable with non-Western ant hropol
ogists studying Western cultures. Thc·y are encoura ging about situa tions and topics that are likely to produce "symbolic" analyses rather than information that is to be taken seriously Or they are interested in .
plans to study the poor, or minorities, or recent immigrants (see
Galliher 1980; Nader 1969). W hen I once expressed a desire to under stand the lifest}yles of suburban Americans, a scholar who had gained prominence through his studies of African societies asked, "Will they not hate you?" I resisted a temptation to point out to him that this had never been an issue \\then he was studyi ng Africans. The situation \Vas basically simple to understand: the Africans are exotic, and they are far a\�lay and cannot question most interpretations of their societies and cultu re s ; suburban culture is familiar and also close to most anthro pologists. Abrahams
(1986) highligh ts the feelin gs of intru sion self ,
consciousness, and indifference he encountered in studying a Finnish village
.
Were not these issues also present in his earlier Tanzanian
fieldwork? My first experience with the problems of doing research in the West
came \Vhen I joined a Regional and Urban Planning class project in
a
small midvlestern tov.rn. My field\vork led me to coffee, garden, and
cookie clubs that provided pe ople with an opportunity to socialize and vent their feelings about issues of concern to the m I \\'as adopted by .
two informants \vho sa\v their role as information brokers \Vho could tell me \Vhat was going on. I found that I could cope very v.rell without
Adventures with Fieldnotes ut in the interest of smooth relations I ag reed to su mmar their help. B ize m y find ings on town life, and let them respon d. They each individ uall y conclu ded that I was not depicting the community accurately. I
con tinu ed my research but did not discover anything to contradict my fin din gs. J n m y rese arch I had found problems that were also daily staples of the A merican mass media: \\'ife battering, child abuse, and gay and mentally retarded children. These were \\'hat my self-appointed critics
thought made for an inaccurate port rayal of subu rban life; such prob lems were better ignored in this upper-middle-class neighborhood. Two years later one of my critics admitted that she had been am azed and shocked at ho\v much I had been able to find out about the community. "Truth is bru tal, '' she said . "Most people in the suburbs either repres s or ignore the truth .'' I concluded that perhaps the real shock was that a foreigner, an African, could learn somethin g about white Americans. At first I \Vas patronized because I was from a developing coun try where everyone \vas assumed to be both starvin g and illiterate. I \\ras not threatening until I systematically studied life in suburbia and discovered "truths" my critic did not expect me to find. My second encounter with reactions to fiel dwork in the West oc curred when I lived in an academic community where an thropology was cons i dered a "nice'' subject, much like lookin g through National
Geographic magazines.
A good anthropologist was one "'·ho shovled
slides of his blond self standing next to dark natives, one \vhose office or home contained objects that non specialists could easily pronounce to represent "fecundity'' or "ancestors." Anthropologists dealt with strange, exotic cus toms, not with humanity as a whole. I began to teach a course in fieldwork methods for seniors majoring
in anthropology. My purpose \Vas not necessarily to make them an
t hrop olog ists but to bring them an appreciation of the difficulties in v olv ed in studying people. I also wanted to impress upon them that anthrop ology can be done anywhere, not only in non-Western so ci eti es. "You are joking, " had been the reaction of one student in an intro ductory class to whom I had assigned an anthropological study of A merican school (Wolcott 1973). The class en gaged in participan t-observation at the to\vn bank, a ! 940s -style diner, and a nursing home. They learned that more \vas •nvolved in participant-observation than st anding in one place for a period of time and noting what happened . I also introd uced the stu-
an
2 99
fiELDNOTES IN CIRCULATION
JOO
dents to the ethical dilemmas of anthropological research (Barnes 1967; Vidich et al. 1958; Whyte 1958) by assigning them an event or
issue on the campus. The students felt they had learned much; occa sional letters to me still describe the seminar as "an enriching expericnce. " W hen my academic colleagues learned about the seminar, they started teasing me about studying them. The teasing soon became more aggressive, with public accusations: "You're studying us, aren't you?'� I told some that I was not "writing a novel" about them, so they liad
nothing to fear. Before long, once again, self-appointed information brokers appeared, attempting implicitly to interpret to me what was going on in the community and, in turn, translate what I vlas doing to the community at large. I distanced myself from these self-designated helpers, but they persisted in passing on to others what they thought I was about , even when I avoided conversations \vith them. Pressure mounted for me to socialize Vlith certain people , presumably so that my experiences could be contained. Still others wanted to be friends because they had "participated in the civ;I rights movement," or con sidered themselves "different from mainstream people." The more I remained detached, the more efforts \vere exerted to have me talk about the research seminar, or to share my information about the community. When all this still produced no confession from me that I was indeed doing research, one of the self-appointed brokers blurted out in frustration, "Won't you step on the toes of those in po\ver?" This \Vas
an
admission that attempts to discover and contain v.rhat I \vas
doing had failed. As an African in this Vlhite community, I think I \\'ould have been an object of curiosity no matter what I had taught. My being an anthro pologist and teaching students how to do fie}d,vork doubled the curi osity. This saga \vas in part the result of the dynamics of a sm all community where residents wanted to kno�· all about others but
to
keep their o\vn lives secret. Public kno\\rledge freely circulating orally in such a community may be threatening �·hen it appears, or threatens to appear, in print. Attempts to censure me through discussions failed in this instance because I had learned how to deal with the situation through my previous encounter in the mid,vestern suburb. Attempts to gain access to my "diaries" failed too. Though I was not doing field"vork and thus was keeping no field diaries, the suspicion that I was "studying us" gave life and po\ver to ficldnotcs that did not exist.
Adventures vlith Ficldnotes
JOI
from then on I de cided to start taking ficldnotcs, not in English but in m}' ovln language. ,
Cotzclusion from the first vleek of my field\vork in Uganda in 1971, I realized that fieldnotes vvould be proble matic because of the politic al climate at
the time. W hat did not occur to me then \V as that adventures related to mv
fieldnotes were to be a part of my life as a p rofessi onal anthropolo
gi � t. During my field�vork in
Uganda
,
n1y fi e ldnotes on the illicit
income-generating activities in Wabigalo-Namuvlongo \\'auld have been
a
useful tool in the hands of many government agents and
bureau crats to justify their harassment of informal-sector o perati v es
.
At the Makerere Institute of Social Research, many foreign scholars
used local research assistants. But some also shrewdly sough t out local
anthropologists and were not content \Vith brain
pi cking during tea or coffee breaks but attempted access to fieldnotes as \veil. In the West I have found fieldwork among the literate pro blematic because they demand and see k access to research re sults incl uding fieldnotes, in an effort to en su re that only "truth" as they see it will be repo rt ed. I believe the reaction to my \Vork 'W·ould have been different if I had been dealing with the traditional subj ects of research the poor and -
,
-
minorities.
Fieldnotcs are central to the
enterprise
of anthropology. I have
deliberately \V ritten this essay on adventures with ficldnotes in th e first
person instead of u sing a di st ant and abstract styl e that allo�..s for generalization. In trying to gene r alize I di scover ed that the fieldnotes themselves became shado\\'Y· I have reported in the first person be ,
cause fieldwork is such a personal and subj ective experience; ho�v Western a nthropologis ts and ordin ary citizens react to a fo r ei gn an thropologist should be of interest to anthropologists at large.
The issues played out in my personal account-issues of assumed �ower, and professional recklessness-transcend the experience of a stngl c anthr opologist. As an A frican and a U gandan I come from an ,
area that has been dominated by anthropological research and r e p or tage. I the re fore report in the first person �o emphasize my position as representative of a subject population and to highlight hovl this influ ences the \vay others, perhaps unwittingly, perceive me.
fiELDNOTES IN CIRCULATION
302 REFERENCES
Abrahams, Ray. 19R6. Anthropology among One's Affines. �4tJthropolo�)' Today
2
(2): I8-20.
Asad, Talal. 1973. Introduction. In �4nthropolo�y cuJd the ColotJiill Encounter, cd. Talal Asad, 9-19. London: Ithaca Press. Barnes,
J.
A. 1967. Some Ethical Problems in Modem Fieldwork. In Anthropolo
gists in tiJe Field, ed. D. G. Jongmans and P. C. W. Gutkind, 193-213. The
Hague: Van Gorcum.
Chilungu, Simeon W. 1976. Issues in the Ethics of Research Method: An Inter pretation of the Anglo-AmcriC4n Perspective. Cumnt .,4nthropology 17:457-81. Galliher, John F. 19R0. Social Scientists' Ethical Responsibilities to Superordinates: Looking Up Meekly. Social Problems 27:298-308. Gough, Kathleen. I968. Nc\V Proposals for Anthropologists. CurretJt Anthrc>polo�y 9:403-7-
Nader, Laura. 1969. Up the Anthropologist-Perspectives Gained from Studying Up. In Reinventing Anthropolo� . )', ed. l)ell Hymes, 284-311. Ne,�v· York: Ran dom House. Obbo, Christine. 1975. Women's Careers in Low Income Areas as Indicators of Country and Tov-.'n Dynamics. In Town and Country in Cnttral and Ea.stern
Africa,
ed. David Parkin, 28R-93. London: Oxford University Press. . 1976. Dominant Male Ideology and Female Options: Three East African
--
Case Studies. Africa 46:371-88. --
. 1980. .&1frican Ji,.omen: Their StruXglefor EcotJomic lndtpendence. London: Zed
Press. Southall, Aidan. I980. Social Disorganization in Uganda: Before, during and after Amin. Journal oj-�\ttodern African Studies 18:627-56. V idich, A.,J. Bensman, R. Risley, R. l�ics, and H. S. Becker. 1958. Comments on Freedom and Responsibility in Research. Human Organization 17:2-7. Whyte, William F. 1958. Freedom and Responsibility in Research: The uSpring dale" Case. Hu•nan Orga,.ization
I
7:1-2.
Wolcott, Harry F. 1973. The .&\tlan in tiJe Principal's Office: �4n Ethnography. New York: Holt, Rinehart & W inston. Wolf, Eric. 1982. E"urope and the People U1ithot�t History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
NANCY LUTKEHAUS
Refractions of Reality: On the Use
of Other Ethnographers' Fieldnotes
Both the late British anthropologist Camill a Wedgwood and I have carried out field research in the same village on Manam, a small island off the northeast coast of Pa p ua Nevl Guinea. I have had the benefit of her fieldnotcs, in addition to the handful of her published papers, as a source
of historical and ethnographic data to s u pple m ent my O\\'n.
Becau se I had \Vanted to study the historical dynamics of political and
The archival research and fieldwork that gave me the opp ort uni ty to use Wedg
wood's notes v,rere funded by a Fulbri ght-Hayes (Australian-American Educational Foundation) fellowship, the National Institutes of Mental Health, and the Institute for Intercultural Studies. I thank the Archivist at the University of Sydney, Mr. Kenneth
Smith, for perntission to reproduce sections from Malinov,rski's letter to Camilla \\'edg\\'ood and portions from her notebooks; Marie Reay for her comments and advice regarding Wedgwood and her Manam material; and the late Peter La\\'rence for arrangi ng access to the Wcdgwood papers at the Australian National University. The department of anthropology at the Research School of Pacific Studies, \\'ith \vhich I
affiliated \�·hilc in Australi� genero usl y provided office space and support I also thank Sir Raymond Firth, Gelya Frank, David Lipsct, Rhoda Metraux, Roger Sanjck, Ann Stoler. and Michael Young for their incisive comments and helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this essa "t'. Was
.
Ponions of Malinov-.·ski's l� ttcrs to Wedgwood are printed "'ith the permission of his daughter, Helena \\'ayne.
303
fiELDf'OTES IN CIRCULATION
304
economic change, I '"' as interested in finding a field site in Melanesi a ?
research had been carried out. I \Vas also concerned to find a research site \vhcre another female anthropologist inter es ted in the lives of \\'Omen had previously \Vorkcd as I p a r \\l·here earlier anthropological
,
ticularly '"'?anted to discover \\"hat changes if any, there might have been in \vomen's econo m i c and politica l roles . ,
N e arly fift}? ·year s separated our resea rch . Wedgwood went to Ma
nam I s land in 1933-34; I arr i v ed there in
197�L Although she published several articles soon after she returned from the field ( Wedg vlood 1933, 1934a and b, 1935, 1937, 1938), � he n she died in I955, at the relatively young age of fifty-four, she had not yet '\\"rittcn a full ethno gr aphic account ofManam society. 1 I � as fortunate, therefore, to have had access to her fi el dnotes j ournals and letters-housed at the U ni vers ity of Sydney-prior to going to Manam myself.2 This ess ay is an a nalysis of my personal experiences as an ethnog ra pher u sin g another e thnograp her s ficl dn otes to gether with some background on We dg'"'?ood s training in fie ld methodology and p rep a ration for field research, and ob ser va tions about her experience work ing with still another ethnogra pher s ficldnotes. 3 ?
·
,
,
'
,
'
'
�'Jt�dgwood's Fieldwork and 1\rotes Malinowski's Advice
to
Wedg\vood
Do not write with a pencil with anything like a soft lead-it rubs. Indelible pencils are not a sound proposition. If possible \Vrite legibly and write native words in script or block capitals-at least for the first time of using. When taking do\\rn genealogies and when referring to individuals for the fi rs t time indicate sex in brackets. Never destroy or 1
An additional article, "Manam Kinship" (Wedg\\'ood 1959), \vas published posthu
mouslv \Vith the assisunce of Marie Reay, her former student at the Universitv of . �
.
Sydney. 2Margaret Mead first suggested Manam Island to me as
a
possible field site where
earlier research had been done by another female anthropologist. She had kno,-..·n Camilla Wedgwood and v-·as a,...-are that her field data v-·ere archived at Sydney, where Wedgvw·ood had been atliliated with both the �'omen ·s College and the department of anthropology. It v-·as with 1\1ead's help that I got permission from the department of anthropology to use Wedg\vood's field materials. 3 For
further information regarding Wedg,-..·ood 's social and academic background�
see Lutkchaus 1986.
Refractions
of Reality
305
erase anything in these books ... l the y) \\'ill contain a chaot i c account in v-.'hich everything is \Vritten down as it is observed or told. To cou nte r act this chaos, cross-reference the schen1c or plan drawn up. This best
done in coloured
chalks .
Do not be parsimonious
\\' ith
paper.
These statements are excerpts from the notebook in '""hich Wedg wood (1932-34: notebook, s/18/32) recorded Malinowski's note ,¥ taking advice to her as she prepared for her field ork in Manam. She added that bound books, rather than tablets, should be used-\vith numbered pages. As g eneral advice she recorded the stricture not to "refrain from noting things because you are sure you could not for get it," or because it is so familiar. "You will [this \vas underlined three times] forget it." Ethnographic notebooks, Malino\vski told her, should include observations, informants' commentaries, texts (both secular and sacred), day-to-day observations, and documents (maps,
plans, statistics, case histories). The ethnographer should write up temporary sketch es of different activities,
rites or ceremonies
actually seen to preserve loc a l colour, emotional feeling, etc. In particu
write up i m pre s si on s received in [the) first done in letter s home-duplicate c opie s kept.
lar
few w·ecks. This may be
Wedg\vood then underlined the follo\ving admonition: "Note where in native interest lies-( to determine the] native sense of values." All of this will sound very familiar to anyone v.."ho has read Mali no\vski's o\vn statements about field methodology, especially those in the first chapter of..�4rgotzauts o_(the J1't?stertl
Pacific (1922) and the conclu sion to volume one of Coral Gardens and Their i\1agic ( I935). All that is lacking is Malinowski's exhortation to record the •'imponderabilia of actual life and typical behavior"
(1922: 20).
In his discussion of fieldwork in British anthropology, Stocking
(1983a) has analyzed Malino\vski's methods and his mode of ethno graphic presentation in The .�4r:�onauts. He points out that Malino\\'ski �·as
not only intent on advancing himself in the role of"fieldworkcr as hero'' but also fundamentally concerned with convincing the novice anthropologist that despite initial difficulties in field\vork the task
could indeed be done. Malino\\'ski's supportive and hortatory role is Well illustrated by some of his comments in a letter he \\'rote to Camilla Wcdg\vood on May 5, 1933, five months after she had estab lished herself in the field:
F I E L D � O T ES I N C I R CUL.�TIO !\
3 06
This I want very much to impress on y ou: fieldv"·ork in its best form at first looks just like the th ing which you are sen din g over. It mus t at fi rst be ch aotic. an d put in t he form of little odd s and ends . On e gets w·h ole weeks of complete disillusionmen t and des ponden ce [ sic] . And then suddenly after months of toil an d lab our, one or t\\'O institutions sud denly fall into focus and on e or two strokes all ow us to build up the full picture. And this is the j o y of field\\'Ork . Hut y ou must not expect it to h appen immediately. So give full play to v..' hat you cal l your puritanic conscience and w hat I would define as B. M . 's honest to God Functional Method of fieldwork, an d plod alon g . . . . I seem to recogn i ze from your letters that inform ati on , as it ought to in Melanesia, is simply pouring into your open nets. Therefore. be patien t, cheer up and sti c k t o the Functional Metho d , which is on l y a different nam e for common sense. (Wedgv..' oo d
From
1 93 2-34)
N o t es to Ethnography
C o llecting information, however, is o nly the first stage in the pro cess of field res earch. According to her notes on Malino wski's meth o d ology, Wedg �v oo d labeled the next sta ge the
''
C on stru cti v e Scheme. '·
This in volves first " the proj ecti o n of e v er y significant fa ct under all aspects of the culture " and, second , \V riting up the d i fferen t cultural aspects as material a ccum u l a tes . ·T hus, one develops "a s o rt of double entry : the an aly sis of x in terms of a through \V; an d th e a nal y sis of a, b, c, etc. in term s of x ,
x
1 , x 2,
et c. " She ci tes land tenure as an example:
ana lysis of land t enure shoul d include discussion of " the so c i a l ,
an
politi
ca l e co no m i c a n d re l i gi o mag i cal relations of man to the soil as s a n c ,
-
tioned b y native law and custom"
( 1 9 3 2-34: no te b o ok 1 9 3 2). Prelimi ,
nary ana ly s is of t h i s sort should be done in t he field , to identify g a p s in o ne s data. '
We d g wood did not reco r d such analyses in h er field notebooks, but j udging fr om Malino\vski 's letters to her, s h e was appa ren tly includ ing s o me preli minary analyses ofhcr field data in her letters to him . A t one p oin t h e sugge s t ed that he "cu t o u t cer ta in po r tion s o f your information and pu bli s h them in 1\fan as i t might be e as i er to do it out of in fo rma l letters than for you to ha v e to s te \\ over the \\' ri ti n g up of an a rt i cle " 4 T h us her l etters , as partial di a l o g u e s between hersel f an d i n te r t.� t c d o thers p r o v i d ed the mediu m-and, ap p are n t l y, the moti vation-through which she c o n veyed sotnc a n aly s i s '
.
,
.
4 Malinowski,s letter to WedgV\'ood: 8 May 1 9 3 3 . A·ta�• is by the Royal Anthropological Soci ety.
a
scholarl y j ournal p u blished
Ca mill a w·edg woo d pla i n g cafs cradl e \Vi t h Oa ruoaru out de her field hou . Guinea ( 1 93 3 ) . C ourtl:sy N�tional ib rar y of A u tral iaa I.
.
,
�
anan1
307
308
F t E L D NO TES I N C I R C U L A T I O N
A t the request o f A . P . Elkin a t the U n ivers ity of S ydney, hovvever, she did write ffito articles for the journal Oceania \\lhile in the field . Her diary for May 1 9, 1 93 3 , notes that she started to work on the outline for a general article about Man a m ethnography to send to Elkin (Wedgwood 1 93 4a). Tvlo months later she vv rote a second article, about female puberty rites (Wedgwood 1 93 3). She did not record drafts of these anal�lscs of her data in her fieldnotes but must ha ve written them separately. Her notes remain, in Malinowski's word s , "the brute material of information . '' In light of current interest within anthropology in the relationship bet\veen recorded observation and the '�rriting of ethnography (cf. Clifford and Marcus 1 98 6) -or, as Malino\\' ski expressed it , the enor mous distance bet\veen the "b rute material of information . . . and the final authoritative presentation of results" ( 1 922 : 3 -4)-it is interest ing to note that Wedg�·ood Vlent to the fteld \Vith a dis tinct model of what an ethnography should incl ude. Her notebooks contain an out line titled "Plan of Book, " whose eleven sections cover all aspects of a society, from social morphology and the des crip tion o f daily life to the preservation of la\v and order and the problems of cultu re contact (sec the appendix to this essay) . Although she never wrote up her field material in the form of a book-length ethnog raphy, to some extent this outl ine must h ave served Wcdgv.rood as a guide to her collection of data in the fiel d, as it is reflected in her presentation of material in the articles she did publish . 5
Wedgwood and Deacon 's Fieldno tes Wedgvlood herself had worked �;th another perso n 's fieldnotes before going to the field . A. C . Ha ddon , her mentor at Cambridge, had assigned her the task of editing
an
ethnography" based on the
fieldnotes, letters , and fragmentary bits of analysis about the Malekul a of the Ne\v Hebrides left by the late Bernard Deacon , a brilliant young 5 As
Kaberry notes , the impact of Malin o\�lski,s influence on his students is especially
eviden t in their publications during the early thirties (see, e. g. , Wedg\vood 19343). I n these they produced studies o f particular institutions-such
as
kinship o r l and ten ure
\Vhich utilized the functional approach for the org anization of data (K aberry 1 9 57:
8 7).
Organizing data under chapter headings makes these divisions ap p e ar as •'inevi table"
or
"natural " categories ra ther than specifi c constructs of the Function al l\.1ethod, becau s e that method, a s Malino wski put it, \\'as '' only a ditTeren t name for com mon sense. "
Refractions
of Reality
of blackwater an thr o p o lo gist v.."hosc ca reer was cu t short v.rhen he died 6 fever j us t befor e leaving the Ne\\7 Hebrides in 1 927 . 1 h av e a lso looked at D eacon 's notes and can fu lly appreciate the ffi cul ty Wedg"W�ood had in making sense of them. They are v ery
di ditferent from hers . Sh e commented that the n otes " vary in clarity fro m de tailed accounts of one or two festivals of which D eacon was a n
eyewitness" to others so " confused and fragmen tary· as to require many \vceks of labour b ef o re they could be unders tood, a pencilled
scra\vl on the back of an old envelope or a chance \Vord in s o me other no tebook often giving the necessary clue to their mea n i n g " 1 9 3 4:
xxxiii).
(Deacon
7
Th ere ,.:vere th ree maj or problem s with Deacon 's notes : he seldom dated them; he did not indicate to which of several districts different no tes pertained; and he \\' rote in variou s dialects p lu s a
m i x t u re
of
English and Malekulan langu ag es . The notes contained little i n form a
tion about the lives of women or much about the people's daily affai rs . As Wedgvlood commented in her preface to .�alekr�la : ..4 Vanishing People itl the Neu' Hebrides, "This is not the book that Deacon \Vould have \V r ittc n , it i s onl y a compilation of v.that he left behind . . . . I am
convinced th at r the notes] do not con tain all that he knew of the people and their wa·ys" (Deacon
1 93 4: xxxii- xxxiii) . 8
I men tion Deacon's notes for two reasons . First, their lacunae and
weaknesses illustrate th e general pro bl em s of using another ethnogra pher's notes . Second , the fa ct that We d g wood had the frustratin g experience of wo rk i n g �vith them undoubtedly influenced the wa)" she recorded her own field d ata. Her j ournal entry" for July 3 � 1 9 3 3 , for 6 D ea co n 's contributions to anthropology are discussed in detail by Langh am ( 1 98 1 ) in hi s historical study of ""'hat he ide ntifi e s as the He a m b ri dge Sch ool, '� as \\·ell as by La rcom ( 1 983 ) (see no . � bclo\\r). Margaret Gardiner has published some of Dcacon·s
lett er s to her in her recent memoir ( 1 984). 7In May 1 92 8. Wedgv,rood \\'rotc rather des pa irin g ly to her former professor at Ca m bridge W. E. Armstron g: .. I am gradual ly breaking the back of the job of getting
is . . . . My room is at present litter ed \Vith genealogies & tabl es of compa rative terms . . . . I sup pose I shall Deacon 's n otes into order, & dis co v erin g ho\v mu ch ma terial there
e v entu ally red uce it to an intel ligible form � but at present I feel rather like Alice in Wonderland'' (qtd. in Gardiner 1 984: xvii) .
�Jo an
La rco m ( 1 98 3)! an anthropologist who so m e fi fty years later returned to the e \\' H brid es (no\\o' call ed Vanuautu) and \Vorkcd amon g the Mewun, one of the gro u ps Deacon had s tu died, has ""rritten about .. follo wing Deacon" and the use she has �ade of h is wo rk . Her essay dis cu s ses in particular the i mplications of some of the di fferences she foun d bet\veen his ficldnotcs and W'edg wood's edited vers ion of them. N.e
fiE L D N OTES I N C I R C U LATIO N
] 10
exa m ple, reco rded tha t she had started
a
catalogue of her photos to be
sent back to the U niversity of Sydney vv ith the negatives :
''If I should
die , my edito rs will at least not s u ffer in that res pect as I did from Bernard's very few and Journal N o.
uncatalogued photos ! '' (Wedgv,rood 1 93 2- 3 4 , 3 : 79). Both Wedg·\vood an d Haddon bemoaned the fact
that Deacon had not recorded the detail a bout everyday life \vhich,
Wedgv.'ood implies , he \Vould certainl y have conveyed had he himself written up his field materials. This point raises a m ore general question about what ethnographers incl ude in their notes . Is it likely, as Keesing states ( 1 98 1 : 7), that " much of what the ethno grapher learns ne·vcr goes into the n o tebooks" because it remains in the realm " that for lack of a better term , \\'e can cal l the ' un consciou s'-a kno\vledge o f scenes and smells and peo ple and sounds that cannot be cap tu red in the written vlord �' ? I ag ree that m u ch of o u r sen sory response to persons and scenes does not go into our notes, but not because this in formation can not be captu red in the \V ritten word . That is peo ple are better than others in conveying
a matter of skill : some
"a sense of place. " Rather,
I
th ink the heart of the problem is that \\'C all make certain uncon scious assu m ptions about
\\that is important or relevant to record . 9
Wed g vvood correctly believed that Deacon kne\v more than he conveyed in his notes . In fact,. it was through reading letters he v.rrotc to his girlfriend Margaret Gardiner and to other friends and colleag ues that Wedgwood \Vas able to garner information about Mal ckula that was lackin g in his notes . B ecause their aim and audience differ, letters may atte mpt to evoke a less "objective" sense of persons and place than fieldnotes and thus often provide the very informa tion that is n o t reco rded i n raw notes . 1 0
Wedg\vood commented that the clearest and most v i vid no tes were those des cribing events Deacon had actuall y \\litnessed . Her comment is tes timony to Malinows ki's point that field\vork should focus on the recording of information about events that the ethnographer has par ticipated in and can question individuals about di rectly (the methodolhis edition of Pehrson's notes on the M arri B aluch: "There may be kinds of information that are in fact vital to the task of anthropo1 ogical anal ys is but a r e fairl y consisten tl y excluded from our field notes-in other V\.'Ords . . . \V e ha ,..· e c.t See Barth 's preface to
conventional cri teria for i dentifyin g observations as data that are inappropriate for t he kinds
of hypotheses and theories v.,·c 'Nish to develop in our analysis·• (Ba rth 1 966 : x). letters fron1 �1alekula to his girlfriend in C atnbridge sho\v that informa
tO Deacon's
tion about fieldV\.·o rk conveyed to
a
loved one m ay be quite different fron1 v,rhat one
v.,-ritcs to a colleague or n1entor, n1ore intros pective than ethno graphic (C;ardincr 1 984).
I ap preciate �1ichael Youn g 's
thou ghtful
co n1 n1en ts on
this
poi n t .
Refrac tions o f Reality
3I
I
ogY th at C l i ffor d i n this volume , id en tifies as "description") . This co nt ras ts w i t h a pri m a r y dependence on q u e st i o n ing informants about ,
sp ecific ca tego ri es of information, such as the " Notes and Queries"
so rt of in t erroga tion that Rivers and Seligman advised (Clifford 's '' tra n s crip tion ") . Wedg"vood's Field Materials In con t r a s t to Deacon, Wcdg\vood \V ro te her notes in a series of
thirty-four neatly boun d notebooks. They \\'ere so c arefu lly dated sometimes even indicating the time of da y
-
t h a t it was easy to fo llo\\7
the chronology of her field\\'ork . She left the l e ft-ha nd pages blank so that if she had ne'"' information to add l ate r or a co rrect io n to make , ..
she co u l d insert i t alongside the original version . S he would \Vri te the new material in pencil or co n t ras ting ink as a way of disti n gu ishing the tvlo verstons .
Follo wing Malino w sk i 's prescriptions , her notes consist of recorded ob servations of dai l y activities, genealogical data, frag me n ts of texts with interlineal translations , nar ra tive des crip tions of events and pro cesses , and d r a\v i n g s d ia g r a ming such things
as
house construction
an d the parts of an ou trigger canoe . (H addon was pa rticularly in ter ested in comparative data on Oceanic can oes . ) Even \Vith the cla ritv of her no tes and their narrative fo rmat , how�
ever, I found that Wedgwood's letters, j o urnals and published articles ,
were essential as corollary sources of information . In her jo urnals she kept a daily record, providing detailed na rr a t i v e descriptions of both
special events and mundane daily occurrences . Her field materials al s o included sketch m aps of settlement patterns , collections of p lan t s pe c i mens and artifact s , and ph o t o g r ap h s
.
tlsing Another Ethnog rap her's �1\Jotes Empathy and Identification : " B eco min g the Other"
As I was not able to take copies of Wedgwood's n o tes into the field �i th m e, befo re g o i n g to Mana m I read thro u gh the n1 to extract mfo rm a tion about those t o p i c s and si tuations that \v ere relevant to my res ea rch . Q uickly, ho\\'evcr, I beca m e as interested in \vhat I could lea rn about her, the e th nog raph e r, as I \va s in the people and cu stoms
2.
Interior of Ca1nill a "'\lled g wood ·s fu.:Jd hou
,
Nla n a nl I s l an d ,
( 1 93 3). Courtesy N a ional Li b ra ry of Au � t ralia.
J I2
evt../
Guin ea
Refr actions of Reality
313
s h e ·"v as describin g . At that point, prior to going to the field , the M a n a m them selves remained anonymous, faceless characters vlho
so on m erg ed into an un d i ffe ren tiated group in my mind . D ata about M a n a m cultu re remained a mass of decontextualized and t herefore
s ee m i n g ly random and isolated social facts . I had been v.tamed not to s pend t oo much time stud ying Wedg"vood's notes before going to
M a na m . Th is advice proved \vei l founded . M y in itial readin g of her field jo urnals and le tters to friends, men to rs, an d fa mily al so captivated my attention less for their data about
M a n a m so ciety and culture than for Vlhat they could tell m e about Wcdgwood herself This \vas more than simple curiosity. Like Wed g '"' o od, I was a \\'O man going into the field alone, and I easily identified \1\'ith her. Sin ce she was no lon ger al ive to ans\ver direct questi ons ab out \�rhat fieldwork on M an a m had been like, I tried to read be tween the lines . I found myself searching for clues in this account from fo rty five years earlier as to what a similar exp erience might hold in store for me.
Field\\'ork , as the anthropological cliche states , is ou r pro fession's
rite de passage . As \\le know, the initial stage of m an y rites of passage entails separation from one's former sta tus and some form of instruc tion in the " mvsteries" or secrets associated with the new s ta tu s . As a I
graduate studen t prepa ring for my firs t majo r stint of field\v o rk , in addition to reading Wedgvlood's fieldnotes for information about Manam society, I came to realize tha t I also viewed her notes as a source o f p ersonal insight into the mysteries of the field \\7ork endeavor on \vhich I \Vas about to embark . Reading her field materials and talking with relatives an d coll eagues '''ho had kno�"n her pro\t;ded me \Vith a means of " b ecoming the other"-not, at least initi ally, of "becoming a M a n am " but , through a process of empathy, becoming the oth er eth1zograp her to have \\'orked on Mana m .
Entree into the Field Th ere \\'ere many obvious '"'·ays in \Vhich access to Wedgwood's fiel dnotes was helpful in beginning my ovln field research : they p ro vi d ed gene alogical and demographic data, and they helped me to learn
t he language. But th ere were also u nanticip ated Vlays in which her et h nographic materials facilitated m y entree into the fiel d .
B ec ause I intended to use her data a s a baseline fo r the s tudy of p roc es ses of culture change and the effects of culture con tact on gen-
f i EL O N OT E S I� CIRCU LATION
3 14
der, econo mic, and political relations , I kne\\' that I wanted to \vork in the same villages . Using the fieldnotes, I \\' as able to seek out individ uals \\tho were still living \Vith whom Wed g ,vo od had been closely involved. Her notes rela ted details-some intimate or humorous, others mo re mundane-about their lives and provided a way for me t o build on her earl ier relationships with them . It \\'as fort una te, there fore, that the Manam had liked her and had no obj ection to h avi ng another anth ropologist in their midst. By trea ting me categorically
as
if I \Vere Wedgwood's granddaughter, they were able t o fit m e into their com munity and net\\'ork of kins hip relations \vith relative ease. Personal names in Manam are tran sferred from grandparen t to grand child ; hence, I \\tas given her M anam na mc-I doge. This identity also provided me \\'ith mem bership in a parti cular clan and \\'ith an instan t set of kinship rclations- cons anguineal and affinal. In a sense , then, Wedg'"'·ood herself provided me '"'·ith a logical
structural position in the village and a means ofkinship with the past. I also brou ght with me her pho tographs of som e o f the M anam 's vener ated ancestors, which elicited a deeply emotional response fro m their descend ants. This event \vas \Yhat ultima tely authenticated my pres ence and established a general level of rap port between many of the Manam and me. A ceremony was _hel d in the village to honor those in the pictures vvho had died , and I made a pilgrimage around the island to sho v.' the photographs to people in o ther vill a ges . Establishment of rapport '"'ith strangers is one of the major chal lenges an an thropologist faces on first entrance into the field . This task vlas facilitated by the fictive connection the Manam created between Wcdgwood an d me. (Barth [ 1 966] found the same sort of fiction useful in legitimizing his presence among the M arri Baluch \vhen he con ducted a b rief field\\'ork visit in order to help him edit Pehrson's fieldnotes . See also Stoller 1 98 7 . ) More significantly, my presence on the island ��as quick}}� publicized and legitimized by the fact that I had brought pho tographs of deceased relatives and l eaders "i\"ho had been important to the Manam . Usin g ano ther person 's fieldnotes can entail more, I learn ed, than simply culling facts and figures from them . Inscribed there also, in a sense , are specific social relations, the close involvement or rapport established with particular individuals . More di ffusely, one's presen ce can be legiti mized-that is, in som e \vay rationalized-by the demon stration of a con nection \\"ith the past . In m y case, Wcdg vvood's field-
Re fra cti on s of Reali t y n photographs provid ed me an identification bo th \\7 ith the o t<-� a d and with ancestors important to the present or mer anthropologist o ulati o n . p p
�
d ''L imina l Pha se'' : Betwixt an Bet\veen After a year I left the field and returned to Australia, '"'"here I had a se cond op por tunity to read through Wcdg\\'ood 's fieldnotes. Having be e n sub merged for the previous t\\lelve months in Manam society, I
n ovl perceived Manam as a home in a \\' ay that neither Sydney or Canberra \vere. Because I knew that I \\'ould be returning to Manam after a month's absence , this reemergence into the ·\vorld of Australia \\' here I had distant ac q uaintan ces, but no close friends or family-\vas a
�·liminal" period for me : I \Vas bet\\7ixt and bet\veen the tvv o more
familiar and personal \\'orlds of New York and Manam. To a large extent I '"'·as still uin " M anam during the tin1 e I was visitin g in Aus tralia, and from a broader perspective the entire period of research was li minal-in the sense that fieldwork in itself can be considered the
liminal phase in the process of becoming a professional anthropologist . Reading Wcdg \vood's notes was an entirely different experience the second time, for I vlas now reading with the interest and knowledge of an insider. The people and activities she des cribed \\'ere no\v "local history " for me , a chronicle of past events some of vlhich I had heard about in other contexts, others of \vhich illuminated present events . They filled in gaps in my understanding of the reasons �vhy certain things happened or were done in a particular \\tay. Details about people, places, terms , and events had an importance and relevance for me that they could not have had before I had actually been in the field and spent time living with the Manam, studying their culture, and get tin g to kno\v individuals among them. Wedg\vood herself, as author of th e notes, faded into the back ground . I became less interested in her voice and her experience than in the Manam . Now that I recognized certain persons she was writing � bout, they \Vere no longer merely a cast of faceless characters but •ndividuals I had come to know personally or kne\v of indirectly through their descendants . Rather than identifying \vith Wed gwood in her role as ethnographer, I found myself ide n tif ying to a greater degree with the �anam. The liminal quali ty of this period also had an effect on my reading of the notes. The �vorld that Wedg'\\�ood's vlords
fiELD N O TE S
316
IN
CIRCULATION
depicted had an im media cy and a reality that was more meaningful me than the " real" world of Aus tralia and the Universitv of J
to
Svdney �
•
Library, �"here I was physically located in spa ce.
Reintegration and Return not immediatel y rea d
On my next return from the field I did through Wedgwood's notes again . I nstea d
,
I \\' as preoccupied for
some time \Vith organizing and analyzing my own field data and reaching my own conclusions about Manam s ociety. Wedg'\\l"ood 's fieldnotes seemed less rele·vant to me d u ring this stage of fo rmulatin g an interp retation of Manam culture based on my
O\\'n observation s
1 98 5) . Ho\\'ever, I did refer frequently to the te\v articles she had published
(Lutkehaus
about Manam soci ety immediatel y after she h ad left the field. Thus , unlike Wedgvlood in her "\Vork with Deacon 's notes, I had the benefu of som e of her interpretations of her own data. In comp aring my data \Vit h hers, it \vas a pparent that in some respects she had misj udged the
resiliency of certain aspects of Manam culture in the face of Western influence, and this raised interesting questions . I entered into a dialogue- so�eti mes an a rgument-\\'ith her; I
questioned some of her conclu sions, pointed out \vhat I felt \Vcre limitations and inconsis tencies in her interpretations (Lu tkchaus
1 98 2) .
This seems to have been a necess ary stage in defining myself a s dis tinct from her, a part of th e p rocess of separating my identity from hers b y asserting and establishing a difference between
us. Just as a child o r
studen t n eeds t o establish his o r her own identity distinct from that of a parent or mentor I needed to es tablish my own a u tonom y, now that I ,
had successfully carried out my own fieldwork and �·as b ack in the rela tive security of my familiar environment. In the experience fieldwork
we
of
were now equals . B y asserting con clusions contrary to
some of hers, I "'·as establishing a ne"i''" relationship of equality. Finally, after my
O\\'n interpretations and analysis of Manam society
had deepened, I returned to her notes a third time . This time I \v as looking for data related to specific points
in my conclusions about the
organization of Manam society. In this reading the Man am again faded into the background, no longer import ant to me as the particular individuals I had come to kno�... Neither was I interested in focusin g on the
nature of Wedg wood 's experience in the field . With regard to
both the Manam and Wedg\voo d , I w as le s s interested in empathetic
Refractions
of Re ality
317
lationships based on identification than in ascertaining certain social cts an d the significance to the Manam_ �f certain e�•ents, terms, and elarionships. I now became more scns1t1ve to the tssue of the effect cdgwood's own interests and interpretations may have had on the data she obtained and the \vay in which she recorded them.
�� �
Beyon.d Empathy 1
to
l_Inderstanditlg
have chosen here to focus on the description and analysis of the changing nature of my relationship to Wcdg\vood's fieldnotes rather than on a discussion of the many specific '�rays in which the data in those notes were useful in my O\\'D research-although of course the cwo are interrelated. I have done so because I believe that the use of another's ficldnotes, in addition to involving the process of reading a specific kind of text, entails establishing a personal relationship \Vith the notes. All fieldnotes represent an extension or projection of the individual \vho \\'rote them. This is the more significant �\then some one else actually uses those notes, especially if the person '\vho pro duced them is no longer alive. Like other social relations established during the course of anthropological research, the relationship be tween the ethnographer as reader and the other ethnographer as author has to be negotiated. It is a relationship that changes �ith time as one's 0\\'11 experience as an ethnographer and one's understanding of the culture in question changes. Some aspects of my use ofWedg�'"ood's field materials were specific to my particular situation; for instance, not everyone who uses an other anthropologist's fieldnotes is embarking on field research for the first time. But other aspects can be generalized. Joan Larcom, \Vho used Deacon's fieldnotes as an adjunct to her o�'ll ficldnotes in the New Hebrides, also found that her response to his notes changed over time. Moreover, it is possible to interpret her account of ''following Deacon" as the record of a process of negotiating a relationship be t\\'een Deacon and herself, mediated by his notes. According to Lar com ( 198 3: 176), she had to come to terms \Vith Ha ghost of [her] ant hropological ancestors." Although fieldnotcs represent a form of text, the reader's interaction With them, as v.."ith more finely crafted texts, engages him or her in a phenomenology of reading, a process that has both intellectual and emotional dimensions. One must have the time and opportunity to
FtELDNOTES IN CIRCULATION
318
"live, Vlith another anthropologist's notes in order to establish a rela tionship \Vith them. This is probably true of one's relationship with
one's own ficldnotes as well. Perhaps the most serious diffi cu lty in the attempt to use another's fieldnotes relates to vlhat they do not contain. Wedgwood's fieldnotes remain, for the most part, an e xample of Malino\vski's
"
c haotic odds
and ends of information." Before they could have full significance for me,
the
I had to actually go to Manam myself and, finally, grapple V�ith
process of analyzing and interpreting the data I collect ed there.
There is no doubt that having access to another ethnographer's fieldnotes can be advantageous Ho\vever, as I have tried to convey, .
there is a parti cul ar challenge associated Vlith this opportunity
.
