Imagine a language game in which Wittgenstein invades my thoughts...

Game (S. 66-71)

1. What is a game? "A game is something you try to win." Ah, but what about a game of catch? What about the ambiguous concept of 'winning' in drinking games -- do you want to drink to get drunk, or is it better to remain sober? What about games like 'Duck, Duck, Goose', 'Tag', and 'Hide and Seek'? "OK, I get it: games are hard to define..." But so what? That's not the point. We don't need a definition, because even without one, we can use the word successfully, and everyone knows what we mean. What's more, we can even correct other people when they use the word incorrectly -- despite the fact that we don't have a single, overarching definition of 'game'.

Meaning (S. 1, 39-40, 43, 543-545)

2. "But when I say 'Candy Land', aren't I referring to a specific Milton-Bradley game? Doesn't the meaning attach itself to the object?" Perhaps. But when someone says something, what she means depends both on what is said and the context in which it was spoken. If the meaning of a word just stood for an object, then what happens if the object itself ceases to exist? Does that imply that the word no longer has meaning? "I'm confused. So even though Ada B. is dead, she still exists because I talk about her?" Generally, to know the use of a word means knowing the meaning. So Ada B. means something based on the use of your sentence. 'Ada B. was my sister' means one thing while 'I like the name Ada B.' means something else. In this way, words and gestures take on meaning only within a language game, like a form of culture. "I'm still confused..."

Public vs. Private (S. 262, 268, 243-315)

3. "But doesn't 'Ada B.' mean something privately to me?" If you were to speak the word 'Ada B.' in public, it would be considered nonsense without a certain shared attitude and culture through which you communicate with others. Consider the sentence: 'Dog Ada B. cat runs blanket.' Now consider the sentence: 'Thinking about Ada B. makes me smile.' Your friends know what this means because they know that Ada B. was your sister. Imagine, instead, that thinking about Ada B. makes you feel something that you decide to call X. Except in this case, X has no other verbal expression and can't be defined in words. Suppose, then, that you kept a journal to note down when you felt this. In this way, no one else would understand what you meant by X and whether you diagnosed your feelings correctly. So here, your 'private language' is really no language at all. "What if I said that thinking about Ada B. made me feel blue?" Interesting choice of words. Here is an example where context comes to play. Imagine someone took you to mean that you feel 'the color blue'. Of course, color has no meaning unless nearly all of us agree nearly all the time what color things are. The concept of color exists through regular use and agreement of application as part of language. Thus, it becomes impossible to separate our use of color from the concept of color. "But wait! I wasn't talking about colors. I was talking about feelings." But don't you think it is ultimately the same thing? Our collective use of the word 'blue' to mean 'sad' or 'melancholy' is fundamental in our understanding or disambiguation of 'blue' in your sentence... "You're giving me a headache."

Philosophy (S. 66, 126, 131, 599)

4. "So, let me see if I understand: the theory of language is that words always derive their meanings from their use." No, no, no. I'm not trying to suggest that there is a general explanation for language. Philosophy cannot be so dogmatically localized. Instead, think of the more suitable analogy of 'family resemblance' by which words, meanings, and uses lack specific borders and share overlapping similarities, differences, etc.

Rules (S. 147-148, 185, 201, 243)

5. "But aren't there rules to language? Don't we follow certain rules?" And herein lies the paradox! Consider the equation: (x+3)(x-3). Typically, we would answer this by using the quadratic equation to get: (x^2)-9. Perhaps you are wondering: but how did we learn this rule? How do we follow them? Who decides if we follow the rules correctly? I suggest, however, that these are the wrong questions to be asking. Why must we attempt to locate some sort of external or internal authority to 'rules' beyond their actual application? We must liberate ourselves from such pedantry.

Grammar (S. 222, 496-497)

6. "Ah HA! But what about grammar? Wouldn't grammar have no purpose or sense unless it was dictated by rules?" Simpleton. To use grammar to refer solely to the rules of correct syntax and semantics is naive. Instead, think of grammar as a wider network of socially constructed rules that determine what linguistic move is allowed to make sense, and what isn't. Just think of the word: 'hopefully'. It was considered grammatically incorrect until its misuse was so prevalent (and understood), it became acceptable. In this way, grammar represents cultural norms for the meaningful use of language. It cannot be idealized or essentialized into some external system to which we must conform. Instead, we construct our own social and internal meanings. "Fine, you win. Philosophy is a guide, not an explanation; words derive their meanings from context; language is a public affair; rules are socially constructed; and all this leaves me with a GIANT headache. Please GET OUT OF MY HEAD. BAH."

