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fieldwor k was done or tell us much about moments the writers found interesting or
memorab le.... Folklorists report their successes. net their failures" (1987, 13· 14).
Jackson says that the absence of this informationin scholarly articles is potentially
hannfu l to students . who receive from such studies the impression that any failure in
fieldwork means that the fieldwo rker herself is a failure . The absence of this information
is al..o deleterious to the project as a whole becau..e pure objectivity is impossible. as is
ensuring that every relevant question has been a..ked. every pertinent re..earch path
followed to its furthest ends.
In other words. there is no such thing as flawless fieldwork . There will always be
questions that went unasked. or informants who went un-contacted(or even unnoticed) .
Additionally, the metaphorical "lenses" through which any fieldworker views a topic­
lenses based on cultural and familial morals. personal likes and dislikes. and even what
mood the fieldworker happens to he in at that moment-s-color and shape the questions the
ficldworkcr asks, and thus the responses that the informants give. Looking at this from a
different angle. when I ask an informant if they have heard any jokes about SARS. I am
telling thai informa nt that I) I am only interested in hearing about SARS. and not any
other disease. and 2) I am only interested in hearing jo kes, and not any other oral form.
Even simple questions thus drastically limit the answers a researcher is likely to receive.
So, recognizing my own flaws and fallibilities. and in the interests of as best a full
disclosure as I can manage (changing only a few names to protect certain ident ities), I
present the following, being a description of my fieldwo rk. I hope this account will not
only provide readers with a glimpse of the problems that I encountered (and my solutions