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?
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?
posted by Annie at 8:38 AM
2 Comments:
So funny, Annie. We were writing at the same time, it looks like.
YES, great question!
An interesting question Annie. Another thing I was wondering about, is does the fact that the V2 was used by the Germans change our perception of this exhibit? For example, if when looking at an American B-52 bomber (which have killed far more people than the V2's), would this mother tell her child that this is a passenger plane?
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