***No others save the author were hurt in this experiment. Please consider any misunderstandings of Heir Wit to be his fault entirely!

Searle on Wittgenstein

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrmPq8pzG9Q&feature=related

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl-iLxleHaw&feature=related

Part 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjZBNDW7DmQ&feature=related

Part 4:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGfHQzOzp9s&feature=related

Part 5:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4q0ntDIQBw&feature=related

Of Fractals and a (Research) Existential Crisis of Sorts

Abbott's usage of fractals in describing the concept of self similarity in social structures seems relatively easy to grasp when we consider gender roles and political structures. His breakdown of the realm of "women's" work within the predominantly male labor force or "men's" work in the traditionally female realm of housework, reflected my analysis of the way the world (traditionally) works, or even how political parties tend to be far more similar that they are different.

Oddly enough however, once you apply it to knowledge seeking in the social sciences, this application becomes, uneasy. I think much of my discomfort stems from my own construction of what knowledge is and what I have been previously (perhaps even loftily) socialized to think of what the pursuit of knowledge should look like. Becoming increasingly aware of how methodological entrenchment within the social science shapes the kind of inquiry we value, the two (researcher as occupation and researcher as vocation) seems almost incompatible in a sense. Arguably, Weber has done me the kind service of bursting any bubbles laden with images of fame and riches as an academic, yet charges us to pursue knowledge because we feel an almost spiritual connection to it (keeping in mind the challenges of having to jump over tons of hurdles to get to the research promised land). Abbott on the other hand, stirs up anxieties about how much time and energy are spent having death-matches over methodologies and schools of thought that in his estimation aren't really all that different.

Sure, the realm of academia is also socially constructed and highly institutionalized, but the nature of the fractal as an analogy describing the field (in this case) also has some indication of existing outside of the social (and therefore constructed) sphere. I have yet to make sense of what the implications of that would be.

What's frustrating is that despite our self-perceived enlightenment (whether real or imagined), the brute fact of the field we are preparing to enter requires us to make choices about where we will fit into these debates, and imposes limits within the socio-professional circle. In an old facebook post, I joked that a reality TV show should be made for academics. What would make it unique, in my estimation, from the Jersey Shores of the world is that feuding academics come for your paycheck and self worth.

"Social science is ostensibly the study of social life without value judgements"(199). I find it interesting that it is in the chapter speaking of politicians and moralists, that we find the more rigorous social science debates. It appears that much of the debate centers around infusing our moral values into the examination of social life. If we have a higher spiritual calling (if we're to take Weber's word for it) to research, perhaps it is a bastardization of that in a sense that entrenches us into the way we eventually define good knowledge (a value judgement) and inquiry, and the methods we employ to accomplish the pursuit of those aims.

As usual, the readings leave me with more questions than answers:

• What are the implications of the fractalization of the discipline on me/us choosing a methodology and how its received in the field?
• Furthermore, how am I to feel good as an excited young researcher charged with creating "new knowledge" if all my innovations are merely reinventing the wheel?
• Where would a student with these concerns fit into his depiction of the individual's relation to the self-similar social structure of academia?

Locating The Deep Structure of Social Scientific Inquiry?

I found Abbott’s fractal theory thesis powerful. Because this is a course on methodology, I too would like to discuss the author’s notion of knowledge creation. Please allow another quote from page five, where he concludes: “There is only…a universal knowledge emerging from accommodation and conflict rather than from axioms, a universal knowledge that provides tentative bridges between local knowledges, rather than systematic maps that deny them, a universal knowledge that aims…at allowing interchange among people who differ fundamentally.” (5)

These lines seems fairly cordial to ethnography, generally. It is hard not feel, however, that Abbott is saying that social scientific knowledge is, in a measure, exclusive. To fall back here on a concept I cannot seem to escape (or do without), perhaps we can read him as arguing here that even the most reflexive researcher works from a subjectivity (sensibility) that is profoundly shaped by ‘local’ (Roman…) culture (to use the term loosely), which, including as it does the social scientific training and the rest, obviously cannot be escaped, even if one works as a critical, interpretive anthropologists, collaborating with ‘informants’ in (re)formulating the research question.

