On ambivalence and ethnography
This week, students in a cyberculture class are asking me questions about doing ethnography. One of the students asked me to discuss the issue of ambivalence. Here is part of my reply:
On Ambivalence:
I am glad you raised the issue of ambivalence in ethnography; it's good to have the opportunity to think through that feeling at leisure, and I'm going to answer it the long way round, with a story:
I've been listening to this teacher Ken McLoud, who does podcasts where he answers student questions about mindfulness. One student asked, "How do I get past my feelings of anger?" Ken's answer was, "The question you want to ask yourself is not 'how do I stop feeling anger,' but 'How can I feel this, and still be at peace?"
For me, dealing with ambivalence while doing ethnography (or cultural studies) feels a bit like dealing with anger coming into meditation. When I'm ambivalent, I feel anxious, inadequate, inarticulate, not quite up to the task I've set for myself. At least for me, these feelings leads almost naturally to questions of rights. If I can't say for sure exactly what went down in the story I'm trying to tell, or where I stand, or what something might mean, what right do I have to tell this story at all?
I spend a fair amount of time fantasizing about doing perfect ethnography (and perfect theory, for that matter.) Part of that fantasy involves asking myself routinely: could someone else tell this story with more accuracy, clarity, perceptiveness, grace, humility? If so, what gives me the right to write it? If the answer is that I seem to be the best person in an institution to do it, that makes me even more anxious. If I've been designated as the expert who writes, and I'm ambivalent about what I am writing (that is I cannot write to be right), shouldn't I stop? What about my an obligation to *not* write?
My process generally involves showing my 'subject' what I have written about them, and explaining why I made the choices I did in the telling. More significant than that, it involves, listening to their take on my take, hearing them tell me I didn't relay the story as I should have, deciding what to take on board, and when to stay with my perceptions. Of course it also involves things like working together to protect the identity of the person in question as best possible if that is their desire (and other things one would find in a standard IRB agreement.) But really it's about two things: working to perpetuate least harm, and taking the emotional hits that come anytime a writer has the audacity to tell someone else's story.
The right to write is pretty much where feelings of ambivalence lead for me, and at the end of the day, I can only write my story. That's why I think all ethnography is actually auto ethnography. If or when someone else writes her understanding of the events, then there will be two stories. As an auto-ethnographer, issue for me isn't getting the right version of the story, but writing through the ambivalence. It involves dialoguing with my 'subjects' and taking full on the necessary hits that come from creating narrative out of the realities of others.
So the question for me isn't, "How can I overcome ambivalence? or even "How can I overcome conflict in this interview/story/community observation, but rather how can I feel these things, and still write in a way that is about peace?" I'm not talking about a generic peace. I'm talking about a peaceful response to myself and others when someone else dismisses my observations as wrong, stupid, wishy washy, not 'rigorous', etc. It's hard, and I don't do it very well. But feeling this vulnerability is important for me. After all, isn't this the same vulnerability my 'subjects' must feel seeing my observations of their actions in print?
By embracing ambivalence, by saying, "I don't know if this choice is right, but here is why I made it and I'm willing to stay with your censure if that is what's coming," I make myself a little bit more like the folks I purport to be explaining to the world, and really, if that's not the point of auto-ethnography, I'm not sure what is.
Hope this makes some sense.
T
On Ambivalence:
I am glad you raised the issue of ambivalence in ethnography; it's good to have the opportunity to think through that feeling at leisure, and I'm going to answer it the long way round, with a story:
I've been listening to this teacher Ken McLoud, who does podcasts where he answers student questions about mindfulness. One student asked, "How do I get past my feelings of anger?" Ken's answer was, "The question you want to ask yourself is not 'how do I stop feeling anger,' but 'How can I feel this, and still be at peace?"
For me, dealing with ambivalence while doing ethnography (or cultural studies) feels a bit like dealing with anger coming into meditation. When I'm ambivalent, I feel anxious, inadequate, inarticulate, not quite up to the task I've set for myself. At least for me, these feelings leads almost naturally to questions of rights. If I can't say for sure exactly what went down in the story I'm trying to tell, or where I stand, or what something might mean, what right do I have to tell this story at all?
I spend a fair amount of time fantasizing about doing perfect ethnography (and perfect theory, for that matter.) Part of that fantasy involves asking myself routinely: could someone else tell this story with more accuracy, clarity, perceptiveness, grace, humility? If so, what gives me the right to write it? If the answer is that I seem to be the best person in an institution to do it, that makes me even more anxious. If I've been designated as the expert who writes, and I'm ambivalent about what I am writing (that is I cannot write to be right), shouldn't I stop? What about my an obligation to *not* write?
My process generally involves showing my 'subject' what I have written about them, and explaining why I made the choices I did in the telling. More significant than that, it involves, listening to their take on my take, hearing them tell me I didn't relay the story as I should have, deciding what to take on board, and when to stay with my perceptions. Of course it also involves things like working together to protect the identity of the person in question as best possible if that is their desire (and other things one would find in a standard IRB agreement.) But really it's about two things: working to perpetuate least harm, and taking the emotional hits that come anytime a writer has the audacity to tell someone else's story.
The right to write is pretty much where feelings of ambivalence lead for me, and at the end of the day, I can only write my story. That's why I think all ethnography is actually auto ethnography. If or when someone else writes her understanding of the events, then there will be two stories. As an auto-ethnographer, issue for me isn't getting the right version of the story, but writing through the ambivalence. It involves dialoguing with my 'subjects' and taking full on the necessary hits that come from creating narrative out of the realities of others.
So the question for me isn't, "How can I overcome ambivalence? or even "How can I overcome conflict in this interview/story/community observation, but rather how can I feel these things, and still write in a way that is about peace?" I'm not talking about a generic peace. I'm talking about a peaceful response to myself and others when someone else dismisses my observations as wrong, stupid, wishy washy, not 'rigorous', etc. It's hard, and I don't do it very well. But feeling this vulnerability is important for me. After all, isn't this the same vulnerability my 'subjects' must feel seeing my observations of their actions in print?
By embracing ambivalence, by saying, "I don't know if this choice is right, but here is why I made it and I'm willing to stay with your censure if that is what's coming," I make myself a little bit more like the folks I purport to be explaining to the world, and really, if that's not the point of auto-ethnography, I'm not sure what is.
Hope this makes some sense.
T