WEF Reading

In Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, Robert Emerson effectively articulates what appears to be a successful method for taking fieldnotes about a place or culture, and then analyzing those notes. He almost takes a Katherine Boo-like a approach to his ideas — talking about telling a story with an analysis as one method of conveying research to readers. Initially, I respected the fact that Emerson appears to be all about a step-by-step process in his research, recording and analysis. He discusses close reading, and this is something that I wouldn’t necessarily associate with fieldnotes, but he explains that it is beneficial to take notes, then go back and analyze, then put them aside for a bit, and then scrutinize them to the extreme. Something Emerson mentioned that I find peculiar: he says that it is often very difficult to scrutinize one’s own work and the people in the environment with whom you, the ethnographer have developed a close relationship. For me, I constantly criticize myself and have no problem critically evaluating my own work or the lives of people around me. Upon deeper analysis of Emerson’s writing, I can relate a few things to my own project. First, asking whether or not the people you observe are essential to the project. So, in a sense, only including elements that push the “story” forward. Also, reading line-by-line in the order the notes were taken is an interesting idea, and this could prove to be beneficial when sorting through research.