John Forrest - Doing Field Projects

The most basic point about fieldwork, whether you are working with one person, or you are in a crowded situation, is that you should not draw unnecessary attention to yourself. You are aiming for people to act naturally around you; otherwise, your data can be unduly compromised. As it is, our presence as a fieldworker changes the situation, but you want to minimize this effect as much as you can, or, at the very least, take your presence into account. Unshipping a giant video camera and tripod or pulling out a professional laptop, not only draws attention to yourself, it also alters the way that people categorize you and respond to you. Furthermore, it is not just big pieces of fancy equipment that can get people uncomfortable. Even a full-sized notepad or a clipboard is intrusive. How many times have you seen a person standing on a street carrying a clipboard and you have wanted to walk in the other direction or duck for cover? A little pocket-sized notebook is far less threatening. You don’t even need a bag to carry it in. You can show up for a session in your normal clothes with it in a pocket, and you can start talking or observing before you even take out your notebook. You want to be unobtrusive, but not secretive. It is unethical to document people without their knowledge and informed consent. We will get into specifics in individual projects because there are major differences between public events and private interviews. Just keep the basic principle in the forefront of your mind.

I did the great bulk of my PhD dissertation fieldwork carrying only a small, pocket-sized notepad and pen into the field during the day. I had much larger notebooks in my room for writing up my formal notes each evening, and I kept my finished notes in orderly file folders. But my small notepad was my constant companion. Keep in mind though that you need to get into the habit of taking notes at a regular pace when you are using a notebook, so that the people you are working with do not start to believe that the things you write down are more important than the things you do not. They are not anyway, but you do not want to give that impression.

If you are skilled at taking notes quickly and accurately using the notepad app on your smartphone, then use it. Typically, however, people have a hard job taking notes as fast on a smartphone as with notebook and pen. Experiment if you are unsure. Type the following notes (or something equivalent) on your smartphone and then write them in a notebook, and figure out which method is easier, more comfortable, and quicker for you:

Meet at the coffee shop near Hamid the baker’s at 5 p.m. Thursday 12 th. Mrs. Carranza worked in a butcher’s shop in the 1950s in Brooklyn. Remember to ask her about work conditions, pay, hours, etc.

With either notebook or smartphone you will have your own shorthand for being able to take notes speedily, and you may develop more tricks as you progress with these projects. For now the task is to find the most convenient way to jot notes as you go.

Apart from your notebook, a voice recorder is your most valuable fieldwork tool, so choose one with care. Digital voice recorders come in all price ranges from around $30 to well over $1,000. The fact that modern recorders are small and can record long sessions without checking on them is a great blessing. You do, however, need to pay attention to a number of features when considering which recorder to buy – and you should buy your own. Other equipment you can borrow if necessary, but you need to own a voice recorder.

Of critical importance in choosing a recorder is its range and clarity of recording. Recorders come with built-in microphones of varying quality. Very expensive models can record music in stereo with extraordinary precision. This is overkill for regular fieldwork. For a typical interview you need a recorder that you can place on a table between you and your interviewee, and it will pick up all that both of you say – clearly. Do not buy a recorder online. Go to a store and test out their products. Sit in a simulated interview situation with the salesperson and test out the floor models. Make sure that when you play back the recording, you can hear the voices plainly, and they are not unduly muddied by ambient noise in the environment.

You will find that a number of recorders pick up voices adequately, so then you must turn your attention to other features. You need a recorder that will allow you to keep interviews separate in labeled files, and you must be able to pinpoint precise moments in each interview via a counter or timer. It is important to have all of your field data properly filed and indexed, so that when you are writing notes or a paper, you can jump immediately to that spot in an interview where, say, Arjun talked about fracturing his pelvis in a skiing accident. It’s not good enough to know that he talked about it at some point in an interview last Thursday. Good indexing is vital, which means that your recorder must facilitate this process without complications. More details on indexing and filing are laid out in the relevant projects.

Some recorders use replaceable batteries, some rechargeable. If it has a rechargeable battery, buy a spare, and keep it charged. If it uses replaceable batteries, keep spares with you at all times. Batteries have a bad habit of dying at inconvenient moments. Also make sure that data on the recorder is easily transferable to other media. Ideally it should have a memory card that allows you to make backup copies of interviews on your laptop or other device. Backup copies are essential . Never rely on a single copy . You may also consider backing up your data on a cloud storage service.

For routine field photography, you can use the camera in your smartphone provided that it is up to the task. Many of the latest models can take excellent photos, but they can be memory and battery hogs. Make sure that whenever you set out to complete a project you have space in memory for the number of photos you are likely to take, and that you have some device with you for a quick recharge if the need arises. Otherwise, you may decide that for field photography a dedicated camera is your best option.

This point leads me to an important issue about fieldwork photography in general, namely, that your purpose is not to take photos that are aesthetically pleasing, although it does not hurt if they are. First and foremost, you are recording data. A photo for fieldwork needs to record relevant information, but it does not have to be composed artistically. You do have to be concerned with not getting too close or too far away from your subject matter, but it does not matter if there are extraneous details in your shot. There is more on this subject in relevant projects.

Cameras come in all price ranges with all manner of attachments. How much you want to spend will be determined by your abilities with a camera (and your wallet). A DSLR camera is the optimum choice because the viewfinder (or monitor) shows you exactly what the lens is seeing, and, therefore, the image that you frame will be the image that is captured. For fieldwork, a camera with point-and-shoot ability is ideal, that is, a camera that automatically adjusts focus, shutter speed, and aperture size, so that all you have to worry about is what to point at. Even with plenty of experience operating a camera manually it is best not to have to concern yourself with changing settings when you are recording data. The less attention you have to give to your equipment when conducting fieldwork, the better. Having decent zoom capacity for close-ups is useful, as is having the ability to capture wide-angle shots. Currently I use an 18/400 lens, which covers most bases and is not desperately unwieldy (although it is noticeable). In the past I used an 18/55 lens, which was perfectly adequate for documentation most of the time and did not take up much space. Expense may be your critical criterion here.