In
addition to the task of learning to understand "the native's point of view" through the process of getting to knovl ''the other,
"
one mu s t
establish a relationship \Vith the other ethnographer through the me dium of the notes. This process entails moving beyond the establish ment of empathy (or antipathy) in order to grasp the other ethnogra pher's point of vievl. 11 Ultimately, it becomes, as Rosem ary Firth (1985: 22) has suggested,
a
matter of"the living and the dead [beingj
caught up together, in an operation of bringing order and significance to aspects
of the present we feel v.'_e know, and of the past we try to
apprehend."
APPENDIX: WEDGwooo's "PtAN oF BooK" In the sa me notebook in \Vhich she had \\'ritten lecture notes about fieldwork in May 1932, Ylhile she was attending Malino\._"ski's seminar at the London School of Economics, Wedgv-rood also wrote down the follo\ving detailed outline titled w
Plan of Book."
Part I Introduction: make this interesting; give ov.'tl qualifications, scientific credentials, temperamental bias, length of stay, etc., etc.
Environment: general feeling of the people. a) Geographical environment: climate, fauna, flora; rainfall and s e as ons; maps.
Source: Undated noteboo k in Wedgwood Personal Archives, Uni v ersity Archives, University of Sydney. 11
See Frank (1985)
for a discussion of the contribution
em pa thy
can make to the goa]
of understanding in other aspects of anthropological research-in particular, the life history method and biographical interpretation.
Refractions of Reality
b) c)
319
Social environment: ie. account of neighboring tribes; contacts by '\\'ar and trade, etc. just referred to. Contact with whites.
Demography: statist ics, etc.
Part Il gy: give in rather formal, schematic way. Social �\forpholo
(i) Territorial G�oupi�gs . Tribe, sub-tnbe; dtstrtct; v1llage or hamlet group; quarter of the village. _
_
(ii) Kinship Groups Moiety; phratry; clan; lineage; extended family; family. (iii) Status Groups Ranks, age groups, occupational groups, secret societies.
Part III Descriptive �ccou1at of Daily Lije ..
(i) Place things into a definite scheme v.'ith the calendar-festive seasons, division of labour according to the seasons. (ii) Account of daily life-as sho'\\'n at different seasons. Giving routine of \\·ork, hours of meals, etc.
(iii) Play, singing, dancing and other recreations and sports.
(iv) (v)
Ritual activities in daily and seasonal life-to be touched on. Children and Adults-the seasonal and daily activities of children; work and play.
(vi) Etiquette and social mores-ethical standards and the sanctions behind these. (vii) Legal elements of tribal life and their sanctions. {viii) Quarrels and strife within the village-types of offence V.'hich cause this. (Note:
[vii]
and [viii] to be dealt with fully later)
Part IV Kin.ship (Biographical Treatment) Ideas concemitl� relat ions oj· the sexes: attitude of men and \Vomen tO'\\'ards each other; i deas concerning chastity; prenu ptial conduct; postmarital sex freedom;
etc.
The place of marriage in native lift: status of the unmarried and married; value of
fertility and of motherhood; value of fatherhood. Coumhip and Betrothal: arranging marriages; types of union; qualifications and prerequisites of marriage.
A1arriage tls a procreative contra ct : the marriage ritual and the legal aspect of mar riage; period between birth and conception; concep tion-native theory, espc
_cially in relation to kinship; period of pregnancy, and attitudes to\vards it.
Brrth: sociology ofbirth-where, \\'ho attends, etc.; ceremonial; period of mother �nd child isolation and their ritual release; naming (if done later-postpone);
mfanticide and abortion; twins, monsters, miscarriages, still-births, death of mother in childbirth; birth rate and infant mortality; fatherless children.
Lactation: duration of; nutritive aspects-how nursed, times of feeding, etc.; domestic aspect-how carried, cleaned, etc; social aspect-who tends it, etc.
FIELDI'OTES
320
II'
CIRCt:"LATION
The sodolo._�ical tJtf-•akening: the groups v.'ho surrow1d the child as it a\vakens to jb
surroundings; constitution of the farnily and household; contact with oth<'r households; the linguistic side of this initial situation (first instalment of f.1n1il\!
terms); survey of the kinship situation; the endurance of the individual tie.s throughout life; the complexity of kinship and quasi-kinship bonds.
J\,1a"ia.�e (from point of vie\\. ofhusband and wife): pre-requisites of marriage ( cf
courtship); prescribed and proscribed unions;
Courtship: opportunities for individual selection; place of love and spontaneity; motives for marrying. Character of relationship between husband and wife: domestic. econon1ic, legal, religious, sexual (sexual exclusiveness and adultery), divorce. New social contacts and obligations resulting from marriage: i.e. relations to kindred of the spouse; linguistic aspect of these; kinship terms for affmals. Parenthood (cross-reference back): change of social status resulting from parent
hood and ho\v this 1narkcd; further changes of status through social gro\\'th of children
(e.g.
initiation; marriage; birth of3rd generation).
The education period: \vay in which early tending passes into education; sociology
of education (weaning, changes of dress, naming, etc.); education proper technological and sociological; the child's social horizon: the home, the chil dren's republic; other adults with \\'hom it con1es into contact; linguistic aspects of this: first extension of kinship terms; modes of address and reference by children amongst themselves and by children to adults and reciprocaHy. The pubertr periods (treat boys and girls separately): crisis of initiation-age, rites,
etc. Sociological side: performers; separation from the family and introduction to clan system; segregation of the sexes or marking of sex dichotomy (men and \Vomcn� s club-houses, etc.), rules of descent and principle of unilateral stress; introduction to adult life and activities-occupations, ritual life, mythology; linguistic aspect of this ne\\' social horizon (secondary extension of kinship terms). Dratll: mortuary duties-sociology and procedure (deal """ith latter briefly here)�
cult of ancestors-by who carried out, and for ho\\r long.
Part V Social Or�tJtaization
(a) The House or Homestead: plan shov-,"ing disposition of rooms� hearths� etc. How is it used and by \vhom; position in polygynous household (note social function of verandah, etc. \\·here such is found). Sleeping, cooking, eating and working arrangements (distribution of household \\ror k-v. Economic life). Personnel of the household-arrangement for guests,
etc.
Authority in the household-in hands of one person or divided according to sphere of activity. (b) The Village, Hamlet or Horde: plan of the village� showing arrangen1cnt ofhuts, adjacent gardents, '\\"ells, granaries. etc. Who occupies the houses i.e. \\'hat relationships arc the members of the households to each other; is
ty Refractions of Reali
321
�
�
or horde divide into "quarters'' occup ed by me� b�rs of dif the village . or other sacul groups? The place 1n the soc1al hfe ot_ the ferent kins htp villa ge squ are or clubhouse. The political org a nizat ion of the village headman, council, etc. The Hamlet Group: kinship , ritual, econo mi c , social bonds bet\\'een mem
(c)
p and upkeep. bers of neigh boring hamlets. Paths, etc. and their ownershi Quarrels bet ween the hamlets and how d ea lt with. Political organization, if any, of the hamlet group {as in [b]).
(d) The District: {as in [c]). (c) The Tribe: (as i� [c]�.
[Statistics of population tn (a)-( c)]
Part �71
The EcotJomic L({e (Ref. back to Part Ill)
(i) Land and Land Ten ure: land used for ditTerent purposes; ow ner shi p of ·
'
l and-by the
clan,
village, etc. Use of b ou nda ry marks, etc.,
rights
of
using the land or its w il d produce (note especially rights over trees).
Gardming rights; perma nent and shiftin g; how acquired and ho'\\' passed on; rights of clearing virgin bush. Ritual aspects of land ownersl1ip and tenure: myths concerning rights over
land.
Quarrels:
(b) between u su ally settled ?
concerning land (a) between fello�· village rs ;
ferent villagcs-ho\-..· they arise and how are they
dif
Map out the garden held by a village, sho\��v·ing \\'hat cul tivated by \vhom
and give history of di fferent p l ots ; also case histories of disputes over land
and water rights.
(ii) Water : sea, reefs and foreshore9 stre a ms (as for [i]-note also regulation of water-rights in connection with irrigation).
{iii) Food-getting Activities:
(a) Garden in g : different kinds of crops and di fferent varieties of each;
techniques and ritual of cultivation.
(b) Organization of labour: storing or distrib uti on of crop s . Rights over
s tanding and h a rves ted crops (e.g. of wa yfarers, clansfellows, cert ain
kindred to take \vhat is re q uired by them from the field). I Note: in sert here detailed calen da r of agricultural \\'Ork.]
(b) Fishin g: (as for [a])-where deep -se a fishing, note ownership and n a ming of c an oes and tackle.
(c) Hunting: (as for [a])-note righ ts to kill if animal sp eared or di e s in land of anothe r village, in a garden , etc.; where organi z ed h unting
use of dogs and pos ition of O\\'ner of dogs used, d i vi ding of kill, Vw'hich parts regarded as best.
etc. Note esp e cially
(d) Domes ti c animals: what ones kept; attitude towards them; how owned; ho\v cared for; if killed - when and on \Vhat occasion s; if do
damage to person or gardens when and what extent is oVwner liable ,
for this.
J22
fiELDNOTES IN CIRCL'I.ATION With reference to a, b� c, d� no tice: social status of indi�;duals excelling in
a, b, or c, or particularly rich in d; s etti ng up of trophies connected \Vith them; myths conce rn ing them.
(iv) Arts and Crafts: (very much as in (iii)-notc ex i ste nce of specialists and how special art handed on to next generation).
(v) The Exchange of Goods: nature of goods exchanged; occasion; bct\\·cen whom; existence of"valuablcs'•; prestige and the o w nershi p or exchange of goods. Ritual and mythology connected \vith exchange (also eti quette); social significance of exchange.
Part �"II The presen,ation of LtJw tJnd Order
Warfare
Part VIII .Magic, Religion and .�tyth: general account of all aspects found in the soci ety
to other parts); the morphology, dogma, ritual and sociology; ethics.
(R�f
Part IX Knowltdgt o.f the Arts: (This, especially the section on kno\\'ledgc, will involve
a
lot of cross-referencing to other parts.)
Part X LinRuistics: texts and analysis of language; social contexts of dialects. etc.
Part XI
Problem.s o_{ConttJct
REFERENCES
Barth, Fredrik. 1966. Preface. In Robert H. Pehrson, Tht Social Organization o.ft!u·
lvtarri BtJlucll, comp. and ed. Fredrik Barth, vii-xii. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology 43· Ne\\' York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus, cds. 1986. ��'riting Cultr4re: Tht Potties and Politics o.f Ethnography. Berkeley: U nive r sit y of California Press.
Deacon, Bernard. 1934. �Walekula: A f/cuti.shing Peoplt in the J'Jew Hebrides. London: Routledge.
Firth, Rosemary. 1985. Bernard Deacon: An Intimate !\.o1cmoir. (Revie,-.,r of f\..1ar-
Refractions of Reality
323
er. Footprint.� on 1\falekula: /\ ..1\.fe tnoir of Bernard Deacon. ) Antlrropolgare t Gardin Today 1:21-22. ogyk CJClva. 1985. uBecoming the Other'·: Em path y and Biographical Inter·
Fran , 1 1 rctacion. B 1 ography 8: 89-2 o. diner, Mar garet 19R4. Footprints on Malekula: A Memoir of Hrrnurd Deacon. ·
G
.
.
!
mander Press. Edinburgh: Sala ll is. 19 5 7 . Malino\vski's Contribution to Field-\o\'ork �ethods and Kaberry, Phy Ethnography. In lt4an and Culture, cd. Raymond Firth, 71-92. the \�lriting of Ne\�l York: Humanities Press. 981 [ 1976). Cultur al ..4nthropology: .A CotJtt•mporar}' Per.spective. 2d Kcesing, Roger. 1
cd. NeVv' York: Holt, Rinehart & \1/inston. Langham, Ian. 198 1 . The Buildin.� oj· Br i t i$h Social .4nthropology: 1-J� H. R. Rivers and His CambridRr Disciples in tiH' Dez.,eloptnent o_.f Kit�ship St1�dies, 1898-19.31. Dordrecht: Reidel. Larcom, Joan . 1983. Follo\ving Deacon: The Pr oblem of Ethnographic Reanaly
sis. 1926-1981. In Stocking 19H3b, 175-95. Lutkehaus, Nancy. 1982. Ambivalence. Ambigu ity. and the Reprod u ction of Gender Hierarchy in Manam Soci ety. Social 4nal)'.\is 12:36-51. ..
-
. 1985. The Flutes of the Tanepoa: The Dynamics ofHierarchy and Equi va
lence in Manam S oci ety. Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, New York.
. 1986. She Was l/er}' Cambridge: Camilla Wedg\\"ood and the History of Women in British Social Anthropology. Amrrican EtiJnologist 13 (4): i76-9�L Malino\\'ski, BronislaVw'. 1922 [ 1961 ) . Argonauts of the 1-Je.stern Pacific. New York:
-
L)utton.
--. 1935 [1978]. Coral Gardens and Th eir .�1agic. New Yo rk : Dover. Sto ck ing , Ge o r ge 1983a. The Ethnographer's Magic: Fieldwork in British An .
thropology from Tylor to MalinO\\·ski. In Stocki ng 19 83 b, 7o-120. , ed. 1983b. Observers Ob.served: Essays on EthnoRraphic
-
Fieldwork. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Stoller. Paul. I98i. Son of Rouch: Portrait of a Young Ethno g rapher by the S onghay. i\nthropoiOR)' Quarterly 6o
(3):
1
14-22.
Wedg\\'ood, Camilla. 1932-34. Wedg\vood Personal Archives, U n i versity Ar chives, Univer sity of Sydney. Materials used by permission.
-
. 1933. Girls' Puber t y Rites on Manam Island, New Guinea. Oceania 4: 1 32-
ss. --
. 1934a. Report on Research in M anam Island, M an dated Territory of Ne\v
Guinea. Oceania 4:373-403.
. 1934b. Sickness and Its Treatment in Manam Island. New Guinea: Part 1. Oceania 5:64-79.
--
--. 1935. Sickness and Its Treatment in Manam Island.. New Guinea: Part Oceania 5 :2Ro- 307. --
----
. I9Ji. Women in Manam. Oceania 7:401-28; 8:170-92.
. 1938. The Life of Ch ildren in Manam. O ceania 9:1-29.
. 1959. Manam Kinship. Oceania 29:239-56.
2.
SANJEK
ROGER
Fieldnotes and Others
The primary relationshi p of fiel dnotes is to their writer-reader, the ethnographer who produce_s them. Yet as obj e cts they are seen, and
som etimes read, by othe rs As Bond, Obbo, an d Lutkehaus detail in .
this volume, these others are diverse-"the other
"
(as interpretation
ists a rc \Vont to call their informants) \\'hom the y are about; other "others" in the societ y studied but outs i de the immediate eth n ograp h i c
range; and other anthropologists: teachers, colleague s and those who ,
ma y later read or even inheri t and write from the o r i ginal author,s
fiel dnotes
.
Inforntilnts, Publics, ilnd Fieldnotes Few anthropologists today, or even in the
p a st
,
hide their researcher
role as Mead did among the Omaha I ndian s Most take notes ope nl y .
at least during e thnographic and formal intervie\\'s-though son1c e thnographer s
,
like Whyte (1955, 19()0), prefer not to \\"rite even
s cr at ch notes in front of informants but to rel y later on their memo r y
.
Informants arc aware of wr iting and its resultant documen ta ry forms. if not of all the kinds of notes the anthropologist maintains. On some occasions, particularly r itu als and
ceremon i es the infor m an ts e thnog r a phi c note-taking (Powdermaker 1966: 87).
324
,
expe[t
Others ficldnotes and
hear and sec typ e\vritcrs The act of typing in the field, Thev also ·c;er-the rew or k ing of scratch notes to typed or recopied fieldh W o · · �:: tnter1ercs · h wtt can dampen rapport wh en 1 ts d estre d pnvacy tes o n ciability. This was a particular proble m for Jean Briggs, li ving in quarters with an Eskimo family. .
·
·
-
�fosc
I found it hard sometimes to be simultaneously a docile and helpful
daughter and a dutiful anthropologist. 'Though Allaq appeared to accept mv dom esti c clumsiness as inevitable. she may have felt less tolerant on th� occasions when it was not lack of skill that prevented me from
helping her but anxiety over the pocketful of trouser-smudged, dis
organized field notes that cried out to be typed.
Briggs e ventual ly separate
tent.
moved her type\vriter,
[ T970: 25]
and later her re sidenc e , to
a
The point of contention in the iglu had been bet\veen
ficldnotes. The outcom e, a sober lesson in �·hat fieldwork is all about, makes one \\'Onder \vhy so fe�· of the extended personal accounts discuss fie ldn ote �..riting with any candor at all, le t alone the measure provided by B riggs In situations ""here informants can r e ad , other anxieties may arise as \\l·ell. John Adair, �·orking at Zuni Pueblo in the late 1940s, \\'as co nfronted by reaction to a ne� spapcr article on sacred c]o,vns based on Cushing's earlier accou n t rapport and
.
"
.
I learned that one of the men of the house where I was living had entered my room during my absence and looked through the notes which I had been careful to hide under the mattress .... There he had run across the
native name for these clowns in a life history I \Vas taking .... This discovery didn't help me with my relations \\'ith my landlord or his veteran sons. [ 1 9()o: 492]
Rumors spread about Adair, and for this and other reasons he moved to a new re side nce He was aware, of course, of Zuni resistance to .
anthropologists and knew that "in 1941, the Tribal Council confis cated the field notes of an anthropologist and burned part of them. He Was asked to leave Zuni \vith in twenty-four hours" (Pand e y 1972: 322n). Exp e rie nce or kno" ledge of social research methods is no\\t com tnon in many vvorld areas and cre ates expectations about what an anthropologist should or should not be doing In Adabraka, Ghana, in 1970-?I, I remember vividly when a newspaper reporter living in the same bu ildi ng asked me when I was goin g to begin doing my ques"
.
fiELIJNOTES IN CIRCULATION
326
tionnaire. S h a h (1979: 3 I) de l i b e ra tel y chose to work in a Gujarat village \Vhere an economist had conducted a survey in 1930: "A few villagers �,..ho knew English '"'·ould inspect our field notes and a fe\v who did no t asked us to translate them . The villagers gained co n fi dence in us only after they cou ld pl a ce us in the so cia l c a tego rie s \Vith which t h ey \Yere familiar,'' those of both researcher and fcllo'"'· Indian. The Whitten s chose to head off misunderstandings in Nova Scotia and av·o i d any los s of rapport. "We sho � ed pe op le our mann e r of writi ng and filing notes , our genealogies , maps and me ch a ni cal aids (typew ri ter) (Whitten 1970: 382). Other ethnographe rs have deliber a t ely read fieldnotes back to informants, as Osgood (1940: 53) did to Billy Williams, to veri fy and expand on them . St a n n er, in perhaps the fmest essay in all the field�"ork li terature, relates that \Vhen in 1954 he w ent over his notes of t \\ C n ty years earlier wi th his Australian Aborig ine in form an t Durmugam, t he y stood up �"ell and provoked val u a bl e re flect ion s fr om t he ir origin al sou r ce ( 196o: 86) . Many i n for m a n ts even those who are illit erate, \vei l understand the per manen cy of written re cords and m ay enlist the anthropologist to p u t t h ings of their ch oo sing down on paper. The Bow Society priests directed C ushin g to transcribe their p rayers an d songs in precise� archai c Zuni (Green 1 979: 149) . Mead writes:
"
,'
'
,
When I ar rived among the Manus .
.
.
they had al ready been quarreling
for thousands of years about how many dogs' teeth [their currency)
somebody had paid to somebody else .... So the first thing they said to me when I came along
\\'as,
"Ah, now Pi yap (Mead] can write it down.
You write down every single transaction and \Ve \\'on•t need to quarrel
any more.'' [Ho'\\rard 1984: 106]
Read (1965: 20 3) had a si mi l ar exp erience of being asked by Nc\\r Guinea H i g h lan d informants to record transac tions in his n otebook. The r elat i vi ti e s of text and experience d is c us sed with subtlety by G eo rge Bond have also had the ir equivalents for o ther e thnograp h ers Schap e ra whose 1938 Handbook o_f Tswana Latt' and Custom �"as a p rod u c t of his fieldnotes, found its distributed copies returned to hin1 with annotations by Ts wana chiefs for the second edition (Coma ro tT and Com a ro ff 1988: 563). Like the Yombe �;th Bond's ethnography. they had turned it in to an open text in \vhich to re cord their notes. Christine Obbo's essay here relates interest in her fieldnotes by Ka mpala chiefs an d officials curious about the neighborhoods and activities she \\'as studying . She de tails her s trat e gi es to put them off, as .
,
ficldnotes and
Others
327
v.rcll as her unsettling encounters Ylith anthropologist and academic and their efforts to read her fieldnotes. Government offi lleagues c� s usually convinced that some greater secret than actually exists lies oa I , . fiel dnotes, have attempted on occasion to read them elsc'"'·here as ell: in Ecuador, Ralph Beals's fieldnotes (Paul1953: 229); and in India, ora Du Bois, \vho left hers accessible to Indian intelligence those of C officers to allay suspicions that she and her research team '\\��ere Ameri 70: 224). According to Cliflord's account (1988: 277-346) can spies (19 of the Cape Cod Mashpee Indian land claim trial. the threat of sub poena of an anthropologist-\\'itncss's fieldnotcs was raised; and the fieldnotcs of one anthropologist informant of Jean Jackson actually �·ere subpoenaed.
:
Students and Colleagues
Fe\v students arrive in the field ever ha,ring seen ethnographic field notes. Mead, in her field methods course at Columbia, made a point of showing hers to her students (1972: 142-43); so do Ottenbcrg and Wolcott ( r 98 1: 2 56). Some anthropologists have also shared their notes with students \vorking in the same field setting, such as Ottenberg with a student Vlorking among the Limba (this volume), Wolff(r960: 249n) with a student working in Lorna, and Wagley (1977: 76) Vlith Judith Shapiro '\\l�orking among the Tapirape. Foster opened his field note files to three students \Vorking in Tzintzuntzan, requiring them to share their notes '\\l;th him in return, and they ma·y freely use and cite each other's data (Foster 1979: 178). The Comaroffs (1988: 559) have had access to Schapera's Ts\vana fieldnotcs; as in the other in stances, their mention bespeaks an amicable relationship. All these cases, except Mead's, Ottenbcrg's, and Wolcott's teaching, illustrate a collegial practice of sharing field data rather than a didactic one of shovling ho\v to write fieldnotcs. More usual (but one '\Vonders) are situ ations in \Vhich a teacher reads a student's fieldnotes and reports as they are mailed home, or brought back from the field. Nancy Lutkehaus's essay in this volume discusses Malino\vski's \Vritten re sponses to Wedgwood's field letters. Kimball and Partridge (1979) detail a similar dialogue founded on letters and reports more than on field notes proper. Ruth Benedict's attention to students' ficldnotes vlas remarked upon b·y Mead (1974: 34, 59): "She made the most ofher o\vn field '"'·ork, but I think she got greater enjoyment out of working over
fiELDNOTES IN CIRCULATION
328
her studen ts' field notes, teaching them how to organize them and , trying to make a whole out of their often scattered observations., T
he
heartfelt ackno\vled gments in man y dissertations and books no doubt
evi d ence similar attention from other anthropological teachers.
Reports of collea gues sha rin g ficldnotes are also fe\\' but usually
involve amicable relations, unlike the efforts at appropria tion encoun
tered by Obbo. Opler "W·as given copies of fieldnotes by the other students-John Gilli n, Jules Henry, Regina Flannery Herzfeld, Sol Tax-in a 193 1 La boratory of Anthropology field training party led by Benedict among the Apache (Opler was committed to continued
work among the Apache, \vhile the others were not) and also ex chang ed fieldnotcs through the 1930s \Vith another ethnographer
of
the Apache, Grenville Goodwin ( O pl er 1973: II-12, IJ, 22). Scudder and Colson, in their lon g-term Gv1embe Tonga fiel d \vork in Zan1bia,
had an ag reement: Each would supply a carbon of all f1cld notes to the other and
...
each
had the right to publish independently using the total body of informa tion. This agreement still stands and has \vorked \veil. Over the years
we have shared ide as as
ence.
(1979: 234)
v-'c
read field notes, talked� and pooled experi
Ackno\vledgmen ts in ethnographies point to similar cooperation.
In Navaho �f'itchcrafi Kluckhohn cites the fiel dnotes of eleven anthro pologists
(1944: 244-52). Hildred Gecrtz (1961: 170) ackno"W·ledgcs
dra"W·ing on her collea gue and husband Clifford Geertz's fieldnotes
Ja va nese families. A for-the-record mention by Evans-Pritchard others' use of his Nuer ficldnotes a year before
on
of
his first published
article appeared perhaps points to the povver asym metry in student teacher relationships: "The chapter on the Nuer (Chap. VI) in Pagcn1
Tribes o..fthe J"\rilotic Suda11, b y Prof. C. G. and Mrs. B. Z. Selig man. 1932, was compiled from my notebooks'' (Evan s-Pritchard 1940: 2
n. 3; see also vii).1 Are students ever free to deny fieldnotes to th ose who sponsor their research? Ficldnote deposition \\'as required
of
researchers at the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in then Northern Rho desia and at the East African In stitute of Social and Economic Research
in Uganda, although what "\Vas done "\vith them by an yone other than their authors is unclear (Richards Evans-Pritchard's (1932: xiii). 1
notes
I977:
r8o) .
arc duly ackno\\'lcdged by the Seligmans in their book
FieJdnotes and Others
329
Teatns
As dis cu ssed in ''The Secret History of Fieldn otes" (Part III, this volume), the lone ethn ographer designing, conducting, and \\rriting up \Vn field\vork adventure is mainly Malinowskian myth his or her O (though true in his case) and post-196o individual grant practice. Until re cent decades there have been more Argonauts than Jasons. Ficl d�"ork in the classical period \Vas less Odyssey than Iliad, organized in p ro gram s, projects, schemes, and teams, with lar g er purposes than those en visi o n ed in single-investigator research designs. 2 After Samoa, Mead collaborated \Vith Fortune in Manus, on the Omaha reservation, and in the Sepik region; and \\rith Bateson and others in Bali and on her return to Manus . Fieldnotes V�"erc shared . Many of today's leading American anthropologists are products of organized research efforts. Harvard, home of teams, has housed the Yankee City, Ramah, Values in Five Cultures, Modj okuto, Six Cultures, Chiapas, and Kalahari Research projects . Team projects continue in anthropology, but they \\'ere much less central to the discipline in the 1970s and 1 9 80s than earlier. In team projects, the role of fieldnotes and their circulation varies with project organization. Mead's Bali research \Vas unusual in its multimedia pattern of integration . The investigator may make a running record of the behavior of a group of individuals against a time scale. Where cooperative field-\\·ork is being done, a parallel photographic or Cine record, or a combination of
the t\vo may be added to this. The observations may be parceled out among a number of observers, one taking ceremonial behavior, another informal behavior not in1mediately oriented to the ceremony, another recording only verbatim conversations, or another following a single individual through the same period. (This is the method which is now being used in our Balinese researches by Mr. Bateson, Miss Jane Belo, Mrs. Katharane Mershon, and mvself, \Vith the addition of three trained J
21n this context, I disagree \\'ith Marcus and Cushman
(I988:
73-74)
(1982:
26) and VanMaanen
that the post-19(}os personal accounts have "demystified�' ethnographic
fieldwork. This puts ethnography itsel f into a timeless "ethnographic present." The emphasis these writings place on individual experience and self-kno\\rledge (Clifford
I986: 13-I s; VanMaanen 1988: 100-9)-on fieldwork as "rite ofpassage�' in a personal t ath�r than professional sense-are "reflexive'' of the decline of field\\rork project d ornanance since the 19t'}os, and the ascendancy of governntent funding of individual �roposals. The hi stori cal aexpcrimcntal moment'' (Marcus and Fischer r986) is histor Ically determined.
fiELDNOTES IN CIRCULATIO�
330
Kaler, Gocsti Made Soemoeng, and I Ketoet Pen1angkoc, \Vorking in shifting cooperative con1binations.)
literate native observers, I
Made
(Mead 1940: 328]
The result of this fieldnoting/ photographing/filming was unconven tional photograph-based behavioral analysis (see Mead 1970: 258-59t Plates
I-XVI; Whiting and W hiting
1970: 309-12). From Mead's
similar team field'\\l·ork in Manus in 1953-54 (1956: 495-96), she
re
turned to more traditional fieldnote-based prose ethnography. Warner's 1930s Yankee City (Ne,�rburyport, Massachusetts) project involved eighteen field\\7orkers, \Vho produced a wealth of records, informal and ethnographic intervie\vs, and "dicta phone" fieldnotes of
observations of events and organized behavior, filed according to cate gories and subcategories of the family, economic organization. associa tions, government, churches, and sports. One copy of his or her
field
notes \vas retained by each field\vorker, and they all submitted another
copy, and weekly and annual \\'rittcn reports of their research. These
documents, with the flies, '\\�·ere available to other field team members,
although direction of the project analysis, involving twenty-five per sons, remained in Warner's hands (Warner and L.unt 1941: ix,
44-75).
The field\vorkers did not write their O\Vn ethnography; Warner
\Vas
author or senior coauthor of all five resulting volumes. The control of fieldnotes in Oscar Le\vis's Tepotzlan team project Vlas similar. He was sole author of the ethnographic volume resulting
from the \vork of his fifteen-person team; the only separately written sections of
Life in a 1Wexican l/illage
(Lev..'is 1951) are a chapter on
Rorschach test results and appendixes on maize and potsherds, none
of
these written by members of the field team. A much looser arrange ment of a more tightly designed three-year research project in V..'"hite and Indian Minnesota communities allov....cd "substantial field-"rork
experience for eighteen graduate students in anthropology": the final
was complemented by six master's theses, t\VO doctoral dissertations, and report of project supervisors Pertti Pelto and J. Anthony Paredes
jointly and separately authored journal articles (Pelto 1970: 270-87). This model of several coordinated field,�rorkers in the same
or
nearby locations, each \�lriting his or her own ethnographic reports, has marked most team proj ects from the 1940s through the present. Ficldnote coordination, hov.... ever, has varied. Kluckhohn's 1939-4� Ramah Navajo project (Lamphere
1 979:
22-28 ) involved a score
of
researchers, each pursuing individual proj ects published separately,
fiel d notes
33 1
and Othe rs
thou gh a volume based on p roj ec t ficl dnotes abo u t forty-eight chil dre n ,va s coau tho re d by Dorothea L ei gh ton and Kluckhohn, and uckh o h n dre\v on other fieldvlorkcrs' no tes in Navaho �Vitchcraft l{ } ( 1 944). P roject fieldnotes were fil ed at H a rv a r d a ccording to categories devi sed by Kl uck ho hn . In 1 9 4 8 K l u ckhohn s Com parative Study o f Values in Five Cul ect ( L amp here 1 979: 2 8- 3 2 ) -comparing Navaj o , Zuni, tu res Proj '
Mo r m ons, Texans, an d Spanish Americans-began �;th Rockefeller
Fou n da tion s u p p ort. B y its 1 9 5 3 con c lu s i o n thir ty-seven fiel d \\' Ork e rs h ad par ticipated, ag a in wi th sep arate p r oj ec ts and pu blications (a 1 su m m ary volume appeared only in 9fi6). From the beginni ng a co m m o n - u se r organization of ticldnotcs was ad op ted by the p roje c t . ,
,
Fiel d notes were ty ped on ditto n1asters , and the con tents of each p a ge o f notes \Vas an alyzed i n terms of the inventory of cu l t u re con t en t devised b y the Hum an Relations Area Files at Ne\v Ha ven . Each i tem in the inventory has its own code nu n1ber, an d so each pag e of notes acquired from one to half a dozen nu mbers, depending upon how i ts c onten ts �vere analyzed. A cop y of each page of n otes \vas then filed under every content category invo lved . A partici p ant in the project would then be able to refer quickly to the nu mbered headin g in the file to sec what others besides himself had recorded on a large n u mb e r of predefined s ubjects . [Gulick 1 970: 1 3 5 n ]
All
K l u ckho hn 's N avajo files '\Vere
moved to the l.aboratory of
An thropology at Santa Fe in 1 963 . The pre-HRAF l�am ah notes filed
in K l u c k h o h n s own categories p roved difficult for Lam phere ( 1 979: 32) to use for la t er Ramah res ea rch : "It was as if the 'kev ' to the Ra mah F il es ha d died '"'"ith Kl u ckhohn . Only hours of d iggi� g through 'cut up' fiel d notes revealed facts tha t mig ht easily have come to light in a '
co n versation \Vith him . " The H RA F ca teg ori es n o t tailored to a caste-divided community, \\'e re also used in a 1 9 5 0s Cornell team study i n an In d i a n village. ,
Fi eld vlorkers had their own proj ects and typed four copi e s of their no t e s fo r di s t r ibu ti o n to Luckno\v, Cor n ell the vill a ge fi e l d station, ,
and back to the field�·orkcr. Though notes Vlcre available to all project � embe rs , includin g those who j oined during l ater stages , the con
� ua l del a y s in typing up fieldnotes from s cratch notes vitiated proj ect lll t e r co m mun i cati on plans . No one read all the fieldnotes , and infor m al discu ssion in the field site pro v e d the most imp o rtant source of tea m i nt egr ation (LeClai r 1 960� cf. Du Bois 1970 : 222 -23).
332
F I F. L D N OTES I f\ C I R C U LATI O N
Such communication ofheadnotes, a s \veil a s fieldnotes, \Vas tn a xi mized in the procedures developed by a group of five researchers in a mid-1970s ethnographic study of San Diego inner city hotels. Paul Bohannan, the project director, met \Vith two or more ficld\vor ker s a t least every three weeks in "debriefing sessions, '' \\'here detailed re ports on fieldnotes were presented, discussed, and taped. Boha1111a n then took notes on the tapes, averaging t�"enty pages, and index ed them according to subjects and persons of interest to the project. ..
These n otes differ significantly from a field \vorker's no tes . They con tain not only data, bu t, clearly demarcated as such , formulations a nd preli m i n ary analyses . Some of these latter poin ts can be su ggested to fiel d \vorkers, more or less as assignments . Others go b ack to fornt t he protodraft of analy sis . [ Bohannan 1 98 1 : 3 8 ]
As the project focus narrowed, life history interviews \\�"ere conducted, and indexed by Bohannan according to the same project categories ( 1 98 1: 40). A complex use of fieldnotes marked the Six Cultures project in which t\\l"o-person teams and local assistants conducted ficld\vork simultaneously in Kenya, India, Mexico, New England, the l1hilip pines, and Okinawa in 1 954- 5 5. In addition to general ethnographic coverage, they agreed to collect detailed data on child rearing, using a "Field Guide for a Study of Socialization, '' \vhich all participated in drafting and which was later published. Copies of fieldnotes were sent to Beatrice Whiting at Harvard, ·"rho monitored the research (Whiting I 966: vii, ix). The six ethnographic studies, authored by the field researchers, appeared both in an edited volume in 1963 and separately in 1 966 (see Fischer and Fischer 1 966). Each ethnography was based on the researchers' o\\l�n fieldnotes, but t\vo analytic volumes \Vere also published: �\,fothers of Six Cr-tlttlres (Minturn, Lambert, et al. 1 964), based on formal interviev.,rs; and Children of Six Cultures (Whiting an d Whiting 1 975). The Whitings' volume analyzes fieldnotes on the behavior of r 3 4 children between ages three and eleven, recorded in five-minute be havior sequences, \\l'ith each child observed fourteen times or m or e over the course of several months (Whiting and W hiting 1 975: 30-3 1 , 39-42) . Except in Ne\v England, local bilingual assistants transl ate d '''hat \\��as said during the five-minute perioris. E xamples of the field notes on V��hich the analysis is based, and of the coding procedures, \\'ere publishe� as well ( 1 975: r &7-220) .
f i eldnotes
3 33
an d O thers
ue tea m proj e c t \\' as the study of E lm don , a v ill age of 3 2 1 A u niq eo le , four tee n miles from Ca mb ri d ge U n iversity (S trathern 1 98 1 ) . P �as beg u n in 1 962 b y A ud rey Richards 3 and Edm und Leach as a It '-v anth ropo 1 o. . . b y 1 97 5 near 1 y t h trty . ex erase; n t ti cl dv1 or k tra1n1ng � u de � ts and other s tud ents had participated (Richards 1 9 8 1 ). Most stayed tW O wee ks or less, r esid in g at the home of Ric ha r ds, who had 0o ved to Elmdon in the late 1 9 50s They recorded fa mily . gen ealo g ies; they made n otes on casual conversations , village u cti vi tie s, p b s , and meetings . " Interviews were n e v e r more than lo ose ly stru c tured. Notes were oft en taken in the presence of th e pe rs on ta� ng, or jo t t ed down immediat � ly � fterwards . The s t u d e n ts , u su a llv in dtcate d r e m ark s recorded verbatim (Strathem 1 98 1 : 27 1 ) . A few s t � de n ts who spent l o nger fieldwork periods in El mdon produ ced reports on local histo ry, hous in g p robl e m s and farming . Richa rds retired in El mdon in 1 964. She also took notes, though inte rmitten tly and inconsis tently and not ""'.. ith the short-term enthusi �
r� �d :
histories
,
asm of a full-time field worker: The notes I took during a period of over t\\'enty years· residence in Elmdon are not as sy stematic as those which resulted from t\\'O fifteen month trips to Zambia in 1 9 30- 1 and 193 3 -4. I have, of course, a much richer supply of those stored memories and imp ressions on which anthro p ologists rely to give life to their descri ptive \\'ork. [ 198 1 : xx] In 1 9 7 5
Richards published
Sotne Elmdon Families as
a \Vork of
local
documentation. S till , ·\vith seventeen c o llecti ve notebooks and other
docu ments, she h op ed t o
\\'
rit e
so m ethi ng like an old-fashioned anth ropolo gical village study. . . . But a temp o ra r v run of bad health made me doubtful whether I would be able
to complete the \\·ork . At this stage, M arilyn Strathern . . . offered to � nalysc our kins hip data, \vhich was complex O\\ring to the degree of Intermarriage in the 'lilla ge. Ho\\'ever, it soon became clear that the hook must be hers alone. She had developed very interesting ideas on
1 3!n the (�hanaian sense, Aud rey Ri ch a rds \\'as the Queen Mother of social a nthro p o og•cal fi el dVw·ork -from her discussion of censuses and quantitative approaches in a�d � e r paper on field methods (and "speech in action'') in 1 9 3 9 t hrough her
�JS mp1o of anthro pology in the Colonial Social Science Research Council, her �Si� s tancen1ng and direction to ethnographers of East A frica during 1 950-56 director of � e E ast African Institu te of Social Research , and the El don study to the example of m
as
Be m ba and Ganda ethnography ( B e attie 1 96 5 : 6, 3 7; Gladstone 1 986; Richards 9] S, 1 9 39� I 9 7 7 . 1 98 1 ) .
1 er
f i E I. D S OTES IN C I R C U L t\ T I O !';
3 34
the phen omenon of the core fam i lies which were of greater complexity and originality than my O \\"n woul d have been . Kinship at the Core is the res ult. [ I 98 1 : xxiii]
Strathern had \Vo rked in Elmdon in 1 9 62 and returned briefly in
1 977. She also drew on Richard s's headnotes-on her "insights an d
feelings about the vill age, quite as much as on her extensive data, , an d
on ''an invaluable com mentary on my first draft " (Strath ern 1 98 1 :
xxxi, xxxiv).
Itlheriting Fieldnotes Few anthropologists have ever assumed the labo r-of-love tas k of
producing
an
ethnography from fiel dnotes written by others . Wh en
they have done so, i t has usually been to complete the work of those who died young-Be rnard De acon , Buell Quain , Robert Pehrs o n , Grenville Good win. Their ethnographic execu tors did not enjoy
ac
cess to the original headnotes; they faced p roble ms beyond those o f
Marilyn Strathern, who had the collaboration o f Audrey Richards
as
well as her own brief field\\"Ork experience in Elmdon , or Robert Smith, who benefited from the cooperation of Ella Lury Wis"\vcll ( S mith and Wiswell 1 98 2 : ix-xii; S mith, this volume) .
After fou rteen months of fieldwork in the Nevl Heb rides , Deacon
died in 1 927 on the eve of his depa rture. As Lutkch aus explains,
Camilla Wed gwood had no eas y task in editing his ficldnotes into
1"1aleku la:
A
Vanish ing Peop le in the
l\leu'
Hebn'des, published in
1 934·
The notes \\'ere sketchy and disorgani2ed, and some o f the m had also
vanished (Langham 1 98 1 : 2 3 5 - 3 6; Larcom 1 9 8 3 ; Lutkehaus 1 9 86) . " To
reinterpret fieldnotes requires knowing something about \vhat
"v as
taken for granted when the notes were �·ritten-difficult enough for the writer to deal \\'i th, let al one another reader, (Van Maanen 1 98 8 :
1 24). Wedg\voo d 's Rivers-influen ced Cambridge training, shared -w·ith
Deacon, p rovided the intellectual integumen t fo r the ethno graphy (Larcom 1 9 8 3 ; see also Langham 1 98 1 : 2 1 2-4 1 ) ; however, Larco n1 � \\"hose 1 974 fieldwork
\-Vas
among one of the groups \•lith \\"h orn
Deacon had worked, argues that a better ap pro ximation of Deacon 's evolving headnotes was contained in his letters from the field . Quain died in B razil in 1 93 9 after four m onths o f field\\'o rk among
the rem o te Trum ai Indians the vea r before. His hand wri tten fieldJ
fi el dnotes and Others
335
o tes , r ecords, and journal (Murphy and Quain 1 95 5 : 1 ) were typed hi s m other and tu rned over by Quain 's friend Charles Wagle y to b rt Murph y, �vho never kne\\l Q u ain . Murphy faced the same Ro e d ilem m as that S mith experienced upon receiving Wis\vell's notes .
�y
It s oo n became clear that orderi ng and ed it ing \\'ere not enough [even though] the notes \Vcre rich in detail and insights . . . . he would have to rea d and re-read the no te s , learn the na m es of the numerous informan ts and other individuals mentioned there and in the diaries, identify th e m as to age, sex, status , fa mily membership, etc. , familiari ze himself w ith
place names and Tru mai terms j u st as a field inves ti gator w ould have to
do. [Wagley 1 9 5 5 : v-vi ]
The headno tes Murphy b rought to the vv riting were a combination
of his O\Vn field work ex perience among the Mundurucu Indians o f Brazil, a theoreti cal orientation, and \vhat h e could glean from the ficldnotes of Quain 's headnotes ( Wagley
1 95 5 : vi) : " I t is impossible . .
