2024
2024-03-21
10.17192/mjr.2024.25.8695
urn:nbn:de:hebis:04-0004-2024-321-86950
keine Angabe
Who Am I and What Am I Doing Here?
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Doing fieldwork is itself a learning process, and it can be a profoundly educational one, yet it can simultaneously be bewildering, terrifying, and the situation itself can produce an existential crisis. This modest essay talks about my own experiences with such issues. It is organized through a series of cases that include encounters with a ‘last singer’ of kalevalaic poetry in Finland, drum-dancers in East Greenland, a ram-sacrifice in the Republic of Karelia, and a perambulation into digital ethnography. Everyone’s experiences with fieldwork are unique, but these examples illustrate how your imagination of what ‘fieldwork’ is and who is qualified to do it can be a stumbling block that you unwittingly throw in front of yourself. A key point here is that anyone can do fieldwork, and, especially when you are just starting out, it is normal to feel stressed and uncertain, to blunder through situations and make mistakes. I set out my own experiences here with the hope that others can learn lessons from them more quickly than I did. The highlights of these lessons are quite basic: get permissions with full disclosure; take better notes; be aware of ethical issues; if you are there to learn from others, be prepared to find your way collaboratively; don’t underestimate the value of your experiences; and remember to breathe.
experience
Fieldwork
self-confidence
imposter syndrome
exploration
Learning to Take Yourself and Your Experiences Seriously
https://doi.org/10.17192/
Vol 25 No 1 (2024)
Fieldwork in Folkloristics and the Study of Religions: An Interdisciplinary Introduction
PeriodicalPart
https://journals.uni-marburg.de/0004/2024/321/cover.png
2024
25
2024-03-21
1
https://journals.uni-marburg.de/0004/cover.png
Institute for Comparative Cultural Research - Study of Religions and Anthropology
Religion
Philosophy and theory of religion
1996
1418722-x
Periodical
urn:nbn:de:hebis:04-00048
Marburg Journal of Religion
1612-2941
Fachbereich Gesellschaftswissenschaften und Philosophie
Deutschhausstraße 9, 35037 Marburg
Marburg
Philipps-Universität Marburg
urn:nbn:de:hebis:04-0004-2024-3216
urn:nbn:de:hebis:04-0004-2024-321-86950
experience
Fieldwork
self-confidence
2024-03-21
article
https://journals.uni-marburg.de/0004/2024/321/8695/8695.png
2024-03-21
application/pdf
Universitätsbibliothek Marburg
Publikationsserver der Universitätsbibliothek Marburg
Frog
, Frog
imposter syndrome
2024
https://doi.org/10.17192/mjr.2024.25.8695
Doing fieldwork is itself a learning process, and it can be a profoundly educational one, yet it can simultaneously be bewildering, terrifying, and the situation itself can produce an existential crisis. This modest essay talks about my own experiences with such issues. It is organized through a series of cases that include encounters with a ‘last singer’ of kalevalaic poetry in Finland, drum-dancers in East Greenland, a ram-sacrifice in the Republic of Karelia, and a perambulation into digital ethnography. Everyone’s experiences with fieldwork are unique, but these examples illustrate how your imagination of what ‘fieldwork’ is and who is qualified to do it can be a stumbling block that you unwittingly throw in front of yourself. A key point here is that anyone can do fieldwork, and, especially when you are just starting out, it is normal to feel stressed and uncertain, to blunder through situations and make mistakes. I set out my own experiences here with the hope that others can learn lessons from them more quickly than I did. The highlights of these lessons are quite basic: get permissions with full disclosure; take better notes; be aware of ethical issues; if you are there to learn from others, be prepared to find your way collaboratively; don’t underestimate the value of your experiences; and remember to breathe.
Who Am I and What Am I Doing Here?
exploration
English
2024-03-25
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application/pdf
8405
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