WilliamsMemo2



Williams 1/20/09 Memo 2 Habits Neuroses and Talents

Fortun, Kim. 2009. "Figuring out Ethnography". James D. Faubion and George E. Marcus. //Fieldwork Is Not What It Used To Be: Learning Anthropology's Method in a Time of Transition// Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press //GOOD// Being very organized/ Planning ahead (tied to talent) <---CONNECTED---> ||  || Envisioning the future of an individual and figuring out a path of how to make it happen (I usually just do this for myself, but sometimes people like my advice) <---CONNECTED---> || //BAD// Using work to avoid other work (procrastinating) <---CONNECTED---> || Feeling underprepared <---CONNECTED---> || Making connections between seemingly disparate events, otherwise called daydreaming-while-reading-emails-and-news-articles (which is tied to my bad habit of procrastinating as this is 'fun' for me but consumes time I should spend working.) <---CONNECTED---> || //BAD// Focusing on an object and ignoring its background or context || Self-conscious about my elocution //GOOD// Remembering Names (this used to be a bad habit but I worked very hard and am continuing to work hard to remember names) ||  ||   || I am not a good "shoot at the hip" type of public speaker, instead I require intensive preparation to come across as well spoken. This 'preparation requirement' being a particular neurosis of mine, the idea of doing participant observation work comes across to me as extremely difficult. What would I say? What would I do? How would my observations come together in a coherent way? Too much reflection on my failed attempts to do participant observation one time each in PDI 1 (Fall 2007) and PDI 2 (Spring 2008) causes an almost physical reaction in my body -- not really hyperventilating, but, my chest tightens and my thoughts become increasingly frenzied. I must stop. Planning is important to me. Planning is what I do. I plan my daily schedule, and my weekly schedule (if not on paper, then at least in my head). I plan what to wear the next day, and also (loosely) what I will eat. Existing in the moment was not the way I was raised, and not the way that I have gotten this far in my life and education. I am always planning ahead. I see this as a good life habit. But I recognize that it is not always good. This habit of mine sometimes makes it difficult to focus on what I need to be doing in the here and now. The flip side of extensive planning ahead is intensive day dreaming. I like daydreaming -- most people do it. Imagining my future helps me to identify what I need to be doing right now. But daydreaming is more fun then the work of 'right now.' So, sometimes, it can be distracting instead of instructive. I am beginning to realize (with great relief) that ethnographic research that is particularistic, and grounded, and maybe even perhaps founded on a standpoint, does not start out as loosely defined/planned as I had previously imagined. This class will provide a really excellent skill set for teasing out the possible relationships for 'pre-examination' by each aspiring scholar's analytical mind, without necessarily expecting those relationships to be present in the actual fieldwork that is done. Building the analytical skill set is useful, and necessary, especially as the complexity of ethnographic fieldwork increases with the increased pace of the world and cultural transactions. I am aware that this would seem to be neoliberal argument for doing ethnographic fieldwork. There are probably other better arguments, but I still think it is valid. ICT's have made the pace of human life seem faster though our life spans have not appreciably increased it seems to me that one person can 'do' more in the same 70 years (which I believe is the life expectancy for women in 1st world countries). My problem is that I'm an obsessive compulsive scholar (Fortun 15). "Figure" is my focus, understanding "ground" my weakness. This I discovered in Discourse Analysis course in Spring 2008. At that time, I was working on a project that looked at gendered discourse of women in engineering. I chose as my objects of study, the award winning magazine for the Society of Women Engineers, and the magazine for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. After completing maps and memos #2 where I coded the discourse in the magazines, Nancy Campbell advised that I move on to different media for coding the images. But I was obsessed. I was determined to find what I was searching for (while only having a loose definition of what that was) in the two magazines I had chosen, despite the second set of maps and memos fairly conclusively showing that I had exhausted the material. I was to determined to find something I could not define in material that was of a very narrow context. I correlate Keller's discussion of OBC scholars with Jakobson's discussion of "selection disorder" (Fortun 15). However, sometimes, I also have "combination disorder" where I am trying to integrate all of the 'noise' as ground to my figure (Fortun 16). Part of the way I plan, I tend to be very reductive. But this does not necessarily mean being selective. Instead sometimes I try and reduce 'all things' to 'some things' requiring many iterations of combination and reduction for my grand theory of XYZ that in the end does not show the complexity of ground that it started with. Part of this tendency comes from my training as an engineer. Part of it is just the way that I as an individual have always tried to make sense of the world. On those online intelligence tests, it says that I am a 'visual mathematician' which sums it up for me. 'preparedness' as neurosis. Planning as habit; daydreaming as neurosis/talent Reflection/ Pre-examination as planning ahead? Ignoring ground for figure (ignoring context for object) Reducing all to some
 * Reference:**
 * HABITS** ||
 * NEUROSES** ||
 * TALENTS** ||
 * TALENTS** ||
 * Taking good notes
 * Making good outlines for papers/presentations
 * Being unwilling to attend class and, or, participate in class discussions when unprepared or feeling underprepared
 * Freezing during moments of public speech/ class participation ||  ||