While this may be apparent, it suggests, a question: Does Abbott’s metaphor of the city and its exploration, here, imply that the social scientific enterprise ‘originates/emanates’ in some interesting sense from some particular ‘location’? I am reminded here of Weber’s project “to understand how it is that ‘in the West alone there have appeared cultural manifestations that—at least we like to tell ourselves this—in their development go in the direction of universal significance and validity.’” (xii, Introduction, Vocation Lectures).

Abbott (foot)notes in his discussion of morality that he “may have failed to get beyond universalism as a hegemonic discourse—but for want of ability, not of effort.” (219) This seems an actually humble ‘admission’, buried in a cogent and erudite book.

Concomitantly, we can ask: Does Abbott succeed in envisioning, through fractals, “an idea of difference that does not entail subordination” (211)? But are these useful or suitable grounds upon which to appraise/interrogate Abbott’s analysis? Indeed, what are the merits and demerits of Abbott's notion of pervasive self-similarity? It has the merit, for starters(in addition to its remarkable explanatory power), of at least encouraging a more methodologically plural social science.

Local knowledge wandering on universal terrain?

In light of our focus on ethnography as such localized and specific methodology that defies generalization and broad-scope theorizing, it's quite striking that Abbott argues that even localized knowledge can be mapped onto a "terrain" of "universal knowledge" (p. 4), offering both a taxonomy and a lifecycle for the fractal divisions that fill out that terrain, and outlining the ways that competing ideas advance in this intellectual space. He asserts:

"...The vast majority of social scientist share the moral project of knowing society in a way that everyone else in society thinks of as universalist. We can try to add 'the voice of the unheard' to our work, but the unheard know very well that social science is something other than their world, that it is addressed to someone other than them. The project of social science as a definable enterprise is, in reality, the production of sharable, 'universal' knowledge of society. We ought to stop kidding ourselves that it is not." (p.5)

There seems something rather of brutal, but perhaps realistic, about his depiction of the way social sciences (and social scientists) advance. I think a number of the authors of "Political Ethnography" would push back: the work of particularly the ethnographer is in fact for the unheard, and not just the academic colleagues who will review the journal article or book, and what is valuable about the research is not the theoretical infrastructure within which findings are framed, but rather the very localized findings themselves. In Zirakzadeh's chapter on the Basque resistance movement, one gets the sense that unversalized theories are a window dressing to gain acceptance within certain academic circles, but that the heart of his work--what he really cares about--is telling the specific story of the Basque nationalists with whom he interacted.

Are we just kidding ourselves, as Abbott suggests, or does his analysis of knowledge creation as fractal processes on a universal terrain miss something rather important about what social scientists aim to contribute through their (our) work?

In Defense of Interpretation in Fieldnotes

For the sake of debate, two things came to mind during our discussion in class about how much interpretation to write into fieldnotes. One, I think we can all agree that the ethnographer will inevitably do some filtering, from observations and experiences, to jotting an idea in some form of language onto a notepad, to creating full sentences in a fieldnote at the day's end. Sonja's description below of the dilemmas surrounding individual parts of speech in a fieldnote is a humorous example of the larger interpretive struggle.

Two, perhaps fieldnotes can be not just a record of experiences and observations, but a running dialogue about how and why the ethnographer observed and experienced the way she or he did. Without some narrative introduced by the ethnographer a fieldnote may be more or less a mirror of the "actual" events, but does that make the fieldnote any more readable to its audience?

Ethnographers go to the field with a purpose. Making that purpose explicit will help readers contextualize the vignettes in a fieldnote. An explicit purpose also forces an element of transparency. Rather than having an a-ha moment at the end of, say, six months of fieldnoting, the story that writes itself along the way through certain observations and experiences, can be traced through the ethnographer's own process of developing and rethinking interpretations. In other words, the "what does it all mean" moment can happen in stages, as needed, rather that at some artificial "end" point.

Emerson et al. (1995) summarize a couple strategies for in situ interpretation, staring page 100 with "as the field researcher participates in the field, she inevitably begins to reflect on and interpret what she has experienced and observed," and "field researchers pursue several kinds of analytical writing that stand in stark contrast to the descriptive writing we have emphasized before." Granted, as Emerson notes, "descriptive writing [...] produces the bulk of the researchers fieldnotes." However, fieldnoting, in my view, is more that just reporting, it is a tricky balance between seeing (observing), feeling (participating) and thinking (interpretation), which then needs to be written as part of a larger interpretive process. Our fieldnoting exercise and workshop were very useful and I look forward to seeing more fieldnotes in future.

