Auto-Ethnographic Access to Doing, Showing, and Learning in Archeological Fieldwork

• In Event: Gearing Up: New Technologies for Participant-Collected Data

Abstract

This paper describes part of an ethnographic case study of archaeologists investigating the lived experience of Inkans during colonial reorganization. The group was led by Tom, an accomplished young archaeologist well known for his use of new technologies in the lab and in the field. We observed and filmed the group both at their university and away at a national archaeology conference. During the group’s field season in Peru, we sent video equipment with an advanced graduate student in the group, Wanda. Our research was interested in new digital methods used by this group of archaeologists for spatial modeling and analysis. We wanted to understand how these professional archaeologists, on the cutting edge of geospatial technology, were developing innovative (and likely soon-to-be routine) ways of working. We were also interested in how relative newcomers learned to participate in and make contributions to the group.
Tom was working on an analysis of inhabitants’ mobility through the settlement before and after Franciscan colonization. One of Tom’s and Wanda’s tasks this summer was to “ground-truth” paths and doorways in the settlement to ensure that their map was as accurate as possible. We sent Wanda with a rig that we considered to be a good balance between ease-of-use, portability, durability, and suitability for mobile (walking), outdoor video capture. It included a Canon FS200 flash memory camcorder, a Rode directional microphone with “dead cat” windshield, extra batteries and memory cards, and a small hard drive for storage, packed into two Pelican cases. Before she left, we discussed our research questions and explained how the equipment works. One of the activities we asked Wanda to capture was the ground-truthing work. We also asked her to take notes about all activity she filmed.
In our analysis of the data from Peru, we have been paying close attention to how Tom and Wanda use their bodies as proxies for the past time inhabitants of the site. A primary methodological puzzle is how we should treat the framing of the camera (Hall, 2000). At times Wanda and Tom address the camera (with us as intended recipients) and perform their activity for it (us); other times the camera tracks Wanda’s gaze and movement through the settlement as part of “live” ground-truthing; and at yet other times, the camera is entirely forgotten, left trained, for example, on someone’s elbow. A second issue that this data raises is our altered access to Wanda’s participation in the ground-truthing activity as a result of her dual role as archaeologist and videographer for us. While we can hear her talk and breathing clearly, and she generally selects what we see, we never see her face or whole body. For a study of learning (Tom’s and Wanda’s), this mode of data collection gives us access not only to remote geographical sites, but also to a version of participants’ developing professional vision (Goodwin, 1994). At the same time, the camera is itself an object of activity and analysis, as is what Wanda frames in a recording.

Authors

• Jasmine Y. Ma, New York University

• Rogers P. Hall, Vanderbilt University