Collaboration

A group of us in the Social Anthropology department at St Andrews have recently started up a collaborative anthropology research group. So far we have only had one meeting in which we shared a few thoughts on what we considered collaborative about research projects we had done or had in the pipeline. I didn't feel that my own research was especially collaborative (besides being anthropology and therefore collaborative by nature), but had gone along to the meeting anyway out of interest. The extent of my collaboration at present (and the present moment is dominated by writing my thesis) is to send drafts of chapters to my informants in the field for them to read, in the hope that they would be able to provide me with useful comments on them which will help me to know whether I am on the right track. Yesterday another member of the research group told me that she thought I was very brave to do this. Instinctively, I felt both that she was right -  that I was brave in way because I felt I was taking a risk -  but that I should do it more or less without thinking in any case, more or less as a duty to my informants. I shall share here some of my musing on sharing my work with my friends in my research fieldsite in Bolivia.

The first thing is to say that to be participating in a research group concerned with collaboration at all seems to have something absurd to it, because collaboration is so inherent to the research methods of Social Anthropology. Anthropologists need to engage with people for their research. Without collaboration with the research subjects such research is generally (though I acknowledge that of course some people manage to do anthropological research in archives where the subjects of their research have limited ability, to say the least, to engage with the researcher). Engaging in non-collaborative research would have conceivably meant conducting research in secret without permission. But I suppose the question of my permission to do research is one of the reasons I feel compelled to share with people where I can now while I am still writing up my thesis. Even when we as anthropologists have got permission to conduct research, how aware are the participants in this research of how they are going to be portrayed in our writing? Even despite being aware of what it is that we are researching, seeing us take notes on everything, they could still be surprised that we have picked up on a particular utterance. Even though I have made pains to portray none of my informants in such a way that would give offence, I still wonder whether a person may object that I had taken a remark out of context, or worse object to being referred to in my research at all.

One of the main reasons for sharing my writing with the subjects of my research though of course is because I would like to receive comments back. If memory serves me right I have sent chapters of my thesis out to four different people who I knew to varying degrees (certainly I knew three of them quite well). I sent the chapter drafts with the utmost trepidation at what they would think of them. Two of them had asked for me to send chapters, the other two I had sent the chapters to in a more unsolicited fashion simply because they were personally protagonists themselves in these chapters. Frustratingly, three of them have barely given me any comments whatsoever on the chapters that I have sent them. I wondered at their lack of response. I wondered whether they may have taken offence to something. I wondered whether they had even read the drafts.

The one man who has given me comments on my work is my compadre, Feliciano. I probably mention Feliciano in every one of my chapters, I spent quite a lot of time with him during my fieldwork, and conversations with him guided the direction of my thesis. When I met Feliciano I felt like he was a godsend. He always had time to explain to me the history of the province (and his part in it), and to help me to join the dots a little in my research by suggesting to me other people I should talk to in other communities (I would often generally myself to them by telling them that Feliciano had suggested I look them up). He wasn't the only one who did this, though he more than anyone had a hand in directly my research in particular directions whilst I was still in the field. This, for me is collaboration in Anthropology. We also discussed working on a book together as a potential joint project.

The collaborative aspect to my research has at times led me to feel a sense of guilt that I was using the knowledge of others to further my academic career. At times this point would be made to me by others in my fieldwork. There are moments I remember when I would be enjoying the company of friends in the field and then would take out my notebook to note down something interesting that they had said, and would see their discomfort. Worse, I might ask to take a photo, and would be surprised to be told - sometimes by someone I was friendly with - that I should pay (this was infrequent, but not uncommon) because I would use it in my thesis and therefore make money from it myself. At the time I laughed at the idea - writing up seemed so far off - but now as I put those photos in my thesis I feel I understand. The Kallawayas are used to anthropologists showing up periodically, staying a while, a year or two, perhaps returning, and making academic careers from writing about aspects of their culture. It was made clear to me (even before I met the Kallawayas) that many of them view the anthropologists who have worked in Kallawaya communities in a particularly negative light. They seem to regard anthropologists as engaging in a kind of intellectual or cultural theft. This has contributed to my own sense of guilt regarding my use of the material I had gathered from fieldwork. In the Andes the concept of ayni (reciprocity) is important in all aspects of life. It has been expressed to me by people in met in my fieldwork that through my research I was "taking" something, and that I had to give something back. I feel that debt as something which somehow, at some point I have to repay.

