Last week I had a very intense and interesting conversation with the teacher Arehmi Mendiburu, who has devoted much of his research to do ethnography of the classroom during their teaching activities, on the following question: How do we do now the field diary ? Does the computer "Or in notebooks, as we have been taught always in the shop classes in anthropology research?
Mendiburu The teacher was absolutely amazed at the fact that I do my field journal in hardcover books, since, from their point of view, I am one of those people who most advocate the use of computers and anthropological research on the internet. In fact, over the past four summers I have hired students from anthropology to scan my books in Adobe Acrobat, for despite my predilection widely known to virtual formats, I am writing my field notes in hardcover books ( Yucatan sold some books which are known as "transit books" that are hard cover, have a particular scratch, and I buy and use in large quantities). Usually I leave a blank space to the right of my text for keywords and to construct a code for my field diary. This course helps me to make an index in each book. My husband and colleague, Steffan Igor Ayora-Diaz, however, makes his daily field directly in the computer, but run the risk of losing once and platforms change, it is easier to code and index your information in digital form.
How should make the field day today? "Analog or digital?
I think that there is no easy answer. I started making my day in the "transit books," returning to a format 'analogue', because during my doctoral fieldwork in Sardinia, Italy, between 1990 and 1992, did most of my daily computer field, in a program that has almost disappeared, called WordPerfect. Made backups of my files in 'floppy', now also gone. At this point I lost most of my field notes and diaries about my research in Sardinia, especially since I now work on the Mac platform, not Windows, and there WordPerfect for Mac (maybe in future there, so I'm keeping my floppy!).
During the summers of 2000 to date have generally recruited some / a student to become my 'books transit' in PDFs. This is NOT an ideal solution, since these PDFs are not easy to navigate and are actually a kind Pictures of my books. However, I found that during the past eleven years since I started using this system a bit primitive, I miss less notes and diaries: if I lose the physical books, usually I have the PDFs, and if at any time I lost the PDFs I have the physical books.
the past four years my husband and I have changed addresses three times our library. The despair of not finding my books is really indescribable, though I have the PDFs that different learners have made my notes and field notes. However, there are always books that have been digitized notes that did not get the scanner and other tragedies. And recently a friend of the USA I wrote that at his university are adopting the Scandinavian policy after two years, and researchers must destroy all his notes and field diaries, and is no longer possible to use data two or more years old. I think that is not far off when our university, the abattoir, implement such rules, because the claims of many local companies against the anthropological representation begin to impact our research methods and techniques. So what can be done in these circumstances?
I think we are two roads: One is to fight to establish the uniqueness of anthropological research. Many people we work with every day could ally themselves and agree with us, as it is now common for local claims are based on ethnographic and anthropological field notes. However, it will be difficult to succeed on this front. Another is to start thinking in specific projects where the information collected we can serve and save as much as we can from the information obtained so far, no university, or in Scandinavia or the U.S. or Nowhere has placed a prohibition against memory and theorizing. The wording of chips may help us keep things in memory, so that I find most critical writing, as always, a list of our field day. Even if we have then dissolved, having worked with dedication of our materials will help us to remember that unless we work to transform our daily information and field notes on index cards.
I would have liked a more definitive answer on whether the book or the computer is a better way to write notes and diary, but the times these will have to stick individual preferences to university policies emanating from international bodies, and our own criteria for what is right, what is ethical and what is advertised on the horizon as an anthropological practice fair and ethical, as well as perfectly legal.