.
to so neatly separate the Murphy from the Qu ain in this monograph . for Quain 's in terests and ideas have influenced m y interp retation of the data" (Murphy and Quain 1 95 5 : 2) . M u rphy used the notes to fo rmu
late des crip tive prose, quoting from them di rectly only once
( 1 95 5 :
The book was published under their j oint authorship. 4 When Robert Pehrson died in the field in 195 5 ( B arth 1 9 66), Jean
9 5-96).
Pehrson, who had shared the field\vork \vith her husband, typed 200
pages of his chronological fieldnotes on the Marri Baluch nomads of
Pakistan . With letters� two papers by Jean Peh rson, and texts, the)'" were tu rned ove r to Fredrik Barth, who had also received half a do z en field letters from his friend Pehrs on. Yet despite their detail, the
notes remained opaque, and B arth found writing from them frustrat in g- until in 1 960 he spent five \Vccks in the locale where the well re me mbered Pehrsons had \Vorked. Their inform ants' kno\vledge of Pashto , which Barth had learned in his Pakistan field\\'ork a mong the Pat h an s , made comm unication easy. With his own headno tcs, Banh fo und Pehrson 's fieldnotes " mo re tractable" and writing possible . For besi des his own Marri Baluch fieldnotes, B arth concludes, clearl y I had also accu mulated data of other kinds , which v.rere not
recorded in the Pehrsons' notes but which a re needed in anthro p ological
-4 Levi-Strauss also drev.' u pon Quain ·s fieldnotcs for a contribution to fl4rJdbo ok of Soutn l\.merican Indians (Murphy and Quain 1 95 5 : RJ).
the 1 94 8
fi ELDN OTES IN C I R C U LATIO N
3 36
.
I believe ( these critical supplementary data) are m ain ly connected with the concrete "s tage" or setting in \vhich social life takes place: the sizes o f habita tions, the uses of space, the physical as well as the conventional opportunities for communication . . . . The interpreta tion o f actions, both in a strategic means-ends perspective and as mes sages o f communication, depends on this kno\vledge, and case m aterial rem ains highly ambiguous \vhcn it is lacking . [ Barth 1 966: x-xi] analysis
.
.
.
With thes e physical coordinates , vvh ich Pehrson took for granted
,
n o \�'
in mind , Barth \vrote The Social Organ izatiotl ofthe .�.\tfa"i Baluch , u si n g Peh rson 's m a teria l s (rathe r than his own fieldn o t es ) and quoting
liber
ally from them in the text . The book was a ccordin gl y pre se nted as '' b y R o be rt N . Pehrson , compiled a n d
analyzed fro m
h i s n o tes
by
Fredri k
Barth" ( Pehrs on 1966).
The j ob of Keith Basso in ed iti n g Grenville Good\¥in 's fieldnotes tor publication \vas much s i mpler th an that faced by Wed g vv ood, Murphy, or B arth . Goodwin, who did fieldwork among the Apache of Ariz ona during the late 1920s and 1 930s, ha d written The Socia l Orgat1izatiot1 o_f th e U.�stern Apache ( 1 942) and se veral papers befo re he died in 1 940 (Basso 197 1: xi-xii, 3 -25). Go od v.. in had o utlined further mono g r aph s , and his �;do'\v, Ja n i c e Goodwin, o r g ani zed the rema i nin g fieldnotes and superv·ised their t} pin g fr o m l o n ghand . The published vol ume (others arc p lanne d ), l#stern Apach e Raiding and J.J� ifare (Basso 1971), consis ts of six ve rb atim narratives of elderly informants tran s c ri b ed in 193 1 - 3 2, plus other informant statements on several topi cs that G oo d w in had used to or g anize his notes . These are h ig h l y readab le texts, \vi thout Bo a sian lin g uistic literal i sm . N one theless the consider able number of Ap ache term s used in the notes led Basso to c on d u ct ten weeks of lin guis t i c fieldwork (he had done ea rlie r research in other Apache groups) to authenticate cultural t r an s lati on Historical rathe r than et h nologi c a l in aim, Good\vin 's materials p rovide an A p a c he v·ie\v of the unrest bet\veen the 1 8 .sos and the co m ple tio n of U ni te d States p acifi cation in 1 890. As more an thropolo g is ts re t u rn like L utkehau s , Lamphere, and Larcom, to scenes of earlier ethnography, and as we ask ne\v que s ti o n s about the dis cip line s hi st ory access to ficldnotes \\7ill become m o re i mportant. The archival homes of the p ape rs of Cushing, Boas, Ri,;rcrs� Malinov.."ski , and Mead V.."ere n o t difficult fo r scholars to find, but the no tes o f other anthropologists are scattered (Ken \v o rthy et al. 1 98 5 : s6; R asp i n 1 9 84). The process of archiving one's O\\'n fi eld note s and papers is an i s sue of unc e rtaint y ambivalence, and p resu m ption for _ "
"
,
.
,
'
,
,
f icld n ot es
and
O thers
337
voleth nographers (see Ottenberg's and Wolfs essays in this . . er e are aI so practtca 1 tssues-paper qua1'1ty, preservation meac) Th urne s. th e range of documents th at make a useful collection-which sur fe,a..' th in k about early enough ( Kcn\vorthy et al. 1 98 5 : 1 - 3, I O- I I , and pas s im) . Th e re re mai ns the problem of ho\\' to preserve headnotes . More do cum en tati on of the stage coordin ates that Barth identifies might help others m ake sense of fieldnotes. So, no doubt, do the letters from th e fi el d ( as Larcom found for Deacon) , those preliminary written releas es of wh at Lederman terms the " sense of the whole'' component of hcad no tes . Certainly, al so , \Vould more reminiscences of fieldV¥·ork ti e d to professional as much as personal aspects : that is , to \Vriting in the field as \Veil as to rapport and self-discovery. But the primary locus for the preservation of headnotes should be in their joint productions w i th ficldnotes : in pu blished ethnography, the \vhole point of why ficld�rork is done. rn os t
.
·
·
R EF ER E N CES
1 C)6o . A. Pueblo G . I . In Ca s ag rand e 1 960 , 489- 503 . Adams, R ic ha r d N . , and J. Preiss, eds. 1 960. Hutnan Orga nization Research . H o m e \vood , 111. : D o r s e y. Barth , Fredrik . 1 966. Preface. In Pehrson 1 966, vii-xii. Basso, Ke ith , ed. 1 97 I . u�e.stern l\pache Raiding and "'�rfo re: From th e l'Vores o�f Ad air, John.
Grenville Goodu,in . Tu cson: Unive rsity of Arizona P ress . Beat tie, John. I 965 . L1nJer.st4lnding an African Kingdom : Bun}'Oro . New Yo rk : Ri n e ha rt & Wins ton.
Boh an nan Paul. 198 1 . Unseen
Commu nity: The Pr oject . In Messerschmidt 1 98 1 , 29-4 5 . �
Natural
Holt�
Hi story of a Resea rch
Briggs, Jean . 1 970. Kapluna Daughter. I n Golde 1 970, 1 7-44. Casagrande, Joseph B. , ed . 1 960. In the Compan)' oj� A1an : Tu'ettty Portraits of :i n thropological lnformants . Nc\\' York : Harper Torchbooks . Ch ffo rd, J a m es. I 98 6. Introduction: Pa r t i al Truths In U,'riting Cult14re: The Poetics . and Politics of Eth no.RraphyJ ed. James Clifford and George E . Marcus, I -26. Berkeley: Univers i ty of California Press . . 1 98 8 . The Predicament o_{ Culture: TwentietiJ -Crntury Ethnograph y, Literature, and Art . Ca mbridge, Mass . : Harvard Uni v ers i t Press . y Co rn ar off, Jean, and John L . ComarotT. 1988. On t he Founding Fathers, Ficld \Vo rk, and Functionali sm: A Conversation �vith Isaac Schapera. �4merit41n Eth
--
no lo�ist
• 5 = 5 5 4-6 5 .
Du B o i s , Cora.
I 970.
Stu dies
in an I nd ian
Town . In Golde 1 970 ,
2 1 9-
3 6.
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Fischer, John L. , and Ann Fis c her. 1 966. The J\lew En�landtrs of Orchard To t,,. ,1 , U. S . A . Six Cultures Series , vol . 5 · Ne\v York : Wiley.
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in Tzintzuntzan: The Fi rst Thirty Years . ln
Foster, George M. , Th ay er Scudder, Elizabeth Colson , and Robert
V. Ke mper,
eds. 1 979. Long- Term Field Research in Social Anthropolo.�y. Ne""' York: A cadc rn ic Press. Freilich, Morris, ed. 1 970 . Margina l !\latives: A nthropologists at Htork . New York :
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U niversity of Chic ago Pres s . Green, Jesse, ed. 1 979 . Zuni: Selected U.'ritin.�s of Frank Hamilton Cush in� . Li ncoln: Universi ty of Nebraska Press. Gulick, John . 1 970 . Vill age and City Field Work in Leban on . In Freili ch 1 970, 12]-52.
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[ 1 967 ) .
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[ 1 974 ) .
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1 . L ife in a Afex ican �·rllage: Tepoztlan Restudied . U rb ana: U n i
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ficldnotes
and
Others
3 39
of Wom en in British Social An th ropo l o g y. A meriUln Et h no lo_�ist
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E thnog r aphies as Texts
1 982 .
.
4 n n ual
•
Re" iew oj A nthropology 1 r : 2 5 -69 . M arcus, G eo rge E. , an d M i chael M . J. Fi scher . 1 986 4 nt1J ropo/ogy as Cultural Crit iq ue: ...r\ n �·xperimenwl ..\-1ometJ t ita the Humatl Sciences . Chica go : Uni vers ity of .
M
•
C hi cago P re ss . ead, Margaret. 1 940. The .,�fou ntain i\ rapesh , 11: Sr4p ernaturali.sm . Anthropologi-
ca l Papers 3 7 : 3 1 7-4 5 1 . Ne\v York : A m e rican M useum of Natural History. --· 1 9 ; 6. /'v"ew Lh,esjc>r Old: Cr4 ltural Transformations-.\-tanus, 1 928- 1 953 · Ne\v
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246-6 5 . i - . 1 972 . Blackbe"}' l.f-'itJter: t\fy Earl er l'ears . N ew Yo rk : MorrO\\'. - . 1 974. Ruth Benedict . N ew York: Col u m bia U niversity Press. Messerschmidt, Don a ld A . . ed. 1 9 8 1 . ..1 ,a thropologi.sts at Horne ;,J 1\7orth .4 merica : A-lethods and Issues ita the Study o_.f One 's Ou'n Society. New York : Camb ridge University Press .
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the Field. Tucson: University of Arizona Press . Osgood, Corneli us . 1 940. Informants . In Inga lik �1aterial Cu lture, so-s s . Ne\v Haven, Conn. : Yale Uni versity Publ i cations in Ant h ropol og y. Pandey, Triloki Nath . 1 9 7 2 . Anth ro polo gists at Z un i . Proceedings of the �4,nerican Philosophical Society 1 1 6 : 3 2 1 -3 7 .
Pau l , Benjam i n . 1 9 5 3 . lnterviC\\' Techn iques and Field Relati onships. In l\ nth r� pology Toda y, ed . A . L. K roebc r, 430- 5 1 . Chicago: Univers ity of Chicago Press. Pehrson, �obert H . 1 966 . The Social Organ ization of the �1arri Baluch . C omp. and ed. F rcdrik Barth . Viking Fund Publicatio ns in Anthropology 43 · New York:
We nne r-Gren Founda tion for Anthropolo gical Research. Pel to , Pe rttij. 1 9 70. R es earch in Individualistic Societies. In F reilich 1 9 70, 2 5 1 -9 2 . Po\v der maker, Hortense. 1 966. Stranger and Friend: l·he '+ay oj"an Anthropolo�ist .
Ne w York : N orton . Ra spi n, Angela. 1 984 . A Guide to Ethnographic A rchives . In Eth nog rapiJ ic Re sra rch : ..1 Guide to General Co nduct , ed. R . F. Ellen, 1 70-7 8 . San Diego: Aca demic Pres s.
R� ad , K enneth E . 1 9 65 . The High I/al/ey. Nc\v York : Scribner. Ri ch a rds , A u dre y I. 1 9 3 5 . The Vil l a ge C ensus in the Stu dy of Cultu re C ontact. i\.frica 8 : 20-3 3 .
--
. 1 9 3 9 . The Development of field Work Methods in Social Ant hropology. I n
f i ELDNOTES I N CIR C U L A T I O �
3 40 Th e Study of Society,
ed. F . C . Bartlett e t
al.
�
272-3 1 6 .
London: Routle dge &
Kegan Paul. --
. 1 977. The
Colonial Office and the Organization of Social Research . A tl th ro .
pological Foru m 4: 1 68-89. . 1 98 1 . Forev.'ord . I n
Strathcm 1 9 8 1 , xi-xxvi . Scudder, Thayer, and Elizabeth Colson. 1 979 . Long-Term Research in Gwe n1b e Valley, Zambia. In Foster ct al. 1 9 7 9 , 2 2 i- S 4· Seligman , C. G . , and Brenda Z . Seligman. 1 9 3 2 . Pagan Tribes oj-the Nilotii S uda �J . London: Routledge. Shah , A. M. 1 979 . Studying the Present and the Past: A Vill a ge in Gujarat. In The
--
Fieldworlen- and th e Field: Problems and Cluzllenges in Sociological Investiga tion : ed .
M. N . Srinivas, A. M. Shah, and E . A . Ra maswamy, 29- 3 7. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Smith, Robertj. , and Ella Lury Wisv.'el l. 1 982. The U,�men oj.Suye J\114 ra. Ch i cago : U nivcrsity of Chicago Press. Stanner, W. E . H. 1 960. Durmugam, a N angiomcri. In Casagrande 1 960, 6 3 - 1 00. Strathcm, Marilyn. 1 98 1 . Kinsh ip at the Core: l\ ra A nth rop ology ofElmdon , a ��rilla,g r in ��iorth-west Essex in th e }\lineteen-sixtits . Cambridge: Ca mbridge University Press. Van Maancn, John. 1 9 8 8 . Tales of the Field: O n ��'n'tin� EtiJn ography. Chicago: Universi ty of Chicago Press. Wagley, Charles. 1 9 5 5 . Foreword. I n Murphy and Quain 1 9 5 5 , v-ix. . 1 977. Welcome of Tears : The Tapirape Indians oj- Central Brazil. Ne\\' York: Oxford University Pres s. Warner, W. Lloyd, and Paul Lunt. 1 94 1 . The Social Life of a �\tfodern Co 1nt11U11 ity. New H aven, Conn. : Yale University Press. Whiting, Be4tr ice . 1 966. Introduction. In Fischer and Fischer 1 966, v-xxxi. Whiting, Beatrice� and John Whiting. 1 970. Methods for Observing and Reco rd in g Behavior. In Naroll and Cohen 1 970, 2 8 2 - 3 I ) . . 1 975 . Children o�f Six Cultr4re.s : A P.sych o-Cultural A.nalysis . Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press. Whitten , No rm a n E Jr. 1 970 . Net\\'ork Analysis and Processes of Ad aptation among Ecuadorian and Nova Scotian N egr oes In Freilich 1 970 , 3 39-402 . Whyte, William Foote. 1 9 5 5 . Appendix: On the Evolution of "Street Co rner Society. " In Street Corner Society, enl. ed. 279-3 5 8 . Chicago: Univers ity of Chicago Press. --. 1 900 . Interviev.�ng in Fi el d Research. In Adams and Preiss 1960, 3 5 2- 7 3 . Wolcott, Harry F. 1 98 1 . Ho me and Away: Personal Contrasts in Ethnogr ap h ic Style. In Messerschmidt 1 98 1 , 25 5-65 . Wolff, Kurt. 1 960 . The Collection and Organization of Field Materials : A Re search Report. In Adams and Preiss 1 960 , 240- 5 4 .
--
--
. •
.
PART
V
From Fieldnotes to Ethnography I have long ago discovered that the decisive battle is fought in the field but in the stud y after\vards.
n ot
- E . E. E v A Ns-PRIT C H .� R D
M A R G E RY W O L F
Chinanotes : Engendering Anthrop olo gy
Perhaps more than any other, the last decade has brought anthro po logists to the realization that their products , both uncooked (the fieldnote) and cooked (the ethno gra phy), are but personal in terpreta tions of others' equ ally nebulous realities. Our uncooked ''facts , '' gathered so carefully in the field, are infected with the bacterial subj ec tivities of our O\Vn as \veil as our in formants' particular biases . And our cooked descriptions, unlike o ther culinary concoctions, are even more likely to contain fo reign particles if they j ell into a pleasing \Vholc . Refl e xive anthropology, the la test treatment for our disease, seems to do li ttl e m ore than expose our \Y ounds to light-a primitive cure that with more carnal injuries has had serious and even fatal conse q uences .
Literary theorists , for all their exquisite tools , can dissect but offer us no hop e of recovery.
Sh ort of abandoning the patient, \vhich I suspect fevl of us arc pr ep a red to do, ho\v are vle to proceed with the doin g of an thro p ol ogy? F or starters, hovl are �·e to handle those apparently seriousl y co mp r o m ised texts we call fieldnotcs ? I s there a �"ay of continuin g to col lect field data that will preserve the contextual reality without
h
Th e �omments
and su g ge stions of Ro ger Sanjek and Robert J. Smith \Verc very talk into so me semblance of an cssa'-'' and arc g ra tefull y ackn o wl-
e)pful tn revising a edge d .
... .
.
3 43
fRO.l\1 f i E L D �O T E S TO E T H N O G R A P H Y
344
re q u i ri n g a n e x p l a n at or y essa y fo r each observation ? A nd h o w
d o \V e retrieve the vario us p rej ud ici al influen ces that surrounded field da ta collected decades in the past, a past fo r this wri ter at leas t overlaid \\' i th
too many o ther realities to provide hope (or desire) for resurrecti o n? When I read back over my fieldnotes -some t\ven ty-five years' ac c u mu l atio n of no te b o o ks
pie c es of p a pe r
-
I
,
five-by-eight card s, and other bi ts and
also read back ove r my O\Vn l ife but I sus pect
that
,
only I can see the life that is in them. Perceiving (as dis tinguished from seeing) V�·hat is in
m y fieldnotes
deco n st ru c tin g or, more ac cur a tel y, reconstru ctin g the text-is
acti vity that \Vas unanticipated \vhen my o ri gi nal
fi el d notes
an
w er e
made. This is in p art because mos t of them w ere coll ect ed in a t i n1 c
when anth ro p ol ogy '""as less se l f-con s ci ous about its process a n d in
part because of t he na t u r e of my personal odyssey in to an thro p olog y.
M y first field e x per i e nce \V as not as a graduate sntden t in anthro p o l ogy b u t as the "vife of one . A r thur Wo l f
and I s et out for Taiwan in 1 9 5 8 with the overly ambitious in ten tion of replicatin g and enlarg in g on the Six Culture P r oj ec t d e s ig n e d by Beatrice Whi ting , John Whit
in g and William Lambe rt. 1 Our work required hun dreds of hours of ,
ch i l d observations, formal intervie\\1-s \vith children and thei r pa re n t s
,
�11 of these "inst ruments" were fo cused on a p articular set of b ehavi o ral variables. I q u i c k l y became adminis trator and scribe, spending long hours typing and translating verbatim ac cou n t s of o b se r v at i o n s as they and the adminis tering o f questionn aires in local pri mary schools
.
..
\vere brou ght in by the field staff.
In Chinese school s, s tudents arc r e q uire d to co m m i t vast amo unts
of material to memory, a s k i ll on the part of our assistants that stood
in good s tead in the field, for we
soon discovered that they coul d
tim e d in teraction among a group of word of it an hour later. T hey could mak e
o b se r ve u p t o four minutes o f children and repeat every
us
several of these observations and with the aid of onl y a few notes gi ve us co mp l ete de sc rip t io ns of v e r b a l and physical interaction . We h av e literally thou s ands of t yp ed pages of ob se rvati on s of this sort . The proj e ct also produced many hundreds of pages of open-ended in te r-
the Six Cul tu re Proj ect might in itsclfbe the b asis of a study o f the use of fieldnotes collected by o the rs There is no\\y a lon g list of pu blications that derived fro nl this project, but the fi rst V\ra s the publica tion of six con cise ethnographies w i th a sint ilar fo rma t {Whiting 1963). It \Vas follo,-.,·cd by specialized studies by the senior investi ga tors of parent and child beha vior in all six cul t u res, as V\tell as culture-specific studies b y t h e field teams them sel ves . 1
Data from
.
•
C hin anotes
vieW re sp onses and some
345 700 questionnaires filled out by local school
chil d ren . Bu t like all anthropologists of his generation, A rthur Wolf also ho p e d to produce a village ethnography from this trip, so we have some
6oo clo sel y typed pages of what we ca me to call
G (for general)
d ata. These notes in clude detailed descriptions of funeral ceremonies, in ten se int erviews with unhappy young \\'omen, lengthy explanations by vill a ge philosophers, and rambling gossip sessions among groups
or p air s of women and men . Neither A rthu r nor I was present at all of the events an d conversations recorded in these notes , for as our visit in this first village lengthened and we began to appreciate the qualities of our as sistants, \\'e frequently sent them out to gather particular kinds of information or simply to ch at and observe and report back . Some rimes the con v ersations they memorized and repeated to us made no sense even to them, but often the pages I typed from their dictation recorded material that we as forei gn ers \vould have found difficult
to elicit-not b ecause it vlas particul arly p rivate but because it was
pithier, more judgmental, less considered.
Durin g this period , \\'hen I fancied myself a gesta ting novelist, I
kept a j ournal , a very personal document; I would have been outraged had any of my co-\vo rkers a ttempted to read it. At the time I did not think of it as fiel dnotes. My j ournal recorded my irri tation with villa ge life, some wild h ypotheses of causation, an on going analysis of the Chinese personality structure , various lascivious though ts , diatribes against injustices observed, and so fo rth. I expected the journal to keep the " real" fiel dnotes free of my nonprofes sional editorializing, to be fun to read \Vhen it vlas all over, and to tell me more about m y self than
about the society in which I \Vas living.
By and large this turned out to be the case , with one exception . All th e tim e Vle were in this first vill age-almost two years for me and
lon g er for Arthur-we lived vlith the same farm family. M y j ournal fre q uentl y recounted interactions \Vith my housemates, as it would have wherever I had been living . But ins tead of shaking the youngest me m be r of the Lim family, who never on ce woke up from a nap Wi th o ut imposing on us all at least a h alf-ho u r of peevish howling, I t ol d m y j ou rnal abou t his nasty character and declared he woul d come
n o good end . (He is no\v, incidentally, a very successfu l engineer in aipei, having graduated from university \Vith hono rs . He is noted fo r h ts sunn y disposition. ) Rather than telling Tan A-hong \\'hat a cruel to
�
lll o th er I thought her to be , I record ed in loving detail the gossip I
f R O M fiE LDNOTES TO ETH N O G R A P H Y
he a r d
ar o u n d the v i l l age about her past a n d p resen t and argu e d with mysel f about the nature / nurture causes of h e r {to me) reprehensible treatment of her poor da u gh ters I also p o n d e red ho\\' my houscm ates cou ld tell each other one thi ng our local staff another, and the fo rei g n .
,
anthropologis t a third .
from this first field tri p, I \Vas for tun a te en o u gh to be g iv en a s m all office and a pit tance that allowed me to b e g i n the l o ng a nd ext remely tedious task of coding th e reams of child o b s er v a tions Arthur and I h ad collected. But I missed the Lim family an d t h e daily drama of thei r q u arrels a n d s trug gles . And I worried a bo ut then1 , for they \\'ere in a phase of the Chinese family cycle that "\v as c au s i n g p a in and distress to some fa mily members an d pride to o th e rs I cannot for the l i fe of me r e me mb er when I s tar te d or why, but at s o m e point I began to sort through our G data, my j o u r n a l the mother interviews , and even the time d o bserva tions o f their chil d re n to pull t og et h er ali i knew about the Lims as individuals . In this alm o st casual re-s o rt in g of our field n ot es I found thi n gs that as tonished me. Some i tems I had reco rd ed mysel f and to tally mis un derstood; of others , recorded by Arthur or m em b ers of th e field s taff and in many cases ty p ed by me, I had fa il ed to see the i mp o rt 2 It seemed incredible that the Lims, fourteen of whom shared their house with us and with another fifteen ,�,.ho were in and out of it all day l o n g could h av e told u s so much about themselves as individuals, as p er s o n alities . But it \vas only when I looked ca re full y at all the b its and piece s the child o b se r v a tions that revealed s olida rity among the chil dren with one part of the famil y and hostility to "h a rd the other, the mother interview d eli n eatin g the process by whic h a \Voman pai d back her husband's battering, the misleadi ng l y g ene r al dis course of the head of the household on the im po rtance of face-that I began to see the histo r y of their family and r e cog ni ze the stress they endured in ord er to maintain a cultural ideal . Ho\\' is it that I c o ul d not have seen du ri ng those years in their household the i nevit a bil ity of their fam i ly s division and t he forces that \vere set t i n g it in mo t i o n ? I s u pp o se at the ti m e I Vlas too i n v o lved "h"ith them as individuals \\'ho spent to o long in the shared ou th ou s e or used up all the h o t \Vater on bath n ight to see the m as actors in the age-old Returning to Cornel l
..
.
,
,
.
,
-
"
'
2See R. J. S m ith's essay in this volume. The re is em p lo yed to free the voices in our ficldnotes,
struggling
were
different. Or
were
t he y ?
a similarity in t h e methods w e but t h e barriers again st \\'hich we \v ere
C hinanotes
3 47
and ever fresh d rama of the Chinese family cycle . Wh en I finally began
to w rit e The House of Lim (Wolf 1 96 8), their story·, I bitterly regretted the questions I had not asked but '"'·as equ ally gratified by all the se e m ingly pu rposeless anecdotes , conversations verging on lectu res ,
an d s eries o f complaints that had been recorded . Clea rly, the presence of unfocused , wide-ranging, all-in clusi""C field n o tes '"'· as essential to the success of this unplanned project, b u t so \Vere the p urpo sefully subjective " data'' recorded in my journal and the so called objective data recorded under the stop\vatch in the child observa
tions . From parts of each of them I pieced the puzzle t o gether.
Yet another book (Wolf 1 9 72) \v ritten out of this amorphous set o f
ficldnotes illustrates even more vividl y t h e value o f using a variet y o f methods t o record details a n d conversa tions that m a y or m a y not seem to make sense at the time . (I must ask indulgen ce for further n otes on my personal intellectual history. ) 3 Political and intellectual transfor mations are fairly co mmon to our profes sion but co me to us as indi vidual s in different \va y s . S o me see m to wake up one mornin g \Vith a whole ne�· set of values and beliefs . Others change slowl y" o ften without even noticing it themselves , their new �·orld vic�· emerging more like the metamorphosis of tadpole to frog than the apparently sudden transformation of chry salis to b utterfly. Me, I ' m a frog. I
S\\'am around for a long time in t he pond w atching \Vith interest as my sisters changed colors and lost their tails , not noti cing until the mid I 970S that
I
too had lost my undulating tail and gro \\'n the more useful
legs of the femini st.
In no small p art, my recognition of this transformation came out of
a l on g struggle \Vi th both the fieldnotes fro m my first field trip and the n o tes collected on a second trip, primarily by me and a \V oman assis tant . To cl arify this some\vhat op aque statement and explain why I
found myself in a relationship of strug g le w·ith my O\vn tieldnotes , I
must sa y a bit about t h e hi story of Chinese ethnology and the study of the C hinese fa milv. I
As an institution, the Chinese family has been subjected to study for
� an y years- in fact ,
one co uld say centuries \\'i thout much exaggera
ti o n- by historians, philosophers, theologians , sociologists , social 3 N o t su rp risingly, in \\'riting this essay I fo und it quite i ntpossiblc to speak imper so n al ly. O ther con tributors with \v honl I have spoken have had the same experience.
An t hropolo gists \\rl th their fi eldnotcs seem to be much like novelists with their \\'riting
te c_hniqu cs: each thinks the relationship b ct\\reen product and process is personal and llntque. Out as Jean Jackson's survey sho\v s, this is not the ca se .
fROM f iEL DNOT ES T O ET H N O GRA P H Y
reformers , novelis ts, and even some anthropologists . That it is a male dominated structure and a male-orien ted group is obvious; that it was primarily a male-studied subject was also obvious but deemed un i mportant. The consensus seemed to be that Chinese \vomen contrib uted to the family their uteruses, a fe\v affines of varying degrees of influence, and considerable disco rd . Other than that, they were of minimal interest in any examination of the Chinese family's strengths , cycles, or romance. They added comic relief and provided support functions , but stage front V�"as totally male. I \Vas vaguely aV�·are of the invisibility of women at the time of my first fieldwork in Tai\\l·an, but since my relationship to academia at that time was strictly marital , I \vas neither interes ted in nor constrained by the all-male paradigm . I hung out \Vith the women, as did all women , and the u nderstanding I acquired of the family was theirs. When I began to write, I dutifully read the important books about the Chinese family and then, turning to my fieldnotes , began the s truggle in which I Vlas ultimately defeated . In \\l"riting Tlte House of Lim I assumed to some degree that the "unusual" influence of the \\'omen in the family resulted from the presence of some unusually strong personali ties among the female Lims. But when I began to look at other families, my fieldnotcs \Vould not conform to the paradigm. Neither the words they recorded nor the voices they brought back fit the standard version of ho\\' things worked. At every turn of the family cycle, where the well known anthropologists of China (see, e . g. , Freedman 1 96 1 , 1 970) debated the importance o f the father-son relationship versus the soli dary· b rothers against the father, my v·oices spoke of mothers-in-law in , fierce competition \\lith their sons wives for th e loyalty of the son husband and, most i mportant, of mothers and t heir children set i n unflagging battle formation against \vhat they saw as the men 's family. I realized that I must either ignore my notes and see the Lim women as unique or ignore the received wisdom and let the \\'omen I kne\v give their version of the Chinese family and its cycle. But tha t was only half the struggle. The other half \\'as Vlith my sisters , \Vho were using their strong ne\v feminis t legs to stir up the mud in our pond and raise our consciousness . You \viii recall th at during those years we Vlere looking fiercely at women 's situation, a t our oppression, our subordination , our pos ition as victims (see, e. g . � Gornick and Moran 1 97 1 ). Once again , the \4Vomen's voices in m y fieldnotes gave me problems . Of course they were oppressed; ob viously they \�ere victimized. But victims who passively accepted
C hi nanotes
3 49
th eir fate they \\'ere not. Nor did they seem to s ec themselves as
vi ct ims, although v�rhen it \\'as to their advantage to evoke their po\ver }cs sn ess and their lack of influence, they certainly did so. Moreover, the wo m en in my fieldnotes seemed considerably more analytic than the st a n da rd texts on the Chinese family assumed '"�omen to be. Events in th e fa mil)" cycle that were des cribed by social scientists (usually but not
al\\'ay s male) as the result of male interests and needs were seen b y \\'ome n- and b y this \\roman as '"�ell- to have been manipulated b y ,-.,, om en \vith very definite personal goals in min d . I f men were a'"�are
of \vomcn's goals , it \\' as only vaguely, and they certainly did not see th em as relevan t to outcomes . The blinders Chinese men wear result from the centrality of their gender and their institutions in societ)". Chinese
\Vomen, stru ctural
outsiders who participate only peripherally in the maj or ins titu tions,
are much cooler, much less constrained by those insti tutions, and hence freer to work around them, within the m, and eventu ally against
them. My fieldnotcs contain many exa mples of men solemnly discuss ing concepts such as filial piety and institutions such as ancestor wor ship. They are balanced by the voices of iconoclastic '\\�'"Omen, like that
of one \vho advised ano ther to spend her money on herself rath er than
save it for her funeral:
So what are you worry ing ab out? You ha v e son s . If they
can
s tan d to let
you sit in t he hall and rot, th en you sho uldn't worry about it. You will
be de ad Hurry up an d spend your money an d enjoy you rs elf If you d ie and they do spend all your money to pay fo r a big funeral, people will just sa y "Oh, \\ h at good sons they are . Wh at a fine funeral they gave for her. " They \\"on 't say you paid for it . If it were me, I 'd spend every cent no\v, and if t hey could stand to j u st roll me up in a mat, that would be their worry. [ Wolf 1 96&: 2 J 6- I 7 1 .
,
.
'
Chinese men and perhaps some an thropologists d i s miss these dis co rd an t voices as indica tive only of women �s ignorance; Chinese
\\'ome n would be quick to agree. They have found ignorance or the appea rance of ignoran ce to be a valuable resou rce. For tu nately, at about the same time the voices in my fieldnotes were fo rcing me to recognize the po\ver of women , other feminist anthro
pol og ists were reachin g simila r conclusions. The recalcitrant field note s from Taiwan n o longer seemed aberrant . My revisionist per spe ct ive fit in \Vei l '"�ith the other essa)"S in Rosaldo and Lamphere's no w classic Jo/otnan, Culture, and Society ( 1 974).
fROM f i ELDNO TES TO E T HNOGR APHY
3 50
Nonetheless, even now, in a tte m p ting a b ro ader consideration of fi el dnotes and their forms and the effect they h av e on w h a t we ul ti ma t el y do \\'ith them , these Chinanotes fr om Taiv.ran leave me in a quan da r y At least half of the notes used to \Vritc thos e t w o bo oks \Ve r e recorded by someone else { Arth ur Wolf, and his field assis t a nts) \Vit h an oth er project in mind. Even the material I collected myself du rin g the first field visit vlas in a sense recorded by another pe rs o n certainl y not by a feminist looking for an alternative p e rsp ectiv e on the Chin ese family. How is it, then, that those prejudice s or at least p redilections did not obscu re the strong themes I l at er found in the data? I do n o t suggest that someho\v Vle m ana ge d in our data collection to re ac h the nirvana of obj ectivity-on the contrary. B ut perh a p s because so many of our notes \\'ere re co r d s of conversations, they are open to a variet y of ana l yse s that a rese a rc he r with a single, sharper focus w o u l d have lost. Yet to advise a no v i ce an thro p olog i s t to fill her empty notebooks \vith \Vha tc ver she saw or h eard and vlorry about its meanin g after s h e got back to the university \\ro uld be \V O r se than no a dvi ce at all. My early e x p eri ence wo rking as a res earch assistant to an experi mental p s y ch ol o g i st ta ugh t me to value (if n ot attain) the cl arity of thou ght tha t comes from setting a hi erarch y of h·ypo t h e ses de fini n g vari ables , and est ablis hin g �·ith c�ution the dimensions that measure them. Certainly the young a nthropolo gis t who goes to the field � ith a circum sc ribed problem and a clear p icture of the kind of data that '\vill address it will accom plis h the task of disserta tion research in half the ti me . Nonetheless, she must also co nsider whether it \Vill be poss ible to return to thos e data to ask differen t ques tions, to search for s ol u tio ns to conflicting explana tion s or even to add to the general eth no gra ph ic li terature . Such a limited research strategy should be e mplo ye d on ly after a ca ref u l weighing of the advantages and d is a dvan t ag es In 1 98 0-8 1 I spent the a cade m ic year in the People's Rep ubli c of China and made use of this more focused approach-but not by my own choice. I \vould ha ve preferred to do resear ch in a single area, but for a variet y of personal and p olit i c al reasons I spent from four to six weeks ea ch in six di fferent sites s p read across China. I came to th is research car ry i ng baggage di fferent from \1lhat I had carr ie d to Tai\van, having become op enly feminist and pro-socialist. My goa l was to look at the change s in women 's lives , rural and u rban, thirty ye a rs after the establishment of an o ffi ciall y feminist socialist society. I was armed \Vith a set of bas ic q uestions and with '\va rni ng s not to expect to find u to p i a It \vas b ey ond a doubt the most difficult field resear ch I have .
,
,
..
,
.
.
C hinanotes
35 1
d e . I \Vas required to conduct formal interviews , always \\'ith a v e r on in i m u m o f one government official present. In two of the six sites I allo \ved to interview in hom es , and in others I �·as given little v.'a s not o pp o rt un i ty for small talk or casual observation . I was allowed a quot a of fifty women and five men per field site. Obvio u sly, there are ways
�
o f st rik in g up informal conversations and making observa tions out side of \v orking hours when one is living on a rural com mune and I
made full use of them, but being around for so short a time did not aU ow m e to build the kinds of rel ationships with informants '''hich
gi ve the deeper insights into individual lives . Nonetheless , the proj ect \\'as successful. It \va s not as complete as I would have liked, but I
learned a great deal from the 3 00 �"omen I talked vvith about their
ho pes, their disap pointments , and the qu ality of thei r liv es . A s a s ide
benefit, the two women \Vho traveled \Vith me throughout the re search and heard the a n s \vers to my pointed questions in site after site gradually became radicalized and began to express, covertly of course , their indign ation over the discrepancies between the slogans of gen der equality and the realities th ey were encountering. M y informants in China were far more informative than either I o r
the offici als w h o grudgingly allo�·ed m e t o co nduct my research had anticipated.
A
book (Wolf
1 98 5)
and a few essays resulted-but what
of the fieldnotes? Will they have the same value in ten years that my early notes from Tai\\'an had after ten yea rs ? I doubt it very much. And
if they do, it will be more as documents of a certain phase in the socialist transformation
of Chinese society than as a source of ne\\'
insights into women 's lives . Even though I collected work histo ries and genealogical information for all the women and recorded their attitudes on a number of subjects other than gender, the fo cus \\'as necessarily tight. I could no t ho pe
to
get to kno\v the m \Veil enough to
evaluate independen dy their position in vill age or neighb orhood so ciety. Worse y et, I have no reco rds of conversations initiated by them,
for none was. Nor had I the advantage of hearing them talk about their in ter ests rather than \\'hat I (sometimes mistaken l y) took to be mine .
Rich as I believe these intervie'h"S a rc, thcv are frozen in time, d i n iv idual s tatements only vaguel y anchored i� the social and histor ica l co ntext that created the m . They a re the responses of my infor mants to my questions, in no way a dialogue and in no sense a dialectic sea r c h for mutual understanding of a topic. One might reasonably say
that in these fieldn otes I retained control of the subj ect matter, and m y
Chin ese informants retained cont rol of its content . I have information ,
F R 0 �1 fi E L D I' O TES TO E T H N O G R A PII Y
3 52
but
I
must interpret it al on e By way ofj ustification-or consola tion � .
as the case may be- l can say that I h ad neither the lu xury of rep eated visits over a number o f years nor the luxury of ti me that is required before one 's info rmants
to tell you about themsel ves and their society. The situation in the People 's Republic required all of us t o tvant
comprom ise . My informants tried to satisfy me and their governmen t ;
I tried t o satisfy the goals o f my research project .
I
\Vas forced t o \vri te
a different kind of fiel dnote, and its form determined the kind of ethn ography that resulted, an ethnography in \Vhich I must constantly remind my reader to q ues t i on whether it is my informants or their government s peaking .
The
research in
mortality and
of
the
PRC made me painfully av.rare of m y
0\\711
the sensiti ve nature of fieldnotes. I see two issues
about fieldwork as inextricably rel ated: the protection
of informants �
and the sh aring of fieldnotes . Over the yea rs of do in g field\\"ork in Tai\van I have put a
good
deal of effort into attempts to protect the
privacy of my informants . It neve r occurred to me
'\Vhen I
wro te
1"lze
House oj'Lin• that in ten years I wo u l d find copies of the book staring a t me i n ever·y tourist shop i n Taipei. But because I used ps eudonym s� changed the names of to\\'OS and villages , and even gave the.. com p a ss whirl '''hen I
a
wrote it, my efforts to protect informants have been
successful at that basic level . Yet
in
the original ficldno tes for t h a t
village, even though \\'e assigned everyone an identification number� the names o f the indi-v;duals '''e kne\\" bes t had a vlay
of slipping
in .
The children we observed are now gro\vn , and the so-called econo mi c mira cle o f Taiwan has allo�·ed so me of the villagers t o enter profes sions that make them socially an d politically quite visible . One is even
electronics facilitv in S ilicon Vallev in California. The responsibility I bear them wil l continue fo r many years to come and precludes my putting the fieldnotes in the pub l i c dom ain . Some of the director of an
I
�
our svstematic data �lould not be at all sensi tive and with care ful I
editing might be safely allowed in
the hand s of people I do not know,
but that editing Vtrould be a big chore.
My data from the PRC are an even hca""V; er burden. I t is unfortunate
but t rue that
in China one can still suffer serious damage for the
exp ression of an unpopular opinion , no matter ho\v innocent that opinion may seem to the unw ary outsider.
For
that matter, today 's popular o p inion may be tomorrow�s heresy. In published material I have taken great care to be m islea din g as
to who
said \Vhat, particu
larly ''' hen the· statement-ho \\'ever apolitical-\vas made by some-
Ch in anotes ne V�; thin the governmenta l apparatus who \Vas speaking off the 0 cord . But, as with the Taiwan data, how am I to know that today's �e man will not in a decade be a p rovincial officer in the �ll agc w o
�omen's Federation? I would be delighted if this were to com e about ,
but, h o \v ev er unlikely such an event may be , I also feel constrai ned to c on cea l the fact that she once gave me her personal views on a touchy
is s ue . The few names I have used in published material from the PRC and a g ain the geography is moved about, but to a re p seu donyms, e x pu rga te these fieldnotes \vould be more di fficult if not impossible.
M u ch as I \Vould l ike to m ake all our fieldnotcs available to responsible co llea gues for different kinds of analyses and alternative interpreta
tio n s, m y sense of my obligation to the people who gave me so much is tha t I \Vould be breaking faith with th em by doing so. Those \v ho collec t the ficl d notes are m ost fully a\\'arc of the damage to particul ar
in dividuals that their irresponsible use could cause.
