Design Ethnography: Strategies for fieldwork Jack Whalen 16 April 2015

Never a simple matter of inscribing the world, fieldnotes do more than record observations. In a fundamental sense, they constitute a way of life through the very writing choices that the ethnographer makes and the stories that she tells; for through her writing, she conveys her understandings and insights for future readers unacquainted with these lives, people, and events. In writing a fieldnote, then, the ethnographer does not simply put happenings into words. Rather such writing is an interpretive process: It is the very first act of textualizing. Indeed, this often ‘invisible’ work – writing ethnographic fieldnotes – is the primordial textualization that creates a world on the page and, ultimately, shapes the final ethnographic, published text. (Emerson, Fretz and Shaw, 2011)

Strategies for entering the field Reconnaissance and approaching the setting/organisation Entering into relationships Sponsors, champions and gatekeepers Tradeoffs in relationship management Presenting yourself and your study Preparing for negotiation (with the host and/or sponsor) Negotiation in the context of reciprocity Where does one start and when?

Strategies for getting organised Mapping the setting/organisation Selective sampling Organising time Deciding on specific research location(s) Sampling/selecting people and events The task and the resources to do it Where does one start and when?

Strategies for watching First impressions Grounds for watching Presenting properties/what to attend What constitutes your ‘data’? Representativeness, perspective/angle of observation, Analytic framework (set of interrelated concepts) Watching as active presence – but with different modes of presence

Reminders Ethnographic immersion precludes conducting field research as a detached, passive observer The field researcher can only get close to the lives of those studied by actively participating in their everyday affairs Such participation inevitably entails some degree of resocialisation

More reminders Relationships with those being studied often follow political fault lines in the setting, exposing the ethnographer selectively to differing priorities and points of view… which means the task is not to determine ‘the truth’ but rather reveal multiple truths apparent in others’ lives Instead of viewing ‘reactivity’ (the consequential presence of the ethnographer) as a defect to be carefully controlled or eliminated, the ethnographer needs to become sensitive to, and perceptive about, how she is seen and treated by others

Complexities of description: selectivity No one ‘natural’ or ‘correct’ way to write about what you observe Writing fieldnotes is not a matter of passively copying down ‘facts’ about ‘what happened’ Rather, these descriptive accounts select and emphasise different features and actions whilst ignoring and marginalising others

Complexities of description: what’s ‘significant’, what’s missed And so descriptions in fieldnotes differ both in what ethnographers write down as ‘significant’ as well as in what they may note but ignore as ‘not significant’ – and in things they may have missed all together Moreover, differences in how researchers participate in the ‘same’ event will lead to different modes of involvement, which will lead to subtle but perhaps significant differences in how they write about what occurred

Complexities of description: inscription and presentation The ethnographer inscribes social life and discourse – she writes it down – turning it from a passing event into an account, which exists in its inscriptions and can be consulted As inscriptions, fieldnotes are products of – and reflect conventions for – transforming witnessed events, persons and places into words on paper… which necessarily involves – as previously noted – a process of selection, and a presentation or framing of events in particular ways These presentations incorporate sensitivities, meanings and understandings the researcher has garnered from having been close to and participated in the described events

Thick description* Descriptive accounts (inscriptions) that make instructably observable the work of a setting and its accountable organisation for the members who do it These accounts rely on the development of a members’ competence in a setting’s work Accordingly, analysis is not something that happens after fieldwork, but runs through it! *’Thick description’ is a notion we will continue to discuss and reflect upon

So far… (a summary) What is observed and treated as ‘data’ and ‘findings’ is inseparable from the observational process It is thus critical that the ethnographer document her own activities, circumstances and emotional responses, as these factors shape the process of observing and recording others’ lives In writing fieldnotes, the field researcher should give special attention to the indigenous meanings and concerns of the people studied Again, we seek to get close to to those studied in order to understand and write about what their experiences and activities mean to them Contemporaneously written fieldnotes are an essential resource for writing broader, more coherent accounts of other peoples’ lives and concerns Such fieldnotes must try to detail (‘exactly what’) the social and interactional processes (‘precisely how’) that make up people’s lives and everyday activities

Different approaches to writing fieldnotes Participating-to-write approach Some fieldworkers place fieldnotes at the core of the ethnographic project The essence of field research is the process of accumulating a corpus of detailed fieldnotes that provide the foundation and inspiration for subsequent writings and analyses Experiential approach Others believe putting too much effort into writing fieldnotes interferes with the experience of fieldwork

Writing fieldnotes in actual practice… Most fieldworkers employ both experiential and participating-to-write approaches – sometimes participating without much thought about writing up what is happening, other times focusing closely on events in order to write about them Directing your mind to remember things at a later point (who was there, where were they seated, who said what to whom, the physical character of the place) Many fieldworkers act as scribes, moving around, notepad in hand, visibly recording bits of talk and action as they occur Jottings translate to-be-remembered observations into writing, as quickly rendered scribbles about actions and dialogue They use these words, written at the moment or soon afterwards, to jog the memory later in the day so they can recall and reconstruct significant scenes and events in detail

Participating in order to write: guidelines Take careful note your initial impressions You can also focus on your personal sense of what is significant or unexpected in order to document key events or incidents in a particular social world or setting But using personal reactions effectively requires care and reflection – you have to pay close attention to how others in the setting are reacting to these events, and how your own reactions and sensitivities differ from theirs Accordingly, in order to document key events and incidents, you need to move beyond your personal reflections to attend explicitly to what those in the setting experience as ‘significant’ or ‘important’ You can begin to capture new settings by writing notes as systematically as possible, focusing on how routine actions in the setting are organised and take place Your orientation to writable events will change with time in the field

Jottings A brief written record (usually quite brief, but can sometimes be more extensive) of events and impressions captured in key words and phrases Typically translate to-be-remembered observations into writing on paper as quickly rendered scribbles about action and dialogue Useful for jogging memory later in the day when you attempt to recall the details of significant actions or to construct evocative descriptions of the scene More extensive jottings may record an on-going dialogue or set of responses to questions or – if time and opportunity permits – a relatively detailed description of a specific event or person or place

What to jot (and not) Details of what you sense are key components of observed scenes, events or interactions Sensory details about observed scenes and interactions Detailed aspects of scenes, talk, and interaction – short or more extended direct quotes are particularly useful here The details of emotional expressions and experiences General impressions and feelings, even if unsure of their significance But: In all this, avoid characterising scenes or what people do through generalisations or summaries