Conjunction junction, what's your function?

I found myself checking the blog daily following my first ethnographic field experience, hoping that someone would post something on their experience at the museum so I could talk about mine too. On Sunday it dawned on me that I could write that post myself, but that I should probably wait until everyone had done the assignment (so as not to color perceptions).

When I began to write up my field notes, I started to pay attention to my conjunctions. Conjunctions are interesting: and, or, nor, for, but... the list goes on. For example, I started writing this sentence:

• Their arms were crossed, but they were talking animatedly.

The sentence requires an understanding that when someone crosses their arms, it usually means that they are closed off. It is a sign of defensiveness, which comes across in the "but" a little bit. Watch what happens, however, when I try different conjunctions:

• Their arms were crossed, and they were talking animatedly.
• Their arms were crossed, for they were talking animatedly.

The use of different conjunctions seems to change the meaning of the first clause in the sentence. I kept having these little crises when I was writing up my field notes. How will my diction color my reader's perception of my field notes and correspondingly my ethnography? Furthermore, if I were translating a foreign situation into words that a reader could understand (unlike for our class, where we have all done the same fieldwork and live in this city in the US together and have a shared understanding of the meaning of crossing our arms), how would I be able to get all of those little nuances correct?

This was just my experience in writing up my field notes. I could have written this post about my method of selecting what to write down in my jots, or my decision to go right rather than left in the museum. I feel like I need a support group here to affirm me: "My name is Sonja and I have written a subjective field note."

Did anyone else feel the same way?

P.S. Part of the reason I decided to write this is that I'm assuming we won't have time to swap stories in class... if we do have time to share things like this in class, it's a moot point, I suppose.

P.P.S. Cred to Schoolhouse Rock for the title.

Rocket or missile? (and what's the difference?)

My experiences taking field notes at the Air and Space museum have provoked some reflection on this question of whether the ethnographer compares the perceptions of the subjects against some objective reality, or whether those perceptions are taken at face value.

Here is an excerpt from my field notes:

Another woman walks by with a 7 year old and points to the missile. “Look at the rocket,” she says to him. “Member you went in that? You learned how the astronauts sleep in space.”

I had begun participant observation around this particular display before I read the information placards, so I was not exactly sure what we were looking at. However, I was pretty sure that it was not something that this child had "gone in," nor did it have anything to do with people sleeping in space.

Indeed, as I later confirmed, this was a V2 ballistic missile, developed during WWII by the Germans. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it: "Over 3,000 V-2s were launched as military rockets by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets during the war, mostly London and later Antwerp, resulting in the death of an estimated 7,250 military personnel and civilians." I also did some follow up research to learn the difference between a missile, a rocket, and a space shuttle (which where an astronaut would sleep).

So: does the discrepancy between what this mother said and this "reality" matter? After reading about the V2, I found it quite disturbing when kids would come over to pose near it and grin while parents took their pictures. I also couldn't help but think how detached we are in the US from the realities of war. The one couple that spent about 20 minutes gravely reading all of the information placards was speaking a European language (Dutch perhaps?).

Does having the information I later obtained about the V2 cloud my understanding of the interactions I'm observing or enlighten it?

An attempt to learn more...

After our discussions on ethnography and its value as a scientific method (yes, no quotation marks. I will be using the term science as ‘a quest to expand human knowledge’. And, yes, the definition is primarily based on my interpretation of social sciences and my reasons for pursuing a PhD.) and my ‘mild’ comments about the issue, I decided to read Geertz’s “Local Knowledge”. My initial aim was to learn more about ethnographical studies. Maybe, my reactions were caused by my lack of understanding. Also, a week without a reading? Come on, is that even possible? What is next? A day without any meetings? (Plus, Albuquerque is practically a desert town of drive-thru fast food restaurants). Here is my reaction and also my short notes from the book.

I have to admit that Geertz’s argumentative style seems to be better than any other author I read so far. Yet, I still find it difficult to comprehend the added value of immersion-based studies. Here, I am not arguing for large-N studies. I support small-N, and single-case studies – provided that such studies have a different aim rather than describing their case(s).

I believe my issues with ethnography can be categorized under three headings:

1- Assumptions about science: What does science do? What does a scientist do? Geertz claims that the age of finding out the dynamics of collective life and altering them in desired directions has passed. But if I am not to understand and systematically analyze what is going on, why am I calling myself a social scientist?

