Chugging along....

Though I have done some research into the literature, I have already commented on it and I will rather choose to comment on my field experience from last week.

I have encountered some problem with field notes. It seems whenever I return with a notebook of jotted notes from volunteering, I am immediately inundated by distractions (e.g. the need for food) that lead me to put off my full field notes. I fear the loss of important details and data. So, this week, I strive to be better about this! I plan to volunteer again either Wednesday or Friday afternoon and I will be sure to block off at least an hour after I return for uninterrupted field note writing.

My last observation session occurred on a Friday this week. I had a chance to notice the more personalized possessions of the employees as they were leaving (e.g. purses, coats, even Valentine goody bags). I heard them talk about weekend and Valentine's Day plans, which definitely added dimension to some of the characters I have already become aware of. So far I do not have much analytical insights other than the fact that junk food is accepted in the clinical midst and that casual Friday is mainly observed by the positions on the lower rungs of the secretarial hierarchy. I am beginning to wonder if my background will blind me to unique aspects of work in the clinical setting. I practically grew up in a health clinic, so the rhythm and the long hours even after the door shuts are not too strange to me. I am banking that my lack of familiarity with this clinic will make me hypersensitive to what might be interesting observations. Perhaps most productively, I spoke with the clinic manager some more. I was able to start to ask her questions about changes that were occurring in the clinic (e.g. the redistribution of doctors to other clinics in the same network). In her explanation, she revealed a bit more about her own philosophy about healthcare. We have also started talking about setting up an interview date.

On top of late field note writing, I have another admission: I have not made it clear to everyone at the clinic what I am studying. Because I work rather individually and because I do not sense the "warm and fuzzies" from some of them (especially the front desk manager), I have been hesitant to approach them. Further complicating the matter, the 5 people I work most closely with never stop- they are always running around working. I really do not want to get in the way of their jobs. Also, they are not always all there. While I would prefer talking to everyone in a big group, I think I might write a general letter or email which the clinic manager could send out. I will email the clinic manager for her thoughts while scheduling our interview.

My goals for this week are to break into the clinical side of the office and to spend some more time there this Friday (preferably until they kick me out). Even if it means just setting an appointment for an interview with a nurse or doctor, I would be happy.

IRB; Revisions Requested

So I got the IRB submitted on Monday night and it felt GREAT. However, the board asks that I make some changes and include a written site letter from the organization I am working with. All and all though, I feel like I'm on my way! What are other peoples experiences with the IRB? Has anyone else had to make corrections?

I also got my abstract in Monday--does anyone know when we hear anything about that?

Frustration

I have been trying to get a hold of Zelinda Richards and the director of Project SARAH and I have been unsuccessful. I think I am going to have to switch my project to working with the Georgetown project. I feel pretty behind because I won’t be able to turn in my IRB until the next review date.

However I am trying to stay on track by doing a lot of background research. I found a book called Out of Sight, Out of Mind which is about homelessness in small town America. This book will be very helpful in my research.

DISCIPLINE & PRACTICE: "The Field" as Site, Method, and Location in Anthropology (Gupta & Ferguson)

T H E F I E L D

"As a metaphor we work by, "the field" thus reveals many of the unspoken assumptions of anthropology (11)."

• Be critical and thorough of your choice of field. Do not settle for a "chance" site.
  G&F warn of chance sites: "The very significant premisis and assumptions built into the anthropological idea of "the field" are in this way protected from critical scrutiny, even as they are smuggled into the discipline's most central practices of induction, socialization, and professional reproduction (11)."
  
• "A "good" field site is made, however, not only by considerations of funding and clearance, but by its suitability for addressing issues and debates that matter to the discipline (10)."
  
• "Our focus on shifting locations rather than bounded fields is linked to a different political vision, one that sees anthropological knowledge as a form of situated intervention. Rather than viewing ethnographic intervention as a disinterested search for truth in the service of humanistic knowlegde, we see it as a way of pursuing specific political aims while while simultaneously seeking lines of common political alliance with allies who stand elsewhere- a mode of building what Haraway (1988) has termed "web-like interconnections" between different social and cultural locations (38-9)."

E T H N O G R A P H Y & P E R S P E C T I V E

• The strengths of ethnographic contribution
  "Ethnography's greatest strength has always been its explicit and well-developed sense of location, of being set here-and-not-elsewhere. This strength becomes a liability when notions of "here" and "elsewhere" are assumed to be features of geography, rather than sites constructed in fields of unequal power relations (35)."
  
• Ethnographic location is less about physical geography than power relations
  "... ethnography has always contained at least some recognition that knowledge is is inevitably both "about somewhere" and "from somewhere" and that the knower's location and life experience are somehow central to the kind of knowledge produced (35)."