Critical Review #5: Barz

In "Confronting the Field(note) In and Out of the Field," Gregory Barz addresses the issue of fieldnotes, quite apropos at this stage in the course. Barz's overall goal is to reject the linear approach to ethnography that flows from Field Research to Fieldnote to Ethnography (Experience->Reflection->Interpretation). He proposes a second model, imagining the fieldnote as a fulcrum on which experience and interpretation balance, and he emphasizes that interpretation is "part of an ongoing process rather than a final product" (216). In the article he includes various passages from his own fieldnotes, highlighting different discoveries he made or realizations that he came to in the process of writing, reviewing, and working with his fieldnotes. One aspect that I found particularly interesting was in his review of personal photographs taken of him with some of his research subjects. He saw in the photographs that he had been holding a notepad and pencil at the ready for the entire time, but in his memory of the events, he had not realized that the recording utensils were so prominent. He concludes that in that specific instance, his written documentation did not remove him from the group, as self-documentation was "not outside the experience of the kwaya itself" (221).

Even when self-documentation is normative for a group that we choose to study, can the constant presence of pencil and paper in the hands of the ethnographer ever truly be unremarkable to the extent that there is no seperation between the ethnographer and the group? If the answer is no, then is the experience of seamless inclusion in a group worth the price of forgetting details that one is unable to write down?