Field Notes on Public Ambiguity

"The difference between doing fieldwork and just "hanging out" is the writing. Without writing, the sharp, incisive details about people, places and cultures are lost to us." - Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, 2002, p. 56

I am tempted to start collecting vintage field note-books

For my qualitative class I have several assignments I need to turn in, one of which is a write-up of an observation I did. My professor for the class is an ethnographer, and stresses the importance of observing and taking notes, and more precisely, how to take notes. Not being familiar with ethnography myself, I find this whole process captivating. My tendency to add flourishes to my descriptive writing is not really welcome in some stages of my observation notes. Here is where the descriptive becomes somewhat dry and analytical. This is also one of the more objective moments of qualitative research, where writing down "his mouth turned down and his eyes became wet" is preferred to "he was crying." Once I have all of these descriptive parts down, then I can go back in and ask questions about my observation - scribbles called memos can address, "I think he was crying, why?" then look more closely at my field notes to gather more evidence of what was going on.

I wish I could express how fascinating I find this whole process. It is completely outside of my realm of experience, and sometimes comfort. In the last 7 years or so, I have become much more analytical and I don't have the same temperament I once did for what I refer to as "public ambiguity." I am fine with my personal ambiguity - of having internal questions and privately working through things that may not make sense. Qualitative research makes those parts of my life much more public and it's quite hard for me. I have to document this ambiguity instead of just sitting quietly and privately with myself. I have to then interact with this ambiguity in front of others, then re-write about it. The integration of my system of beliefs upon the subject matter that I am studying is both a welcome practice and also absolutely unnerving. However the difficulty I have doing this type of research is what makes me want to do it even more, to understand interpretations of culture and to learn the difference between a twitch and a wink (Geertz, 1973).

- And yes, I did put a citation into my blog post. I know it makes it "academic" but I had to. Forgive me.