Once I returned to the university the collaborative aspect soon felt lost for me. All I had were my notes. I think it took me six months to write anything decent because of the sense of academic guilt which I felt that I had left those collaborative relationships and was taking advantage of the material gathered in fieldwork to write my thesis for what felt like my own benefit. I tried calling several friends I had met in fieldwork and found it difficult to get through to them, and soon lost touch. However, after a year back at university I managed to acquire Feliciano's phone number and was able to send him drafts of my chapters to look at. I feel like I am sending a treasured pet out into the wild to fend for itself when I send him the drafts to read. Although he has now seen two chapters and a paper which I have written, and given me positive feedback on them, I still feel an enormous sense of trepidation at sending Feliciano translations of the next chapters. What happens if he doesn't like or disagrees with a chapter, and I am left wondering whether I should re-write aspects? Perhaps that is why it is brave!

The awkwardness of meeting someone unexpectedly

Last week, as I was idling around Boots looking for some presents for my mum for Christmas, I got a phonecall from my office-mate, asking me to do her a favour. She was calling me from Poland. It turned out that all of her housemates had left for the winter and the last one to leave the house had taken the back door key with them, but without securing the house first. She asked me if I would go to her house and lock the back door. Naturally, I assented, and gave her my address for her housemate to send me the key. I then went back to shopping for the foundation cream (for face) which my sister had suggested that I buy my mum. After telling the shop assistant what I was looking for, she showed me a dazzling array of options, and rather optimistically, it seemed to me, expected me to know which one my mum would prefer colour-wise. I took a wild stab in the dark and when it came to giving her the present it turned out to be a lucky guess.

The next day the key arrived in the post. I walked to my office-mate's house, let myself in through the back gate, and then in through the back door, as she suggested, and then locked and unlocked the door just to make sure that I was in the right house. Then I looked around me. I was unprepared for the mess I was surrounded by in the kitchen. There were piles  of empty pizza boxes on the table, and a load of oven chips uneaten on hob. I was surprised because I had been told that the house was empty. I felt like one of the three bears having come in to find goldilocks having left the house in a state. Curious as to whether the other communal areas were such a mess I ventured further in the house, and found myself walking up the stairs. As I reached the top of the staircase I was stunned to find a door open in front of me and someone I knew (rather vaguely) come out. I had been told before by my office-mate that he had been staying in the house and sleeping on the sofa, but had naturally assumed that he had left for Christmas. Not so. He looked surprised. I explained quickly, that my office-mate had asked me to come and lock the back door, as though I was giving an alibi for a crime I was in the act of committing. "I thought the house was empty". "Yeah", he told me, "I didn't want to leave with the house unsecured". I gave him the keys. "You'd better leave them somewhere obvious for her when she comes back", I told him. And with that, I left, feeling awkwardly as though I had been caught appearing to burgle the house.

The Atheist Church

A few months ago I went to visit my sister in Bristol. It was an enjoyable, though tiring trip (as it was sunny we spent quite a bit of the time walking around the city). We played scrabble with her friends, cooked and ate (well, she cooked, and I ate), and saw the charmingly quirky film The 100-year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared.

The last day of my visit was a Sunday, and my sister had a treat in store for me. She had decided that we should pop along to the Bristol branch of The People's Assembly. I had no idea what this could be, and when I asked her for an explanation she told me that it was an 'athiest church' (but not to tell our mum that we would be going). Intrigued by this description, and even more so by my sister's injunction against familial publicity of our outing, I was keen to accompany her on what turned out to also be her first visit to site of non-religious congregation.

The first thing I was surprised to find was that the 'service' was being held in a church, which didn't strike me as a particularly atheist. We arrived, as is customary when our family attends church, fifteen minutes late. Atheist or religious, we certainly weren't going to break the long tradition of late church attendance! We arrived then, as a woman was stood in front of the assembled congregation just finishing reading a passage from a book. Thus far, so much like regular church, I thought to myself. I later learned that the book was Little House on the Prairie. This was followed by some teenagers who told us about the campaign which they had been successfully waging to increase awareness of FGM in institutions, particularly schools, in Bristol. The 'atheist church' line, although amusing did not at this point strike me as a particularly relevant tag at this point, though when the girls sat down and we all got up to sing, I could suddenly see why the comparison might be made. The song was Bob Dylan's The times they are a changin. The congregation sang with gusto. Change, it turned out was the theme of today's meeting. After the sing-a-long we were told that we would have five minuted to mingle with others in the congregation, to talk to people we had never met before (in my case everyone bar my sister), and that we should tell them about a change we had made in the last year, and a change that we wanted to make. I got talking to a nice chap who had, if I recall correctly, come up from Cornwall for the day. When I told him that I had come down from St Andrews he was immediately interested, as he said he had performed poetry there in the Byre theatre some years ago. It turned out that he was to be the next act on, so to speak.