So \vhat is to be the u ltimate disposition of ficldnotes? After their
coll ectors have tu rned to dust , arc the notes to molder in attics and basements until some uninterested dau ghter or grand d aughter re
cycles them? I hope not . We ha ve all heard too many ho rror stories of
the eager researcher who gets \\' ind of a cache of invaluable reco rds
only to arrive a year or t\vo after they h ave been consigned to the
garbage heap. Perhaps all our notes should be turned over to the Smithsonian to be sealed in some attic room until they can do no harm
to t h e livin g or the dead .
But is the sharing offieldnotes-ignorin g for a moment the pleasant
feelin g of generou s altruism- really in the best inte rests of anthropol o gy? Would \\re not be addin g yet another level of co mplexity in our se a rch for mean ing? Would not the young anthropologist \vho looks at m y old Tai\\'an notes have to make a quantum leap back\\#·ard to un ders ta nd the social, historical, political, and (equally important fro m
m y p ersp ective) pers onal context i n \vhich those notes �·ere "\V rittcn ? A nd w ould she not also have to stru ggle to recreate the personality that
ha d re co rded the m? Frankly, even I find that task more and more di fft cult as the ·years go by. Do \Ve \vant to wish it on-indeed, trust it to- o ur descendants ?
Sho uld Vle perhaps treat our ficl dnotes as ephemera, as texts created by a n thropologist and informants in a particular space and time for a
Par �icula r purpose: the creation of an et hn o g raphy or a research report
Whtch in itsel f becomes another kind of text \Vith a set of long esta blished rules for its reading? Do \Ve then \\' rite our memoirs and at
353
fRO M f iEL D N OT ES T O ET H N O G R A P H Y
354
the end o f each day 's writing stint sit in front o f the fi repl ace and ceremoniously burn the notes \Ve used that day? I don't think I co uld do that . And I am sure m y historian colleagues \\'ould be horrified
at
the thought of such arson . For arson it \vould be. Howeve r flawed, fieldn otes a rc not ephen1 c ra but docu ments that record one mind 's attempt to come to unders tan d the behavior o f fello\v beings. One day-fly specks, bacterial in fc c .. tion, and all-they must be part of the public record so that if the species should survive or be follo\�,.ed by some other postnuclear being cursed \Vith curiositv, the fieldnotes can be reexamined for \vh a t the v �
J
are: our feeble a ttempts at com munication \Vith one another. Fo r however \v anting anthropology· may be , it h as nonetheless served
to
create a sen se of global humanity-c ross-class, cros s-culture, and cross-gender-that is sorel y lacking in m ost other disciplines . Considering the serious reassess ment of an thropolo g y cu rren tly under \vay, it may seem almost frivolous si mply to muddle o n , m ak in g superficial modifica tions in our old field methods. Perha ps the most Vlc can do at this j unctu re is to attempt to be more a\vare of process , both in the field and \\l·hilc trying to make sen se of V.."hat
\\'e
bring back \\l"ith us. H ave �·c really any other choice ? We must reflect on our \Vo rk thus far, but we must not allo\v the inward gaze to blind us to the real achievements of our past . Recent trends in anthropo logy put us in danger of becoming more literary critics than creato rs o f literature, more service workers than producers . Should we cease to p roduce fieldnotes and create ethnography, �·e will cease to do anthro polog y, for an thropolog·y is dependent on fieldnotes and ethnogra phies for its existence. Theory is exciting and the source of gro\vth, but un tested theory" vlill in time turn a discipline into an art form .
REFEREN C E S
Freedman, Maurice. 1 96 1 . The Family in China, Past and Present.
Pacffic Ajfc11 r.�
3 4 : ] 23-] 6. . 1 9 70. Ritual As pects of Chinese Kinship and M a rriage. In Fatn ily atJd Kin sh ip in Chintje Societ)l1 ed . Maurice F reedman , 1 63 - R7. S ta n fo rd Calif : S ta n fo rd U ni ver s i t y Press. Gornick, Vivi an, and B a r bara K. M oran, eds. 1 97 1 . ��'<JmatJ in Sexi.st Socidy: Studies itJ Po 1vtrlessnes.s . New York: Basic B ooks . Ros aldo, M ichelle Zi mbalist, and Louise Lam phere, cds. 1 974 . �t'clma ft, Cu l ta-t rf , and Society. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press.
--
,
C hinanotes �'bi ting, Beatrice B . , ed . 1 963 . Six Culture� ; Stl4dies ofChild R earing. New York:
Viiley. Wolf, M arg ery. 1 96 8 . TIJe House o_( L im : ..4 Study o..f a CIJ inese Farm Family. Eng lc\\'Ood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall. --- · 1 9 72 . '"'omen and th e Famil)' in Rural Ta iwatl . Stanford , Ca l i£ : Stan ford Universi ty Press . --·
1 98 5 . Revolr4tion Postponed: Komen in Contemp orary China. Stanford , Cal if. :
S ta nford University Press .
3 55
ROBERT
J.
SMI T H
Hearing Voices , Joining ·
the Chorus : Appropriating So meone Els e 's Fieldno tes
Most anthropologis ts have enough tro uble analyzing their
O \Vn
fieldnotes without taking on the .extraordinarily co mplex task of deal ing ''"'ith someone else 's . When they do so, it is u sual l y because they plan to conduct research in a pla ce \�there another an thropologist has alread y collected data. The \vould-be secondary user al mos t inevitably �·orks alone, for in the most common case the \Vriter of the notes has died, and there is no one to ans� cr questions p rompted by the dis ..
covery of ambiguities, lack o f clarity, seeming contradictions, and simple illegibility likely to characterize such personal materials . My motives for u ndertaking the enterprise I describe belo\v had nothing to do v.dth plans to conduct research in the place "'"here the fiel dwork \\'as carried out. I did not even kno\v of the existen ce of the materials un til a few \Veeks before they p assed into my hands . Fu rth er more , when I did at last begin the task o f dealing with the remarkab le journal that for med part of the collection, I enj o yed a distinct ad van tage: the \V oman who \Vrote it is very m u ch alive and b eca me an a ct iv e participant in our joint effort to rescue it from oblivion . 1 I
am
grateful to Ella Lury 'W'is,-.,· ell and Margery \Volf for thei r comments on a d ra ft
of this essay.
_
See the p reface in Smith and \ll' isv..· cll ( 1 98 2 : xxi-xxxviii ) . For an account ot �' is weH 's experiences at the fi ftieth-annivers ary celebration of t he Embrees' stu d y� or g aniz ed and fi nan ced by the people of Suye in 1 98 5 . see \(iiswell and Smith ( 1 9� 8). I
3 56
Hea ring Vo ices,
Joining
the Chorus
1 have cho se n to give a fai r l y
ffort.
A t a ti me
\v h en
straightfor\vard
3 57 account of that re s c u e
man y anthropolo gists a re eng aged i n fevered
;cexamination of th e foundati on s of our discipline, my ap p r oach m a y
appea r at best naive , at \Vo rst si mply perv ers e. I t is neither. I take th e ta ck I do b ecau se it seem s to me th a t the curren t c o n cern \Vi th t ext , me an in g , \\' r i t i n g , and r efl e xi v it y is a s much to be a cc o u n te d fo r by its eru ption i n We s t er n intel lectu al li fe in the 1 970s and 1 980s as by any pa r ti cu l a r releva nce it m ay h ave to the ethnographic enterprise per se . Th e p o in t is put Vli t h enviable el egan ce in an edi to r i al comment on a se t of p a p e r s deal ing w ith one or another of the " cri ses " i n a n thro pol-
og y: Anth ro pol ogists have become fond of w ritin g about the culture of
an thropology as a su bject in itsel f and of including themselves in their fieldwork . Th e self-consciousnes s of a disci pline seeking to under stand
the Other is hardly surp ris in g , aside from the fact tha t it fits the tenden
cies of late-t\vcntic th-cen tury thought so neatly as to be
a
bit sus
pect . . . . Perh aps the prob lems of an thropology arc less unique than its ambitions . [Grc\\' 1 9 86:
We c an only hope
t
190]
h at Raymond Grc'"'· is righ t .
Ho\\l·ever
th
a t may be ,
I set out here in some detail the circum stan ces that led to mv involve.�
ment \Vith t h e field materials and the process by means
of which I tried to join the chorus of voices speaking through th e m . I a po l ogi ze for the l e n g thy preamble but offe r it b ec a use I thi n k i t ot h cr� ise d iffi cult to ·
see ''.rhy I got involved in the first pl a c e .
h en I \\'as seven t een , I j oine d a unit of the U . S . Army S p ecialized Tr a inin g Reserve Corps at the U n i ve rs ity of Minne sota. It was o ne o f sev e ra l scattered about the country eng aged in \v h a t �...ere then called Jap a n es e lan gu a ge and area studies . A mong our co u rs es was o ne on the ethnograph y of the peoples of the Pa ci fi c ; it w as taught b y Wi l s o n D . Wa l l is , \Vith occasi ona l guest lectu res by his wife, Ru th Saw tell Wallis. In re t ros p ec t , i t is n o t difficult to ima g i n e what a s tr u g gle it must have been for these t\vo anth ropologists-one a s p e c i alist on the Micmac of the C a n ad ia n Mari times, th e ot her a p h y si c al anth ropologi st-to assem ble a d e cen t set of readings for the cour se. For J ap a n , h o vv ever, there \va s one ex cellent book, John F. Embree's SU)1 f J\1ura : .i4 Japanese Villag e ( 1 939). The field resea rch on which it w a s based had been co mpl ete d in 1 93 6 , just a fe\\' yea rs earlier, and in a d di tio n to its s ch o l ar l y merits t h e book had all the fa s ci n a ti on of a n e a rly contem p orary account of life in a n e ne my count r y. I found it interestin g enou g h but had no reason to suppose I In 1 944,
w
fROM f iElDN OTES T O ET HN OGRAPH Y
Walli s c s'
\Vould ever refer to it a ga i n once the final examination in the cou rse \Vas o v e r
.
So much fo r prescience. What had come to be widel y toute d
as
a
ab rup tl y several months later, and a ft er in Japan, I was discha r ge d from the army and
hundred years' \Va r ended s pend i n g most of 1 946
re t urned to the University of Minnes ota as an un der gradu a te maj orin g
in anthropology. The very fi rst quarter's schedule included a co u r se the ethnol ogy of East Asia, taught by Ri cha r d K.
on
Beardsley, him sel f a
p r oduct o f the U . S . Navy's wartime Japanese langua g e program .
Inevitably, the Embree book a ppe a re d on the list of re q uired texts � an d so I read it once more. In light of my o�� recen t experien ce of Ja p an
and its people , I found much in i t that I had mis se d befo re. Eventually I
learned that anthropologis ts do so mething called field�·ork on whi ch
they base ethnographies (I knc\\7 no t hi n g offieldnotes at the tim e)� a n d
it seemed to me that someone should do a similar stud·y that '"'·ould
focus on '"'·hat had h a p p ene d in the coun tryside in posts u rrender Japan. After two years of graduate stud}· at Corn ell U ni v ersit y
,
I found
m y self back in Japan to do j u st that under sponsorship of the C enter
for Jap anese Studies of the Universit)" of Michigan,
\V
here B ea rd sley
had gone from Minnesota. S oon after ar r i v in g , I m o v ed into a village on the isl and of Shikoku, equipped vvith a p on ab l e t y pew riter found out about fieldnotes long sin ce), a
dictionary, and a
\V
(I had
o rn copy
Suye lvlura: A Japanese Village. It was the summer of 1 9 5 1 , a few months after Jo hn Embree and his daughter Clare had been kill ed b y a
of
motoris t who ran th em down on a sno\\'Y street in Hamden , Connec
had hoped to visi t him at Yale before I left for Japan; no w I had only his bo ok and a few p ub l is hed papers on Suye to guide me in my ticut. I
research . 2 For several years after I took up my tea chin g post at C o rnell
in 1 95 3 , the book \V as a required text in my course on japanese society and culture . It remains in print, a classic of the community study genre.
n othing o f Ella Embree, who had also been in Suy c in 1 9 3 5 save that i n his preface John Emb ree ha d ackno\vledged that she
I knew
3 6,
s po ke Ja p anese fluently, while his own com mand of the language was fr a gm e nt a ry. Then, in th e summer of 1 96 5 , she came to I th aca to visit one of his sisters , and we met for the first time. Ella Wis\vell (she had 2 The results of that research appear in severely
a bri dged
form in C-ornell and S n1ith the aegis of the Uni ver
( 1 956: 1 - 1 1 2). Four comm unity studies ,-.,· ere conducted under
sity of Michi gan's Center for Japanese Studies: cv,ro appear in Cornell and Smith 1 9 56; the third is Norbeck 1 954, and the fo u rth- capstone of the en ter p rise-is Beard sl ey9 Hall, an d Ward 1 95 9. The Em bree tradition was very m uch alive du ring this perio d.
Hearing b
Voices, Joining
the Choru s
3 59
then re married) pro·vcd to be a h andsome vvoman , inten se and wh o se lightly accen ted En glish caught me by surprise. For
vrbmrane rt,ea s on it had never occurred to me to \Vander ho\v the wife of an �rnerican an thropologist happened to be fl uent in Japanese, but I met s o n1any expatriate Russians in h o l d ha ve guessed after ha ving �ob ejus t after the war. I think we must have i gno red the other guests u
tot a ll y so dcepl�, involved Vlere \Ve in s peaking of the Suye study, the ..
trag ic deat h of her husband and dau gh ter, and my O\\'n research that had be en inspired by his book . It \\' as late in t he conversation that she raised an is sue for which I \Va s
no t p rep ared . When she left Connecticu t for Honolulu t o teach at the Uni ver sity of Havlaii in 1 9 5 1 , she said, she had tried Vlithout succes s to i ntere st someone at Yale in taking over the S uye research materials . Sh e cou ld not b ea r to dis card them, of cou rse , but neither could she fore see anv circumstan ces under \vhich she \Vou l d ever look at them again. They \\'ere stored in the attic of a friend,s house in N ew H aven . �
Did I by any chance kno\v of anyone who might be interested in
l ooking at them to see \\'hcther they contained anything of value? did. When a number of cartons arrived in
mv office several v,reeks later, �
I
I
unpack ed them at once, astonished at their bulk . There vvere t \\'O albums of black and vlhitc photographs that I have since learned number I , 720
t
in all . An o her set of alb u ms contained carefully labeled adver
tising broadsides , notices of meetings of vill a ge organization s , school ent ertain ment p rograms, paper charms and amulets from shrines and te m ple s , and ne\vspaper clippings- a g alaxy of ephemera of the kind o fte n discarded in the course of field�·o rk. A batch of manila enve l op es c ontained hamlet hou sehold census forms , copies of progress
rep ort s to the Social Science Research Committee of the Universin, of C hi cago (which had funded the study), some drafts of unpublis hed paper s by John Embree and others, and cor respondence relating to the resea rch . In one folder there \vas an English-language typescript
he a ded "The Diary of a Japanese Innkeeper's Daughter" \vith an intro du cti on by John Embree and a note that the translation had been done
by one Miwa K ai . 3 There \Vas also the t\\'o-volume unedited manu-
3Sho rtl y after \�·e com pleted the manuscript of The �J.'t'tme11 of Su y e �\�lura Ell a , Wis \\'ell reminded me of the existence of the diary. After looking it over again, I
su g g es ted that it be prepared for publicati on , and she put me in tou ch \Vith Mi w a Kai, Y.o·h o gra ci ously agreed to the plan . \'(lith her indispensable assis t ance the diary appeared
forty years after she had co mple ted her transla tion Smith 1 984).
of it during Wo rld ·�1ar II ( S mith and
J 60
f R O �i fi ELD N O TES TO E T H N O G R A P H '\'
script of Suye l\Jura : A japatlese �'illage and a copy of the notes for the lectures John Embree had given at the University of Chicago for th e Civil Affairs Training School for the Far East during the war. I p ut all this \\'ealth of material aside, ho"vever. when I found the core of the collection: t,�,.o typescript journals. John Embree's contained I , 2 76 pages ; Ella's, 1 , 00 5 . Even that initial cu rsory inspecti on of the contents of the cart o ns produced some surprises . The progress reports had been jointly in th e names ofJohn and Ella Embree, for it tu rned out that under the ter n1s of the grant she had borne specific responsibility for collecting infor mation on the lives o f the �·omen and children of the village . That discovery cl eared up the puzzle of why there were t\VO research jour nals of impressive length but only one book. It \Vas apparent that John had �·ritten his dissertation fro m his notes, using his Vlife's hardly a t all, and revised it for publication. No book on the topic of the other study (as I came to think of Ella's \Vork) had ever seen the light of day. My first task, I decided, was to read her journal . I \\'as quite unpre pared to find that its information on Jap anese v-�omen Vlas absolutely unique. One uses the vvord "unique'' to describe an)·thing Japanese advised!)·, for it is badly over\\'orked and almost al\vays inaccurate ; in this instance, hovlever, it \vas entirely appropriate. Not only were the Embrees the first foreign anthropologists to conduct research in japan, but they had also carried out the only stu dy done to this date by a husband-and-\vitc team residing in a rural community for a yea r. In the mid- 1 9 3 as no Japanese social scientist was collecting such material , and nothing like the contents ofher jou rnal had appeared in any language in the intervening years. I wrote to her at once and so began a correspondence about h o ""· it might be possible to make available at last the results of "the other study. " The Suye flies had been put aside some thirty years before; tha t the final result of my good intentions appeared onl)� after anoth er seventeen years had passed can be explained if not excused. In 1 9 69 , while on a visit to Austin, Texas, my \Vife and I narro�·ly escap ed meeting the fate ofJohn and Clare Embree. Recovery fro m our ext en sive inj uries �.. as very slow, and \vhen \Ve finally returned to Ithac a, it was to find Cornell's version of the campus revolution in full sw ing . The years of turmoil that follo\ved, rendered nearly insupportable by my O\\'n greatly reduced level of energy, \\'ere academically unpro du c tive. Then in 1 973 came an unexpected opportunity to plan a rest udy of the place "vhe re I had lived on Shikoku, which led to fieldwo rk in
Hearing Voices , Joining the
Chorus
1 97 5 an d an extended p eriod of \vrit ing and sec1n g a man uscript
th ro u g h to publica tion (S mith 1 978). Onc e more I returned to the Suyc m at eri als and arranged to be at the Univ ers i ty of Ha\vaii for the tall sem es ter of 1 978 . Retired long since ,
E ll a W is\\rell and her husband Frederick were l iv ing in Honolulu; it see me d a perfect chance to work tog ether, and I took her j o u r n al \Vith me. A s I set a b o ut reading it once again , \Ve talke d over the many con side ra tions that eventually led to our decision to publish S U}'e .�1ura ( Smith and Wiswell r 9R2).
Th e ��omen oj
Ifl ha ve been unduly discursive in t h is personal account, it is bec ause
I want to high light several unus u al featu res of my involvement \Vith someone elsc � s ficldnotcs . First � they were given to me by their autho r, \vho from the outset ent e rtain ed some doubt as to their value. Second ,
I never met John Embree, author of the basic ethnographic sou rc e s on
the community in \Vhich the field\\lOrk had been c arried out. Third , I have never visited the place or met any of its people . (In recent years I
I m a y vlell be the only A merican e t h nologist ofJap an over the age of fifty who has not gone there . ) Insofar as I knovl have come to su spect that
the place and p eop l e at all , it is through the \v rit ings of John Embree
and the numerous scholars \vho have made of restudies of Suye so me
thing o f a cottage industry, and throu gh the eyes, ears , and memory of Ella Wiswell. 4 This essay is not about texts or p resentation o r re-presentation. It docs not deal vv'ith "'�riting o r inscribin g , pre-scription or de-scription .
I t is abou t voices, and in a purely nontechnical '\.\-" ay i t is about multi
vocality. It \\' as M a rge ry Wolf '''ho said of
The ��omen o.._f Su y e Mu ra,
"You have gi ve n Ella Wis\vell her voice. " That is in fact \vhat I hoped to do, but it no"'" seems more approp r i at e to say I have helped her speak at least . Consider for a moment the object on ""'"hich all that fo ll o vls is based. The ethnographer- who continues to disavov.." the l abcl- v.."rote down what she h ad seen and heard, and often v.rhat she
th ough t about it, a t the end of every day. The j ournal , ·"rhich b egins on De ce m b er 20, 1 93 5 , a nd ends o n N ovem b er 3 , 1 93 6 , is "'"ritten in En glis h , although she might equal1y '''ell have used Russian or F rench.
�s we shall see, and as those \Vho have read our book �;n know, h er s Is a p o \verful voice . Indeed , so po"'�erful is it that as secondary user of her fieldnotcs, I initially found it a s erious p r ob l e m .
"'The major restu dies
1 97 1 ;
and Yoshino 1 95 5 .
include
Kawakami
1 98 3 ; Raper
et
al. 1 9.5 0;
Ushijima
1 95 8,
f R O �i f i E L D N OTE S TO ET H N O G R A PHY
In my earliest readings of her journ a l I beca me fascina ted wit h i t s author, whom I had then met only once and so barely kne\v. O nl y
gradually did it davv·n on me that the v oice I had come to hear so clea rly
in the pages of the j ournal was not that of the woman I had
me t b u t
rather that of a young Vloman in her mid-twenties , a foreigner con ducting research in a land she thought of as home by virtue of having spent much of her youth there and vlhere her famil y s till lived . She
was educated at Berkeley and the Sorbonne and had been a gradua te
student ,,, ife at the University of C h i ca g o The exp erience in Suye .
recorded in her j o u rnal \vas filtered through a highl y cosmo p olit an
screen indeed . 5 I took no co mfort in co mparing her background ""·ith my O\\'n \vhen at about the same age I had taken m y purely A meric an
perspe ctive with me into a similar res earch s ituation. To add to n1 y
dis comfort there was the far mo re obvious p roblem of the differen ce of gender. The author of the journal spoke in a \Voman �s voice, and much of \Vhat she wro te about concerned oth er \Vomen . For son1 c
time I w restled with \Vhat I saw a s linked p roblems . The first was ho\v to extract from this inconceivably rich and impossibly copious record
the parts that ought to be published . The second \V as how to get past
the ethnographer, for vlhom m y admiration and respect in creas ed with each readin g, to the ethnog raphy.
I made several false starts, each abandoned a short \\ray into the
ent erprise and then one day it came to me that I had overlooked the ,
mos t painfully obvious central problem. The journal was not tn ine in
any sense other than that i t h ad ended up on m y desk . Lacking any system of cross-referencingt it �vas in some res pects very like a dia ry. Its auth or had lived in one place for o ver a year, so that every day's
entry v.ras based on her accumulating experience. As a reader-one kind of spectator or audi t or
-
I si m pl y could not keep things straight.
A Vloman who figured in a domestic quarrel reported in a Dece n1bcr entry, for example, would appear again and again in other circ u nl
stances and as a participant \\'ith many other people in a var ie ty o f activities . With each a p pearance her character and personality became more p alpable, more rounded, better u nders tood, and her voice n1 o re
audible. The difficulty \\'as that increa sing familiari ty led the j o urnal ·s author to use shorthand referen ces to individuals an d pla ce s
.
T his
meant tha t the woman identified earlv on as Mrs . Sa\vada Ta k i o f I
51
was
find it difficult to see ho\\t one rcvie\vcr of the book came to the conclusion that she ua fairly ordinary housewife-cum-scholar who spoke excellen t Japanese" (Moc ra n
1 984).
Heari ng Vo i ces , Joining
the Choru s
oade o r Otsuka's da u gh ter Taki is referred to si mply as Taki in l ater
nd occasionally as Mrs . Sa vvada with no mention of her en tr i es a h a m l e t of residen ce. Furthermore, th ere \¥ere scores o f won1en to k ee p t ra c k of; someti mes they \Vc rc identified by full n ame, occasion a ll y by su rna me only, and frequentl y by· giv en name alone. In some pass ag es there \vcre n o n a mes at all; in most of these there \Vas so me cl u e t o the iden tity of the person being vvrittcn about, but the clue
o ften p oin ted in mo re than one di rection . The mo re deeply I got i n to the j ournal , the more compl etel y at sea I felt.
How could I make the j ourn al mi ne? To pose the question \vas to answ er it- there seemed to b e no \vay. What I needed vvas som e means
of dim inishing the po\\-·c rfu l presence of the ethnographer so that the
people of whom she wrote \\7o u ld emerge mo re clearl y. Here I must
ackno"W·ledge membersh i p in that generation of academ ics \vho vv ri te some of our manu scripts in longhand and t y p e othe rs . In either case I
compose as I g o along, and each revision , \vhethe r hand- or type\.\trit
ten , is also a recomposition . The solution I arrived at reflects th ese
preferences and ha bits � because it seem s to h ave served its purpose \vell,
I report it here. I photocopied the entire j ournal , marked every
passage in the copy not devoted to the \Veather, recipes , a n d the like,
and sat dov.,rn at my typc\vriter. For weeks I spent m ost of every day retyping the m ark ed passages verba tim , beginnin g with th e first entry.
Before I was \veil into this stul tifyin g task , I began to know the people
in a new \vay. Some of the pa yoff was purely technical . For example,
for the fi rst time it became cl ear to me tha t Mrs . Higu chi of the s to re (February
13, 1 936), A yako at th e village shrine festi val (N ovember 1 93 5), old man Saka ta's daughter (May 29, 1 9 3 6), and al most
27, certai nly the unnamed obj ect of some unrestrained gossip on an o u ting Uu ly I , 1936) \verc all the s ame \\'o man . What is more, by the tim e I
got to the gossip about her, it came as no surprise. When I \\'as fi n ally do n e, I had lea rned eno u gh to spot continu i ties and inconsistencies ,
re solve most of the occasional ambiguities , and sec ho'\\1" passages th at h � d ap pea red to be unrelated (or unrelatablc) to anything or anyone
d1 d in fact connect with \vhat had gone before o r came after.
M y aim had been to appropri ate the journal , which has m an y pas sa ges that begin \Vi th something like " It must have been she they W er e
t alk i ng about a t the market in town last \Veek, '' or " I f that is \\"h a t
lll c . "
A s they beca me part of rny field notes, all such jou rnal entries
sh e meant, then Sak ata has got i t all \v ro n g or w a s tryin g t o mislead \\'er e trans formed i n to re fere11ces to conversati ons and observations I
f RO M fi E L DN OTES T O ETH N O G RA P H Y
had typed up myself. In the in nu merable lengthy indirect quotes and n1any direct ones I began to hear fam iliar voices and reco gnize charac teristic man ners o f expression . My g ro\ving sens e of confiden ce roo ted in my
O\�ln
\\-· as
fiel d work in another village in Japan j us t fifteen
yea rs after the E mbrees left S u yc. Althou gh a catas trophic wa r an d vast social changes had intervened, it seemed to me that I had spent a year with farmers and shopkeepers who in many respect s \\'ere ver y
lik e their counterparts in prewar Suye. Ella Wis\velrs shy y oun g women , philandering husbands, nei ghborhood scolds , hard vvor k in g
household heads, and ind ulged children v,,.cre fa miliar figures . I
co n�
fes s that the people of Suye discussed some matters in \ovays that did afford me an occasional jolt; otherwise, the landscape was easily recog nizable . This discovery \Vas reassurin g , fo r it s uggested that des p i te all
our differen ces in background, \\'e had not1eth eless encountered very similar kinds of people. It s eem ed highly unlikely that we had me rely crea ted them .
So I a m led to make the audacious clai m that the voices of the
\\'o men of Suye could be heard more clearly once I had in terposed myself bct vveen them an d their ethnographer, \\'ho now \Va s far less
salient in my perception
of the
place and its people. Nevertheless, I
\\ras left still "vith nothing more than a year of narra tive . I n n1y abridgment the s tory lines \vere easier to folio\\', bu t I did not kn o w
\\'hat to do \\'i th it. Certainly I had n o desire to try m y hand a t w riting somethin g like " .1'\,fy Year tt1ith
japanese Tlillage �i{,tnetJ
by Ella Lury
Wiswell as told to Robert J. S mith . " Once or twice I flirted ��lith the
idea
" Ella Lury �Jt"isu,ell: An A nthropologist at �J't>rk by Robert J. Smith, " but q uickly concl ud ed that fo r better or \vorse , w e were n o t
of
Ruth Benedict a n d Marga ret Mead. 6
In some despair I \vent through m y ne�·ly typed fi eldnotes agai n !
studied the carefully captioned photographs that allo\ved me to put names with fa ces , and the for the n th ti me reread john Embree's boo k . The effect was startling . A work I had al,�rays found appealing for th e
sense it gave of life as lived by Japanese farmers no\v seemed cur io u sly lifeless, almost bland . All the important topics ""'·ere covered , but t h ere 6 Thc allusion is to Mead 1 9 59, of course. Abour this time a sug gcsrion came fron1 an entirely different quarter that the com plete jou rnals of the E m brccs be translated in to
Japanese to mark the fiftieth anniversary of their arrival in Su ye in 1 93 5 · V'aluablc data
a re.
v..·as
not
as
th.c
this seemed an idea virtu al l y gu aranteed to trivialize their acco mplis hment;
pursued.
Jt
Hearin g Voices , Joining
the Choru s
fe vle r people than I had remembered. Indeed, the text \Vas hardly "'�ere ere blurred, their individual ul e at all; the P plc of Suye o p at d � _w . . . . . m th1s h1ghly normative p1cture of the place. o ic e s in d1stmct ohn E mbree cannot be fa ulted, however, for accomplishing pre
�
J
at he had set out to do. The " First Report on Field Work: cis e ly ,v h suve M u ra, Kumamo t o , Japan, by John and Ella Embree, dated
F e b ru a ry 1 5 , 1 93 6 , opens �..ith this paragra ph :
We ha v e nov.,' been in S uye three an d a half months . We have learned t h a t a comm unity of s i xteen hu ndred is much more than two p e o p le can ever
hope to know person ally. We are m a ki n g progres s by co nc entra t
ing on about a fourth of the village as indivi dual h o us eh old s and study
ing the activities as a whole o n ly as they are expressed in those mo re formal units of the ·sch ool a nd vil l a ge office.
Further on� John \\'rites : Ella has been picking up m ost. of the liv ing social order (emphasis sup plied] b y mean s of con versations w i t h housewives . The n u merous drinking pa rti e s make it eas y to become acq uainted .
The goal of the remaining nine mo n ths of fieldwork , he adds , is " to
have enough material for a fairly good picture of a Japanese village , "
including data on the kin ship s y s tem and life-cycle rites, the hamlet level cooperative system, the economy, social clas ses and cli ques, and religi on .
I \vas s truck by the aptnes s of the phrase "the living social order. " It
is echoed in Plath 's revievl
(1984: 340)
of The JVomen
ofSuye 1"fura :
"If
John E mbree 's book is a sort of official group photograph of the people
of S uyc, Ella Wis\vell's journal is an album of snapshots of thos e
peop le milling around before and after they struck a p ose for t h e lens
of science. '' To recast this characteristically astute observation in my ow n metaphor, John Embree takes us to the public p erfo rmance of the villa g e cho rus made up m ostly of men who hold the sheet music fi rm l y b e fore their eyes; Ella Wis \vcll gives us material of which onl y a fra c ti o n is incorporated into the concert, for there \Vas much singing,
Whistl ing, and humming offstage , especially by women �"ho never got to perform in pu blic at all . Not everyone can read music or carry a tu ne , after all, an d whether sharp or flat, the off-key singer is seldom \Velco m ed into the chorus . The Ella Emb ree "\Vho wro te the journal
f R O M fiE L D N OTES TO ETH N O GR AP HY
..
\vould probabl y have added some caustic comment to the effect th at the v.romcn were there only to serve tea and refreshments to the mal e public performers any"vay. And so we have returned to the ethnographer. I cannot i magine th at my effo rts would have come to anyth ing had I not been able to con su lt with her time and again. Perhaps the most egre giou s request I made of her Vlas that she reread her journal, for it must have been a \Vrenchin g experience. While she �·as so occupied, I set abou t deciding ho\v to reorganize the narrative I had appropriated in such a \vay that the pages , o f John Embrce s _b ook would be peopled, ho\vever disorderly the crowd and ragged its voices . The standard chap ter headings of his study would not do, fo r they arc not v.that Ella Wiswell had been about in Suye. I ended up by repackaging, telling myself that by and large the categories I developed from my ficldnotes had congealed out of the array of topics most extensively repo rt ed in her j ourn al. There remained the problem of mul tivocality. Concerned to k e ep the identity of the speaker clear and to retain her Vlords verbatirn , inso far as that \\'as possible, I a dop t ed a necessarily cumberson1e technique, an account of which appears in Smith and Wiswell ( 1 982: xii) : The p as s ages in doub l e quotation marks are taken directly from t he
journal., edited to reduce r ed u nd an cy and to c la rify wher e nec e ssa ry Materials between s in g l e quotation marks w it h i n thes e p assa ges
.
a re
quotations from conversations an d com ments m ade by th e v illag e rs . Paren thetical passa ges are i n the original. B racketed ones t h e balance o f the text. Thus :
are mine,
as i s
Th at �'as precisely wh a t had h a p p e ned . " Of the Maehara chan ge of
wives the �'omen tho ugh t
favorably.
This one is said to be a good
worker and not 'an okusan type' [by im pl icatio n a lady] like the one \vho has le ft She gave a kao m ishiri r a 'face-shO\\"in g' party given by on e who moves into a new com munity I \vh en sh e arrived. 'A t Maeha ra's, ' they .
laughed, th e y had t o throw su ch a party b e c a use the wives chan g e s o oft en (I learned l a ter th a t his real wife-the fi rst o n e - i s not offici ally '
.'
regi st ered as
such . ) "
The first draft o f the manuscript I sen t to Ella Wis\vell, therefo re , was the j o u rna l dismembered , cut an d pasted, its p i eces patched to- get her with transitional passages and observations pro vided by the u l ti m ate outsider-a man '\\"ho had never even been near the sn1al1 world of �·hlch she had written . The c u tt i ng and pasting had in t ro duced a ne""" kin d of order; the transitions and observations in tro duce d
...
H ea ring
Voices ,
Joining the Chorus
v oice. Along vvith the d raft I sent a list of q u es tions about many m atte rs that still puzzled me . Had I got this particular dispute right? H ad I confused two women because th e y bore the same given nam e ? Was a certain marriage r eall y bet\veen cousins? Was this woman's h u sband her second or third? She could not answer them all, for as any eth n og rapher knows or will learn, despite the early conviction that y ou will never forget anyone or anything en countered during your first extended fieldvlork, memory fails \vith alarming speed. Small wonder, then, that for ty- fi\l"e years after the event Ella Wisvlell co u ld not even recall some of t h e individuals whose activities take up many pages of her j ournal. But memory is se l ecti v e, of course, and for th e most pan I found hers p h e no menal , refreshed as it was by rereading her journ al . Waiting for her re a c tion to the m an u s c rip t '"'.. as an anxious time, for I was concerned to know w h et h e r I had got the tone right . Had I been true to the character of p a r t icular individuals she had kno\\rn so well? Had I given this or that event the proper emphasis? Did I overint erp ret here? Most impor t ant I wondered w heth er she vlould feel that the manuscript revealed too much about ethnographer and villager alike. Those who have re a d the book wi ll kno�\,. that it reveals a great deal . What had been muted voices no\\o.. speak quite loudly in some of its passages, and occasionally V��hat had been a w hisp er has b een raised to the level of full-throated declamation. For the most part, ho�..ever, I fel t confident that the voices \Vere tellin g us \Vhat the speakers "'�anted Ella Wiswell to hear and see, w hich is some version of what every body-or nearly e·very·body-in Suye already knew. But that was then, and this was forty-five years later. The young village women of th at time had become today's grandmothers or j o i ned the ances tral sp irits of their house. Had we revealed too much in light of the sen sibilities of Suye people in the 1 980s? In the end \\'e decided that in on ly one instance had '\\l""e gone too far and at the last minute deleted ei ght pa ges from the copy edited manus cript 7 Those pages dealt with wh at anyo ne \vho has done extended fi eldw ork \vill recognize as perh ap s the most painful period: the sev·eral d a ys just prior to lea";ng 3
new
,
.
7See S mith and Wis\v cll ( 1 982: xi , 273-28 1 ) fo r our j ustifi cation of t h e decision to th e book in its present form. In the final version of the manuscript I adopted the arnahar ta ctic of ch an g in g all p e rson al na mes , co nfusin g directions� shufflin g people pl aces , and otherwise misleading the reade r When El la Wiswell co mpl ained that �ou)d no lon g er keep the people straight, I felt I had succeeded in this exercise in
�ub��h �d �·
Issunulation.
.
F RO M F I E t D N OTES TO ETH N O G R A P H Y
] 68
the place. The difficulty o f disengaging yet leaving the tempers and dignity of all parties intact is a matter far less frequently dealt \\lith in courses on "field methods" than ho\v to "gain entry" and " build an d maintain rapport ." It can be a highly stressful time for all concern ed · ho\\' stressful and in \\'hat �·ays it Vlas so for the Embrees and the people of Suyc, vle have chosen not to say. We "\\l"ent to press . Unlike other books that exploit the fieldnotes of another, 8 the prologue to this one is ent i rely in the field�vorker's voice (S mith and Wis\\'ell 1 98 2 : xxi-xxxviii). I do not remember ho�y \Ve came to decide against making it an epilogue, but I think our instincts were right. Once again the voice of the ethnographer dominates , as Ella Wiswell of the I 98os tells us ho\\' it came about that she \vent to Suye and , in retrospect, \Vhat that long-ago year was like . In the chapters that follovv, using the a\\'kv�rard notation system describ ed above, I tried to make hers only one voice among the many s p eakin g from the past. On occasion the outsider speaks, touching on \vhat seems to be the larger meanin g of an event, drawing comparisons, a n d offering presentiments of things to come. The introduction o f the intruder's voice, clearly distinguished from all the others , can be justi fied only to the extent that it is doubly alien . Neither of us has ever imagined for a moment that this account is the only conceivable version of what rural Japanese \\o·erc like son1e fifty years ago. Hers is a very personal voice , as is the one I adopt in my appropriation of her journal. Fu rthermore, Ella Wiswell 's reading of it in the 1 980s is not the same one that Ella Embree \\'ould have given it in the I 9 J OS , nor is my O\Vn more distanced one of the 1 980s like the reading I �·ould have given the journal in the 1 9 50s-for despite fashionable claims to the contrary, most anthropologists I know think of \vhat they Vi�rice as highly informed opinion rather than Holy Wr it. Yet ho\\'ever defective a record it mav be and ho"\\l·ever colored bv the field worker's personality and interests, her journal nonetheless has thi s ultimate value: it is the only contemporary account of the lives of ru ral women in Japan at that moment in history. Thanks to her field"vork, we are not forced to try to imagine '\vhat their lives v..�ere like then, nor need we ask people today to try to remember how they lived . She set ,
I
�1 kno\\'
�
of on l y one exception, which in v ol ve d the editin g and annotating of
a
manuscript of formidable length \\rritten by E. Michael Mendel son and put aside t <..�1
,.·ears ea rlie r and fifteen vears after the fieldwork was ca r rie d out. Mendelson gavc j olu1 � P. Ferguson, the edi tor, access to his fieldnotes and personal dia ry as \\rell. Details a re
given in two p refaces, one each by editor an d author ( M endelson 1 97 5 :
1 5-20).
Hearing Voices, Joining
the Ch oru s
do\\'O i n her journal \Vhat she sa\\' and heard, thinking the material wo uld be p ublished only insofar as John Embree drew on it in writing hi s dis sertation. The fo rm in \vhich it has finally appeared \Vas calcu d lated t o p ro";de a set t ing in \�thich the v o ices of women, men, an chil d ren could be heard p ublicly for the first time. The acc o unt is no t les s i ns t ru ctive or being a cco m p anied by two o ther voices from ano th er time a nd t\VO very different worlds. If w e arc to continue to do et h n o g r a phy at all, I canno t see that we hav e an y o ther option than to listen carefully to wha t people say, watch \\l·hat th e y do, and keep our voices down. I find offensive the recent tendency to refer to fieldwork as a rite o_fpassage . Not o n l y is the label v a riousl y dismissi"·c or derisive, de pe nding on the point being made; it als o signals a shift of focus that bodes ill for the discipline . Its usc reve al s a concern for the field worker's experience so exclusive as to render the people am o ng vlhom the ethnographer lives irrelevant s ave as i n s tr u ment s to facili t ate career t ran sitions . The implication is de meaning to people who deserve more respect; the t ra ns fo rm ation of our informants into h a p l ess "·ictims of a ll e g ed careerist machinations is the high price we p a y when \Ve stop \\'riting anthropol ogy and start V\'riting about it and ourselves. The subjects of ethno graphies, it should never be forgotten, are alv..' ays more interesting than their authors. In the end, the blend of voices in our compositions '\Vill be uneven. Hov.r could it be other\vise? We can at the very lea s t take care to id en tify each singer clearly, fo r in our fieldno t es is the only record of the only performance they will ever give. R E F E R E N C ES
Bear dsle y, ltichard K. , John W. HaiL an d R ob e rt E . Wa rd . 1 9 59. Village japan .
Chica go : Universit y of Chicago Pres s. Cornel l , John B. , a n d Robert J. Smith . 19 56. Two Japanese Villages. Occasional Paper ) . Ann A rbor: Universi ty of M ichig an Center for Japanese Stu dies . E mbr ee, John F. 1 93 9 . Suye .�.Wura: A japanese Village. Ch icago: University of
Chicag o Press. Gre,�v·, R aymond . 1 9 8 6. Edi torial Foreword. Comparative Studies in Society and
History
2 8 : 1 8 9-9 0.
