Watching Closely: An Exercise-Based Approach to Direct Observation Methods

• In Event: The Ethnographic Effect: Imagining a Next Generation of Methodological Possibilities II

Abstract

In 1997, I began developing a course to help students become better at direct observation methods. My goal was to help individuals take advantage of 1) the quest for scientific rigor, 2) the core of one’s chosen discipline, and 3) one’s unique talents and experience -- so that each of these elements could enhance the other in their work.
I created an exercise-based approach for this course to encourage the creative, unique talents that all ethnographers can bring to the field while also strengthening our abilities to envision, capture, and re-present observation-based data. Adopting the model of a fine arts or studio course, I developed weekly exercises that the students could respond to in whatever way made sense to them. We began with the temporal dimensions of fieldwork, added the spatial dimension, turned next to ways the field could be used to explore key concepts (like “power” and “play”) and then the ways one might use objects as entry points to the field. I taught this course at Lincoln Park Zoo, in Chicago, where the students watched troops of western lowland gorillas each week.
I published the exercises, common choices and problems associated with each exercise, and a sample of between seven and ten of my former students’ highly creative responses to each exercise with Oxford University Press last year. I will present one or two of the exercises and discuss some of the early reactions to this approach, ranging from those of the highly enthusiastic students (and their employers) to those of the less enthusiastic, more established ethnographers in my field.

Author

• Christena Nippert-Eng, Indiana University