I can't swing

So, back at university, and as usual I have joined various different clubs, to try various different things that I have never done before (or at least have barely tried before). In the past at uni I have joined such clubs as fencing, ten-pin bowling and the university radio station. This time I thought I'd try my hand at squash, and as well as joining the pool club, have been attended several swing dance classes. The pool club night clashes with the swing dance classes though, so as yet I haven't been. I've never been a dancer, but swing seemed like it might be fun and good exercise. Plus I felt that I had reached an acceptable level of incompetence in my attempts to learn salsa, and was thus clearly ready to move onto another dance.

My first swing taster session was of all abilities. I accompanied some of the fellow postgrads living in my building to the student union, where the event would be taking place. Half our number left as we approached the door, after deciding that the dancing looked a little too serious for them (they were there mostly for alcohol, and had come in fancy dress as 1920s gangsters, I think). Taking my life into my hands though I entered, and undeterred by my natural lack of rhythm or any ability to move in time to the music, I tried to follow the steps of the people around me. Except I wasn't following their steps. I was floundering. This was much to the exasperation of the two girls I had accompanied and who took it in turns to show me some steps. By the end - after another girl had shown me some more steps and I was feeling a little more confident, I felt ready to begin beginner's classes a couple of days later. The class started with the teachers telling everyone to "pulse". We jumped up once, landed on our feet with our knees bent, and I began to bounce up and down as I believed was expected of me. By the end of the class, after we had been shown some steps and I had danced with an array of women, I felt embarrassed by my lack of ability, and continual mistakes, but with the expectation that many of the other men probably felt the same way. Undaunted by my incompetence, I again returned to the class today. Despite lacking any ability to move in time to the music, I felt that by the end of the class I had got the hang of one or two of the steps and in the freer session at the end of the class I attempted them over and over again with every girl I danced with. I felt out of my depth but was nonetheless enjoying myself until I came to dance with a French girl, one of the girls I had accompanied to the first session. "I don't know what you're trying to do" she seemed to scream at me time after time, and in no time I was ready to leave the dance floor. I'm hoping that none of the students from my tutorial classes were learning swing, and were treated to the embarrassment of my dancing. I think I might give the pool club try next time (or maybe just get on with writing my thesis). 

The Giant and the Church

My mum regularly attends a local pentecostal church, and has done since before I was born, the village where my parents currently live having been the locality in question from around my third birthday onwards. Every Sunday that I am staying at home with them my mum asks me if I am going to attend church with her, and from a sense of guilt at the disappointed noises which follow when I say no, I sometimes acquiesce.

The church is a modest affair, the building itself being of noticeably religious orientation only because of the somewhat mutilated cross on the outside of one wall neighbouring the main road. I say mutilated because the cross was "redesigned" some years ago by a chap with an evidently avantgarde approach to traditional religious symbols, who must have thought that the traditional cross in the shape of... well, a cross was a bit old hat and returned said item to the church with one of the arms lopped off, which he had replaced by a bird of some description, which I presume to be a dove.

But I digress slightly. Where was I? Oh yes, I was about to tell you about the interior of the church. Inside the church of course, are the church-goers, which at present seem to be in almost equal measures long-term residents of the village, recent arrivals from East London whose skin is a darker hue than is traditional in these parts, and residents of the local care home for people with various interesting disorders, such as autism and downs syndrome. My brother being one of the current residents, I visited the venerable institution on my return from Bolivia. My brother has a flat which is slightly detached from the main building, but which one has to access through the larger building on entering and leaving. On the way out with mum on this particular occasion a colossus bounded down the stairs, and warmly greeted myself and said parent, asking after my brother and shaking me a bit too firmly by the hand. Upon reaching the street I asked my mum if this goliath (he was comfortably seven feet tall, probably seven and a half) was an inmate or a warden, and was somewhat taken aback when she told me that he was in fact one of the inmates. I asked her what he was in for, and was told that "he has a growth problem". I thought for a moment before asking "is that it?", and my mum replied that he has been interred because of fears that he might get taken advantage of because of his height.

