This is the fieldwork handbook I wish I’d been able to assign during my four decades teaching fieldwork to folklore and ethnomusicology students. I’d assigned other books, but none were entirely adequate. Goldstein’s Guide for Fieldworkers in Folklore (1964) is long out of print. Spradley’s The Cultural Experience (1988 [1972]), for undergraduates, and his The Ethnographic Interview (2016 [1979]) are still useful in many ways but are closely tied to an ethnosemantic paradigm no longer in fashion. Ives’s avuncular The Tape-Recorded Interview (1995 [1980]) is helpful but narrow in scope while the discussion of technology is dated. Herndon and McLeod’s Field Manual for Ethnomusicology (1983) was doggedly scientific, insisting on objective investigation when ethnomusicology was in the midst of its humanistic turn. In his Fieldwork (1987), Jackson took up half the volume with good discussions of recording and photographic and film documentation, but the details of 1980s technology are no longer relevant. Besides, Jackson was captive to the older idea of folklore as “collecting,” and as a result he missed the turn in both disciplines to reciprocity and reflexivity. Among more recent works, Lassiter’s Guide to Collaborative Ethnography (2005) is useful though limited in subject and perspective, while Barz and Cooley’s edited book, Shadows in the Field (2008), offers a series of thoughtful reflections on ethnomusicological fieldwork but is not meant to be a guide to doing fieldwork.
With Lisa Gilman and John Fenn’s Handbook we have a comprehensive fieldwork guide that tells its readers that fieldwork isn’t mainly about investigation, participation, observation, note-taking, hand-wringing, problem-solving, making travel arrangements, and getting familiar with one’s gear, although certainly all of that is involved. Fieldwork, the authors recognize, is chiefly about people and relationships. The book is a fine introduction to the art and science of ethnographic fieldwork, from project conception through field research, the beginnings of ethnographic interpretation and analysis, and how to share the outcome with the individuals and community researched. It is clearly organized, well written, up to date, and filled with excellent advice and real-world examples from various experienced fieldworkers. Gilman and Fenn understand the combination of excitement and apprehension that inexperienced fieldworkers face. Never preachy, they never talk down to their readers. Nor does their Handbook avoid thorny problems; rather, it presents issues such as positionality, ethics, and collaboration in relation to fieldwork in a practical rather than theory-laden way, so as to invite readers to engage, think further, and decide for themselves. In numerous places the authors point readers to outside sources for more detailed discussions. Useful for undergraduates in folklore and ethnomusicology courses, the Handbook will also be helpful for graduate students planning and undertaking longitudinal fieldwork projects. Moreover, it is also aimed at public fieldworkers whose projects may involve surveys closer to home and over shorter durations.
The Handbook consists of three sections: Preparing for the Field, In the Field, and After the Field. At the outset the authors state that “Ethnographic fieldwork is an extension of what each of us does in our day-to-day lives as we learn how to be social and creative people through observations and interactions within the worlds we occupy” (5). Compare that with Bruce Jackson’s last sentence in his 1977 book, Fieldwork: “FIELDWORK IS NOT EVERYDAY LIFE” (277; all caps in original). The u-turn in attitudes toward fieldwork couldn’t be more starkly represented than in these two contrary pieces of advice. Preparing for the Field begins with a chapter that defines fieldwork, and then the authors take the reader through the processes of developing a project and creating a research plan. Although it inevitably will change somewhat during the project, a work plan detailing the who, what, when, why, and the goals of the project is always helpful. The authors emphasize the importance of access and preliminary research to determine whether the project is feasible. The authors recognize, also, the importance of observation and “hanging out” rather than just powering through, gathering information, and moving to a foregone conclusion. A chapter introduces funding sources and how to finance fieldwork. The authors take up the subjects of documentation, gear, and technology by providing a framework so that fieldworkers can match it to their project, wisely refraining from detailed discussions of the technology—discussions which date quickly. They endorse the idea of team fieldwork, with specialists in sound recording, still photography, video documentation, and so on. At the same time, fieldworkers should be able to manage high quality documentation of many kinds on their own. While smartphones, social media, and YouTube have enabled a flood of amateur documentation, fieldworkers should still strive for a professional technical standard, particularly if their work is to have lasting value. Oddly, many of the photographic illustrations in the book are printed well below that standard, badly lacking in contrast and detail. For a book that is all about good documentation, and in a book destined to be widely adopted and sell thousands of copies over a multi-year period, I believe that the press should have taken pains to reproduce the photographs well, and on glossy paper in several separate sections.
In the Field includes introductions to methods and strategies for participant observation, interviewing, and documentation, all with detailed, helpful examples for the beginner. Graduate students will want to supplement these chapters with more advanced materials. An important chapter, Issues in the Field, discusses identity, well-being, interpersonal relationships, harassment, gender, race, and related topics. While “ethics” is given a separate chapter in the next section, the ethical treatment of one’s field partners and colleagues is treated throughout the book, as those issues arise in various contexts. Although some different issues of ethical concern could have been introduced—for example, the burgeoning interest among folklorists and ethnomusicologists in social and environmental justice, activism, and the climate emergency—the book is after all an introduction to fieldwork, not a critique, nor a future prospectus for the disciplines.
After the Field is concerned with organizing and managing the materials and information gathered in the field. Good illustrative examples flesh out the authors’ suggestions. Logs, spreadsheets, and transcribing recordings are among the topics covered. Ethnomusicologists will want to consult additional sources for musical documentation, transcription, and analysis. The authors also show how fieldworkers may re-examine their materials for emergent expressive cultural themes, and how to begin analyzing them. Here, the authors ask fieldworkers to be sensitive to issues involving subjectivity, representation, authority, power dynamics within communities and between fieldworkers and other individuals, collaboration, and the like. The Handbook offers a concise and practical introduction to these issues that arise both before and in the field, where they may be recorded in a field journal; and afterwards, if planning to write ethnography reflexively. Final chapters on ethics and preservation treat matters involving archives, accessibility, permissions, intellectual property rights, the concepts of sharing and reciprocity, and maximizing the benefits for the individuals and communities studied. In that regard, the authors should be complimented mightily for bringing up the issue of sustaining relations and friendships with field partners after projects are completed.
A book written for both folklorists and ethnomusicologists serves as a reminder that these two disciplines have much in common: fieldwork methodology and the study of expressive culture, for starters. Moreover, public folklorists work together with applied ethnomusicologists at the American Folklife Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and elsewhere. I hope that a side benefit of this book will be a renewed interest in bringing more folklorists and ethnomusicologists together, perhaps at a joint AFS/SEM conference in the not-too-distant future.
Works Cited
Barz, Gregory F., and Timothy J. Cooley. Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Goldstein, Kenneth. A Guide for Fieldworkers in Folklore. Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1964.
Herndon, Marcia, and Norma McLeod. Field Manual for Ethnomusicology. Norwood, PA: Norwood Editions, 1983.
Ives, Edward D. The Tape-Recorded Interview. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995 [1980].
Jackson, Bruce. Fieldwork. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
Lassiter, Luke. The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Spradley, James P. The Ethnographic Interview. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2016 [1979].
Spradley, James P., and David W. McCurdy. The Cultural Experience: Ethnography in Complex Society. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1988 [1972]. (A second edition, updated by Diana J. Shandy, was published by Waveland in 2005.)
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[Review length: 1388 words • Review posted on February 27, 2020]