I have a background in sociology. Our biggest problem was to differentiate what we do as social scientists from humanities. We should not simply make statements about human conditions. We study social phenomena, we try to understand the dynamics and if necessary find ways to alter (or maybe manipulate?) them.

I do not want to say that the information/knowledge we get from humanities/ethnographic studies is unimportant – it is just different. We need to draw a line between scholarly attempts to increase human knowledge and to interpret events in a given framework.

2- Assumptions about knowledge: Can we have categories to analyze social phenomenon? Or are talking about a huge block of information that can be only understood through interpretation? (Especially, when we think about the fear of relativism as an academic neurosis, what is knowledge?)

Now, the role of interpretation is undoubtedly important. So, at the end of the day we will rely on the observations and interpretation of the researcher. However, I strongly believe that researchers should make use of theories and prior works in their field (or similar fields) in order to come up with categories. In other words, when I am observing group A to understand social phenomenon S; I should be able to say, S is the aggregation of B,C,D,E and B can be B1, B2,B3 etc.

3- Assumptions about human natures: Well, humans are humans. Environment changes but we do act in similar ways under certain conditions. Therefore, I believe we should look at either (i) general patterns of behavior or (ii) the relation between these certain conditions and the changes in the patterns of behavior.

I just want to end my list of issues with something Geertz says, on p. 5: “All the essays below are ethnographically informed (or, God knows, misinformed)”.

One quick disclaimer – I believe I should have first read The Interpretation of Cultures to better understand his ideas. But here are my short notes:

Introduction

One important term: hermeneutics: the understanding of understanding. Geertz work on culture fits this term. Instead of trying to explain social phenomena “by weaving them into textures of cause and effect, he tries to explain them “by placing them in local frames” (p.6)

Essay form is the most convenient form because one has to be flexible in writing ethnographic works.

Culture explainers can do ‘translations’ for us. (Translation: “displaying the logic of their ways of putting things in the locutions of ours” p.10)

Overinterpretation and underinterpretation are similar two type-one and type-two errors in statistics.

Chapter 1: Blurred Genres: The Refiguration of Social Thought

The boundaries between different inquiry techniques in social thinking seem to get more blurry.

p.21 “It is even more difficult than it always has been to regard [social sciences] as underdeveloped natural sciences… [S]ocial…scientists have become free to shape their work in terms of its necessities rather than according to received ideas as to what they ought or ought not to be doing”.

With the recent changes, society is represented less of an elaborate machine or a quasi-organism and more as a serious game, a sidewalk drama, or a behavioral text p.23

Different ‘analogies’ for social life: game, drama, text (looking at ludic, dramatistic, and textualist idioms). And then we have more social, discursive understandings. This change is about what it is we want to know, rather than what is knowledge. He claims that the age of ‘finding out the dynamics of collective life and altering them in desired directions’ has passed.

Chapter 2: Found in Translation: On the Social History of the Moral Imagination

Anthropologists need to provide the reader with the general framework of their writings.

“Life is translation, and we are all lost in it” p.44, from James Merill

We can never understand another person’s imagination.

p.48 The application of critical categories to social events and social categories to symbolic structures…is the proper method for a study dedicated to getting straight how the massive fact of cultural and historical particularity comports with the equally massive fact of cross-cultural and cross-historical accessibility.

Chapter 3: From the Native’s Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding

p.58 The ethnographer does not/cannot perceive what his informants perceive.

Geertz tried to understand how the people who live in the region define themselves as persons.

p.67 The social contextualization of persons is pervasive and, in its curiously unmethodological way, systematic. ( I guess this shows the importance of native’s point? –es )

Common sense: informal annotation of everyday experience.

Chapter 4: Common Sense as a Cultural System

p. 84 – Common sense is not what the mind cleared of cant spontaneously apprehends, it is what the mind filled with presuppositions concludes.

Therefore we need to move away from functionalist approaches to interpretevist ones.

Chapter 5: Art as a Cultural System

The cultural significance of art subjects is always a local matter.

p. 109, A theory of art is…at the same time a theory of culture, not an autonomous enterprise.

(The Islam-poetry example is interesting)

p.119 Art doesn’t appeal to a universal beauty.

p.120 “Semiotics must move beyond the consideration of signs as mean of communication, code to be deciphered, to a consideration of them as modes of thought, idiom to be interpreted.

