Reading Berg was a bit different this week, mostly because using unobtrusive research techniques seems so very different from the other types of research methodologies we’ve been examining. One thing I did appreciate, though, is that even though this type of research is more about “examining and assessing human traces,” Berg is still very insistent on the need to maintain and protect the privacy of the research subjects (268).
Throughout the reading, Berg uses various examples of research that has been done, through the use of various unobtrusive techniques as well as historiography, and to be honest, many of them sounded quite interesting. I mean, examining people’s garbage to determine alcohol use in a “dry” town? Using documents to look at the WKKK? Using oral history to illuminate the history of those who didn’t “win” in situations where the history is told by the victor? I find quite fascinating. I’m sure that there are other research studies done using these methods that I would find unbelievably boring, but because of his choice of examples, I found myself very engaged in the reading.
One question that I had, though, was in regards to visual ethnography. I went back and reviewed so that I could understand the difference between this and the photovoice technique discussed with action research last week, but now what I’m not sure about is how visual ethnography is unobtrusive. Berg uses two examples, one with Goffman’s research on gender in advertisements. This I can understand-advertisements are out there, documented in magazines, in newspapers, and on televisions everywhere. You wouldn’t have to bother/disturb anyone in the collection of the research materials here. But then he uses the example of Jackson’s Killing Time: Life in the Arkansas Penitentiary; this is the one I don’t understand. How is taking pictures of prisoners unobtrusive? Do the subjects not need to know that you’re photographing them? And if that is the case, aren’t there issues with using people’s images without their consent? Can anyone enlighten me here; what am I missing?
Just a couple of other things that I noticed/appreciated...
1-While it’s obviously important with all types of research, triangulation seems particularly vital in all of these types of research. You’ve GOT to have different lines of sight when you’re looking into the past, otherwise you can wind up with skewed data and conclusions.
2-The idea of examining physical erosion and accretion is quite intriguing, but it seems to be useful only in very specific situations, though I did find the idea of looking at the amount of dust on books to measure their popularity quite unique. (I probably would have chosen to first look at the library databases to see how often the books had been checked-out.)
3-I really like how much Berg stresses the fact that we need to make sure that, when we’re doing historical research, we don’t impose our modern understanding and cultural judgments on the time/culture we are researching. This goes back to the ever-present discussion of objectivity, I think. In this case, however, we can recognize that we are wearing a very specific set of lenses while examining our research, and we can even go out and try to develop the schema needed to better understand the data within its own historical/cultural context.
Okay, I’m getting a bit long-winded here, so I’ll just finish up by saying that while I think that these kinds of research can be immensely rewarding and very interesting, it’s going to take a bit more thinking on my part to see how I could use it in my day-to-day educational practice. I know that there are ways, but I’m so stinkin’ pragmatic that if I can’t see an immediate, practical, benefit I’d rather choose another method.
2 comments:
when we’re doing historical research, we don’t impose our modern understanding and cultural judgments on the time/culture we are researching.
I actually struggle with this issue a lot when I'm teaching history. I saw a documentary a few years ago that had a white family tracing their family's slave owning past and one of the members of the family said something that's always stuck with me. After viewing the holding cell where slaves were kept prior to being transported to America, he said that you can try to justify it with history and say it was the viewpoints of the time but that there was no way you could stand in that place and not realize that the practice was evil. I tend to agree. I think it's important to understand what people may have meant or done differently but I worry that a lot of traditional history texts use the cultural lens of the time to justify these issues because it's hard to talk about the fact that Thomas Jefferson was a great president but he also slept with his slaves.
I sympathize with your questions about visual ethnography--it seems like any research that involves subjects doing something or having something done to them involves some sort of obtrusive measure. That doesn't mean it's an invalid kind of research, but I think that it's not necessarily unobtrusive...
In terms of how you can use these techniques, perhaps you might not use them as a researcher, but I can definitely see ways that these sorts of research could be useful for creative writing exercises. For example, students could try to construct a personal narrative/description based entirely on the contents of the small pocket on their backpacks (you know, the one where they keep pencils, gum, 25 cent rings, etc.?). It's a process that requires close observation to tactile evidence of story, and that's kind of cool.
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