Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

382 Chapter 13
to be commonplace. You may ‘‘discover,’’ for example, that women have more
power in the community than meets the eye or that there are two systems for
dispute settlement—one embodied in formal law and one that works through
informal mechanisms.
Sometimes, a concomitant to this feeling of discovery is a feeling of being
in control of dangerous information and a sense of urgency about protecting
informants’ identities. You may find yourself going back over your field notes,
looking for places that you might have lapsed and identified an informant, and
making appropriate changes. You may worry about those copies of field notes
you have already sent home and even become a little worried about how well
you can trust your major professor to maintain the privacy of those notes.
This is the stage of fieldwork when you hear anthropologists start talking
about ‘‘their’’ village, and how people are, at last, ‘‘letting them in’’ to the
secrets of the culture. The feeling has its counterpart among all long-term participant
observers. It often spurs researchers to collect more and more data; to
accept every invitation, by every informant, to every event; to fill the days
with observation, and to fill the nights with writing up field notes. Days off
become unthinkable, and the sense of discovery becomes more and more
intense.
This is the time to take a serious break.
4. The Break
The mid-fieldwork break, which usually comes after 3 or 4 months, is a
crucial part of the overall participant observation experience for long-term
researchers. It’s an opportunity to get some distance, both physical and emotional,
from the field site. It gives you a chance to put things into perspective,
think about what you’ve got so far, and what you need to get in the time
remaining. Use this time to collect data from regional or national statistical
services; to visit with colleagues at the local university and discuss your findings;
to visit other communities in other parts of the country. And be sure to
leave some time to just take a vacation, without thinking about research at all.
Your informants also need a break from you. ‘‘Anthropologists are uncomfortable
intruders no matter how close their rapport,’’ wrote Charles Wagley.
‘‘A short respite is mutually beneficial. One returns with objectivity and
human warmth restored. The anthropologist returns as an old friend’’ who has
gone away and returned, and has thereby demonstrated his or her genuine
interest in a community (Wagley 1983:13). Everyone needs a break.
5. Focusing
After the break, you will have a better idea of exactly what kinds of data
you are lacking, and your sense of the problem will also come more sharply