Chapter 6: Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power

Charisma – cultural or psychological?

The continuation of ‘inner necessities’ for authority.

p.146 “the inherent sacredness of central authority” (I’m a little bit confused, do we have ‘inherent’ aspects of social life? –es)

Chapter 7: The Way We Think Now: Toward an Ethnography of Modern Thought

You shouldn’t interpret cultural materials as individual expressions, they are social institutions.

! The fear of relativism: p.153 an academic neurosis.

p. 156 Three methodological themes: the use convergent data, the explication of linguistic classifications, and the examination of the life cycle.

Convergent data: descriptions, measures, observations

- turning what looks like a mere collection of heterogeneous material into a mutually reinforcing network of social understandings.

Linguistic: focus on key terms to light up a whole way of going at the world.

Life cycle: passage rites, sex/age roles, intergenerational bonds.

! Obsession with enormous multiplicity

Chapter 8: Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative Perspective

Facts are normative.

Relativity as a flow of moral occurrence p.193

The world is a various place.

I Think I Have a (Methodological) Split Personality

Annie poses the following question in her blog:

“Is an ‘epistemology that admits to ontological truth’ inconsistent with the world view that motivates an ethnographic approach to research? Allina-Pisano says no. Wedeen, for example, tends toward yes. What do we think?”

I for one am trying to diagnose my own split-personality disorder with respect to methodology. O Doctor of Philosophy, what is wrong with me? Why do I love both ethnography and statistical research?

I do not buy the view that only ethnography can study the world of the “subaltern” and the powerless. However, I have personally had several experiences where ethnography, or an ethnographic-like approach to looking at the world, exploded my comfortable ideas in an illuminating, even thrilling way:

· When I was studying at the American University in Cairo, I took a course by an American anthropologist on the “anthropology of development.” He took us on field trips to several USAID development projects that were put in place without adequate knowledge of cultural and other local realities. I have a vivid memory, for example, of a USAID-financed paved road in the desert. It was covered over by sand, only its edges peeking out. The local villagers had covered it over because camels, which are used for transportation in much of Egypt, found the black tarmac too hot and hard for their feet and would not walk on it.

· When I was studying conflict resolution in my Master’s program, I read a collection of studies—ranging between ethnographic and journalistic in nature—of actual prominent mediators in practice (Deborah Kolb and associates, When Talk Works: Profiles of Mediators). The vast range of mediation methods revealed in these studies was at sharp odds with the received wisdom on mediation methods proffered by how-to books found on beginning mediators’ shelves.

· A collection of ethnographies on different gender roles in different societies around the world (including small-scale, nonindustrialized cultures) demonstrated that gender roles do not simply fall on a spectrum from more sexist to more egalitarian. One tribe in Nigeria, for example, had two separate governments—one for men, one for women. None of the cultures was found to be “matriarchal” in the same manner that male-dominated cultures are patriarchal (there were female-headed societies, but the nature of their rule was not the same as in male-headed societies). In other words, my simple categories of “egalitarian” or “sexist,” or even “matriarchal,” turned out to be utterly inadequate to understand the range of different gender relations. (I forget the name of the book—sorry—it was borrowed.)

I love ethnography and what it can offer. However, I also love large-N statistical research, or even the smaller-N kind of research done in a similar epistemological vein (a la Barbara Geddes, Paradigms and Sand Castles). I do think that it is possible, to come up with some generalizations about human behavior--at least probabilistic ones. I rely on these in my professional practice—for a simple example, I have learned that people are more attached and committed to a plan or proposal which they have had a hand in developing. My professional experience has borne that out time and time again.

Yet I’m not quite ready simply to declare myself an ontological and epistemological comrade of Jessica Allina-Pisano in Schatz’ Political Ethnography. Ethnography has more to offer than just a more detailed, intimate look at a separate, observer-independent world. Of course social realities are shaped by those in it, and the ethnographer (or any observer) places himself or herself in it alongside those being observed. Of course multiple takes on the same set of events can have validity. My professional experience affirms this too, particularly when I am taking perspectives of different parties to a conflict. I have learned to become comfortable with the ambiguity inherent in many conflicts: two (or more) different people can have seemingly opposite views of what has happened and they can both be valid.

I guess I am just a case of split personality. Doctor of Philosophy, help me please!