But anyway, back to the church. So this morning my mum and I enter the church and sit down behind the giant. I attempt to focus my sore eyes. Before leaving the house I had been staring into them with the aid of a mirror, after becoming rather fascinated with the pigmentation of and shapes within my iris, and then attempting to discover whether through prolonged gazing of this sort I'd be able to detect a dilation of my pupils. I think I may have strained my eyes in doing so, but I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that they now feel right as rain. The service took the usual form, a bit of singing, some relation from various members of the congregation about how they wish to praise and thank God for something or other that has happened to them or their relatives that week, and then pastor giving a rambling sermon. This was of course interspersed with the intake of bread and ribena and the saying of prayer. When it came to the segment of the service in which audience members share their anecdotes I was prepared - for the first time! - to share something. After listening to an old woman relate how God had enabled her - or it may have been a relative - to recover from some life-threatening illness or other, and then a teenager filling us in on a similar tale, I got up to tell the assembled masses of how pleased and thankful I was that God had, in the form of the financial advisor at the university's student services department, sent some money my way. Obviously, being English and thus having to suffer the unfortunate affliction of irony dripping from every word that I utter, this was a difficult thing to. While the previous two speakers had been holding the congregation's attention, I had been inwardly preparing myself be repeating the mantra "don't try to be funny" to myself. I've sometimes thought it surprising that Christianity ever took off at all in this country, since being religious seems to require levels of sincerity so clearly incompatible with the English psyche. Which is ironic really, since God himself is, of course, an Englishman. After I had sat down, one of the other congregation members took the floor to inform us that he didn't really have anything to say, but wanted to sing, and then began a little ditty which I had never heard before and wondered whether he was improvising. There was just time before continuing the show for my mum to step up, say she was glad that I had spoken because if I hadn't she would have told to story of my windfall herself, and then to thank God for providing the half a duck my dad had spotted in the reductions counter at the supermarket the other day.

When the sharing of personal stories was over with, and we got on with some good old singing, Goliath turned around to me and enquired as to my footballing affiliation. Upon informing him that I was a West Ham fan, he put his hand up for a high five and I winced at the force of impact as his palm hit mine. I don't know if he is a regular attendee. He would certainly be useful to have in the company should productions of the life of King David be performed.

How not to respond in a job interview

My downfall in job interviews in general that I am far too honest (a good example of this is when I was being interviewed for an Assistant Warden job at university a few years ago, and upon being asked why I was interested in the role, responded that it was because of the free accommodation). The following are some of the responses which I gave to questions in a recent interview for a job teaching English as a Foreign Language in London.

On being asked what I know about the company, I told the interviewer something like: "To be honest, I looked at the company's website when I applied for the job (a couple of weeks previously), and I don't know if I can remember anything now". Her response was "well, that's honest, I suppose". Upon realising (as the words left my mouth) that I had shot myself in the foot, I attempted to recite to her the school's social programme, which I had seen on the wall of reception on the way in. I suppose I was hoping that I'd at least get some brownie-points for short-term memory and observation skills.

She asked me what kind of a teacher I am. I told her I was a "facilitator" - the first word that entered my head, without being able to tell her what I meant by the description, and instead gibbered somewhat.

By the time she asked me to do a 5-minute demonstration lesson (which she gave me 5 minutes on my own with board pens and a piece of paper to prepare), I knew that the game was up. My mind went blank, and I spent 4 of the 5 minutes staring at the piece of paper without any idea of what I was going to do when she came back in to the room. The last minute I spent drawing a plan of town on the board, and when the interviewer returned, I proceeded to teach her an elementary level class of giving and asking for directions. It seemed to go OK, some things worked, and others I clearly could have done better, which was exactly the feedback I was given. If I was judged on the class alone then perhaps I would have been offered the job.

Before the interview was over, the interviewer had one final question for me. "Are you familiar with phonetic symbols?", she asked me. "With what?" was my devastating reply, somehow not having heard her words clearly. I don't think that then telling her that it was the way she pronounced "phonetic symbols" that was the problem helped my cause very much.

I wasn't surprised, a few days later, to receive an email telling me that "at this time [I] have not been successful in my application."