Ka w aka mi, Barb a ra. 1 9M 3 . The Position of Women in Rural japan: Tradition an d Tra ns ition in Suye Mura. M. A . t h e si s . Universi tv of Hav,,r a ii , Honolulu. Mead, M argaret. 1 95 9 . .4 n A nth ro ologi.st at ��JOrk ; iVn'tings o_f R utl1 Benedict. Bos p to n: Hought on Mifflin.
fROM f i EL D N O T ES T O E T H N O G R A PH Y
3 70
Mendelson, E. M ich a el . 1 975 . San�ha and S tat e in Burma : A Study o_.f �\tfo�lasti( SectarianisnJ and Leadtr5hip. Ed. John P. Ferguson . I thaca : Co rnell University
Press. Moeran, Brian. 1 984. Review of The ''�'ome n c>fS uye Mu ra by R. J. Smith and E. L. Wis\vcll. Schoo l of Oriental and ..4frican S tu dies Bu lletin 47: 2 . No rbeck. Edward. 1 9 5 4-. Ta kash itna: i\ ]apane.se Fish ing CommutJity. Salt L ak e City: University of Uta h Press . Plath , David W. 1 984. Review of Tl1 e ���men ofSuye �\,lt4ra by R . J. Smith and E. L. Wiswell . Journal ofAsian Studies 43 : 3 39-42. Raper, Arthur F. , ct al. 1 9 50. TIJejapanese �·li l lage in TratJsition . Report
I
36. To kyo :
General Head quarters, Supreme Com mander for the Allied Po\\'ers, N a t ural Resou rces Section . .. S m i th. Robert]. 1 978 . Kuru.su : Th e Price o_(Progress itJ a japanese V'illage, 1 95 1 - 1 9 75 . Stanford, Calif. : Stanford Universitv Press . .I
Smith , Robert ]. , and Kazuko Smith, cds . 1 984 . The Diary ofa ]apa Jtese ltJ n keep r.r·s Dat�gh ter. Trans. Miwa K ai. Cornell Universi ty East Asia Pa per ] 6. I thaca : E(1sr
A sia Program, Cornell Uni versi ty. Smith, Robert J. , an d Ella Lury W is\vell. 1 98 2 . "fhe H--o men ofSuye ft.1ura. Ch ica go: University of Ch icago Press. Ushijima, Morimitsu. 1 95 8 . Suye Mura in Tran siti on . M . A . thesis, University of A tlanta. --. 1 97 1 . Henbo suru Suye mura (Suye Mura in Transition: A Fundamental Study
of Sociocultural Change). Kyoto : Min� rva-shobo. Wiswell, Ella L. , and Robert J. S mith . 1 98 8 . Su yc Mura Fifty Years La ter a nd Postscript. �4 merican Ethnolo�ist
I
s : J 69-84 .
Yoshino, I. Roger. 1 9 5 5 . Selected Soci al Ch anges in a Japanese V i llage. Ph . I ) . dis s. , University o f Southern California, Lo s A ngeles .
DAVID W .
PLATH
Fieldnotes , Filed Notes , and the Conferring o f No te '"But th ese are you r notes, '' screamed M iss Clovis, snatch ing a hal f-bu rned sheet from the ed ge of th e fire .
" 'They did not know when their ancestors left the place of the big rock no r \vhy, nor could they say how long they had
been in their present habitat . . . ', " she read , then threw it
with an i mpatient gesture. "Kinship ta bles! " she s hrieked , " You cannot l e t these go! " She sn atched at another sheet, cov ered with little circles and triangles� but Alaric restrained her and poked it further into the fire with his stick . " Esther, it's no good , " he said. "I shall never v-.'ritc it up now If C atherine hadn ' t en cou raged me� I don 't think it would ever have occurred to me that I could be free of this bu rden for ever. " back
.
- B .� R B A R .� PY M , Lrss than
AtJgels
O ne of my b ooks about Japan came out recently in Jap anese transla
tion . The publisher is s ued the book vlith an advertisin g \Vrapper, a n d on
that wrapper p rin ted the tease line " Field Notes of an Anthropolo
gist ! ! •' The An glo phrase " field notes, . sli pped into th e local vocabulary Se veral colleagues pro vided valuable comments on \Vhat \vas a much cruder version of t his es say. My thanks to Edv.rard �. Bruner, Janet Doug herty, Elizabeth Hurley, Charles Keller. and Robert J. Smith. And my extra special thanks to Jacquetta Hill and R oge r Sanjck. 371
FRO M F I El D N OT ES T O E T HN O G R A PH Y
3 72
some time a g o , nativized as fi-tirndo ttoto. E d u cated Japanese are famil ia r
v.rith the term. But mos t of the populace \\l·ill only recognize its component \vords separatel y - both have b een in
e v er y da y
two
Japan ese
speech for d e c a des - and then \\till \\"onder \vhat connection to make between noto as in notebook and foirudo as in baseb all . The publisher, ho \v ever is evidently betting that a substantial n u m b er ofJap anese not ,
only know what fieldnotes arc but have an appetite for re adin g them . Such are the para d o x es o f ethnography vlhen i t in tersect s \Vith
sho\v biz of trade publishing .
the
I did actu ally carry on field interviewing
for a year as part of the line of inquiry that even tuated in that book 4
( P l at h
1 980; for remarks on hovl I did the st u d y, see ch ap. 2) . But I
slogged on fo r seven more years at home b efo r e the book \\ras finished. And th ere a re not seven pages in it t h a t I no\\,. could trace back ,
e v en
cir cu i to u s l y,
to foirudo noto if fieldnotes are the jottings I p ut into j ournal then and there .
a
S upp ose I stretch the de fi n i tion , cou n t i n g as ficldnotcs all the other
artifacts, verbal or visual or v;hatever, I brought back from that year in
Jap an - ev en then only about half th e b ook is derived from
ma teri a ls . The rest was comp osed fro m fi led n o t es .
field
So here we have an cthnographe.r \vho went out and coaxed s o n1 e
natives to tell h im
their unrehearsed life stories . H e translated and
edited those stories, embedding them in info rmation that puts then1
into cultural and his to ri c al context for the benefit of a fo r e i g n reader.
But nO\\", p eo pl e in the host cu l t ure arc b ein g prom i s e d that the ethnographer 's book offers
life .
his unrehearsed reactions to the i r way of
A n u m b er o f issues arc twined t og et he r in this situation . I '\Van t
to
e x trac t and exa mine t\VO of them. First, for all the honor
Vle
accord to fieldwork and fiel dn ote s as
e mbl e ms of professional uniqueness, \Ve spend most of our anthro po
fi le\\l· o rk . Fieldnotes may contain the m akin g s of an e thno gra p h i c story, but that s to ry so meho\v has to be t ea sed o ut of
logical energ y doin g
them and given form .
w o rk out of m otives of pers on al cu riosity as channeled by professio n al norms and habits . But for m os t of our public a udien ces, that \v ork blurs in to the larger ent e r p r i se of the mass media : the \IVork of p ro v i d in g '' docu mentaries'' that depict the hu man cond ition as \ve mo de rn s s uppo se it to be "in reality. ,, All of m ankin d is becoming caught u p in... Second, '"'�e believe-\\l·cll , mos t of the time-that \VC do our
this mythos of docu menta ry realit y. Natives or anthro p ologists , al l ot
Fi cl dn otes, Filed
Notes, C onferring o f N o te
373
us a rc budding para-mediacs. We bandage our images and nurse our condu ct, whether in the field or in the files , to suit the canons of the r ea lis m . N ei th er of these issu es is high on the agenda when \\'e discuss e th n og rap hy as a scholarly craft . N either of them , I venture, has
new
beco me ob fuscated by an oversufficiency .
of deb ate.
,
The totemic
Filework value of the field worker and his fieldnotes as images
good to think deri ves from the idolatry of early modern scien ce . The nineteenth cen tury had a magnificen t obsession \Vith the i mage of the scientist as fact-knappcr. Under the ne\\' dispensation of empiricalism he would collect and dis burse those packets of real data that \�lould
once and
for
all cu re mankind of the errors
of perception
that had
become emb almed in custom. In the nineteenth-century phrasing of Thomas Henry Huxley, the Scientis t is "secretary to the universe , taking dovln its dictation . " The occupation probably was higher o n the scale of manliness then, when scribes and secretaries were mostlv male. Gender-linked �
or
not, the
j o b implied a shift in the locus of vlork . In the ne\Y scientific study of nat u re or of human history it \\7ould not su ffice to do one's work only in ca mera,
so
to speak-in one's study or laboratory. The Scientist
him self must become a camera, automotive and ideally autofocusing as \vell . This accent on the em pirical is no special property of the anthropol
ogist.
It reverberates through the offices of grant agencies and campus
research committees . They too have b een spo oked by the
ghost of
Huxley 's secretary for so many decades that they vlould m u ch rather pr ovide a thousand dollars for " collecting primary data" than a hun dr e d for "secondary analysis" or as much as ten dollars for '• mere Wr ite-u p. '' Filework is not even on thei r list of fundable activities ,
t ou gh n o vv and then th ey may make money a""ailabl e for "p reserva tio n o f archi ves . "
?
To be fai r t o the grants committees , they are caught in a s tructu ral co n tr adicti on. Filc\vork flo\vs on in long waves of activity, b u t com . nut tc es mu st hop to the pulsebeat of an ann ual budget . A com mittee o f cou rs e wants its grantees to pro ve they h ave been p rodu ctive over som e s ho rt interval, usually labeled ''FY [fiscal year] such and s u ch. "
F R OM FI E L D I'OTES TO ET H f'O G R A P HY
3 74
For fieldVv..ork you can count u p pages of notes, hou rs of tapes , fee t of film. For fue\vork , on the other hand, over the short run-p artic ul arl y
during the co mposition of a monograph or a visual documen tary - your best indicator of activity may be not output but outthrow. In documentary mo vie or TV p rodu ction , for example, you wil l
no r mally shoot at least ten or fifteen feet of film for each foot of fi nal
program . Some times the ratio can go as high as 3 0 : 1 . The tas k of sifting through so much material can become dauntin g . For V/ ee ks,
even mon ths, you may have noth ing to sho\v
as
proof of effort expended. Sometimes you feel like the Curies , boiling down to n s of pitchblende, bucketful by bucketful, just to obtain
a
spl ash of lu mi
nosity. Filework is
the
out\vard manifestation of an in�·ard pledge t hat
most of us make to continue strivin g to understand
a particular people
or region or issue , or all of the above . Our files include fieldnotes , of course. But they tend to include many more notes that a re not of fiel d provenience, and even vaster amounts of material that is not verbal
at
all : films, slides, map s , music recordings, artifacts-all the cu mulating detritus of our years of trying to document some scene
in
the human
comedy. File\vork, like p s ychoanalysis , has no sel f-generating conclu sion- another reason wh y . it makes deans
and
point of
grants com mit
tees so j ittery. Less eas y
when
to explain
is our shynes s about even mentionin g fileVv·ork
\Ve publicly discuss our profes sional activities . We cheerfull y
dilate on field\\'ork methodologies or analytical paradigms but
never
on file\vork . Th e only com mentary on the subject that I have ever seen
C. Wri ght Mills in his essay "On Intellectual Craftsmanship'' ( 1 9 5 9 : 1 9 5 - 226) . Describing his O\\'n file, he asks how it is used in "intellectual production. " He answers that "the maintenance of such a
is one by
, file is intellectual production. , And he goes on to say that his files are "a continuously growing store of facts and ideas , from the most vague
to the
most finished
.
.
.
. all proj ects \vi th me begin and end Vlith the m �
a n d books are simply organized releases from the continuous work that goes into them" ( 1 95 9 : 1 99,
200-20 1 ).
My own ratio of effort on that recent Japan book-about seven parts filework to one part fieldwork-is probably close to the gen er a l guild average. But i f you read thos e guidebooks on
ho\v ethnography
is
done, you might well conclude that the ratio is j u st a bout the reverse. If such is needed, a guidebook author could cite ances tr a l precedent: Franz Boas chiding Margaret Mead for spen d i n g too mu ch
fieldnotcs, Filed N o tes , Conferring of Note
375
time in the field and not enough on write-up (Ho"vard 1 98 4 : 1 92) . But al th o ugh guidebook authors may talk about "analysis, '' they do not pu t i t in a time frame. They leave the im pres sion that the phenomenon call e d '-A�' rite-up generates itself by autocombustion th e day after the ethn og rapher is home again and unp acked .
Ethno graphy, it would seem , is really'" all a matter of field technique.
The guidebooks praise our end urance as field m arshals . They de
if at all: t he hit an d-run ne\vs r'cporters and travel \\'riters , or the slash-and-bum sur
nounce the timid , vvho venture
ex camera
too b r i efl y
,
vey sociolo gists. Guidebook au thors are of the same persuasion as
au thors of sex manuals . They provide em phatic detail on ho\\' to p osition yourself vis-a-vis the O th e r but offer almost no help at all when you are thinking about the �vholc business after\vard .
or decorum ? Is it such an unsanitary en terprise tha t the public should be dis couraged from even lookin g on-a corolla ry to Bis marck's dictu m that the Is file""'"ork un men tionable for reasons of eth i cs
public ought not be present durin g the making of either its laws or its saus ages ? To be sure, the re is ample scope for flummery in the file room, for faking data and fu dging results . But the strongest odors I ever nose fro m the scene are not those of co rruption but those of the tears and s\veat of effort sustained . Most o f the time, vlhat
I
see going on in the
ftlc room i s the
intellectual counterpart of Weight Wat chers : people trying to sli m their corpus of fa ct and make it presentable . Which suggests to me that the problem with filework is not mo ral i ty but visuality. In an era saturated
by visual mass media, field\vork is full of action and s cene changes ,
is
easy to dramatize on camera. File\\l'"ork offers all the dramatic tension of \Va tchin g pain t dry. Field'"'"ork, as Captain Cousteau de monstrates ev ery week, is the scientific spectator sport tha t holds the viewer's eye .
From Discovery to Documenta ry A symposium or book on fieldnotcs as the makings of anthropol
ogy probably should have a follo w-up session or volume on filed notes as the bakings of anthropology. Once \Ve are home again we have to
con duct those shake-and-bake operations that fuse field and fi led ma terials into docu mentaries that v.,re hope will make sense to others . " To document'' s u rel y need not mean only to as semble "",.ords on paper. It
can also mean
offering lectures and seminars and courses on the sub-
F R O M FJ ELD NO TES
TO
ETH N O G R A PHY
j ect, or producing exhibit s of photos and artifacts, as \veil as preparing documentaries of the m ore u s u al kind usin g fil m or videotap e
or
audiotape . While doing fieldv,rork, �"e can fo cu s our attention on "taking down , . reality as �"e perceive it . Whi le compo sing and editing docu mentaries ,
\VC
o ur
have to focus on putting reali ty back up again in to
some form that \Yill communicate. Ne\\' criteria come into p lay as
\\o·e
select among our materials. We begin vie"W··in g the conten t of some piece of information in a DC\\' context, the con text of presentation . Factuality, narrowly defined , may beco me su bordin ate to purposes of use: does this b i t of evidence move t h e s tory along? W i l l i t p l a y in Peo ria ? Perhaps it s u g gests a different story en tirely. Listen to Mills aga1n: I f you \Vrite solely with referen ce t o \Vhat Hans Reichenbach h a s cal led the " contex t of discovery" you \\ril l be underst ood by very few peo ple; moreo ver, you \\rill tend wha tever
you
to
be quite subj ective in statement.
To
m ake
think more obj ecti ve, you must \Vork in the con text of
presentation . At fi rst, yo u "presen t " your though t to yo urself, which is often cal led " think ing clearlv. " T hen w hen vou feel that you have i t �...
ttl
•
•
straight , you present i t to others- and often find that you have no t made i t clea r
.
No\\' you are
in the "context of presentation. "
you will no ti ce that as you try to present
your
Sometimes
thinking, you wil l
m od i fy it-no t on l y in its form of s tatement but often in its content as \veiL You will get new i d ea s as you \Vo rk in the context of presentatio n .
In short, it "''ill becom e a ne\\' context o f dis covery, differen t from th e original one, on a higher level I think, becau se more so cially objective. [ I 9 5 9 : 22 21
Such was the situation a s I went about \Vriting that book o f sup
posed fo irudo noto. Along the way the story took off in a differ ent direction, unanticipated. The book I originally had in mind \vo uld have had a much higher proportion of field materials. I had gone to Japan to compile a series of life his tories of middle
aged men and v�lomen . I hoped to document ho�· their li ves had taken form th rough a twofold set o f lon g eng a gements-to shovl how they had molded themselves on the Japanese heritage of ideas about matu rity, and concurrently been molded by invol vemen ts �"ith their sig n i ficant others.
M}" plan was to collect a set of case records , each consisting of
lengthy in tcrviev,"s with every member of a household that included
a
Fie ldnotes, Filed Notes , Conferrin g of N ote
rn i ddl e-agcd couple. I soon realized that I 'd do �veil just to obtain
p ai re d life histories from some sets of spouses . By the rime I had seve r al s u ch sets on tape , along \V ith a nu mber of solo cases (one s p ouse but not yet the p artner), m·y field year was already over.
Going home meant plunging back a g ain into full-time teaching and ad mi nis trati ve duties . But 'ivhen I could fmd the time, I reread the
intcrvievv· transcripts , lis tened again and again to the t apes, and beg an to
rough-sketch verbal portraits of each l i fe. Before long I knew I had a
problem . Most of the narrative pairs \Vcre coming out unb alanced . He was articulate but she "vas not, or vice versa. She talked of many things bu t never of h er life \Vith him , or vice versa. And so on. For a \vhilc I though t of activating a cultural explanation . Quite a number of scholars , Japanese as well as foreign, claim that Japanes e husbands and wives live in " separate '''orlds . '' The idea may fit the marital milieu ofJapan's managerial elite, but I doubt that it applies to much of the rest of the populace. I strongly suspected that the im balance in my narratives resulted from the \v ay the interviews had been conducted . I did have t\VO cases in v.rhich her story and his moved vlell in duet ,
but here I had a different problem of imbalance . The \Vives in these two cases \Vere s alaried employees of large corporations. I h ad no eq ually rich narrative pairs in \vhich the woman \\l·as a " p rofessional houscwife ''-the normative situation in Japan- or in \vhich husband and wife collaborated in runnin g a family busines s . Since I wanted to document these other female path\\'ays in adulthood also, my only option seemed to be to use som e of the women 's life histo ries in solo. To do that ""'·auld force me to do"\vnplay or drop the whole theme of significant others . I \Vasn ' t pleased \Vith the p rospect but comforted myself \Vith the idea that the book �·auld at least con tain the most vivid among my narrati v es . After all , like any ethnographer I \vas po\verfully reluct an t to leave out so much as a page of the material I had collected. Already I had
paid too high a price for that materiaL Paid in the hundreds of hours of ri ding commuter trai n s , s o that I could meet my interviewees in their ho mes or offices or other fa miliar setting s . Paid with guilty worries t h at I \vas neglecting my family in favor of the study. Gone into debt so ci ally to colleagues and friends who provided introductions to po te nti al in tcrvie\\'ees-debts I would have to rep ay at some future date.
And contin ued to p ay, back hom e, with the evenings and weekend s of
3 77
FRO M FI El D N OT ES T O E T H � O G R AP H Y
work n e ed ed to fa b ricate readable narrati ves out o f the d i sj o i nted information in the interviev�ts . S om et im e d u rin g thi s ph a se of the enterprise a n e w idea began to s e ep into awareness. It came not from fieldnotes but from oth er no tes- i n this ins t an c e reading notes-in my pr oj ect file . " I've for go tten much of \vhat \vent on during that peri o d except its clouds of frustration . But I am fai rl y sure I rej ected the idea the first few times it arose, so eager Vlas I to make use of all the field nev.rs that \Vas fit to p rint For \\'eeks I had p l o d ded al o n g alm ost o b ses s iv e ly reshuffling th e narratives , trying to come up w i th a '''inning co mbi n a ti o n B u t I .. did s o me thin g else as \Veil, s om ethi ng I o ft e n do \vhen d is il l usi o n e d v,;th an outline I h a v e been following . I d u m ped the co n tents of al l the fo l d ers in the proj e c t file into one big heap and began s o rting then1 a fr e s h In the he ap were a bs t r acts and ex ce r pt s from a number of modem Jap a nese novels-and th ose \\'ere w here the idea \\'as coming from. Why not-1 said to mys elf set aside the spouse pairings and in stead pa i r e a ch li fe histo ry with the life story of a character fro n1 a n o vel ? After all, a n o veli s t \vho \Vants to de p i c t believable persons cann o t s tr ay far fro m the cultural con cepts and sensi b il i ties tha t peo ple use in order to comprehend t he ir 6�-n real-time lives. The virtue o f this ne\v format was that it b ro u g h t co g niti v e a nd sy m b o l ic aspects of a du l thoo d to the fo re ground The great dra\vback, however, �·as that I could effec t i vel y m a t ch o n l y a few of the life histories I h a d \V ith stories that the novelists h ap pene d to have written . The bo ok has few er field n a rra t ives than I had o ri g in all y planned to in c l u d e Field n o tes lost out a ga in I f man y of us have a speci al attachmen t to our fieldnotes, it may no t be o n l y because \VC paid so much to get them . The no tes are not just some set of rub b in g s \Ve crayoned ag ai n s t re a l ity "out there. '' Th e y a rc promissories we made to ourselves, pl ed g es to be redee me d la te r. during documentary production, \Vith all the ethno g ra ph i c imagina tion we can muste r In his ess ay in this book Robert ]. Smith tells h o v�' he painstakingly retyped Ella Wis\vell's fiel dnotes until the y b e ca m e h is " n o t e s ; o n ly then could he shape them into a s to ry. I somet im es fin d m yself retyping s e ction s of my o wn notes, even tho u g h I was th e i r scri b e o f first in s t ance In the co nte x t o f presentation they beco n1e differ ent B o r ro \vin g what Samuel Beckett said of memory, we migh t say o f fie l d n o tes that th e y are as mu ch an i n st r u m en t of disco very a s of reference. �
"
.
.
.
-
.
.
.
.
"
.
.
Ficldnotcs, Filed Notes, Conferrin g of N o te
3 79
Our Documetttilry Consciousness in the field or in the files, our most i m portant instrument of un derstandin g continues to be our human sen sibility, sea r ch ing for ''the cruel radiance of what is" Oames Agee's phrase, A gee an d Evans 1 94 1 : 1 1) and struggling for \vays to communicate it . Our anthropo logical heritage guides that search by declaring certain pheno mena to be fittest for survival in the symbolic environment of scholarly data. But in m a king fieldnotes and composing documentaries we are not just cap tu rin g and transmitting information . We are involved in soci al acts that confer note upon particular peoples and particular aspects of their lives (as well as, by reflex, upon our ov.rn lives). But our anth ro pological activities arc only auxiliaryy to tha t i m p e rial apparatus that modern mankind employs to document reality� and confer note upon itself, the media of mass communica tion . One need not ackno\\'ledge McLuhan's \vild dicta that the mediu m •'is" the message, or t hat the media \�lorld a lready has swallovled all pre v iou s versions of mythos . But one must as an anthropologist acknowledge that the do cu m e n tary consciousness has to some degree percol ated into all cul tures, thereby shaping people 's efforts at sel f understanding, individual or collective. This con sciousness is mos t evident in the public operations of the ma s s media, but it pervades our private lives as well. We are intoxicated to the point of substance abuse with documentary forms for perceiving and representing the reality of our human habitat . ''Just like a movie, " we say of an event V.lC witnessed-such as an auto crash. More assertively, \Ve script our lives so that they can be replayed for us in media-docu mentary modes . Acros s many parts of the world today, for example, \veddings are consecrated n ot by the gods , clergy, rel atives , or officials of the state but b·y the au thoritati""e ( and often authoritarian) presence of the official photogr a pher And if photo albums and videotapes '"'yill not capture enough of the event fo r you, so me weddin g shops also \\'ill publish a pseudo-newspaper ex tra th at chronicles the ceremony in print and is ready for distribution to th e guests as they leave. As nativ·cs or as anthropologists we produce an d direct our lives in m·yriad ways simple and elaborate, so as to situate them wit h in the we b of moral and aesthetic possibilities opened by this nev"' \\'Orld of communicable dream s . Con sider a n example from the life of Marilyn Monroe, \\'hose whole life beca me such a mass media creation. Marilyn Monroe t h e Whether
.
,
] 80
fROM fiEL D N O TES T O E TH N O G R A PH Y
private person never graduated from high school, and she apparently felt her life to be incomplete because of it. Not long before she died, it is reported, she hired a photographer to make a set of pictures of her posing as she \Vould have posed for the school yearbook h ad she ever been a high school senior. Or consider Margaret Mead, so often as eager to document her own life as to chronicle the lives of the Manus or Balinese. Jane Ho�vard ( 1 984 : 2 08) records that Vlhen Mead \Vas about to give birth to her daughter Catherine, "the delivery Vlas delayed for ten minutes until the arrival of the photographer. " A movie cameraman \\�·as already .. in position. Others in attendance included "the obstetrician, several nurses (all of "'"hom, at Mead's request, had seen the Bateson-Mead film 'First Days in the Life of a Nev1 Guinea Baby,), a child develop ment psychologist, . . . and the pediatrician Dr. Benj amin Spack. '' When the public media turn their attention upon a community or person or event, they thereby impute social signifi cance to it , and potential po�ver. Anybody sensitized to these operations of the media-and that must include almost all of humankind today-can be expected to transfer such sensibilities to the more novel situation that arises when attention is conferred instead by the presence of an eth nographer. Ethnographers may pride themselves-rightly, I think-that they are more than just media agents. But they should not be surprised Vlhen people react as if that is what they are-flashing a smile the moment a camera is unsheathed, for instance, or, if they arc young Japanese, smiling and also \\taving in the fieldworkcr's face the tv.ro finger V-sign. Historically associated with Winston Churchill in Euro America during World War II, in Japan lately the V-sign is widely used as a greeting by television "talent'' (in Japanese, tarento). Or people may react to the researcher's equipment itself, or lack of it, or his or her inability to obtain broadcast-quality results "\Vith it. When I arrived in a Japanese community on one recent sortie, the locals \Vondcred out loud if they were going to be subj ected to old-fashioned research by this technologically backward American. I had not brou ght along a video camera. A colleague who was making \l;deotapes-not in Japan but in rural Latin America-encountered the following reaction. Striving to be authentic, he �·as recording the craft techniques of a group of \\l"ood carvers in their o�·n village �·orkshop. But the village has no elec tricity, so he was obliged to rely on battery packs and available light in
Fieldnotes,
Filed N o tes , Conferrin g of Note
th e dim shop room . Quite unimpressed by what they saw coming up o n his monitor, the craftsmen stopped working and persuaded him to folio'"'.. them to a nearby town. There they arranged to borro'\\" some bo dy else 's \Vorkshop, and then could watch themselves performing their skills on TV in a setting that afforded electric power and good li ghting. Fieldwork itself h as become a media event . To see deutero-docu mentaries , ftlms of an ethnographer filming the natives, is no novelty any more. Perhaps one can still escape the local media in remote parts of the Third World but not in media-saturated high-tech countries such as Japan . Liza Dalby comments that durin g the year she was a geisha-ethnographer performing in Kyo to, she "\vas interviewed al most as often as [she) conducted intervie"\\l·s" ( 1 983 : xv). By October 1 9 86 her year in Kyoto had been transmuted into a t\vo-hour CBS docudrama called A nterican Geisha. So far as I know, this is the first dramatic film with an ethnographer as protagonist , though Holly wood has given feature roles to archaeologists since \\'ell before the invention of Indiana Jones. I find that even when I am doing research in remote locales in Japan and am making an effort to avoid the media, I am nevertheless con tacted by a reporter or producer on an average of once a \\'eek. On the scene the media crew will inevitably insist that I "play anthropolo gist, " posing for their lens as if they had j ust caught me in the act of asking questions of the natives or of making foirudo noto. All this media involvement in the field can take on further levels of complexity if \Ve become involved back home in producing documen taries-\\'hich in turn may be seen by native audiences as well as home ones. Though we may have a good passive comprehension of the modem documentary language, we may not have active command of its rules of syntax and sty l e. We may have to learn by committing a solecis m . I once served as consultant to a television team that produced a series of educational programs on Japanese history and culture. It was a million-dollar enterprise that resulted in fourteen hours of program ming plus auxiliary study guides, audiotapes, and readings. Our pol ic y w as to keep new filming to a minimum. We composed programs by ass embling excerpts from films and videotapes that we were al l o w ed to copy from the files of the Japanese netv-"orks and film li b rar ies . We wanted our programs to be authentically Japanese, at least in t heir visual sensibilities.
f R O l\t fiELDN OTES TO ETHNOGRAP H Y
The project took more than th ree years t o com p l et e . This meant
p ro grams were fin a lly r eady to be b r o adca s t much of the visual material vlas s evera l years old . When we ship pe d a set to Tokyo to ge t reactions from a panel ofJap an e se advisors, one of t heir first responses \Vas , "Are you t r y ing to make A merican audie n c es that by the time the
,
believe that Japan is s t ill technologically a step behind ? All the auto
p ro g rams arc five years old or more-where are the latest mod els ? In the mytho s of mode rn d ocu me n tar y rea li t y, what m at ters most is how t hings seem . No th in g is so dated as y e s te rd a y s edition of the news , or last ye ar s car models . There are issues here waitin g to be debated by our c o m m i ttees on profes siona l ethi cs . We are in some g e n er al agreement about norms fo r p ro tectin g the p r ivacy of informants , for examp le o r for c oll abora t i n g \Vith govern ment agencies . But vlhat arc o u r o b li g atio n s toward the m o bi l e s in your "
'
'
·
,
m e dia ? A n d d o those o b l ig a tions differ to\vard native or local media in contras t to Weste rn or world media?
At hom e I usually \velcome the atten tion tha t the media may confe r
on my Vlork. Being cas t i n a s tereo typed "expert'' role o r heari n g an
ex plana tio n of mine de capitated and broadcas t as a me re "sound bite ,, may rankle, but I am a\\ e d by the po \vc r of the media to reac h out to such vast audiences . At home, ho\vever, I feel relatively free to refuse in v ol v emen t if my \V o rk is g o i ng t o b e dis rupt ed too much o r if the topi c is one about which I have n ot h i ng to sa y. In the fie l d all of this beco m es much more com pl i cat ed. Ja p a n es e media agents, for ex amp l e, knovl thei r O\Vn cul t u r e vlell enou gh and are shrev-l'd enough that they often arrive bear in g an introduction from an a c q u ain t an ce to vlhom I owe a favor. Then again, disru p tive as t h e incursion ma y be, I can ra tiona l i z e it as en l i gh t ened self-interest: it will fu rther my own work or at least b e appreci ated by " my p eo p le The loca ls may not be im p ressed by my schol '
,
."
arly credentials , but t hey can relate to the idea t h a t if the media are
sp o tl ig hting the ethnographer, th e n he must be up to something im po rta n t . Or p eople may simply be gra ti fie d because , thanks to n1y p resen ce the media are finally giving their community the attention t hey alvl ay s knew it dese nled anyway. This so rt of p ri de is no t at all pe cul i a r to high-tech countries. Often I ac c o m pany my wife on her field trips to a Lahu � illage in northern Thailand. These Lahu a re illi te rate and h e lpl es s \vith p rint m e di a b ut ,
"
·
,
they are sophisticated ab out audio. Pleased b y the sound qu a lity of o u r cas s ett e recorders , they urged
us
t o submit o u r tapes of t h e i r s in g i n g
Ficldnotes,
Filed No tes , Conferring of Note
an d instrumental music to the Lahu Hour on Chiang Mai radio. They wer e jealous that the honor of being broadcast had so far alvvays gone to musicians from other villages . The picture that emerges, then , is of a Burkean human barnyard filled with critters, including the anthropologist, some of them pa theti c and some comic, all of them braying for note . Our usual dis cou rse about the makings of anthropology tends to turn this into a problem primarily o f the ethnographer's consciousness, to cast the issues in terms of personal honesty and professional integrity, which work together to produce an authentic cultural portrait . I am suggest ing that in today 's Vlorld \\'C need to extend the discourse to include everybody's involvement in the mythos of documented reality, in the media that institutionally celebrate it, and in the cultural politics of authenticity. Ethnography and l\1otability
Positivism is once again the epithet of choice in some ethnographic guildhalls in the 1980s . In my O\Vn reading of Franz Boas or Ruth Benedict or Edward Sapir I have never found them mute about the positivist self-delusions of scientific objecti";ty. So there are days \vhen I V."ondcr if the jackleg preachers of "reflexivity" and " sensory eth nography" should be invited to do a little more homework in the history of their discipline. On other days I am ready to discount the buzZ\\'Ordy "querying of re alist models'' as a cohort phenomenon . The me-too generation has come of age professionally. I am not yet convinced, as some are, that this ne\\' generation is any more crassly careerist than its predecessors . But like every generation new-fledged, it does seem uncertain about what it stands jor and yet quite sure of what it is agitL On still other da)rs a different explanation comes to m ind. Is this anthropological self-preening of the 1 980s a sign, instead, of a histor ical drift? Not a new cohort grooming itself for roles in the profession but a whole profession grooming itself for survival as an adjunct of the docu mentary media? Is each of us already hiding in his or her knapsack not the Napoleonic baton of the future field commander but the contact lenses of the future media talent? What about some of the ne\\' cults of analysis such as textualistne? As I u n derstand its proponents, they want to reduce culture to recorded
f R O � fi E L D N O T E S TO ET H N O G R A P H Y
utterances ("' textualization ") and anthropology to "literary therap y ·' (Marcus r 9 86: 264-66) . Is th is some form of mono-mediae Ludditis m , a reaction ag ains t the pressures of our poly morphously perverse er a of multichannel capaci ty for com munication? And then \vhat about Margaret Mead ? Is it just coincidence that th e most impassion ate ethno graphic disputes o f the decade arc svv'irlin g
around the fig ure of her who \Vas first mother of Media Anth ropol ogy? Our present attention to fieldnotes arises in a cli mate of concern,
ou tside anthropology as well as in , over which forms of the documen tary are the more true-to-life, the more authentic, real . Perhaps the ·
dreamy \Vo rld of the media is as needful to us in our era as were the Dream times of an earlier era's mytholo g y then. But as professionals we are th rust into minor confusions such as that stirred by my Ja panes e publisher, who advertises my studied sentences as if they '''ere raw au thentic-fieldnotes , "\\-yords that enable the reader to reach be yond the artifice of media events and touch somebodv real . �
Our major p aradox is tha t vv·hatever authenticn ess there is in those notes got there only through file"\\-·ork, with its attendant conj u ring up and Vlarding o ff o f personal, profes sional , an d pu blic demons . Field notes emerge, and find their purpose, only th rough a soap ope ra o f scenes in which w e and others compete and collude in conferring note upon our little lives .
RE F E R E � C E S
Agee,
James, and
Walker Evans . 1 94 1
[ 1 980 ] .
Let l's 1\�o t.,• Praisr Fam o us "'Vfen .
Boston : Houghton Miffli n . Dalby, Liza Crihfield. 1 98 3 . Ge isha. Berkeley: Un iversity of Cali fornia Press.
HoVw"ard , Jane. 1 984 . A-fc2rgaret A1ead: ...4 L�fe. New York: Fawcett Crest. Marcus, G e org e E. 1 986. Afte rword : Ethnographic Writing and Anthropologica l C areers. In J'i!riting Cu l ture: TIJ e PoetJ'cs a nd Pol itics of E"thnograp hy, c d . James Clifford and George E. Marcus, 262-66 . Berkeley: University of California Press .
Mills, C . Wright. I 959· Th e Sociologica l lmagiMtion . London : Oxford
Unive rsi ty
Pres s .
Pla th , David W. 1 980. Long Engagem ents: �\1aturity ; ,., ..\-fc>dern
Jap atJ .
Cali f. : Stanford University Press .
Py m, Barbara. 1 982. Le;; Tluln �4 ngels . Ne\v York: Ha rper & Row.
Stanfor d .
RO GER
S A NJ E K
On E thnographic Validity
What is "vlriting up?" " Having notes-all neatly typed or bound , all stored safe and sound-is one thing, '' Rena Lederman \vritcs . " But using notes is quite another. " In this essay I examine the p rocedures by \vhich ficl dnotes are us ed in constructing ethnog raphy. Despite the no\\' volumino u s size o f the field\\l·ork literature, "the production o f fiel dnotes [and] the processes by which these are transformed into 'analysis' . . . are still poorly covered" (Ellen 1 9 84b :
3).
As an ethnographic p ractitioner, I
con cerned more with writers and \Vriting, Vlith ethnographic craft , than with the art of Authors (Geertz 1 98 8 : 1 7-20). More is
am
involved than ethnog raphic impressionism (though that counts too) , more than running off the numbers and tests of data gathered accord in g to the experimental model (if that rna}" als o have its place) . My aim is to demonstrate that "Yes, Virginia and Virgil, there is an ethno graph i c method . " Our problem is to make this method visible, and " this requires es sentially ��hat vle might call an ethno graphy of ethnography: a de s cri ption of exactly ho\\' ethnography i s done" (Berreman 1 968 :
368-69).
The essays in this volume take us much of the \vay. Clifford
and Lederman identify general and specific forms of \\' riting in field Work. The Johnsons discuss the conscious and unconscious decisions
f R O M fiE LI> N OTES TO E T H N O G R A P H Y
that ethnographers make about '''hat to ob serve, hear, and \V ri tc do\vn . Otten ber g stres se s th e priori t y of headn ot e s over fieldnotes i n
h o m e (see also M ay e r 1 978). Wolf re c o un t s hovl he r evo l,ring femitust headnotes interacted \V i th tieldnotcs in th e \V ri ti ng of her three Chin a books . Smith and Plath bring us in to the hurl y-burly and nitty-gritty of organ i z in g a nd r e org a n i zing fiel d n o te s writing once one is back
and of writing from the m
.
Writing ethnography is not always the first act of \vritin g for
\vh ich
fie l dno tes are read and used. Reports from the field, a form of '' gray . ,
or sub-eth nography,
m a y dra\V upon fie l d no tcs But many repo rts , .
.. like letters fro m the field, are n o do u bt p rim a ril y rel eases ofheadnotcs . The most i m p o rtan t fi rst form of writing is a sk e l etal one , an ou tl ine
written from, for
,
and sometimes inscribed directly on fieldnotcs .
This is inde xi ng and it in v o lv es maj or decisions that will s tructu re ,
later prose ethnography (Davis
1 9 84: 3 0 5 - 8 ; Ellen 1 9 8 4c : 2 8 5- 8 8) .
Indexing The need to index wi de-ranging fieldnotcs before beginnin g ethno graphic writing can be e xplained ·n o better than it
was
by
James
Mooney, a contemporary of Cushin g , in defen din g the Burea u of Ame rican Ethnology 's practi ces before a Smith sonian inv e s tig a t i o n in 1 90 ] : I am tal ki n g to an Indian shi el d \Vas d ream ed by
a
about h i s shield, and he tells me that this certain man . Then I g et a dream ori gin for tn y .
.
.
myth note-book; I get a name \\rith a translation for my glos sary, and I get a statement on name givin g for some other investiga tion, and before I am done v,rith it, he may mention a plan t , and some u sc for that plan t, and there ma y be some origin for that, and after an hour's talk with him, I have prob ably struck a dozen th reads fo r investigatio n ; and that \Vould all be on two or three pages. And the res t of those sa me lines or threads \vould be o n other pages in other noteboo ks. Now, vlhcn it .
comes to
w riting
.
those out for fi nal publication, it must be all
hauled , an d all the material fro m the differen t places put in Hinsley
.
1 98 1 : 222 ]
over
to g ether. [Qtd .
T·here are ea rl y inde xers and l a te in dexers , det ailed indexers
and
ge n era l indexers. Records , like Mooney 's " myth note-book , " are in dexed ficldnotes , k ep t s e parat e l y fro m the grouped a ccording to
a
chronological mass, al ready schem e. Cases and t o p i c a l intervie-w· rec ord s �
On Ethnographic Vali dity
like those Lederman maintained , reflect a theory of signi tican cc as '"'·ell a s a sign ifi cant t h eo ry usually that fro m which the ti eld\v ork problem de r ives (see Lederman 1 9 86: ix- x, 1 4- 1 8 , 1 1 7- 1 8) . Records pr e inde x and c o n se q u en t l y p refigure \Vhat is obs erved and heard. A fe\v ethnographers , like H on i g mann ( 1 9 70a: 40) i n his 1 963 urb an Es ki mo fi e l dwo rk, k n o w from the st art that cert ai n to p ics are o f ,
-
in t erest and record their data un der these headings directly. Most o th ers , as ide from any records , onl y later index th eir chronologically en tered fieldn otes . So me during t he 1 940s to 1 960s , in c l uding Kluck h ohn , Foster, and others (Den tan 1 970: 96; Force 1 960: 1 79 ; Foster 1 979: 1 69- 70; Gulick 1 9 70: 1 3 5n ; Honigm ann 1 970a: 40 ; Lamphere
o_( Cu ltural .�lfateria ls or Human Relations Area Files (HRA F) catego rie s , and thu s a t h e o ry of cul ture and socie ty. I su spect this has been less common in the 1 970s and 1 9 Ros . Malino \vski appa ren tly abandoned t o p i cal fieldno tcs tak e n i11 M ailu for c hrono l ogical notes in the Trobr i ands It is a pity tha t we ha v e no d i a ry of the wr iti n g period in Au stralia bct\vecn his Trobriand fiel d trips ; how he indexed and organi z e d his fieldnotes as he \\��rote "Ba lo ma" and drafts on the kula \\'Ould be revealing o f his e m erging 1 979: 3 I ), adopted Murdock 's Ou tl ine
.
"function al' , theory of field�·ork materials (cf. Clifford 1 9 8 8 :
1 I 1 ).
ofethnographers '\vho have \vritten ab o ut their personal in dexing p rocedures tell us much about hoVv· ethn o graphy is con The handful
stru cted . On her teacher Malino\vski 's advice , Po \\7dermaker '\'\"rote her no tes by hand in sm a l l (4!'' by 7!'') no tebooks . When a boo k was filled, I indexed it according to a detailed ou t l i ne made before I left London . ()n every p a ge I marked with a red pencil the appropriate number an d letter for each to pic and sub-topic, such as childhood (birth, nursing, weanin g, play), economics, mortuary ri t e s and so on. On the las t pages of each notebook was an index with t o pi c headings and the pages which had the rele van t data . . . . The t ypi n g tw o copies- was done . under the to pics an d subheadings , which had cross references to each other. . . . There was thus a preli minary organization of data \\"hile in the field, and I could see some of the gaps reading the typed no tes [ 1 966: 95 ) ,
.
.
.