Framing fieldwork

Last term, we were inundated with positivist and nomothetic studies involved in framing a puzzle, formulating a hypothesis, testing said hypothesis, etc., in a certain linear trajectory (with some room for back steps). However, according to Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw, an ethnography formulates its puzzle/hypothesis after the data has been collected, and after careful coding/analyzing of fieldnotes. As Efe mentioned in class this past week, somehow such a reversal feels wrong -- like cheating or simply bad science. So what are the merits of this ethnographic approach?

It strikes me that whether one chooses ethnography as one's methodology largely depends on what type of research and knowledge that person wants to create. While the examples in Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes seem to be largely anthropological or sociological as opposed to political, the broad goals of these scholars have been to both describe/present a certain culture/episode to a larger audience, as well as to discover/create more general themes in these particular experiences that might transcend the specific circumstances and promote greater understanding of what and how we perceive events around us. For instance, while Fretz's experiences with the Chokwe tribe are specific, her approach to living with and studying a completely foreign society and language can inform others who find themselves in alien territory (speaking perhaps both metaphysically as well as literally). Her discussion of the power dynamics in certain storytelling circles (specifically: the village chief likes to gender who tells stories, though this is not standard Chokwe practice) shows that one's first and second impressions might not always be correct, and a good ethnographer must remain open to other hidden agendas.

On the other hand, if one were to start out with a specific puzzle about why something happened the way it did, ethnography might not be the only way to go.

I was also overwhelmed with the obscene amount of work necessary to produce quality fieldnotes. I find it difficult to even imagine having that much to say (one example given in the book was 50 pages of notes for a 3-minute conversation!), much less then going back through the notes a second, third, and maybe even fourth time to code them, add memos, and rearrange data episodes. This effort seems not only exhausting, but also extremely difficult -- adding to Eddy's question of whether ethnography is art or science. Given this workload, I think I would have to say it must be both. Perhaps the art and science of ethnography is being able to produce knowledge that is actually worth knowing -- both for its specific content as well as its more broad (but not necessarily universal) applicability.

Finally, did anyone else notice that these authors changed the gender of the pronoun (he/she) all the time? I wonder if they did this on purpose to insinuate that ethnographers are both men and women, that the term 'ethnographer' is gender-neutral? Or, they just have a really bad editor...

Ethnography: Art or Science?

Some thoughts on “Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes”

On page twenty-one the authors discuss the idea of whether an ethnographer should identify himself as a researcher, or if it is permissible to hide one's identity from your subjects. Although it may make an ethnographer's research more authentic, there are some ethical problems with not disclosing one's motivations to the people you interact with. Most fundamentally, in Kantian parlance, this is treating people as a means to an end, rather than an end in themselves. While in extreme circumstances one might argue that the “end justifies the means,” these cases of “extreme ethnography” are rare to say the least. Even if the ethnographer is very careful to avoid causing any harm to his subjects, without full disclosure of his intentions, the chance that he is unwittingly causing harm to his subjects remains.

There are instances where social experiments are conducted on people unknowingly. These are particularly common in psychology. The difference between these psychological experiments and ethnographic research, however, is that in psychological experiments people are studied in artificial situations that are not connected with their work, family or other aspects of their “real lives” (if you will permit the term). In ethnographic studies, researchers intend to publish in-depth details about peoples lives. It seems wholly unethical to go about this without inform those whom you are studying.

A second interesting point brought up by the authors is whether to write in the first or third person perspective (p. 53-60). There are undoubtedly pros and cons to each decision. This decision also may also have to be based on what type of situation the ethnographer is describing. For example, if an ethnographer were simply observing an event, then the third person perspective may be best; however, if the ethnographer is participating in the activity he is describing, then it seems likely that a first person account would be preferable.

A third and more general issue that this book raises in my mind concerns the nature of ethnography itself. Is ethnography an art or a science? If it is truly a science, then this book strikes me as a particularly useful technical manual that covers a wide variety of techniques. If ethnography is really more of an art, however, perhaps a manual of this nature is not all that helpful. For example, while technical knowledge is undoubtedly integral for physicists, it may be less so for painters. Although a certain basis of technical skill is required to be an accomplished painter (with perhaps the exception of abstract impressionists), no manual will on its own make anyone a great painter. How true is this with ethnography as well? Is it the case of needing to possess innate talents of observation and description, or can someone learn all they need from seminars and textbooks?

The "Actual" Research Method

Before we go into serious discussions about yesterday's lecture, I wanted to share the "actual" research method diagram with you.
Original comic is posted here: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=761