Po,\' de rmaker \Vas a member ofRadcliffe-B ro \\7n 's Rockefeller-funded Aus t ralia n N a tional R ese a rc h Coun cil cohort; she mailed the second co py o f her typed fi cld n o tes to h i m Considering Powdermaker's t�"o Ill e n tors , her account may expose '\'\"hat �"as comm on indexin g pra c tice .
am o n g social an th r o p o logis ts in the years around her 1 9 29- 3 0 Lesu fi el dw ork .
fROM f i El D N O T ES T O E T H NOGRA PH Y
Whvte decided soon into his 1 93 7 - 40 Boston field\vork that he wan ted to s ubdi v id e his chrono l o gical fieldnotes. He or g an i zed th cn1 in fo l ders on the basis of th e groups he was studying, rather than such topics as the church, po l i tics , or the family. But as time V..' cnt on , even the notes in one folder gre w beyond the point \Vhere my men1ory would allo \\r me to locate any
Then I devised
a
given
item rapidly.
rudimentary indexing system : a page in three colu mns
containing, for each intervic\v or observation report, the date, t he person o r peopl e in terviev..r ed or observed, and a brief summary of the intervie'"' or observation record. Such an in dex w ould cover from three to eight p a ges . When it came tim e to rev iew the notes or to \\rri te from them , a five-to-ten- min ute perus al o f the index V..' as enough to give
me
a reason ably full picture of \\rhat I had and of \Vh ere any given item could be loca ted I 1 9 5 5 : 308-9)
This two s tag e indexing work structured the et h no g raphy that �·ould e m e r g e (Whyte 1 9 43 ; 1 9 .5 5 : 307- 8 , 3 22- 2 3) . In hi s 1 944 s t u d y of a Spanish-speaki ng south vves tem United States community, Wolff ( 1 960) deliberatel y avoided the ca teg ories of Notes atJd Queries on Anthropology or the HRAF. After typing eighty p a g es of ch ro nol o gi c a l fieldnotes, he began to d e v el op a topical classification, p ro duc i n g some sixty-six h e a d i ngs . He then cut up the c a r b on cop y of hi s n o te s and filed each piece in one of sixty-six envelopes; cross refe re n ces bet\vcen en""...elope ca teg or i es were wr i tten on the envelope fro nts . After co m pl e t i n g four and a half months of fieldwork, he had soo pages of notes in both chronolo gical and to p i ca l form . The sixty six topics \Vere g roupe d in seven categories : background materials, culture change, social relations, social institutions, evaluations and / or interpretations, clues to patterns, theory and methodology. These formed chapter h ea di ng s or titles for separate papers, b u t the full eth nogra ph y \Vas never written (Wolff 1 964). Whether preformulatcd by others or s el f form u l ated ind exes may undergo revision as fieldwork p ro ceeds . Beattie, on arri""...al in Ug anda in t he carlv 1950s , first "; si ted the East A fr ic a n Institute for So ci al R es e a rc h an d receive d "a Malinov�tskian 'culture outline' " (Dir ector Audrey Richards no doubt had a h a n d in this) : -
-
,
Typical broad heading s \Vere Environ ment , History, M a terial Culture , Political Structu re, Legal Rules and N orms , Values; and each of these was subdivided into a number of collected
under
subheadings
.
.
.
.
Mu ch material
one of these subheads might equaJ i y well be incl uded
O n Ethno g ra p hic Validity under other heads . The field\vorkcr is encouraged to keep con stand y in mind the possible imp lications fo r one another of the various .
.
instit ution s he stu dies .
.
[ 1 965 : 6]
Malino wskian indeed . Beattie prepared file folders according to h eads an d subheads. As expected , this was a good \\'ay to start, but ''by the end of my first year in the field my filin g system had been very lar gely reorganized; some heads had proved red undant and had been discarded, others had been subdivided, and a number of ne\v ones had been made " ( 1 965 : 7,
4 1 ).
In his ess ay in this volume, O ttenberg
mentions similar revisions of the index he devised in A f1kpo : ''It is no w
the heart of m y \Y ritten notes . . . . It has paid off in the \V riting
stage . " Indeed it has , in fou r books and a score of articles . The Johnsons discuss computer indexing for those Vlho use a vvord processin g program to type their fiel dnotes. E ven without special indexing software, I have found the co mputer-aided flexib ility of my MuliMatc Elmhurst-Corona fieldnotes a godsend . Event accounts , and paragraphs vlithin them, can be copied, moved, rearran ged, and printed easily, while their original chronological order still anchors my sequential memories . Yet the tasks of index categorization and entr�l, on paper or by computer, and inevitable revision and expansion are " intensive, tedious work " (Boissevain 1 970:
79 ,
8 1 -82), however es
sential for fieldnote-bascd ethnog raphy.
Writing Ethn ography Writin g is sometim es a socialized process. After preparing detailed outlines , Malino\vski dictated his writing, shared it with his students, read it in his seminar, and enjoyed the assistance ofhis \Vife, Elsie, in its editing (Comaroff and Comaroff
1 988:
5 5 7; Firth 1 95 7a : 1 0;
J o6-7; Fortes 1 9 5 7 : 1 5 7; Wayne 1 98 5) . Friedrich
1 98 1 : ( 1 9 86: 22 1 , 222 ,. 224)
s imilarly talked about his developing ethnographic drafts with col leag ues and read the m aloud to stu dents. Between their Manus and Arapesh fieldwork, Mead and Fo rtune each \Vrote three books in New York during 1 929- 3 1 : "In the evening each would read what the other h ad done during the day or \Ve ·�vould read aloud to each other" (Mead
1972 : 1 84) . El\vin ( 1 964: 1 8 8) \vrote most of his 1 9 5 5 Saara ethnogra phy, The Religion o_fan Indian Tribe, in the field , where he could interact With inform ants and verify his analysis . Wolcott's ethnography of
F R 0 �1 fJ ELD NOTE S TO E T H I' O G R A PHY
390
Rhodesian beer garden s also \Vas written in the field , he
rec o u n t s
( 1 975), "vith several drafts read critically by medical s peciali sts,
w elfa re
workers , and academ ics all concerned w ith beer cons u mption . ''I
a n1
in favor ofj oining the vvriting task with field\vork rather than mak in g it s u bsequ e nt to it . . . . I begin V��riting to bring order to \Vhat I ha v e
and efficiency to the fieldwo rk that will continue " (Wolcott 1 9 8 1 : 259-60). M ore characteristically, e th n og r a p hic writing is don e after fiel d \Vork, alone, \vith j us t fieldno tes and headn o tes . It is the lonelines s of the long-distan ce writer that vle shall focu s upon. Input fro m col leagues , such as Lederman enj oye d at conferences of the Associat io n .. for Social Anthropology in Oceani a , most often comes after a major done
ethno graphic writing act is accomplished . As Pla th explains (this volume) , � riti n g takes the ethnographer fro m "the context of d is covery, " in which fieldno tes are v-vrit tcn . to ·
"the context of pres entation
"
(see also . Plath 1 9 80: 28-3 7). Becker
( 1 986a : 1 7) picks up this point, too, in the contex t of an excellent d i s cussion of the psycholo gy of �·riting . Malinowski's continual analysis of his fieldnotcs in the field proba bly exceeded that of most "\vho have follovlcd him . He clearl y moved to "the context of presentation" '"�hile still in the Trobriands . Now to method i n field\\'ork : .
..
the first layer of approach
...
consist s
i n the actual ob serving o f i s o lated facts, and in the full reco rding o f each concrete activity, ceremony or rule of conduct . The s e con d line of appr oac h is the correlatin g of these institutions. The third line of ap pro a ch is a synthes is of the va rious aspects . [ 1 93 5 , vol . 1 : 456]
In his fieldn o tes , he tells us , this sequence is de m o nstrat e d in his de1l el opi n g analysis of Trobri and land tenu re.
And he makes it clear
that this process was guided by theory : "Long b efor e I \\'ent to the field I Vlas deeply convinced that the relation between religio u s and m agical belief, on the one hand, and econo m ic activity, on the o th er \Vould o pen impo rt ant lines of a p proach
( 1 93 5 , vol . 1 : 3 1 8-40, 4-561 457). Yet functionalism, and th e series of ins titutional monograp hs � "
foiled p resent a tion itsel( The analysis M alinows ki refers to, \vhich Leach con siders ' ' the most int elligibl e account of the t otal so cial stru c ture of Trobriand s ociety v\rhich M alinowski gives us , " is in Co ral
Gardens (M alin ow s ki 1 93 5 , vol . 1 : 327-8 r ) and "occu pies the las t 50 pages of the last book he published on the subject '' (Leach 1 9 5 7 : 1 3 4). I n one of his last papers, Ho nigmann attempted to defen d " the
O n Eth nographic Validity
391
pers onal approach" of �..ide-ranging ethnographic fieldnotes before the scientific, qu antitative onsl aught of t h e 1 970s . Though presented in highl y general , if embattled, terms, Honigmann's argument does
su m marize the essentials of the ethnographic me thod . Unlike M ali nowski, ho�"cver, he ackno\\7ledges no guiding role for theory. ·Anth ropologists have given the matter little attention, partly no doubt b ecause the process as it has traditio nall y been carried out is indi vidually variab le and highly inexplicit. My attempt to make explicit how tea tures come to be selected for pattern s, in view of the sparsity of in formation about how others do it, relies on recol lection of my O \vn procedures . . . . Pattern recog nition begins with the an thropol ogist's inspection of a series of . . . field no tes, or other field\\'ork do cu ments , . . . and abstracting from them one or more general featu res recogn ized in the event . . . . T he features recognized in a set o f even ts need not be present in every even t of the set . . . . The technique of constru cting such patterns . . . cal ls for considerable intuition, specu lative ability, and specula tive freedom as well as abundan t, detailed data. . . . since anthropology contain s no recognized body of rules for standardizing the construction of pattern s, this ba sic level o f analysis offers considerable scope for the personal approach . . . . Patterns reflect not \\'hat is in the external \Vo rld, but the featu res the observer concep tu alized an d incorporated in the field notes . . . . If an ethnog rap her does not adhere closely to field no tes . . . th ere is dan ger tha t the creative faculties \Viii mo tivate the invention of data unrelated to events ob served . . . . An anthropo logist is responsible for being prepared if called upon to support pattern s by providin g evi dence from field notes . . . . an thro pologists following the person al approach . . . pos sess . . . a heightened, or deliber a tely cultivated , sense of responsibility to their original observations
(i. e. ,
ca refully recorded, detailed field notes and
other memoranda). [ Honigmann 1 9 76: 247-48 ,
2 5 7]
It is unfortunately true tha t information about " how others do it" is
spars e. The contributors to this volume provide major exceptio n s . Yet a
few comments from more theoreti cally self-conscious ethnogra
phers hel p flesh out Honigmann "s sketch. A gar, "\�rho reli es more on tr an scri p ts of ethno gra phic interviews than on speech-in-action , is pro cedurally explicit. The ftrst thing to do is to read th e transcripts in their entirety sev eral ti mes. Immerse yourself in the detai ls, trying to get a sense of the interview as a whole. . . . You, the anal yst, now seek to categorize the different seg ments of t alk . . . marking off stretches of talk that cohere because they fo cus on th e same topic. This is not an auto matic pro-
392
fROM FIELDNOTES TO ETHNOGRAPHY ccdure by any n1eans .... Cut up a copy of the transcripts according to the new topic-oriented code. Each group of talk can then be read to check for consistency within each informant and variation across infor mants. You can also see what was talked about and, more important, what was not talked about. [ 1980: 103-4; see also Agar 1986b]
Agar's ethnography of independent truckers (1986a) demonstrates the po\Yer of this form of intervic\v-drivcn ethnography.
Like Smith with Wis\vell's notes, Barth at first \vorked '''ithout headnotes and thus came to appreciate the processes of \Vriting eth nography more consciously than many others. He chose the theoret .. ical problem of ''the organization and maintenance of camps"
the
as
organizing framc\vork for Pehrson's Marri Baluch fieldnotcs. I have written up the material block by block, going through the complete notes each time and marking all information relevant, for example, to kinship, \\'orking up a classification under subtopics and a crude index, and completing the kinship chapter before going through the "''hole process again f or the next topic. [Barth 1966: xi]
Whyte is a master ethnographer .who moves to presentation effi ciently, having published Street CortJer Society by 1943. Just as he did for field\\rork (1955), he provides one of the clearest and most succinct statements about \Vriting in describing his \\'riting method, closely related to his indexing, for an ethnographic study of restaurants. In \Vriting a report we can \vork directly from the index to the outline of the paper. A few minutes spent in rereading the whole index gives
a
systematic idea of the material to be drawn on. Then, for each topic covered in the report. we can write into the outline the num hers of the intervic\\rs and the page numbers of relevant material. For example, in \\l·riting a section on relations bet\\'ecn hostesses and \vaitresses, we \\Titc in the outline some general heading referring to the supervision of v-.raitresses. Then \\'e note in the outline aJI intervie\\'S where we find in the index .,,.,,aitrcsses-hostess',-plus the page nun1bers of those par ticular intervie\V sections. This may refer us to a dozen or more intcr vie�'s. Perusal of the index \viii refresh our memory on these inter views, and v-.re \vill recall that some of them merely duplicate each other. We pull out of the file perhaps a half dozen intervie\\rs, turn to the sec tions v-.rhere "waitresses-hostess" is marked on the margin, reread these sections� and finally use materials from three or four. rWhyte 19X4: I J 8)
On Ethnographic Validity
393
Reliability
versus
Validity
Anthropologists are their own worst critics of the ethnographic method. Many social scientists-anthropologists and others-see ethnography as
methodologically unsophisticated, intuitive, journalistic, and un
focused, and they therefore call for increased rigor. [ Berreman 1968: 368]
The traditional anthropological attitude to methodology has led to
a
non-accumulative or very slo\vly accumulating tradition which is more akin to that in the humanities than that of the sciences. (Cohen and Narol11970: 3]
The Peltos (1973: 269) point to ''much criticism of impressionistic, non-quantifiable field methods." Agar (1980:
1
12) \�lritcs, "In my
opinion, field notes are the most overrated thing since the Edsel." 1 Le\vis (1953: 7n), more charitably, concludes nonetheless, "That an thropologists sometimes guess brilliantly is to their everlasting credit." This indictment is powerful. Unfortunately, \\'e have few places to�vard \vhich to point the uncharitable external skeptic, or the trust ing anthropology student. And as ethnography is increasingly appro priated and frequently denatured by newcomers beyond anthropol ogy and our sociological field�'"orker cousins (Agar 1980: 123, 197; Van Maanen 1988: 24, 4o--41), \\'e cannot afford to be so silent, and secretive, about fieldnotcs. Others need to kno\\' that the emperor is not naked.
The ans\\'er to the charges is not to give in to the "quantitative extreme." The "mix of methods" many advocated in the 1970s con fined the ethnographic method to an "exploratory" stage; the hy pothesis-testing, experimental model-"the standard model of re search" (Whyte 1984: 266)-overpovlcred any mix. The result \Vas in fact capitulation (see Brim and Spain 1974; cf. Agar 1986b: 16).
Agar (1980� 1986b) comes from a linguistic anthropology background and focuses, we have seen4 on transcribed texts of intervie\\' speech. But he clearly brings �owerful hcadnotes from his fieldwork (Agar 1986a)� inclu d in g sensitivity to speech 1
as
In-action. And unlike Malinowski, \\'ho v.rent on no kula canoe expeditions. Agar drove by night with the truckers. In this research he also took fieldnotcs (1986b: 66-
67).
fRO.l\i fiELDNOTES TO ETHNOGRAPHY
394
The 196os and 1970s ''humanist, respons c l e tting the p roble n1 s emerge from the data"; "insight at the expense of verification (sec Berreman 1968: 368)-drifted in the 1980s to \vhat Clifford in his essay here identifies as eth no gra p hy less concerned to separate itself from su bj ective travcl-v-"riting . . . registering t he circumstantial situations of an interpreting subjec t n oting events and s tatemen ts as part of a pa ssin g sojourn of research." Both scientists and interpretationists lost s igh t of the e thnogra phi c method (even if many ethnographers of the 1970s and 1980s, con sciously or unconsciously, did not: see the Appendix to "The Secret Life of Fieldnotes, " in Part III). In a battle between st rict thinking and loose t hink i ng eth nogra p hy loses. There is another \\'ay. In terpre ta tionist s hold no brief for reli a bil i ty ; \\�·hat one sees is \\lhat you get. Scientists of the hypothesis-testing, experimental mold, ho\v ever, arc p reoccu pi ed v.rith reliabili t y (Brim and Spain 1974: 19-24), "the repeatab ility, includin g in te rp e rsona l rcplicab ilit y of scientific observations'' (Pelto and Pelto 1978: 3 3; see Agar 1980: 64). Reliability is extremely important in l abora tory \vork: in phy sics and chemistry, an d in medi cal and product safety research. We want to be certain that other in ve stigat ors p e rfor ming the experiment or test get the san1e results ; we expect and hope that other inv estig ato rs in fact do so before re liab il ity is acco rded and a ne\v pr oduct or t rea t me nt is marketed. In ethnography · , ''reliability'' verges on affectation. We c annot ex pect and do not hope that another investigator \vill repeat the field work and confirm the re s ults before they are pub li shed Reliability is fla shed to sho''' the integ rity or ingen uity of research des ign; it is not meant as an invitation to go to "my village" and do it over again. As Honigmann (1976: 246) co rrectly puts it: "Speaking realistically, there is practically a zero p rob ability of ever testing the reliability of a comp rehe n siv e ethnographic report, so one ought to s to p talk in g a bo u t re p licatio n as a technique of ver ifi cation (sec Johnson and Johnson, this vo lu m e) Reli ability \Vas not the issue \vhen the fi ndin gs of Robert Redfield and Margaret Mead \vere disput ed by later in v est i gators Oscar Le"vis and Derek Freeman. The c hall eng e rs came to diffe rent conclusions be cause they used different methods (more reveal in g ones, they claimed). not beca u se they failed to get Redfield's an d Mead's results by u sing the same methods (Clifford 1986b: 101-3; Le\vis 1951: xi-xxvii; Weiner 1983). It was validity that they c hallenge d "the degree to �vhich scien tific observations actually measu re or record \vhat they purport to -"
,,
"
'
'
,
,
,
.
"
.
,
On Ethnographic Validity
measure, (Pelto and Pelto ing ethnography.
395
1978: 3 3). Validity lies at the core of evaluat
Anthropology speaks in the language of validity·: institution, pat tern, configuration, outline, structure, ·"reb, organization, relations,
net\vork, system, map, domain, grid, schema; holes in the data, gaps, lacunae, breakdowns. The results ethnographers present in such lan guage aim for validity: does it say \v hat I claim it does? (sec Agar
1980:
64)·
Ethnography is a potentially validity-rich method, fully as scientific as the reliability-rich experimental, hypothesis-testing method. As Povvdermaker
(1966: 306) put it,
"A scientific attitude ignores no
level of understanding., The method requires loose-strict-loose-strict thinking.2
The historic development of the ethnographic method, although
underexposed, is
not
"non-accumulative." Nor is the method ''in
tuitive, journalistic, unfocused, impressionistic" or merely "brilliant guesswork." The ·validity of ethnography should be evaluated in its O\Vn right, as more than just an "exploratory'' phase preceding "real science." Ho\v, then, is ethnography to be validated? Ethnographic validity may be assessed according to three canons: theoretical candor, the ethnographer's path, and fieldnote evidence.
The First Canon: Theoretical Candor Ethnographic fieldwork involves a series of choices. These choices and the theoretical reasons for them need to be presented explicitly to establish ethnographic validity. Significant theories, those in books and journals, determine the place, problems, and record objectives 2We should also turn the tables and ask how the hypothesis-testing, experimental. and survev research that st resses reliabilit�· establishes validitv. The abstract confi rm ation procedure docs not generate the variables and value s ; it only measures the likeli.
.
;
hood of their correlation (see Johnson and Johnson). How sc ien ti s ts do science� an important area of research (.Agar 1986b: 70; Caws 1969; Crick 1982: 28-29; Wo olg ar 198R), does not always i n vol ve the "rigor" that reliability insinuates. Where do be havioral scientists and survey researchers get their variables and values? From ne\•ls
papers, 6'the literature,, ethnographies (Van Maancn 19XX: 30)? Their p rocedures for establishing validity arc o ften inexplicit. And much survey research, the honest will admit, involves fabrication at the grassroots (see Srinivas 1987: 182-84; Whyte 1984: 143-45,
207-8).
\\'hyte
(1984: 266-67)
also raises questions about the validity of
CUrrently favored quantitative research that works over old data-sets: its th eoretical conclusions relate to places and people its authors have never seen.
fROM fiELVNOTES TO ETHNOGRAPHY
brought to the field. Theory at this level relates the field\\'ork to the "larger social, political, symbolic, or economic issues" (Van Maanan 1988: 127) \vhich give an ethnography purpose and meaning and make it "a critical tale of the field.'' Critical, political, and theoretical awareness precedes ethnography and structures the research proposals that fieldworkers nowadays most often prepare themselves. Yet the ''grain of the field'' cannot be dis counted, and "in many cases a detailed research design turns out to have little relationship to the research that finally emerges from a field trip" (Pelto 1970: 252). In the early stage offield\vork the ethnographer .. "opportunistically" records wide-ranging fieldnotes about whatever goes on, but the objective is not to continue doing this forever (Honig mann 1970b: 269; Powdermaker 1966: 6r; Saberwal 1975). This chart ing of the ethnographic terrain is filtered through theory so that more selective and systematic participant observation \viii folio\\'. The net of people, places, and activities studied opportunistically may continue to widen in fieldnotcs, but theory-guided research acti\l;ties \Viii narrovi at the same time. Sampling begins; other opportunities are forgone (Agar 1980: 124, I 34; Honig mann 1970b: 268-70; Whiting and Whit ing 1970: 283-84, 286-88). In addition to significant theories, the field\vorker develops terrain specific theories of significance about people, events, and places. These determine much of the looking and listening that are recorded in fieldnotes and, in turn, confirm, extend, or revise the significant theories. In a paper more revealing of the ethnographic method than most book-length ''personal" accounts, Sabcr\val (1975) provides a rich and instructive professional account ofhovl this process Vlorked in his study of caste and mobility in a Punjab tovln. Candid exposition of when and '''hy locally developed theories of significance are adopted enhances ethnographic validity. Validity-rich ethnography must make explicit as many of both sorts of theoretical decisions as possible by reporting \\'hen and why judg ments of significance are made. Readers need to knovl both the ''the ory of events" (Agar 1980: 1 Is) with \vhich the ethnographer struc tures the field�·ork and the larger significant theories this relates to (cf. Marcus and Cushman 1982: 58). In the small Mountain Arapesh village of Alitoa, Mead attempted to study the '''hole culture; she lists the specific types of "significant events" her fieldnote "Record" was designed to capture, and the valid ity of her work may be judged accordingly. Firth (1966: 36o-6r) and
On Ethnographic Validity
Colson
(1967)
397
collected 100 percent samples of selected activities or
info rmant da ta, and they are specific about the th eoretical rationale for ,,,ha t their fieldnotes and records contain . The Johnsons, for theoret icall y explicit purposes , advocate random household visits to ga ther particular information, as '\Veil as for opportunistic listening and obser vation (Johnson 1978: 87-9 1 , 1 06-1o;johnson and Johnson, this vol
ume) . Werner (1984:
Ss-86)
u sed this method to ob tain what
wide
ranging fieldnotes normally record but also to give "a sense of order to my fieldwork." My ovln use of sy·stematic in terviews about daily interaction (Sanjek 1 978)
'\vas
related to politically charged theories of
class and ethnicity . In a bu sy urban setting of daily dispersal, it pro vided a measure of the comprehensivenes s that Mead achieved with direct observ·ation and questions in Alitoa, and the Johns ons and Wer ner could accomplis h \vith random visits to Indian village households in the Amazon basin.
Validity may also be es tablished by the decision to follo'\v linked events and activi ties systema tically in order to verify or falsify theoret ically significant patterns. It is "essential to s ee group mem bers in different situations, not just during a brie f interview. .. . An ethno gra pher learns something n ew, and then tries to understand how it con nects with other aspects of the situation " (Agar 1980: 70, 75). Thus, Malino\\'ski (193 5, vol. 1: 327- 3 9) ch arts the field note course by
Ylhich he worked out his analysis ofTrobriand land tenu re. Middle ton's Study of the Lugbara is an excellent short account of ho\v this validity-building process �"orks: "What the fieldvlorker does in es sence
is
to build up hypothetical structures or patterns
as
he goes
along. Every n ew fact that he gathers can either be fitted into that structure,
or if not, he is forced to change the structure" ( r 970: 47). 3
As Mead argued, an anthropologis t "follows rules different from those employed in other s o cial sciences but doesn' t op erate total ly without discipline" (qtd. in Honigmann 1970b: 272; cf. Evans3"The Lugbara made sacrificial offerings of cattle, goa ts sheep, chickens and grain; they offered them to ghosts, ancestors . and to several categories of spirit; they made ,
.
.
�ese sacrifices in response to various kinds of sickness, associated \vith various kinds of
s�ns and offenses. There \\'ere thus four sets of variables {oblation; spiritual agent; st�kness; and offense) for which I as su m ed there \vould be a neat pattern of relation ships. I spent many months seeking this pattern, but it eluded me.... Finally I saw that the key factor in the pattern ,�·as the h ist o ri cal development of the s acrifi cing group, so
that I had to turn to the study of the cycle of development of lineages a nd sections in order to understand the pattern in the organization of sacrificial rites" (Middleton 1970:
6o).
fRO.l\i FIELDNOTES TO ETHNOGRAPHY
Pritchard 1950: I 39-54). 4 There has been too little formal discussion of ethnographic hdiscipline" as it applies to wide-ranging fieldnotes. Validity depends upon a more explicit discussion of hovl theory guides fieldwork than most ethnographies include. As Agar explains, "Good ethnographers, of course, al\vays try to falsify their conclusions, but they often do so in informal ways that are not reported in their published works" (I 980:
I 34).
Making such procedures and their
re
lated theories explicit is essential. Most often they remain unrevealed, buried within the fieldnotes. Yet here lies ethnographic validity. "Where theorv?" In the field and out of the field. ''When theorvr' �
..
�
Significant theories while planning field\vork, and theories of significance as it takes shape and direction. "Why theory.. ?" To give ethnogra phy meaning and purpose and to avoid opportunistic study of''every thing. '' "Which theory?" Consult your political and critical values.
The Second Canon: The Ethnographer's Path Ethnographic research is an intensely personal experience for the fieldworker. She or he meets people, is introduced to still others, locates a range of informants, develops a variety of relationships, and enters data about and from this set of persons into fieldnotes. In his comment on Nash and Wintrob (1972), Dwight Heath remarked upon this ethnographer's path through field research and its significance for ethnographic validity. My point is simply that (a) any effective anthropologist develops his own social network in the process of fieldwork; (b) the nature of this net\\"ork is, at the same time, both a determinant and an outcome of the research enterprise; (c) therefore, it \\'ould provide a valuable additional
perspective if this network \\"ere specified in more detail than has been
done to date. The uadditional perspective,. ... \\'Ould be valuable to the readers \\'ho eventually attempt to understand and evaluate the field4R ej ecting "science" and "positivism''
as
models for anthropology, Evans-Pritchard
saw history as the nearest neighbor in method: ''It does not follov..· from social anthropology as a special kind of historiography ra th e r than as
a
regarding
special kind of
natural science that its researches and theory are any the less systematic" (1950:
1
52).
The historians Bloch and Carr present methodologi ca l discussions consistent \vith the vi ew of ethnographic validity developed here: theory guides observ a tion ; selection of facts studied must be explicit and com plete to achieve validity; observ ati on and analysis are in constant in ter play (Bloch 1953: Honigmann on
"
histor y
"
and
65, 69, 7r; Carr 1961: "science" ( 1976: 244).
ro. 22, 32, 35).
See a]so
On Ethnographic Validity
399
\\rorkcr's findings . . .. Looking at networks in greater detail might do much to ans 'AI· er such fundamental questions as, for example: What are
the significant channels of communication through which data \Vere secured concerning topics A, B, C? [ 1972: 536)
"Key info rmants" not only provide quantities of information b u t introduce the field"\vorker to other inforn1ants. From ficldnotes, every ethno g ra pher could reconstruct a diagra m of informant contacts opened directly, their introductions and leads to others, and the uni verse of informan ts, \Yith an a s sessment of its relationship to the population of the social unit studied in terms of gender, age, institu tional particip ation, and other characteristics. Heath
(1972: 536)
suspects that "•nany (if not most) stud ies no�·a
days are based on a sample that is insignificant . .. and \Vi th a 1najor portion of the data collected from relatively fe�t 'key info rmants' on each of the va rious aspects of the research." It is not necessary? to be a s cynical a s Heath to see tha t readers \\'auld be in a much better position to
assess ethnograph i c validity if they had a road ma p of the ethnogra
pher's path. To the ex tent that Heath is correct, the secrecy su rround ing fieldnotes and the emotions they arouse may in part be und er stood. The most thorough description I knovl of an ethn ographer's path is in Glu ckm an's cla s sic a nalysis
(1940) of a bridge opening in Zululand.
We meet h i s range of white and African informants and contacts, from Zulu royals through policemen, Zulu Christians and "pagans," mis sionarie s , govern men t officers , traders, and recruitin g agents to the laborers �Tho built the bridge. The validity? of Gluckman's analysis can be weighed by our understanding of those he talked to and observed. Hildred Geertz's appendix to
The Javanese Family (1961: 161-71)
is
another detailed portrait of an ethnographer's path. She explains ca re fully ho w her sample of forty-five families grew from its beginn ing with the family of her landlord, and s he identifies the dilemm a for furthering her work caused by this household's class position. She charts her path to fourteen other families \Vith whom "she \\'Orked intensively, seeing the m bet\\'ccn fifteen and fo rty times," and pro vides the class and religious background of her total sample. Ethno graphic validity is considerably enhanced by this straightfo�·ard pre sentation. Powdermakcr
(1966: 129-98)
describ es her path i n to the black and
white societies oflndianola, Mississippi, in her
1932-33
ficld�"ork an d
fROM FIELDNOTES TO ETHNOGR �PHY
400
..
points out the significance of key contacts for establishing credibility and for gaining introductions to particular segments of each racial group. The "Uganda Trio" of fieldwork accounts (Beattie 1965; Mid dleton 1970; Robertson
1978)
are also effective portrayals of the eth
nographer's path in field\\'ork. This in fact provides the major narra tive structure for Robertson's Community
of Strangers:
A
Journal of
Discovery in l.1ganda (1978), as much an ethnographic as a personal
account. In contrast, Rabinow's Re_flections on
Fieldwork
in �Worocco
(1977) is less an account ofhis field\vork path than a personal journal, ranging beyond the field\\'ork itself. 5
The importance of the ethnographer's path goes far beyond its size and range. As Holy's cogent argument
(1984)
implies, an assessment
of the interpretive povler of ethnography also requires that Vle under stand the ethnographer's path. 6 As a measuring stick of ethnographic validity, accounts of an ethnographer's fieldwork path should be incor porated in ethnographic writings.
The Third Canon: Fieldnote Evidence A synopsis of the ethnographer's theoretically guided fieldwork
decisions and a description of the path connecting ethnographer and informants are two of the legs on which ethnographic validity stands. These correspond to the list of collections chosen for consultation and their locations and access codes that historians provide as part of the resulting work they produce (Bloch 1953: 71). One who questions the validity of the historian's conclusions knows what places he or she sane can do other things in the field than ethnography. These other things may make interesting, even compelling reading, Rabinow's
Rtjlections,
in Levi-Strauss's Tristts Tropiques_. or or Barley's -4dventurts in a iWuJ Hut (1983). They may be bet ter as
..
reads than ethnography, though to me, most other personal accounts are not. But if it doesn't walk like a duck, quack like a duck, and look like a duck, it isn't a duck. Travel impressions are one genre; ethnography is another (sec Pratt 1986).
6"fn interpretative social science, the validity of the researcher's accoun t is not tested against the corpus of scientific knowledge. It is tested against the everyday experience
of the community of people .... When the anthropologist discusses \\·ith the actors ·what is going on' in the search for the meaning of the encounters in which they are jointly eng;�ged and the situations they are jointly confronted with� s/he is engaging with them in negotiated meaning. Through this process. a competence at meaning construction equal to theirs is gr;�dually acquired .... To do this, s/he must participate in the lives of subjects in the sense of
actively interacting v-·ith them, for only thr ough
interaction can v-·e g;�in any insight into the meaning construction in the culture
studied" (Holy 1984: JO� 33. Also see Clifford 1983: 12R-29; and Rosaldo 1980).
On Ethnographic Validity
401
decided to visit and '''hich documents were used. The skeptic may then examine the historian's sources. And here the anthropolog)"/ history parallel ends (in most cases). Headnote evidence is manifested in the ethnography, but rarely arc fieldnotes open to anyone's inspec tion. An accounting of the relationship bet"veen fieldnotes and the ethnography based upon them is the third canon of ethnographic validity. In a very few cases, ficldnotes are actually there. As we have seen (in ''T.he Secret Life of Fieldnotes," Part III of this volume), Mead pro vided the fieldnote evidence itself in The JWountaitJ Arapesh, as did Kluckhohn in
��'itchcrafi, and Tax's fieldnotes for
Nat,alzo
Pent�}'
Capi
tali.H1t: .4 Guatemalan Indian Communit}' were made available on micro
film. Boas's K"vakiutl volumes \Verc his and Hunt's ficldnotes, \�lith little analysis. Roberts's Zuni Daily Lifo
(1956) is a dense, nearly un
readable presentation of minute behavioral fieldnote accounts of one day's activities in three households and t�"o days at a sheep camp, again \\'ith minimal analysis (c( Whiting and Whiting
1970: 284, 288, 292,
297-307). There is also a handful of first-rank ethnographies that are organized around masses offieldnote materials. Condominas's
Forest:
The
Story of i"1ontagnard
Village ita
the
Central
We Have Eaten the Highlands of Viet
tJam is a chronological account of a year's agricultural cycle in the
";llagc of Sar
Luk; the author tells us that the account consists of uunedited material from notebooks I kept during my stay" (r957:
xviii). The prose is smooth-a stage or two beyond retyped scratch notes-and includes some material interpolated later than the events presented (1957: I
29). There is minimal introductory text (1957:
3-18,
19--20), and extensive subject indexes are provided for the specialist
reader. The account is selective, \�lith holidays and rituals highlighted, and the chronological chapters are organized thematically, almost as short stories. Conventional ethnological analysis is published else where. Condo minas's purpose is clear: "to render reality as it \Vas lived while being observed'' Van Velsen's Politics
the
Lakeside Tonga
(1957: xix). o_f Kinship: �4 Study in Social .�1anipulation
among
of Nya.salatJd is a theoretically oriented study orga
nized around twenty cases of marriages, disputes, political doings, and deaths, each ranging from one to seventeen pages. "From the field worker's notebooks" (1964: xxv), the cases are amalgams of observa tion, informant statement, and interpretation, and they include recon struction of past events. The presentation both addresses larger issues
fROM fiELDNOTES TO ETHNOGRAPHY
402
in kinship and political theory and seeks to reproduce the theory of significance that van Vclsen developed in the field: "to describe the Tonga social system by the same process \Vhereby I gained my 0\\7n insight" (1964: xxvii). Accordingly, the principals reappear from case to case, cross-referenced in footnotes, in what van Velscn terms "situa tional analysis" or the "extended-case method" (1964: xxv-xxvi, 8;
1967). The remarkable stOI'}" of how
The �Votta en of Suye �'t,fura
(Smith and
Wiswell 1982) was written is told in Smith's essay" here. Ella Lury Wiswell's fieldnotes, edited into topical chapters by Smith, constitute the bulk of the book, \\7ith punctuation indicating carefully "\\rhat is .. original fieldnotc and v.rhat \Vas written by Smith. Smaller-point, indented text is the device used by Agar to present the extensive quotations from his life history intcrvie'v material in Indepe11detus
Declared: The Dilemma ofIndependent
Trucking. Substantively, the book
is oriented to ethnographic description and political and symbolic issues. In an appendix, Agar exp lains: In the five hund red double-spaced pages of transcript that underlie this book, there are a to t al of 40 3 segments. . . 58 percent of them were accounted for by the analysis, . either directly quoted or referred to in the text .... Loo king at the amount of the transcript rath e r than number of segments [one finds that] the material included in the analysis rises to .
.
66 percent. [1986a:
.
178-79]
Fe\\' ethnographers have ever been as precise in describing the rela tionship of fieldnotes to ethnographic text. Long Engagements: lvlaturity in Modernjap an (1980) is the book whose
birth Plath describes in his essay. At the opposite extreme from the ethnographies we have just mentioned , less than seven pages derived directly from fieldnotes. An extraordinarily artful and crafted eth nography, Long Engagemetlts meets all three canons of validity; the first t�·o chapters detail the theoretical background, the strategies and path of fieldwork, and the fieldnote evidence from which the book
\vas
vlritten. Most ethnography contains only as much fieldnote material
as
Plath's, or less. "Public display might occur more often than it does, but it is difficult and requires much space" (Agar 1980: I 34). Fieldnotcs and informant voices arc regularly "filtered out,, (to appear sometimes in personal accounts), as the distanced ethnographer narrates the
ac
cou n t (Clifford 1983: 131-32; Marcus and Cushman 1982: 31-32). Direct fieldnote evidence has not been a criterion of ethnographic
On Ethnographic Validity renown; in fact, rcvic'\vcrs complained that van Velsen 's Politics
Kinship \Vas "burdensome" (see Gluckman
o_f
1967: xvi). Normally, "the
public, colleagues as well as others, finds the results credible or other Vlise useful to the extent that the argument, reasoning, and presenta tion are plausible, p ersuasive, clear, and �·ithout obvious contradic tions or illogic" (Honigmann 1976: 244). My O\vn admiration of the fieldnotc-rich ethnographies is obvious. but the canon of fieldnote evidence requires only that the relationship between fieldnotes and ethnography be explicit. Ethnographic validity is served by, but does not require, extensive fieldnote documentation. Narrative and rhetorical decisions-no\v coming more into eth nographers consciousness as a result of the textualist assist (Clifford '
1983; Conkling 1975; Geertz
19&8; Marcus and Cushman 1982; Van
Maancn 1988)-dominatc "�·riting up." Yet \Vhen v alidity knocks and fieldnotes reappear, often for narrative or rhetorical reasons, they bring the baggage of out\vard-facing incom prehensibility that Leder man, Bond, and Smith point to. T hey are not always so easy to use. An author, if he h as so mething to say \vill \\tant to c onv ince his readers. ,
The truth hov-,'cvcr, rarely looks veracious. A rr a nged truth, \\'hich is ,
no longer truth but a striving for etTect, has a m u ch greater semblance of
veracity. . On occasions, in one s o\vn work one feels the necessity to brace oneself against such c oncessions to one's reader. After all, our aim is not to tum out a fl awles s piece of \\'ork c alculated to achieve a maximum of effect, but rather to report as truthfully as p os s ible [Den Hollander 1967: 25; cf Marcus and C ushman 1982: 57] .
.
'
.
Defending van Velsen's ethnography, Gluckman
(1967: xvi) admitted
that "heavy demands are indeed made on the reader by this kind of analysis. ''7 Davis (1984: 303-4) presents the choice be�·een a generalized ac count and presentation of a single case from fieldnotes as a matter of rhetorical preference, not validity. Much of the small-print use of fieldnotes as ''apt illustration" (Gluckman 1961: 7-8) in ethnographies indeed reflects rhetorical concerns, as Clifford's discussion (this vol ume) of Geertz's use of fieldnotes in The Religion ofjava indicates. Spicer's quotation from his fieldnotes to portra y t�"O major informants in t he introduction to Potam: A Yaqui �"illage 7ln
in Sotlora (1954: 5-7) could
a rt i cle on network analysis. uin order to illustrate the results of the inter . (Sanjek 1978: 26o)-to pro�ride validity-1 included a sample four-day netw o rk
mv
vieVv·s"
in the submitted version. In
broken,
rev isions
it \Vas cut to one day by the editor.
but the decision ,-.,·as understandable.
!v1y heart was
fROM fiELDNOTES TO ETHNOGRAPHY
as well have been \vritten in polished prose. It meets the rhetorical demonstrations of "1-\vitnessing" and "Being There" (Geertz 1988� Marcus and Cushman 1982:29, 33, 39; Pratt
r986) more than it docs the
fieldnote evidence canon of ethnographic validity. (No other quota tions occur in the rest of the monograph.) Srinivas's extensive fieldnotc quotations in t\vo papers on disputes in Rampura (1987: 1 39-74)
are
just the opposite . They are the foundation of his v alidity-rich ethno graphic analysis; like van Velsen 's cases, they are demanding and work rhetorically against slick description. Gluckman's preference for the connected cases of situational analysis .. over discrete fieldnote "apt illustration" speaks to a concern for validity over rhetoric (1961, 1967; cf. Marcus and Cushman 1982: 35). In his theoretical exposition of the approach, van Vclsen
(1967) hovers bc
tv.reen seeing it as a refinement of Radcliffe-Brownian social structur alism-"it \Vas there in the fieldnotes, if not the ethnographies"-and recognizing the extended-case method as a ne\v, generative approach to field�vork-based social description. Bond identifies the horns of this dilemma from a vie,vpoint that is different from but compatible ·"tith rhetoric versus validity. Extended cases are still apt, iflengthy, illustra tions of the ethnographer's analysis; placing authority in ficldnotcs only masks the responsibility of the·anthropologist for the theoretical soundness and political bias of
the ethnography.
The potential of wide-ranging fieldnotes under theoretical control to generate ethnographic description (see Johnson and Johnson, this volume) has been most effectively presented by the sociologists Ho\v ard Becker and Blanche Geer
(196o), drawing upon their field study of
a medical school. They describe hovl they continuously analyzed their eventual 5,000 single-spaced fieldnote pages by applying indexit1g� coding by topic, quantification of "qualitative', observations and lis tening, and sorting of ficld'''ork evidence from most po'"rerful (obser vations and speech-in-action among ongoing groups) to least power ful (formal interview responses). I must agree with Agar
(1980: 9) that
sometimes "ethnographically oriented authors from other disciplines do a better job [of] articulating ethnography than we do." canon of ethnographic validity is here given
a
The third
standard that anthro
pologists cannot afford to neglect.
Fieldnote Voice(s) T"his essay O\ves homage to James Clifford's "On Ethnographic Authority,
(1983) for more than its title alone. Clifford,s paper is an
On Ethnographic Validity
incisive look back·"rard and fornrard at ethnography. 8 It identifies four modes of authority. T\\70 of them, the experiential and interpretive, together compose the ethnographic method; they will approach and refine each other more intimately in the return to ethnography of the 1990s and later (see Marcus and Cushman 1982: 38-39, 61-62; Marcus and Fischer 1986: I 86 n.6). The other two, the dialogic and poly phonic, are more problematic �vhen viewed from fieldnotes "up." I see the dialogic mode
as
a
narro\ving of ethnographic practice and
results. It erases speech-in-action as
a source of understanding the
informant's point of vie\\' and moves ethnography off the informant's turf (see Marcus and Cushman 1982: 42-43) to "discourse, on the ethnographer's turf-whether borrowed, rented, or otherwise appro priated. It places ethnographic
\vork �vithin
a
Western/middle-class
(WM) "language event"-dialogue/ discourse I interlocution-usually "vith a tape recorder, \vhich is not the �ray most informants talk to each other. As in the Western therapy encounter, "vhich it mirrors, the "other''
is encouraged to "tell me '''hat you really think; tell me all
about yourself, " and a good informant is one \\rho performs accord ingly: "Nisa
\vas quite unusual in her ability to recall and explain her
life" (Clifford 1986b: 105). It does not suppose, as Briggs (1986) advises, "learning to ask" in the local speech-event forms, some of \Vhich may approach "dialogue" and "interlocution" but most of \vhich have different conventions, constitutions, and microcultures (Clifford 1986b: 103-6). While the interpretive mode (Clifford 1983: 128-29; Holy 1984) shares Briggs's logic, the dialogic mode retains all the WM baggage of its field "\\"capon, "the intervie\\r '' (Clifford I 98 3: I 33-3 4). As an exclu sive or dominant method of ethnographic inquiry, the dialogic mode locks the informant into an ethnographic present defined by WM ''discourse" and alienates her or him from the historical, interpenetrat ing settings that informant and ethnographer may come to share (Clifford 1986b: 107-9). The "critical flavor" and "political angle" 8 My
only quibble Vvrith Clifford's starting premises is his identification of ethnogra
phy with "translation,,. ethnography as "a means for producing knowledge from an intense, intersubjective engagement" (1983: 119, 142 n. 1). This is only part of the picture. I follow Evans-Pritchard (1950:
T 48):
"But even in a single ethnographic study
the anthropologist seeks to do more than understand the thought and values of primitive
(sic]
a
people and translate them to his own culture. He also seeks to discover
the structural order of the society, the patterns, which, once established, enable him to see it as a whole.... Then the society is not only culturally intelligible but also becomes sociologically intelligible." We need a "systematic sociology'' (Ortner 1984) .
as
well as cultural interpretation.
.
.
fR 0 .\1 fiEL D N OTES TO E T HN O G R APHY
40 6
(O rtner 1 9 84: 1 47, 1 49) are lost. Speech is removed from "action" an d from its accustomed environmen ts. Rosaldo 's conversion to p art icip ating in Ilongot narrative speech events ( 1 980), rather than m is si o ni zi ng them \Vith "dialogue" and "interlocution " (Clifford 1 98 3 : 1 3 5 - 3 6; Marcus and Fischer 1 9 86: 98r o i ), s u g g es ts the de e p methodological gulf bet\veen dialogic and i nt e r p reti ve modes of ethnography. '' Dialogic" eth n o g rap h y must he handled with care. Undoubtedly us eful for carefully defined research objectives , it is best deplo yed by those \vho arc trained in both ethno graphic and psychoanalytic methods , and who integrate obs ervation and speech in action vlith the results of their deliberate interviewing (Marcus and Fischer 1 986: 48- 54). The polyphonic mode seeks to share ethno g r a p hi c authority with the voices of informants (see Clifford 1 9 86b). This idea has not sat "vell with anthropol ogical com mentators on Clifford's advocacy of poly phonic et h n o g rap h y (see Marcus and Fischer 1 986: 68 -69; Van Maan en 1 98 8 : 1 3 7) . Obviously the anthropolo gist wou l d also admit t o being i n con trol of the final tex t. Ho\\'ever m uch mul tiple authorship is ;acknow ledged , using people's experien ces to make st � te mcn ts abo ut m1tters of anthro
pological interest in t he end s ubo rdinates them to the uses of the disci pline. But that does no t me an it is a \Vorthles s exercise. [ Strathem 1 987 :
289)
Shok eid ( 1 98 8 : 42) notes, "Ethn ographic texts are mainly orchestra ted through the anthropolo gist's tow e r i n g voice" ; Clifford's ''suggestion that anthropologists �;II increasingly have to share their texts and authorship V�;th their in digenous collaborators" is "u topian . " And Geertz ( 1 98 8 : r 40) \\'rites : The burden of auth o rs hip cannot be ev aded , however heavy it may
have grown ; there is no possibility of displacing it onto " method, " "language, " o r (especially popular at the mon1ent) "the people them
selves" redescribed ( "approp riated " is probably the better term) as co authors .
.
. . The respon sibility for ethn ography, or the credit,
can
be
pla ce d at n o other door than that of the roman cers who have drea mt it up.
They are all correct, but so is Clifford . He begins \\'ith reference t o " the polyphonic novel'' of a Dickens or Dostoevs k i but then admits that the polyphoni c novel "vritten by a single author is not th e best
()n Ethn ographic Validity
e xa m p le of ��ha t he has in mind ( 1 98 3 : 1 3 0- 3 9). As in fiel dnotc-rich ethnography,
he writes, "quotations are alway·s sta ge d by the q u a ter, '' the point Bond makes in his c ri t i que of the extended-case method and the one made by Strathcrn, Shokeid, an d Gcertz. Clifford turns, at the conclusion of his es say ( 1 98 3 : 1 40-4 1 ) , to \\tha t he tru ly advocates : enlis tin g the informant as writer, and p ubli shing the informan t's tex ts along \Vith those of the ethnographer. This moves
away from the criticism ofGccrtz and from most, but not all, of tha t of S trathern and Shokeid . Wha t remai n s is their uneasiness about the "sharing" that occu rs in texts for wh i ch the anthropologist remains the
ed i to r and p erhap s
still transcriber, as in the two examples Clifford
cites . Control is still asymmet rical . The fieldnote p e rs pe c ti ve m ay help m o v e us beyond this i m pa s se,
and even beyond Clifford's ultima te solu tion ( 1 9 8 3 : 1 46 n . 65), ""'·here the e x a m ple is given of fin ally pub l is h i n g "Geo rge S w ord, an Oglala \Varrior and j ud ge, " ��hom ethnographer James Walker encouraged decades ago to \\�·rite his 0 \\7n accoun t of his culture (sec also Clifford 1 9 86a:
1 5- 1 7).
In the end, the line betvveen ethn o g ra p her and "o ther'' cannot be hel d . It never
was held easily�
The tension Boas felt ��hen
\V o
rkin g
\vith Hun t in 1 894 eased in l ater deca des as Hunt was a ckno wledge d as author of his o\\l·n \Vo rk . Ho�� differen t th e hi s to r y of an throp o l o gy Vlould be if it were \Vrittcn not only about the
av/akening of anthro
pological interest in other cultures by Western / middlc-clas s / "thite /
m ales (WMWM) but also about th e a\vakening of cultural a wareness and et h n o g rap hi c self-reflecti on by people of colo r, \vith the sti mulus
and assistan ce of (but also a p propr i ation by) W M WM anthropology. There needs to be wri tten
a " Secret Histo ry of Assistant s , " begin
ning �'"ith a biography of Hunt . Others ""'.. ould include Muntu , Sulli , Ahuia Ova, Billv , Williams-and, as \Vri ters, Carmelo , vvith whom Wagley ( 1 98 3 : 8- 1 5 ) worked in Guatemala in 1 9 3 7 and who \v rotc his own fieldnotcs of intervie\vs he conducted; Phiri , \vith ��hom Po\v derm akcr ( 1 966: 260-62 , 270-7 1 ,
2 8 3 ) ""'·o rked in Z ambia in 1 9 5 3 - 5 4,
who wrote fieldnotcs and a 45-pagc autobiography, and who later went to Englan d to stu dy "com munity relations" ; and I M ade Kaler
(Ho�'" ar d 1 984: 1 8 6- 8 8 ; Mead 1 972 :
229- 3 6), \Vith \\'hom Mead and
Bateson worked in Bal i in 1 9 3 6-3 8 an d \vho wrote to Mead in 1 93 8 : Anyhov"' ·"vith this letter I do you a re q uest . But
w he n
you think i t will be bad for your Bali book, I \Von 't do it. Do y ou think I can \\·rite a short article about th e co ckfi g h t . . . . But I tell you if you thi nk this action '"'·i ll
f R OJ\.i f i ELDNOTES TO ET H N OGRAP H Y
40 8 be
bit b a d for your book, I won 't do it. I don ' t want to make profit of any of the stuff \\"e h a ve collected. It belongs all to you . [qtd. in Mead 1 977: 23 8] a
Where is the Balinese an alysis o f the Balinese cockfight ? "The stu ff we have collected belongs all to yor-1 . " We, anthropologists and infor mants, have lost somethin g irreplaceable here. A profound sa dnes s grips me \vhen I read this letter. The ans'\ver must not be j u st to append , edi t, transcribe, or co-create the wri tings of in formants . We mus t break each of the four legs of WMWM an thropology and radically Vliden the discipline 's member.. ship as
Vle
look to the I 990s and beyond . T he days \vhen " those who
\\7ere informan ts in the fiel d rarely sa""· the fmishcd anth ropological texts" (Crick 1 98 2 :
1 7)
arc almost gone, and their end should be
hastened. We need to " think o f an ethn ography \vhich is not predicated on a dichotomy bcrn·een the sel f and othe r . . . . the former subj ects or obj ects of study arc not only becoming an audience, and a critical one at that, but they arc becoming anthropologists themselves" (Caplan 1 98 8 :
1 7) .
From a ''fiel dnotes up" view of anthropology, we can see , that " they , have been becoming anthropologists for almost one hun dred years, and if we change "ant�ropologist ,, to "ethnographer, " "they " have been writing fiel dnotes and more extended ethnographic texts fo r one hundred years as well . "They " are ''we" already, if ''""·e " are not ye t fully "they." T he poignant story of Paul C . P. S iu and his book The Chinese
Laundrytna n : A Stro�dy in Social Isolation ( 1 987) is one of an ethnographer
whose \Vork \\�·as "no t predicated on a dichotomy bet ween self and other'' but ·�rho did not live to see the finished text. The maj or ethno
graphic res earch for this fieldnote-rich book, vlhich belongs among the great ethnographies of the classic period, vvas conducted in C hi ca go in the late 1 93 0s . Siu did not fin d a place within academia till the I 9 50s . He completed seventeen of the study's eighteen chapters in 1 94 5 \vhen he took a social work position ; the dissertation \vas ac cepted in
r 952.
A t tha t time the Univ ersity of C-hicago Press declined
to publish it, believing that a study o f Chinese lau ndry workers was un marketable. The work \Vas rediscovered by historian John Kuo Wei Tchcn in 1 980; Tchen edited the manuscript in consulta tion with Siu, who died j u st before its pu blication in 1 98 7 . T chcn ( 1 987: xxxiv) remarks, "His career strongly suggests that he received less recognition for his talents
On Ethnographic Validity
than comp arably educated and a ccompljshcd \vhite collea gues . " Siu remained loyal to an ethnographic establish m ent that perhap s de served les s . A s u b stantial base-b roa dening of WMWM p rofessional ethnography is required if the method is to con tinue into the next cent ury. We have no choice. The "others" do. We may compare The Ch inese La utldrytnan �"ith Silenced: Talks tvith Workit•g Class West Indian ��'omen ab out Their Lives and Strufgles as Domes tic Workers in Canada ( 1 98 3 ) by Makeda Silvera, a ja maican and activist-organizer in To ronto. Both books docu ment lovl-status ser vice occupa tions to \vhich their incu mbents find no alternative . Sil vera's book consists of oral accounts of the life and \Vork experiences of ten \\'o men . It is not based upon the ethnographic m ethod and is not an acade mic product. It is a po\verful, rich, moving book. In the 1 980s those outside the W M W M (or W M W F) establishment no longer need subordi n ate them sel ves to the uni,te rsity (cf. C lifford 1 986a: 1 0) . To day a range of alternativ·e forms of docu mentation and publication is more open than in Siu's time. Community-based oral his tory like Silvera's is flou rishing . O ther "para-ethnographic genres" such as " the non-fiction no vel, the 'ne\\' jou rnalism ' , travel literature, an d the documentary film" may also give "voice" (Clifford
1983: 143).
And as
ethnography seeps outside an thropology and sociology, i t is often less dem anding , easier to clai m . The ethnographic method i s a gift w e mus t pass on, not a hot potato to toss away. My o�,.n ties through Man in Harris and La mbros ..
Comitas to Wa gley, Mead, and Boas and throug h van Vel sen to Gluck man and Malino\v ski are relations I value and feel responsible to transmit to ne\\t bea rers . Clifford is correct in callin g fo r a new poly phonic ethnography, but the polyphony mu st be not only in text s but in a rainbo\\' company of ethnographers thems elves .
Keep Hop e Alive We steer a middle cou rse . Ethnographers have learned that they need not be '' mimic physicist s or closet humanists . . . . Instead they [can] proceed vlith their vo cation , trying to discover order in collec tive life" (Gccrtz
1983: 21).
And our loose-st rict-l oose-strict opera
tions dra�,. from both shores. We collect cargo from the humanist shore . We value the ''telling" case as much as the typical one (Mitchell 1 984: 23 9) ; \\7e " understand
F R O l\\ FIEL D N OTES TO ET H t-.: O G R A PHY
410
people not as units but as integral parts of sy stem s of relationshipsH (Wall m an and Dhooge 1 984: 2 3 9) ; \Ve depend on " personal in volve ment , chance, and all the characteristics v.rhich are rejected \\'ithin the positivist tradition" (Tonkin 1 984: 2 20). We recei ve goods on the scien tific b ank as \veiL We k.novl tha t
a
fieldwork decision about "systematicity "-to make the plunge and test out
an
emerging theory of signifi cance- "is one of the more
creative moments o f ethnograph ic research" (Agar 1 9 80:
1 3 4). V/c
must realize, and no longer tolerate, "ho\v many anth ropologi cal texts are accep ted as kno \vledge \\7hen their authors say virtually nothin g about the methods th ey em ployed to get their da ta" (Crick 1 9 8 2 : •
1
�).
We m a y call on both banks, but we dwell on neither. In the fray
of
schools, movements, an ti-antirelati vism , and an ti-antiscience, m an y of ethnography·'s most acu te observers still sense that \\'e hold our own course. Fro m Britain , Strathern writes: " Social a nthropology s till continues to kno\v itself as the study of so cial beh avior or society in te rms o f system s and collective rep resen tations . I f these constitu te paradigm , then it is largely intact"
( 1 987:
a
2 8 1 ). And from the United
States, Johnson observes : " The fact is, interpretation does not cancel the need for q u antificatio n, or vice versa"
( r 987:
3 0).
In our con tinuing attention to the ethnographic monograph on our in tellectual jou rney, anthropolo gy is pre-paradigmatic, not (yet )
a
science (Kuhn 1 962 : 20-2 1 ) ; an admired ethnographic \Vork enhan ces rather than impairs
an
anthropologist's career. Gluckman ( 1 96 I :
1 6)
wished more than a quarter-century ago that this traditi on �·ould continu e, and there is no reason today �·hy he can not rest in p eace. I f not full y a science, the ethnographic method certainly is a prac tice. It was discovered by Cushing, B oas, and Rivers , but each turned a\vay from it. It was rediscovered, con solidated , and " took "-\vhen the conditions were right-\vith Malino vvski and Mead. It Vlas chal lenged from the bank of science by Murdock (\vho respected it) in the 1 93 0s and by man y more
in the 1 9 50s to 1 970s . It �·as challenged fro n1
the bank of hu manism by Evans-Pritchard (\vho practiced it) i n the 1 9 50s and by many more in terpretationists in the 1 9 70s and 1 9 8os . These challenges have enriched the ethnographic m ethod and
� ill ..
strengthen its continuation in the 1 990s and beyond . In a fascinating recent paper, Ho ward Becker sketch es a sociology of th e curren t relati vist mood in intellectual life, and ethn ography as practice finds its place as one �·ay of "telling abou t society. "
a
O n Ethnographic Validi ty Any represen tation of social reality-a docu mentary film , a denio graphic study, a reali stic no vel-is necessarily partial , less that \\rha t one would experience an d have av ailable for interpretation in the actual settin g . . . . The s a me reality can be described in an enorn1ous nun1bcr of \\'ays , since the des crip tions can be ans\\'crs to an y of a multitude of questio ns . . . . We only ask the same question when the circu m stances of social interaction and or ganiza tion have produced consensus on that point. This happens \Vhcn . . . peopl e . . . see certain problems as co m mon , as requiring certain kinds of representations of soci al reality on a routine basis , and ( these conditions ) thus lead to the develop ment of pro fessions and cra fts that m ake those representations. [ 1 986b : 1 2 5 ,
1 3 4- Sec also Hug hes
1 9()0;
Clifford 1 9 8 6a )
Like Agar, "som eti m es I think ethno graphy is to social sci ence as j azz is to music" music,
( 1 9 8 0 : 92 ). My aesthetic sen sibili ty is rooted i n American especially jazz and African A merican song (Sanjck 1 9 8 8 ). In the
1 980s both these art fo rms have enj o yed an "in the tradi tion, " " retro nuevo" florescen ce; older styles and recorded performances are valued and preserved and attract audien ces as m u ch as nevlc r o nes . (The sa me is true of coun try musi c . ) Roy Eldrid ge, Ja ck DeJohne tte, G il E v ans , Joe Ven u ti , Jackie MacLean , Charlie Haden, Charles Mingus. Wardell Gray, Eric Dolphy, Elvin Jones, Craig Harri s , and A mina M yers are all appreciated . One can enj o y Dinah Washington, the Clovers, Tina Turner, Johnny Oti s , Stevie Wonder, Arcth a Franklin, James B ro\\'n , Maxine B rown, Sheila Jordan, Andrae C rouch , S am C o oke, S'"'·eet Honey in the Rock , and Patti LaBelle. I think ethn o g raphy will enjoy simila r advances and consolidatio n s in the 1 990s . Ja z z innov ator M iles Davis is kno�vn t o have told band members : " You need to kno\\' your horn, kno\v the ch o rds, kno\\' all the tunes . Then you forget about all that , and j ust play. " Kno\\7ing the anthrop� logical t radi tion, knowing the ran ge of fieldwork methods, and kno\v ing \vhat constitutes ethno g raphic valid ity are essential, but they do not produce ethnog raphy. Like j azz , ethnog raphy req u i res the person who improvises the performance, '''h o not only kn ovvs how to do i t but d o es it. I t is not surprising to me that the \Vo rd "art'' is used by several eth nographers in their deepest meditations about their calling ( see Cli fford 1 986a: 4,
6). Wag ley explain s :
I wo uld no t g o so fa r as to say that field work is an "art" ; b u t like an art there are basic rules of the fo rm \vi thin \\' hich the a rtis t-an thropolo gis t
41 1
41 2
fROM FIEL D N OT ES T O E T HN O G R A P H Y is working . Th e research anthropologist i n the field must kno\v, re spect, an d play with these rules . Beyond that , fieldwork is a creative endeavor. [ 1 98 3 : 1 6]
Sounds like Miles to me ! Evans-Pritchard ( I95 I : 82-8 5) believed that "social anthropology is best regarded as art and not as a natural science. " The \vo rk of the anth ropologist is n ot ph otographic. He has to decide \Vhat is significant in what he observes and by his s ubsequent relation of his experiences to bring what is significant into relief. For this h e must have, in addition to a wide knowledge of anthropo l ogy,
a
feeling fo r
form and pattern , and a tou ch of genius.
The crux, he thought, was the question ",,,hcther the same results Vlould have been obtained had another person made a particular inves tigation. " While I think different social anthropo logists \Vho s tudied the same people �'ould record much the same facts in their no teboo ks, I believe that they \\"ould \\"rite different kinds of book s . . . . One can only interpret what one sees in terms of one's own experien ce and of \vhat one
1s .
A master jazz musician kno�?s the horn, the chords, and the tunes. Yet it takes only a fe\\' tenor saxophone phrases to tell \vhether you arc listening to "Body and Soul, " or the blues, from Coleman Ha\vkins , Ben Webster, Lester Young, Arnette Cobb, Paul Gonsalves, Gene Ammons, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Yus�f Lateef, Booker Ervin, Eddie Harris, George Coleman, or David Mur ray. Ethnography is not dead, nor is it dying (Geertz 1988: 1 3 9; Van Maanen I988: 7 1 n I 3). As it progresses, attention to ethnographic validity-What did you do and why? Who did you talk to and learn from? What did you bring back to document it?-will deepen the growing appreciation outside our ranks of ethnography's value as a \vay of "telling about society.'' But to register fully the ethnographic method's potential, \Ve need radical expansion of ethnography's ranks and the promotion of assistants to "ethnographer, '' as \Yell as the recognition that ethnographers also may be "assistants" to their infor mants. ..
On Ethno g ra phic Validity
As we follow the middle course, \Ve need to r e m e mbe r \vith Smith , that the s u bj ect s of eth n ogr aphy are more i n t e r es tin g than the authors and, with O tten berg, that the in'\vard turn of the 1 970s and 1 980s was also a turn a'\vay from dis appoint ment s and tragedies on the turfs of man y of the clas sical period's informants . Luckil y, �·e have na vig a tion charts to guide our cou rse . Coral Gar dens and Their �\,fagic, Th e .�1ou ntain Arapesh, Street Comer Society, l\lavaho "''itchcraft, �i1e Have Eaten th e Forest , Th e Politics o..f Kitlsh ip, The Women ofSuye Mura, and The Chin ese l.Attndryman are not airport-rack "easy reads . " They are not novels, not plays, not journalism. They are to be evaluated by different canons . They are ethnography, and made from fieldnotes . ,
R E FEREN C E S
Adam s, R ichard N . , and J. Preiss, eds . , I 9()o. Hl4nuln Organization Researcl1 . Homewood, Ill. : Do rsey. Ag ar, Michael H. 1 9 80 . The ProjessiotUll Stranger: An It�(onnal ltatroduction to Eth nography. Ne\v York: Academic Press . --. 1 986a. Independen ts Declared: The Dilemmas of Independent Truck ing . Wa s h
in gton, D . C. : Sm ithsonian Institution Press.
. 1 986b . Speak ing oj Ethnograph y. Bev erl y Hills , Calif. : Sage. Barle y, N ig el . 1 983 . 4dventu res in a �\fud Hu t: An l11nocent �4nthropolog ist 4 brood. Ne\V York: Vanguard Pres s . Barth , Fredrik . 1 966 . Preface. In Robert H . Pehrson9 Tilt Social Organization ofthe
--
..
..
J\ia"i Baluch , ed. and comp. Fredrik B a rth , vii-xii . V iking Fund Publications in
Anthrop ology 43 · Ne\\" York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research . Beattie, John. 1 965 . l.]ndrrstanding an Africatl Kingdom : Bufi}'Oro. Ne\\. York : Holt ,
Rinehart & Winston . Becker, H ow a r d 1 986a. Hlriting for Socia l Scienh'sts . Chicago: U n iv e rs i ty of Chi .
cago Press . --
. 1 9 8 6b. Telling about So ciet y In Doing Things Together: Selected Papers , .
121-
3 5 · Evanston, lll . : NorthVw"CStern University Press .
Becker, Ho\\·ard, and Blanc he Geer. 1 960. Pa rticipant Observation: The Analysis of Qualitative Field D ata. In Acb ms and Preiss 1960, 267- 89 . Berreman, Gerald D . 1968. Ethnography: Method and Product. In Introduction to Cu ltural At�thropology : Essays in the Scope and lvfethods of ih e Scirnce of �\tfa n , ed.
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f R O M f i E L D N O TE S TO E T H N O G R A PHY Brim, Joh n A. , and David H. Spain . 1 9 7 4. Research Design in Anthropolog)': Parad(f!ms and Pragma tics in the Ttstin� o.fHypothest5 . Nev-' York: Holt. R ine har t &
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th ropology Today 4
(s):
..
8- 1 2 ; 4 ( 6) : 1 4- 1 7 .
Carr, E d ward Hallett. 1 96 1 . ��'hut Is Hi5tOY)'? Nev-." York : \' intage Books. Ca \� s Peter. 1 969. The St ru cture of Di sc overy. Science 1 66: "
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3 75-80.
Clifford, James. 1 9 8 3 . On E th no gra p h i c Au tho ri t y Represtttlilti(tf!S 1 .
--
1 1 8-46.
(2) :
. 1 986a. In troduction: Partial Truth s. In Cl ifford an d Marcus 1 986, 1 -26.
. 1 986b . On Ethnographic A ll eg o ry In Cl iffo rd and Marcus 1 986 , 98- 1 2 1 .
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--. 1 988 . The Predicament o�f Cr41ture: Twentieth -Century Ethnography, Litaatu rr .. and A rt. Ca mbridge Mass. : Harvard U niv e rsity Pr es s ..
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Cl ifford, Ja mes, and Geo r ge E. M a rcus , eds . 1 9 8 6 . K'riting Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethn ography. B erk ele y : Uni versity of California P r e s s .
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Index Comp iled b y A1aria Afatteo
Aberle, David , 240-4 1 , 246, 2 5 1 Ada braka, xiv,
xv,
xvii, 1 3 4 , 3 2 5
Adarr, John, r o6, 3 2 5 43 , 1 9 8 , 276, 3 27 99 ,
l l� I I ,
M i chael, xiii,
220, 249, 3 87
Azande, 23 3
1 2 8-29, 1 3 9, 1 40n ,
1 4 2 -47, 1 49- 5 1 , 1 5 3 - 5 6 , 1 5 9, 3 89
A g a r.
Asad , Tala!, s 8
Australian N ational Research Council,
advisors, 2 4 , 27, 2 8-29, 1 3 �40, 1 42 -
Afikpo,
art , in ethnography, 2 3 9, 275 , 4 1 1 - 1 2
r
I s . 23 7, 244- 46,
Baffin Island, 1 93 - 9 5
Baird , Spencer F. , 1 8 9-9 I
247n , 2 5 1 , 27 1 , 3 9 1 - 93 , 3 97-9 8 ,
Bali, 224n- 2 2 5n, 249, 3 29 , 3 8 0, 407
402 , 404, 4 I Q- I I
" B aloma; The
Spirits of the
Dead, " 208 ,
2 1 4, 3 8 7
Agee, James, 3 79 Aiyappan, A . . 40
Ba r le y. Nigel, 3 5 , 400, 400n
Albert, E t h el, 3 9
B arth, Frcdrik, xiii , 276-77, 3 I on , 3 1 4,
Alitoa, 2 2 2-2 5 , 24 5 , 3 96-97
3 3 5 - 3 7, 392
Amazon ]ournty, 2 5 4
Barthes , Roland , 5 9
American M useum of Nat ural Hi story,
.Bass o, Keith, 3 3 6 Bateson, Gre g ory, 63 . 97, 2 1 8 , 2 2 0 n,
222, 2 4 8 -49
2 24 , 226, 2 3 2, 2 3 8 , 3 29, ] 80 � 40 7
animism, 2 1 9
Apache, 3 2 8 , 3 3 6
Beals , R al p h , 3 27
Appadu rai, Arjun , 6 5 -66 , 86, 89
Beardsley, Richard K. , 3 5 8
A rapes h � 222-24
Beattie, John,
archives, XVi , 6,
T O,
1 7, 5 5n, 72 , 8 5 , 9 5 ,
1 5 2- .5 3 , 303 n , 3 3 6
A rensber g , C on r ad M . , 230
I I J,
22.7-28, 23 3 -3 4,
] 8 8-89 Becker, H o\va rd, 249n , 3 90, 404, 4 r o1
I
A rgonauts of the "'e.;tern PtJcific, 22, 20 8 �
behavioral science , 1 0.3 , 1 1 0, 1 62-6 3 ,
2 1 0, 2 1 ] , 2 T 6- I 7, 2 3 0, 3 0 5 A rmstrong, W. E . , 3 0911
Bella Coola, 1 9 5 , 1 97-98
1 69, 2.3 9
42 0
I N DEX Bclo , Jane, 3 29
Children of Six Cultu res,
Bcmba, 23 3 Benedict� Ruth, 1 1 1 - 1 2, 2 1 5 - 1 8� 222,
China, People's Republic of, 3 so- s 3
230, 2 4 9 � 3 2 7 - 2 8 � 3 64 � 3 83
332
Chinese Laundryman, 40 8 , 4 I 3 Chinese l,�illaRe, 93-94
Benne t t , John , 226
Cli fford. James, xi -xii i , 47-70. 7 1 , 74 , 8 6n, 8 7, 94--97, 9 5n, I 03 , 1 40n ,
Bennett, W. Lance, 1 4 5 Berrcman, Gerald, 242-43 , 3 8 5 , 3 93-94
1 8 7, 287� J l l , 3 27, 3 8 5 . 403 -4 .
Best, Elsdon , 3 8
405n, 409
Codere. Helen, 1 0 1 , 104- 5 , 1 07, 1 9 5 ,
B ish op Museu m , 24 8 , 2 50
200-20 I
Bloch, Marc, 3 98n
Boas , Franz, 9, 1 7 , J I , 4o- 4 r , 5 I , S 7 � 5 8n� 66, 1 03 , 1 04- 5 , 1 07 � I 1 2, I 1 4. I 5 4� 1 8 8 , 1 93 - 20 ] , 2 1 ) - 1 6, 2 1 8 - 1 9, ..
cogn i ti ve anthropology,
Cohen. Ronald. 1 68 , 24 I -42 , 2 5 2- 5 3 , 393
2 2 5 , 227-28 , 2 J O , 247- 4 9 , 3 3 6 , 3 7 4 .
Cole, Dou glas , 1 94
3 8 3 , 40 1 , 407, 409- 1 0
Collier, Jane F. , 2 5 3
Collingv.rood� R. G. , 277- 78
dia ries , 3 1 , r 8 8 , 1 93 , 1 9 5
Boas, Marie (K rackowizer), 1 93
Colonial Social Science Research Coun
cil,
Bohannan , Laura, 5 1 , 1 1 0 Bohannan, Paul, 3 3 2 Boissevain , Jeremy. 1 0 1 , 1 08 ,
236
I T ] , 2 5 0- 5 1 , 3 3 3 n
Colson, Elizabeth, 2 8 3 , 3 2 8 3 9f)- 9 7 ,
I I
3, 1 8 7
Bond, George, x v, 92, 94 � 2 7 3 - R 9 , 3 2 4 , ] 26 , 403 -4 40 7 ,
Colu mbia University, xiv-xv, 9 3 , 1 98 , 2 1 7, 227, 2 3 0 , 249, 3 27
Comaroff, Jean , 3 27
Bow Society, 3 26
Co marotT, John L. , 3 27 Coming of A.ge in Samoa, 2 1 7- 1 8 Comitas, Lambros, xiv, xv, 2 8 6n, 409
Briggs, Jean, 6 3 , 3 2 5 Brim, John A . , 24 1
Condominas, Georges. 3 8 , 40 1
B radbury. R. E . , 1.4-6- 47 Briggs, Charles, 1 04, 247, 40 5
conte xt:
British Social An thropology, 1 5 4, 207, 2 1 5 , 22 6 -29, 2 3 2-3 5 , 2 49 . 3 0 5 , 4 I O , 412
of discoverv. 3 76, 3 90
of presentation , Coral Gardens and
Buck , Sir Peter, 40
3 76, 3 7 8 , 3 90
Thtir .�fagic , 208 ,
2 1 o.
2 1 ] , 2 1 7 , 3 0 5 , 3 90, 4 1 3
Bureau of A merican Ethnology (BAE), 1 8 9-90 , 1 9 2 , 1 94 . 24 8 , 2 5 1 , 3 86
Bureau of Indian A ffairs, 240
Co rnell University. 3 3 1 , 346, 3 5 8 . 3 60 counting , 1 76, 1 79-80 Craft of Social i'lnth ropolo,�)l, xiv, 2 3 5
Burke, Kenneth, 56
Crapanzano, Vin cent, 2 3 7 Crick, M alcolm, 408 , 4 1 0
Caduvco , 3 9
cultural ecology, 2 3 6
Cambridge School, 3 6, 203 . J 08- I o, 3 3 4 Caplan, Pat, 2 5 4, 408
Cushing , Frank Hamilton, 1 1 3 , 1 8 8 ,
cards , in fieldwork. 1 2, 2 5 . 29, 99�
ror-
1 89-9 3 , 2 1 0, 2 26n , 3 2 5 - 26 , 3 3 6 , 410
Cushman. Dick , xiii, 3 29fl , 3 8 6
2 , 1 3 0, 3 44
Carmelo� 407 Carnegie foundation , 2 50
Dalby, Liza, 3 8 1
Carnegie Institution , 229, 249
Davis, Allison, 40
Carr, Edward Hallet, 3 98n
Dav�. John , 9 5 n, 403
Casagrande, Jo sep h B. , 2 2 8 Central
Eskimo,
1 94
Chanda, 2 80 Chapple, Eliot, 2 3 0
charts, 7,
2I4
Davis , Miles. 41
I
Dtlwn in Arctii 4 laska, 1 ()()- I O ..
Deacon , A . Bern ard, 54. J 08 - J 1 . 3 I 6I 7. 3 3 4, 3 3 7 Defcrt, Daniel. .5 5 n
Index
42 1
Dcgerando, Joseph-Marie, I 88 de Ia Fuente, J u lio, 40
experimen tal , 22 3 , 23 6-3 7 , 2 54, 3 2 9n return to. in the 1 9 80s, 2 5 2-5 5
de La guna, Frederica, 2 1 7
writing o f, xi, xiii, 36- 3 7, 8 3 -87,
Deloria, Ella, 40 den Hollander, A. N .
J. ,
2 3 8 . ] 08 , 3 1 8-22 , 3 7(� 7 8 . 3 8940 3
92
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. , 3 9 , 5 5 n, 226-
Dentan, Robert, 36. 1 02
27, 2 ] 2- 3 4, 2 3 8-] 9, 2 7 7 . 3 28 , 3 4 1 '
description, 50- 5 3 . 5 8 , 6o, 66-68, 74, 84, 8 sn . 97, 202, 2 1 2, 228 , 3 1 1
3 98n, 40 5 n, 4 1 0, 4 1 2
experimental model, 2 2 5 , 23 9 , 2 5 1 , 3 5 0,
Dia mond , Stanley, 36 diaries, 6- 7 , I 1 . 3 0-3 1 , 5 2 , 7 5 , 7 7, 9 5 , 1 08- I I , 1 44, 1 8 8 , 1 93 , 208- 1 0 , 27 5 ,
3 9 3 -95
extended case method , xvii, 23 s . 2798 o, 402, 404, 407
308, 34 5-46, 3 6 8 n
discourse, 274-75 , 2 8 1 , 28 4- 8 5 , 2 8 ;- 8 8 ,
Fabian, Johannes, 5 6- 5 7
40 5
Doc r:w. Whyte's informant) , 244-45
Father in Primitive Psycholvgy� 2 1 6
documenta ries, 3 72 , 3 74- 76 , 3 79- 8 3 Dorsey, George A . , 1 8 8
Fauset. Arthur Huff, 40
Drake, S t . Claire, 40
Fei, Hsiao-tung, 40
Du Bois. Cora, 3 27
Feld. Steven, 23 7 Feldman , Martha S . 1 45
Dumont, Jean-Paul, 1 40n
feminism , 3 47 - 5 1
Du rkeim , Emile, 2 7 8 Durmugam , 3 26
Ferguson, John P. , 3 6 8n Fernandez, James W. , 2 74-7 5
Dwyer, Kevin , 2 3 7
Few kcs, Jesse Walter, 1 92
.
fiel d, the, 1 7- 1 8, 3 3
..
94-9 5 , 2 47 , 3 1 3
Eas t A frican Institute of Social Rese arch.
..
5 5 . 6 4 - 66, 8 8 - 89� 3 54, 3 79-84, 400n ,
408 , 4 1 2
T 1 3 , 295 , 3 28 , 3 3 3 n , 3 8 8
Edgerton , Robert, 24 1 -42
fieldnotcs : access to, xii, 8 , 1 5 3 , 290-9 1 , 294-97 ,
Elkin , A. P. , 3 08
E11en, R. F . . 9 5 n , 2 3 5 , 3 8 5 El mdon , 3 3 3 - 3 4
J 00- 3 0 1 , J 04 , 3 1 7
-
1 8,
3 27, 3 3 6 .
3 5 2- 5 3 , 3 6 8 n
"apt illustration. " 28 7 , 403 - 4
El win , Verrier, 3 8 9
as
Ember, Carol, I 6 8
b urning , 1 3 , 2 8 , 30 , 3 2 5 , 3 5 4 , 3 7 1 and computers, 3 8 , 1 1 5 , 1 3 5 . 1 66 ,
Ember. Melvin, 1 6 8
Embree, Ella Lury. See Wisv.rell, Ell a E mbree. John F. , 99, 1 0 1 , 1 0 7, 2 3 0, 3 5 6n. 3 5 7-6 1 , 3 64-66, 3 6 8- 69
1 77 - 7 9, 3 89
and con fidentiality, 9 - 1 o VS .
data, 7,
2 0,
2 1 , 1 <>0- J O T
Emeneau, M urray, 1 0 5
and death , 1 0, 3 8 . 1 42, 3 08- 1 0 , 3 5 6
Epstein, A. L. , xiv, xv, 23 5 , 2.8o Eskimo, 63 , I 06� 1 09 - 1 0 1 9 3 - 9 5 , 3 2 5 .
definition of. 6- 8, 5 2 deposition of, 1 8 , 3 1 , 1 �-4 3 , 3 2 8 ,
,
3 3 6, 3 5 3 - 5 4
3 87
descriptions of, xvii, 73 -82� 9 9 - 1 02,
Ethnograph , 1 77
22 9 ,
ethnographer's path. 3 98-400
1 49 , I 6 ) , 2 1 2 , 2 2 3 -24,
ethnographic authority, 5 8 , 405 -9
30 5 , 3 09, 3 1 1 , 3 44-4 5 , 3 5 9 . 3 6 1 -
dialogic, 40 5-6
2 3 2,
64
e""-perien tial , 405
destru ction of, I 9 1
interpretive, 405
dictating,
pol yphonic, 5 7 , 40 5 - 7 . 409
as documents, xii, 1 4- 1 s . 279, 28 5 .
Ethnograph ic Re5earch : A Guide Conduct, 23 5
Ethnography :
10
General
I I 4,
3 30
3 5 1 , 3 54, 400-40 1
and emotion, 1 0- 1 4, 2 7-29, 3 4 . 1 40, 3 99
I N D EX
422
fieldnotes (cont. ) in ethnographic
Fortes, Me yer, 1 54,
\\'ritin g . 8 6-S7 , t 1 5 , 23 7-3 H, 3 3 6, 3 66-6 7 . 3 74 , 378,
Fortune.
40 1 -4
Foster� George M
p l es ot�
1 23 -3 5
t oo ,
1 78 , 240,
,
Fran k, Gclya, 1 o6, 3 1 8
Freeman , James,
1 06
Fr ei lic h Morris., 96
los s
,
2 09- 1 0 , 2 1 3 - 1 4 , 2 2 4 ,
23 1 . 2 3 4 , J o6, 3 87
1 64-6 5 , 1 6 7 , 1 09-70 ,
Freud, Sigm und, 2 1 9
Friedrich, Paul. xi i i, 2 3 7 , 3 8 9
p ro pe r , 74, 77 , 8o, 84-8 5 , 9 5 , 99- 1 0 1 , 1 0 2 - J , 1 46-48, 1 50. T S 7 . 1 62, I
2 1 1 - 1 3 , 2 1 8- 1 9, 224,
functionalism.,
226, 2 3 1 , 278 - 79, 3 0 6 , 3 0 8 n , 3 90
72-7 3 .
1 79, 1 9 1 , 2 I 3 , 22Q-2 I , 230, 2J 2 ,
Gamio, Manuel, 40
236, 2 J K , 24 1 -42 , 2 5 0, 2 5 2. 3 2 7,
Gar dine r
3 4 5 - 4 7 , 3 00 , 3 g6, 3 9 7-9R re ad i n g of, 1 3 - 1 4 , 20 , 2 7 , 3 1 , 7 2 - 7 3 , 79-85, 90, 94, 1 1 2 , 2 7 5 , 308- 1 3 , 3 1 5 - 1 8 , 3 2 4 , 3 27-28, J J I , 3 3 5 , 344, 362-63 , 3 66-6 8, 3 7 7 - X M
sharin g, 3 2 7 -29, 3 3 1 . 3 5 0 , 3 5 6-70 as s o urc e of authority, 279, 2 8 3 1 5 - 26
as text , 5 5 n , 90 , 1 5 5 - s6, 2 7 3-88 , 3 1 7 , 343 -44· 3 5 3-5� 3 5 7
and th eory. 8 types of. 74 1 49- 50,
2 I J , 22 1 , 229 , 300 , 3 3 4-3 6 , ] 60 , 3 8 5 -409
,
60-- 64 , 67- 6 8 , Ro, 9 5 , 1 1 0, 2 ] I ,
2 3 6, 28 2 , 3 28 1 s s . 403 , 407 ,
Hildrcd , 2 3 1 , 3 2 8, 3 99 genealogical meth od. 204 - 7 , 2 3 3 , 2 3 5 genea l o g y 20, 5 7 , 1 0 1 , 220. 23 5 , 2 8 4 .
Geertz ,
.
Ghana, xiv, 1 34, 3 2 5 Gibran, K ah li l 4 1 ,
Gil lin. John.
328
3 99, 403 -4, 40C)- r o C'rt1lde,
Peggy,
checklist , 1 7 4, 1 Xo- 84, 3 1 8 -22
personal accounts of. 7 1 -72, 1 0 8 - 1 1 , 8 8 , 1 93 -94, 227, 2 3 5 - 3 6, 2 3 7,
242 , 3 2 5 , 396. 400 training, 2 2 7 , 3 3 3 3 4 1 , 3 72 - 7 5 , 3 7 8 , 3 J; 4
filework, film. 202 Firth, Sir Ra y mo n d I O<J� 2 1 7- 1 8 . 220n, 2J 2 - J 4 , 2 4 9. 2 ) 1 , 396 Firth , Rosemary. 1 o8 , 1 1 1 , 3 1 � F i s cher, f\.1ichael , xiii , 2 3 6-3 7� 2 5 2 For ce , Roland. 2 3 1 ,
2 4 0,
Fo rge, A nthon y, 1 09
2 50
E arle ,
38
1 09
Goldschmidt, Wa1 ter, 2 3 9 , 25 5 (; o od \\ i n Grenville, 3 2 8 , 3 3 4, 3 3 6 (;ood\\'in, Janice, 3 3 6 Goody, Jac k , 1 , 1 o6 ug rain of the field, '' 1 7J , 2 3 4, 3 96 "
fieldwork :
Ford Foundation,
Geertz, Cl i ffo rd xii i , xviii, 5 2 - 5 3 , S 7 ,
CTOddard, Pliny
ethnography from,
Forest Ptcple , 63
,
2490 , 404
Blanche,
Gluck m an , Max, 3 8n , 23 2, 2 3 5 , 2 5 1 ,
and training, H , 24- 2 5 , 3 2- 3 3 , 3 04
I
M ar g a ret 309n , 3 1 0
,
c;eer,
3 04 , 3 090 , 3 1 1 , 3 1 3 , 3 2 6 , 3 3 3 , J S T
subpoenaed , 2o, 3 2 7
\\rritin g
20 8
Freeman, Derek , 3 94
history of, 1 8 7-2 70
as symbol,
x iii, 4 5 , 2 3 2 , 28 1 ,
. ..
Frazer. Ja mes , 1 8 8,
2�h ' 332
and fu n ding , 24 8 - S 1
of, 1 3 , 90 organization of:
3 R , 1 0 5 , 2 1 9 , 22 1 -24,
Reo,
249, 3 2 9, 3 89 3 27 , ] 87
evidence, 400-404 e x am
2 1 1 . 23 2 , 234
,
(;re\�·. Ra.,·mond,
3 57
(;roncwold, Sylvia, 1 92 (;row in.� (]p in J\'ew Guinea,
217
(;ujarat, 3 26
c;ulick� Joh n 9 7 �
Gutkind,
Gv-·cntbc H addon,
Pete r C. Vl. , xiv, xviii Tong a, 3 2 �
Alfred Cort,
30K, J I O- T
Hallov.tell, A. I
Handbook
. •
40
of i\.1etht'' d
polog y, 24 1
1 8 R, 203 , 20 8-9,
I
; ,. C..'ultura l 4 �1thre1 ..
In dex
42 3
Harris, Marvin, xiv,
x v,
409
interpretation,
I OO .
1 5 7- 5 8, 1 64, 1 68,
Hart, C . W. M . , 22on, 2 3 2-3 3
23 ) , 23 7- 3 8 , 242-4 3 , 25 3 , 2 5 5 ,
Ha rvard University, 228 , 249- 50, 3 29,
2 74-75 , 278, 283 - 84 . 28 6 -8 7, 3 43 , 394, 400, 4 1 0
3 3 2.
headn otes, 5 , 73 , 92-95 , l l o- I I , 1 4450, 1 5 2- 57, 1 ) 9 , 226, 2 3 8-39, 2 77. 3 1 0, 3 3 2. . 3 3 4-3 5, 3 3 i , 3 86, 3 9 3 n ,
intcrtextuality, 5 5 , 7 5 -76, I TO interviews, 80- 8 2 , 99, 1 0 1 , 1 04,
I
1 5,
204, 20 5, 2 1 0, 2 1 2, 2 2 1 , 229-3 1 , 240 , 24 3 -47 . 3 3 2- 3 3 . 3 44 . 3 46, 3 5 1 , 3 76-77. 3 9 1 404-6
40 1 Heath, D w ight, 39 8-99
,
Hemenway, Mary, 1 92 Henry, Jules , 3 28
Herskovits, Frances,
1 3 9, T4 1 , 1 5 0
Herskovits, Melville, 1 3 9-4 1 , 1 5o- 5 1 ,
Jackson , Jean , 3 - 3 3 , 3 4 , 3 6 , 5 2, 5 3 n , 6on , 67, 90 , 92, 94--96. 1 00- 1 0 1 , 107,
3 2 7, 347D
I 30,
Jacobs, Melville, 2 00, 202
1 54
Herzfeld, Regina Flannery� 3 2 8
Javanese Fa mily,
Hill , Jacquetta, 3 7 r n, 3 82
Jenness, Diamond, 1 06, 1 09 , 1 1 0
3 99
history, xii, 1 4- 1 5 , 72 , 1 5 2 , T ) 4 . 2 777 8 . 3 3 6, 347, 3 5 4 History of Atfe/a,Jesian Society, 207, 209
johnson, Allen, xv, 3 8 , 99- 1 0 1 , 1 0 3 . 1 6 1 - 8 6 , 239, 24 1 -4 2 , 2 ) 1 , 2 5 3 - 5 4 .
Hi tchcock, John, 1 0 3 Hodge, Frederick Webb , 1 92
410 John son, Orna
Hoernlc, Winifred, 3 5 hol ism, r 66-70 , 1 73 - 74 . 1 80, 2 1 5 , 226-
R . , 3 8, 99- 1 0 1 , 103 , 1 6 1 -86, 2 3 9, 24 1 - 4 2 , 25 1 , 286n ,
3 8 5-86, 3 M9, 3 94 , 3 97 ,
404
Jones, William. 40
27, 23 1 , 23 3 , 2 50, 286
Holy, Ladislav, 23 5 , 400 Honig mann, John J. , 1 02-3 , T o 8 , 3 87, 3 90-9 1 , 394 , 3 9 8 n , 40 3
Houst o_( Lim ,
286n, 3 8 ; -86, 3 89, 394, 397, 404,
1 03 , 3 47-48, 3 5 2
jo u rnal , 7, 3 5 , 52, 6 5 , 74-78, 8 2 , 95 , 1 08 - 1 1 , 1 93 , 1 95-96, 22 5 , 2 34 , 2 7 5 , 3 04, 3 1 1 , 3 1 3 , 3 3 5 , 3 4 5-47
Jules-Rosette, Bennetta,
I
58
Howard, Jane, 1 1 2 , 2 1 7 , 3 80 Hughes, Everett C . , 2 49 n humanism, 3 3 . 1 00, 1 5 5- 5 6, ! 6 1 -62 , 1 64-65 , 1 67- 6 8 , 1 70- 7 1 1 79 , 2 3 7t
3 8 , 242-4 3 . 393 -94, 409- 1 0
Human Rela tions Area Files (HRAF), 45, 2 3 2 , 33
I,
3 8 7- 8 8
Kaberry, Phyllis, 308n Kai , Miwa, 3 59 Kampala, 29 1 -9 5 , 3 26 Keesing, Roger, 1 68 , 3 1 0
Keiser, R . Lincoln,
I I4
Kenyatu, Jomo, 40
Hunt, George, 40 , 5 1 , I 04, 1 07 I 9 5 , ,
1 98 -203 , 40 1 , 407
Khoi-khoi, 3 5
Kimball, Solon, 99, 1 02.,
H un ting ton , Gertrud e Enders , 1 1 4
Kinship at
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 3 73
Kinsh ip in
I I I,
1 1 3 , 327
rhe Core, 3 3 3 - 34 tl1e Admiralty Island.s, 2 1 7
Kluckhohn, Clyde, 1 54, 2 2 5 , 229, 23 2, latmul, 97 I M ade Kaler, 3 29 - 30, 40 7-8
lndtpendtnts Declartd, 402
indexing, 79, M 3 - 8 5 , 1 28-29, 1 50, 1 66 , 1 77-79 . 3 3 1 , ] 86-89, 40 1 , 404
informa nts, writing by, 9 5 , 1 0 1 , 1 07-8
244, 328, 3 3 0-3 I , 3 87, 40 1 Knight, Rolf, 1 95-98 K racke, Waud, 23 7 Kristeva, Julia, 5 sn
Kroeber, Alfred, 29, 1 5 4,
I 88,
2 1 5 , 227
Kuhn, Thomas, 2 3 8 , 4 1 0
in s cription, 48, so, 5 3 - 5 8 . 63 -64, 66-
Kuper, H ilda 2 3 2
68 , 96. 1 04, 22.8 International African Insti tute, 3 5 , 2 3 2 , 249
Kwakiutl, 1 7, 40-4 1 , 1 04- 5 . 1 95 - 200. 20 3 40 1 Winter Ceremonia l, 1 99, 20 1 - 3
,
.
INDEX Ku}akiutl Eth nographJ',
1 9 5 , 1 98 , 200-202
La bo ra to r y of Anthropology at
Santa
Ma ke rcre University, 29 5 . J O I M alek ul a, 4 7-48 , 5 4, 3 0 8- r o A1aleku la: A Vani5h rng Proplt in
Hebrides,
Landtman, Gunnar, 36 Langness ,
L.
47- 4 8 . 5 T , 5 4 , 5 6 , 309n, 3 1 7, 3 3 4, 3 36 - 3 7
La,-.,· rence, .. Leach,
Sir
xiii,
Pe ter, 3 03n
)0-52, 67, 99. 1 09 , I T T - 1 .2., 1 � 7 8 8 , 203 , 207- 1 9 , 224-26, 2] 0- 3 5 . 2J 8 , 24 3 -44, 247, 249- 5 1 , 2 5 3 . J OJ n, 3 04 -6, 3 0 8 , 3 T O- I I , J I 8 , 3 27,
Edmund, 3 7, 90, 21
I,
2. 3 2,
2j i , 3 J J , 3 90
3 29, 3 36 , 3 87-9 1 , 3 9J D, 3 9 7 , 40910
Lederm an , Ren� 7 1 -9 1 . 94-96, 99, 1 02, I
th e �TtU'
309, 3 34
Malinov-rski, Bronisla\\-·, 1 s , 22. 3 0, 47,
309D
L. , I o6, 24 1 -42
Larcom, Joan ,
Mailu, 20 8-9, 2 1 3 Mair, Lucy, 23 2
Majumdar, D . N . , 40
Fe, 2 4 8 , 3 28, 3 3 1 Lageman, Ellen , 287 L ako t a, 59 Lamphere, Lo ui se, 3 3 1 , 3 3 6 , 3 4� ungham , fan,
McLuhan , Marshall, 3 79
diaries of, 30- J 1 , 5 5 , 1 09,
T O, 1 I 3 - 1 4, I 3 1 - 3 3 , 3 3 7, 3 8 5 - 86 ,
1 X X , 208-
II Malinov-."ski. Elsie (Masson), 208, 3 89
390, 403
Manam lsland, 94, T T I , 1 24, 3 0 3 - 5 ,
2 3 6n
Lee, R ichard ,
3 07-8, 3 1 I , 3 I 3 - I 8
Leighton, Alexander, 229 Leig hton , Dorothea, 229,
A-fan and Culture,
33I
Ltss
Than Angels, 3 4 , 3 7 1 letters, field, 5 2, 95 , 1 0 1 ,
21 1
M anchester U n i v c r s i t v. T I I - I 2, 1 5 3 .
x v,
227, 2 3 5,
2 5 1 , 2 79-80
1 8 8, 1 9 J , 1 9 5-97, 3 04, ]o6. 3 08,
Mandelbaum. David G . , 1 05-6
309n, 3 1� 1 I , 3 1 3 , 3 27, 3 3 5
Manus, 9 3 , 1 05 , 2 1 7. 2 I 9 , 22 5 , 2 4 8, 25 1 , 326, 3 2 9- 30. 3 8 0
Levine, Harold, 1 77
Levi-Strauss ,
Claude , xiv, I 6n, 3 9 , 1 1 0,
Maori, 3 8 Marcus, George E. , xiii, 23 6- 3 7 , 2 5 2,
3 3 5 n, 400n
Levy, Robert, 2 3 7
3 29n
Levy-Bruhl, Luci en , 2 I 9
Marri Baluch, xiii, 2 76 , ] t On , 3 1 4, 3 3 5 .
Lc\vis, I. M . , 1 1 3 Lc\-..·is, Oscar, 1 80 ,
Marshall , c;Joria.
3 92 23 1 - 3 2 , 2 3 9. 3 3 0,
393 -94
life histories ,
See Sudarkasa, Niara
Marxism, structural , 2 3 5 - 3 6 1 0 1 , I 06, T 6 ) , 2 30, 247,
3 3 2 , 376-77
Mathe\\o·s, Washington, 1 92 Mau d, Ralph, 5 Hn
Life in a l\1exican Village ,
Maxwell , R o b e r t , I O I
330
Lim family. 34 5 - 4 7
Maybury-Lev-·is, David, 3 5 , 23 4
Lindenbaum. Shirley, xi
Ma ybury-Lev-.ris,
Linton , Ralph, 9 3 n , 2 1 2
Mayer, A. C. , 94
London School of Economics I I 3 , I 87,
(LSE), 40 ,
208, 2 I 7, 2 J 2, 2 5 I , 3 I 8
Long Engagemmt.s, "loose thinking, "
Lo\vie, Robert,
Margaret,
xviii, 34n, 3 8 , 4 1 , (,3 ,
9 3 , 9 7-98 , 1 00 , 1 05 , l OR , 1 1 2- 1 4, T 8 X , 2 1 5-26, 2 29-3 1 , 24 3 -4 5 , 247-
402 2 3 8 , 3 94-9 5 ,
5 7 , 66 ,
Mead,
Pia, 3 5
I
49, 2 5 1 , 3 04n, 3 24. 3 26-2� 3 29-
409
88, 2 T ) , 228
Lugb ara, 397n Lutkehaus. Nancy, 94, 99,
1
T I,
.2. 20
J OJ -24 , 3 2 7 , 3 3 4 , 3 3 6
McDov,rell, Nancy, xviii M achi guenga, 1 70, 1 72. I 77, 1 79
n,
3 0, 3 ] 6. 3 64, 3 74, ] 80 , 3 84, 3 89, 3 94 . 3 96-97. 407, 4�)- 1 0 memory, xii , 7 , 1 0- 1 4, 2 0 , 3 1 , 3 6 , 5 1 ,
5 3 n, 6 8 , 7 3 , 7 9 , 9 3 - 94, 9 7 , I 44 · 1 5 4, 1 9 1 -9 2 , .2. I O, 2 7 3 -7 5 , 2 7 8 , 2 � 3 -
286, J 8 8
�1endelson,
E . M i chael, 3 6&n
Index Mendi,
74 - 79
,
S I -8 4, 8 6 -8 7, I I 3 . 1 3 1 -
Mershon, K atha rane, 3 29
I93,
200, 2 T 8 , 2 20 , 27 5 , 2 7 7 ,
40 1
Messenger, John, I 3 90 Mcwun, 5 4
Mey�
1 87,
3 03 n , 3 0 5 , 3 1 1 � 3 26 , 3 44 , 3 8 6- R7,
33
Notes and Queries
on
.4 nrhropolog)', 5 1 �
1 73 - 74 , 2 06, 209, 2 3 4 , 2 7 8, 3 I l ,
280
3 88
Nuer, 3 9, 2 3 3 , 2 7 7 , 3 2 8
microfi l m , 229 Middl eton, Joh n, 2 3 3 - 3 4 , 244-4 5 , 2 5 I .
Obbo, Christine, 3 9 , 290- 3 0 2 , 3 24, 3 2h�
3 97
Mills, C. Wright, 3 74, 3 7 6
3 28
Minocha, Aneeta, 9 7
()beyesekere, G ananath , 78n, 2 3 7
Mintz, Sidney, 1 06-7
()gbum , William F. ,
Mis sissippi, 399
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko . xiii, 54
Mitchell, Wi11ia m, 229
TI2
Oliver, Dougla s, 2 50
Miyamo to, S . F rank, 40
Omaha, 2 2 1 - 2 2 . 244, 3 24 � 3 2 9
Mn ong G ar. 3 S , 40 1
Opler, Morris, 3 28 Ortner, Sherry, 2 3 6-3 7, 2 5 2 . 2 5 4 - 5 5 ,
Modjokuto , 23 1 , 2 50, 3 29 Mooney, James, 1 88 , 1 92 3 86
40 ,5-6
�
Mo rgan, Lewis Henry, I 88
Osgood . Cornelius , 22 8, 2 4 7 , 3 2 6
�o rocco , 67, 2 3 7 , 24i A-fountain
A. rap esh
,
2 2 2-24, 2 29 .JO T , 4 1 3 •
multivocality, 286, 3 66
Mundugumor,
Ottcn berg, Phoebe, 1 4 1 , 1 45 - 47, 1 49 Otten berg, Simon, xv, 5, 4 1 , 5 3 n , 9 3 . 9 5-99 , J O i n , I T O- I I . 1 2 8 -29, I 3 9 -
6o , ' 7i, 3 2 7 , 3 3 7 . 3 86, 3 89� 4 1 3
223
1.\1untu, 3 9 , 40i
Outline '!_{ Cultr1ral A1aterials , 1 03 , r o 8 ,
Murdock George Peter, 1 0 3 , 108 , 2 3 9 , 3 8 7, 4 1 0
2 3 9, 3 8 7
Ova, Ahuia, 209, 407
Murphy, Robert, 3 3 5 JYy .4dventr4r�s in Zuni, 1 1 3 � 1 8 9 , 1 9 1
Pandey, Triloki N ath, xiii , 1 1 1 n � I 9 I ,
Nadel, S . F. , 1 0� , 2 3 2, 244 Nader, Laura, I 1 4
papers, ,�·ritten in field, 8 3 - X4, 9 5 , 1 1 3 1 4, I 4 6
1\:ambik\\l'ara, 3 9
Paredes,
Naroll , Raoul, I 6 8 , 242, 3 9 3
Park , Robert , 249n
Nash, Dennison, 242 , 398
Pa rsons, Elsie CleVw·s , 24S
N ash, J une, 237
pa rticipant-observation, 1 7, 2 5 , 5 1 , 5 3 , I O ) , 1 6 2, 1 6 ,5 . 1 69, 1 90- 9 3 , 20 1 - 3 ,
3 25
N ational In stitute of M en tal Health ,
J.
Anthony, 3 3 0
2 1 2 , 2 1 6, 22 1 , 226n, 2 2 R- 3 T , 2 3 3 �
240, 2 5 0- 5 1
N ational Research c:ouncil, 1 1 3 , 2 I H , 24�
2 3 8 , 240 , 244-4 5 . 247, 2 86 , 299, 3 1 0� 3 96
N ational Sci ence Foundation , 24 8 , 2 50
Navaho �iliuhcra.Ji,
2 2 9 , 3 28 , 3 3 I , 40 1 ,
Partridge, Willia m , 9 5 , 1 0 2 ,
I
T T3-
1 4 , 3 27
Paul, Benjamin , 2 43 , 24 5 - 4 6
41 3
N avajo, 2 29 , 240, 246, 3 30- 3 1 .'\Iaven, 226
nct\\l·ork analy sis,
x v,
xvii
Pehrson , Jean , 3 3 5 Pehrson, Robert H . , xiii, 2 i 6 , 3 1 0n , 3 1 4 , 3 3 4- ] 6 , 3 9 2
.1'Vtw l.,ives _for Old, 220
Penny CcJpita/i.sm , 40 1
No rbeck , Ed\\'ard, 96, 9 8-99, 3 5 Xn
Pelto, Gretel H . , 24 1 -42, 3 93
north'"·est
1 1,
co ast , 1 9 .5
notebooks, xi v, 6 , I I , 2 2- 2 3 , 28, 3 2 , 3 5 , 47. 64, 67 , 7R- 79, 9 5 -9 8 , 1 07, 1 4 8,
Pelto, Pcrtti, 96, 98, I I 2 , 24 1 -4 2, 3 30, 3 93 , 3 96
People o_f the
Tu,il(l?ht, I T O
I N DEX Peyote Religion among
tile NavcJhoJ
240-4 1
Phiri, 407 photograph y� 1 49 , 1 5 3 � 224n , 3 1 4 - 1 5 , 3 2 9-30, J 76
Pia get, Jean, 2 I 9 Pigs for
the Aruestors,
1 65 , 1 7 3 , 1 9Q, 2 1 9 -20, 225 , 228 , 2 3 0- 3 4 . 2 3 6 , 24 1 ' 2 ) 0- 5 2 , 3 3 2 . 3 44, 347, 3 8 6
Redfield, Robert, 40, 226, 2 3 1 , 2490, 3 94
Re..fltctions on
2 3 6n
Plath, David, 3 4, 89 � 1 1 5 , 3 6 5 , 3 7 1 - 8 4 � 3 8 6 , 390, 40 2
Fieldwork in A4orocco ,
400
relativis m, 1 56, 1 5 9, 4 1 0- 1 1
Poka11.3u, 22 r
relia bili ty. 1 6 I , 1 63 , 3 9 4-95
political econom y, 23 6-3 7
Reli�ion ofjavaJ 60-64, 67� 403
PolitiU1l
Systems of HighlcJnd Bu rma,
90
Polj tics of Kinship,
xv,
37,
3 5,
Remembered �·'illage, xiii ,
3 6, 94
reports, 76, 8 3 , 9 5 , 1 0 1 , 1 1 2- 1 3 , 1 9 1 , 40 1 - 3 , 4 1 0
1 96, 3 2 7 , 3 3 0, 3 59-60, 36 5 , 3 8 6
pol yphonic ethnography. 5 7, 86 . 406-7
research proposals, 2 3 , 29, 3 96
positi vism , 1 4 9- 5 0 , 1 5 5 - 5 9 , 2 5 3 , 3 8 3 ,
Return
to Laugh ter, 5 1 , 1 1 0 rhetoric, in ethnography, 40 3 - 4
Powdermaker. Hortense, xiii, 96, 220n,
Rhodes-Livingston Institute, 249 , 25 1 ,
3 9 8n
2] 2 , 249� J 8 7 . 3 9 5 , 399-400, 407
Po,�·ell, John Wesley. "
prac t ice�
"
I 8 9-9 1
2 1 I , .2. 3 6
P rice, Richard, 86n
problem-focused rese a rch , 2 I 8- 1 9 � 22 5 2 7� 2 ] 1 , 23 3 , 2 5 I
psychoanalysis, 406 ps y cho l o g i cal a n t hro pology,
328
Richards, A u dre y, 1 1 5 , 2 1 2- 1 5 , 2 1 8 , 23 2-3 3 , 2 5 1 , J J J - 3 4. ] 8 8 Ricoeur, Paul, 5 7, 274- 7 5 Riesman , Paul, I 5 M
Rivers� W. H . R . ,
1 8 8 , 207, 2 09- 10,
2 1 ] , 2 1 5 , 2 26 � 2J 5 , 3 1 1 , 3 3 4 . J J 6,
2 36
Pullman, Bertrand� 64-6 5 Pym, Barbara, 3 0, 3 4-3 5 , 3 7 1
. 410
o n intensive fieldwork, 2o6-7 Roberts , John M . , 40 1 Robertson , A . F. ,
I
1 2, 400
Q uai n , Buell , 1 1 1 , 3 3 4 � .. qualitative ex treme, · 242
Rockefeller Foundation , 2 3 2 , 24 8 - so�
quantification,
Roheim , Ge:z2, 22 1
1 6 2 -6 5 , 1 7 5-76, I 8o ,
3 87
2.2. 5 , 2 3 I , 2 3 3 - 3 5 . 23 7- 3 8 , 2 3 9-42,
Rohner, Ronald, 1 99
2 5 1 - ) 2 , 2 5 4, 3 9 1 , 3 95 0, 404 . 4 1 0
Rosaldo, Renato, 406
&' quantitative extreme, "
2 4 1 , 247, 3 3 3 n ,
393
SaberV\'al , Satish, 396
Quinn, N aomi.
I
IS
Sahlins, Marshall, 1 64 , 23 6
Rabino\v, Paul, 3 5 , 3 9, 72 , 23 7, 247 , 2 87. 400
RadclitTe-Brown,
A. R. ,
I 8 8 , 203 , 2 1 7,
2 1 9-20, 22 9-30 , 2 3 2 , 2 3 4, 249 . 3 8 7 , 404
Radin, Paul,
I
37
Samoa, 1 0 1 , 1 1 2- 1 3 , 2 1 6- 1 9, 22 I , 22 5 . 24 8 , 25 I
sampling, 1 62, 1 66, 1 7o- 72, 1 7 5 -76, 1 79 , 2 3 5 2 ] 9-40, 39 6-97, 3 99 ,
Sandom bu, 2 8o
Sanjek , Lani,
xv,
1 46
Sanj ck, Roger, xi-xviii , 3 4-44, 92 - I 2 L
Ramah, 3 29-3 1
1 3 4 - 3 5 , 1 8 7 - 270, 2 4 I n , 247 , 3 2 4
Rampura, 3 5 -36� 94 , 404
40, ] 8 5 -4 1 8 , 40 3 n
random-visiting method, 242, 2 54. 3 97 Rap paport, Ro y, 2 3 6n
Sapir, Ed,�·ard, 3 40 , 3 8 3
Read, Kenneth E. , 3 26
Sar Luk , 3 8 , 40 1 Schaper:�� I sa ac, 2 3 2-3 3 , 2 5 1 , 3 26-27
Rea y, Marie, 303 11 , 3 04 records, 74, 7 8 , So- 8 2 , 9 5 , r oo- I OJ ,
Schneider, David, 205
Schieffelin , Edv-,·ard. 23 7
-
Index science , 3 3 ,
42 7
1 5 6, 1 6 1 -6 s , 1 67-6 89 1 70-7 1 , 1 79, 2 3 7- 3 8 , 2 42-43 , 2 5 3 1 00 ,
5 5 , 2 78 9 3 9 1 , 3 9 3 -95 , 3 98 n , 409 I O, 4 1 2
S tanncr, W . E. H. , 25 1 , 3 26 Starr,
S teven s on , Matilda Co xe , 1 89 S tev,ra rd.
scientism, 242 scratch notes, 78-79, 95-99, 104,
I I 4,
1 48 , 1 9 1 ' 202 , 2 1 0, 220, 22 ] , 224,
Th ay er, 2 8 3 , 3 28 S eli g m an, B . Z . , 3 28 S el i g m an, C. G. , 47, 49, s r .
Stranger tJnd
s sn,
208-9,
2 1 5 , ] I I , J 28
327
xviii, 3 6, 47,
Frimd, xiii, xi\"
Marilyn, 3 3 3 -3 4, 4o6-7, 4 1 0
strict thinking, " 238, 394-9 5 , 409
structur2lism, 23 5 -3 6
Sturtevant, William, 96 S udarka sa. Ni ara (G l o ria
Sha� A . M . , 3 26
Judith, xii,
Jr. ,
Street Comn- Society, 23 0, 392, 4 I 3 "
Societies, 2 1 8
2 50
1 04- s , 1 88, 1 9 3 , 1 9 7 , 203 , 2o6, 208 , 2 10, 2 1 2 , 226, 228, 2 3 2 , 2-48- s r
Strathem,
Stx tlnd Temperament in Thret Primitive
Sha piro,
Julian,
S tocking, George W. ,
23 1 , 2 3 4- 3 5 , 3 24- 2 5 , 3 3 1
Scudder,
25 3
June,
statistical methods, 1 7 5-76
Marshall). 93
Sulli, 1 0 5 , 407
Shokeid, Moshe, J 8n, 227, 4o6-7
surveys , 203
Sho re,
Suye Mura, 92, 99, 1 07 , 1 1 3 , 1 26, 2]0, 3 5 6n 9 3 5 7, 3 59, 3 6 I -62, 364-68 Suyt ft,ft4ra: .4 Japanese Il'illage, 3 S7- s 8, 36o
B ra d d , 2 3 7
Shweder� Richard, xiii, 3 6- 3 7 , 7 3 . 1 6 1 . 165, 2 52 Silenced, 409
S \\·ord, George, 407
Silver� �akoda, 409 Silverstein, Michael9 xiii, 6 1
symbolic anthropology. 5 J , 23 5-36
situational analysis , 279- 8o, 402, 404
Tai wan, 3 44- 5 3 t a pes , a ud io, 6 , r 3 9 2 5 , 4 S , 7411 , 95 , 246 , 3 J 2 , 3 74, 3 7 7 , 3 8 2 , 405
S i u , Paul C. P. , 40, 249n, 408-9 Six Cultures Project , 250, 3 29, 3 3 2 , 344
Smith, K azuko, 36o Smith, Robert, J. . 92, 99- 1 0 1 , 1 07. 1 1 3 , 243 . 3 3 4. 3 460, 3 5 6-70, 3 7 8 , 3 86,
a pe
transcripts ,
6, 1 1 4- I 5 , 3 9 1 - 92
Tapirapc, 2 30, J 27 Taso, Don, 1 07
392, 402-J , 4 1 3 Smithsonian Institution, 2 .so
Tate, Henry. 5 8 n, 1 9 5 , 2oo-20 I
Social Organiztltion of.\lanu 'a, 2 19
Tchambuli,
Socia l Organization of the J\.farri Baluch ,
Tchen, John K uo Wei, 408-9 team projects , xiii, 23 1 , 2 50, 3 29-34,
276, 3 3 6 Social Science Research Co u ncil , 2 1 9,
3 4411
Tei t , James, 1 95
248 , 2 50 sociology, 3 , 8, I 6, 3 2, 2 39-40, 2 5 1 , 347, 3 7 5 , 3 93 , 395n, 404, 408 Spain, David
Ta x , S ol , 3 5 , 4 1 , 229, 249, 3 2 8 , 40 1 22 3
H. , 24 1
Speck , Frank, 40 speech events , 1 04- 5 , 243 -4 7 , 40 5-6
speech-in-action, 1 1 s. 2 1 o- 1 3 , 2 I 5 - 1 6, 222, 23 0, 23 3 -3 4, 243- 4 7 , 3 3 30,
39 1 ' 393n, 404- 7 Spicer, Edw ard H . , 229-30� 246, 403 - 4 Spindler, George, 102, 239 Spindler, Louise, 1 02
Tepotzlan , 23 1 , 3 30 t ext s, 5 5 , 57, S 9-6o, 66 , 95 , 1 03 - 8 , 1 1 41 5 , 1 65 , 1 94-95 , 1 97, 200-2.0 3 , 2 1 2. 2 1 5 , 22 1 -2 3 , 228-30, 23 3 , 2 3 5 , 2 4 3 , 2 7 8 , 2 8 4, 2 8 7 , JOS , 3 1 I , 3 3 S -J 6, J 93 D , 407
textualism ,
2 5 2, 3 8 3- 8 4 , 403
Thematic Apperception Test
(TAT),
1 02, 23 2 theory, 3 9 8 , 404 candor in, 39 5-98
Spock , Benja min, M. D . , 3 80
ro l e of, 252- 5 3 , 3 5-f
Srinivas, M. N . , xiii, 3 5 -36, 4 1 , 94,
of significance . 3 8 7, 396-98
2 J 4, 404
significant , 3 87, 3 9 5-98
I N DEX •• thick description, '' 5 2 , 5 3 n . 60-64 , 6768, 2X2, 2 8 4
"voices, " i n ethnography, 74, 2 R 5 - 8 8 , 3 46 n , 3 49 . 3 6 1 -6 2 , 3 64 -65 , 3 6 7- 69,
Thornton, Robert, 5 5 n , 5fr- 5 1
404-9
T ikopia, 1 OC), 2 3 3 time allocation , 1 7o- 72, 1 Ho Toda, The, 20 5-6, 2 1 3
Wagley, Charles, 227, 230, 3 2 7 , 3 3 5 , 407, 409 , 4 1 1 - 1 2
Torres S traits e x pedition , 203 - 5 . 208
Wag ner, Roy, 8 7, 1 47
tran sactionalism, 23 s- 3 6
Walker, James R. , 5 9-60, Mn, 407
tran scription, 49 , 5 1 , 5 3 , 57-6o , 63 , 66-
Wallis, Ruth Sawtell, 3 5 7- 5 8
68 , S sn, 1 03 - 5 , 1 98 , 202 , 2 1 0. 228 -
Wallis, \Vilson D. , 3 57- 5 8
J O .. 23 3 , 2 4 3 -44 , 3 1 I . 3 93n travel \Vri ting 5 5 , 65 -66, 400
Warner, W. Lloyd , 40, 220n , 2 ] 0, 249,
Tristes Trc.tpique.s , xiv, 1 1 0, 400n
'1/atson , James B . , 1 06, 229
Trobrian d Islands, 47. 1 09 , 208 , 2 1 4 .
�'edgcv-.·oo d, Ca mi lla, 9 4, 99 , 1 1 1 - 1 2 .
..
..
24 1 , 2 50, 3 R 7 . 3 90 , 3 9 7
3 30
1 2 4-2 5 . 2 3 2 , 3 0 3 - 5 , 30 8 - 1 1 , ] 1 3 -
Trumai. 3 3 4-3 5
1 �, 3 27, 3 3 4
Tsi m shian, 2<Xr20 I
��i' Ha l'f' l:'aten the Forest} 40 1 . 4 1 3
Ts v.tana, 3 2 6-2 7
Weidtnan, Hazel, 1 1
Tulane Middle American Research B u
Werner, Dennis, 2 54 , ] 97
reau, 249
1
Wes termarck , Ed\\'ard. 208
Tu mbuka.. 273 , 2 8 2
li�estern Apache Raiding and 'i�(ufore, 3 3 6
turf:.
Ji�r, the Tikop ia, 2 1 8
ethnographer 's, 244, 24 5 , 40 5
1-Jlhat (;ijts l::.'ngendtr, 86
informant's, 244, 40 5 , 4 1 3
W"hite, Hayden, 5 5 - .5 7 Whiting, Beatrice, 2 3 9 , 2 5 0, 3 3 2 , 3 4 4 Wbiting , Joh n , 2 2 5 , 23 9 , 2 50, 3 3 2 , 3 44
Turnbull. Colin, 63 Turner, Edith, 236 Turner, 'vrictor W. , 2 So
Wnitten, Norman E. , Jr. , 326
t y pewriting. xiv, 3 8 , 5 2 , 6 3 -6 4 , 67 , 77 , 80, 9 7 -98, 1 0 5 -6, 1 1 2, 1 1 4, 1 4 8 , 220, 2 2 } , 2 2 5 , 2 ] 0- J
I,
3 2 5 - 2 6, 3 3 1 ,
3 3 5 - 3 6 , 3 44 , 3 5 8 , 3 63 , 3 X7- 8 8
Tzintzun tzan, 4 5 , 2 ] 2, 3 27
Whyte, William Foote. 2 J D- 3 1 , 244-46. 249, 3 24. 3 8 8 , 392 , 3 9 511
Williams, H ill y. 22 8 , 3 26 , 407 Wil son , Edmund, 1 9 1 Winter, Ed ward, r oo Wintrob, Ronal d, 2 4 2 , 3 98
Uganda, 1 1 2- 1 3 , 2 3 3 . 244 , 2 5 1 , 2 90 -9 8 , J O I , 3 2 8, 3 3 3 n , 3 8 8 , 3 9 7 , 400 Unabclin, 224
J J
2� 2 1 5
2 3 0 , 3 3 4 , 3 5 611, 3 5 8-5 9 , 3 6o- 6 2 ,
University of C hicago. 228 -30, 2 49 ,
] 64-&J, 3 7 8. 3 9 2 , 402
w·olcott, Harry F
3 59, 40 8
U . S . State Department, 250 validity. 1 6 2 , 239, 394-404 , 4 1 1 - 1 2 Van Maanen . John , xii i, 243 n, 2 54 - 5 5 ,
. •
3 2 7, 3 89- 90
Wolf. A rthur, 94 , 9'), 1 0 1 , 3 4 4-46 , 3 50 W'olf, M argery, 4 1 , 8 9 , 94, 9 9 , 1 0 1 , 1 0 3 . 1 09, 3 3 7· 3 4 3 - 45 , }6 1 , ] 8 6
Wolff, Kurt, 2 4 2, 3 2 7, 3 8 8 ��'Oman , Culture cuad Society, 3 49
3 2 9D, 3 96
van Velson , Jaap,
U1issler, Cl ark, 59-60,
Wiswell, Ella, 92 , 99- 1 0 1 , 1 1 3 , 1 26- 2 7 ,
xv,
xvii, 23 5 , 27 9 -80,
40 1 -4, 409
Villa Rojas, Alfonso , 40 Vincent, Joan . 2 8 7
��iJ,.,,e,, and
th e Family
in Rural 1aiwan ,
1 03
�i'omen
of Suye
J\1ura, 3 59n, 36 1 , 3 6 5 ,
402, 4 1 3
Voget , Fred , 226
H�orker in �ht Cane, 1 0 7
Vogt, Evon Z. , 22 8
I•H1rk.s and Lives , 5 3 n
Index Yale Institute of H u m an Relations, 249
429 Young , Michael , 3 I on
Yale University, 248- 50 Yang, Martin C. , 93 Yankee City� 249, 3 29- JO
Zulu , 3 99
Yaq ui. 2 2 9 , 40 3 -4 Yornbe, 276� 2 8o- 8 5 , 3 26
Zu ni,
1 1 1n,
3 3 1 , 40 1
1 13,
I 89-90,
1 92, 3 2 5 -26�
Library oJ Congress Catalogit�g-itJ-PublittJtion DtJta Fiel dnotes
p.
:
the makings of anth ropology l edited by Ro ger Sanjek .
em .
Includes rev. versions of some papers presented at the AES Invited Sessions at the An1erican Anthro po logical Society meetings in
Washington.
D . C . . 1985.
I ncl u de s bibli o gra p h ic al references.
ISBN o-80 1 4-243 6-4
alk. paper) 1.
. paper). - ISBN o-80 1 4-9726-4 ( p bk . : 2. Ethnology-Research
Ethnology-Field v..·ork-Congresses .
Congresse s. ( 1 98 5
(alk.
:
I. Sanj ek , Roger, 1 944- .
Washin gton,
GN346. F s 2
1 990
D.C.)
II . A E S Invited Sess i ons
Il l . Title: Field notes .
3 o6 ' . 072 -dc2o
8()-46 169
\.
.
.
.
:.·
...
A
TI I R
PO
OGY
The Makings
Anthro p olo gy
o
dited by Roger Sanj k oExtreme 1y u s fu l pers pectives n a number a iinportant to i(s, includ . ng t e history of fieldnote strategies, . . . wnting
sty es,
. . . laxoi on1
ways to ma ke fi . l d ote
a Ti ti ns
·
,
current fi ld ol
f the w itten products of field work,
more repre
n ta · vc, . . . usc
f fi
other perso s, . . . a nd sharing of field notes ·n l a rg r 'team' pr
.
.
.
"T, is is a
e inement
s
f fi ld nol
prise.11 -Pertti
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0
Pel to,
at U c 1 carL of the t nt
Etl1nnhi. tory
ct
raclic .
ery i llportant book. It charts a co rs . f r
st matic development
j
as wen
. A substantial review of current kno w l -dge and practic
as t}loughtful gu idel ines for futu r
. .
d otes by
w, more
upological
nt r
uw c carry a way rom this volum . . . a m ch bett .r gra� p of t e cotnpl int ractive dynamic f cra tchnolcs, fic dn t . . . . We come to see fieidn ot s a .. co1 p lcx and
ubt t:!,
jtt.. t a
-· ,
1 �ad otes, and fil d no e
part of a much ongcr a nd 111 r
ultilayered proc ss of eth no
r . fl ctive collection certain y bri 1gs to an situation in a nthropology
eve1
tion
tual (;redibility . . . . This co1 1ec.tion L.
f thnograp 1crs . May t 1ey �a
d ica eel to the ne
r
Ethnolog ist
i on a l a thropol gi t a 1 grad uatt.:: "'tuhcorctical d ·s(;ussions frorn a variety of ersp . ti v kethe
dcn ts . . . .
. ._._
a va h. able resource
n the
t eory . . . . Field note. is 1 i kely
o
c
e a stan ard r
cr
fu 1, sop h sti ca t d commentar -if n t dcfii ili ·
an
Pa u l
1
·
an, Anzerican
0
•
��
live and
Anthro1 ologi. t
Con t ribu tors: u r g e C . Bond. Jam . C l i fford . Jea n F.. ack .. Rt"na Leder an . ancy Lu tkehau. . C h n sti n Obb a rg r V\7 ol id W . Plc1th. Roger Sanj ek. Rob rt J . Sm ith .
lien a nd rnil R . Silnon l l �nb �rg,
Johnson. ·
.
-· wt!r�-abuu t this
a 1 ost primal anthropologica 1 ac.ti i t., . Eac h chapter i pr v readi g . 11
1cc .
thought
·
worthwhil
·
nlcrplay b tw � n method and
C n tribu tors lo the ol ut 1e sk the right qu stions nd pro 1
·
genera
it carefully wh ther in th . fi ld
nandez, Atnerica n
ssential read ing for prof
volu m
d t e long pr va ilin
#'
·e dwork, it i a valu� b c aid lo a "'hi v i ng erability and
ou t.'' -Ja rn .s W . I • u
r
in George St ekin g 's plu·asc, fi ld t an a nalyzed.-' . . . By hi hlighti n g h notion
w rk was n1orc 'cnac of the 'pa t h ... ' o
h r
a p hy. . . This
0
Assodu lc Profc.'S ·ur of Anthropology at Que n . C lJ . , c : . l . N .Y., ROGE SAN} K r ceivcd hi� Ph . . f u1n ul u mbia · versitv . H i co- d i tor, with Sh .1 1 Colen, of the vol u m A t Work in Honres: Hous >hold Wurkt;� in World P,-·rspecti 1 C }t t)() , n , d i tor of th
or
ell U niv rs ity Pr ss
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a er
.
ri
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, Th .
ack
C rnell U 1 iverL·ity Pr
nth rop ]
y
f C onten1 pora r
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C0'"1er ph togr ph: rg r t Mea and G regory Bates n in N ew Guinea , 1 ��38 . Courles .. of l he T n sl i t u l t.. nr T n t r -rcul t u n T Stud ie , ln ,, e"'r York
9 7 80 8 0 1 4 9 7 2 6 1
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u, s,
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