bored by ethnography

On a run with an anthropologist and an ethnomusicologist, I disturbed both of them with the proclamation that I hate writing ethnography. I've never been a creative writer, generally. I like words and I like mauling and crafting a clever argument, but really the ethnographic component leaves me cold. I never know what to include or what to omit, and I am a notoriously bad story-teller. I'm a bit manic, at times, with the flood of information I share to try to convey the breadth or nuance of the situation. Other times, I'm terse and uninterested in providing too much information that might be irrelevant.

This confessional is actually due to a strong desire not to write the remaining skeletal chapters of the dissertation. Yes, it is true, that in my hibernating silence, I have actually accomplished stuff. It feels as though it's been arduous and slow, but I am actually in good shape. The last six months have been particularly productive, and I've got the makings of a dissertation. Still, this chapter I've got to work on has no point currently, and for whatever reason I'm really resistant to working on other stuff right now.

In other news, I've been doing sleuth work to try to find a future job for that grand moment when I complete the dissertation and can be referred to as Dr. Misanthrope. Perhaps, now that I need an excuse to procrastinate, I'll be back here more.

The kicking and screaming recalcitrant anthropologist

In spite of silence, I have in fact been working on my dissertation. Much more slowly than I would like or thought possible.

I re-surface only to share this link, in which a well-known anthropologist, Jean Briggs, recounts her own ambivalences and challenges in becoming an "Anthropologist".

Reflections on my failure to post

I've mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating. I am finding the blog format totally counter-productive to the development of real thoughts or writing the dissertation. The pithy short blurbs, hardly developed simply don't fit with the attempt to work on more extensive arguments. Sure, I could write page-long posts, but no one wants to read lengthily on the internet. I get impatient with long interviews that other blogs sometimes post, and it has all made me very wary of the effects of internet reading. It's like watching t.v., really. I know that there was a recent book that came out, asking whether the internet has made us stupid. I'm not arguing that we're stupid, but I do think our attention spans for reading have surely been affected. The counter-example is the ridiculously long New Yorker articles that often beat a topic to death, which is not necessarily preferable. It seems that a good piece of writing should also lead you to raise your own questions about the material, to be able to generate new directions to take the inquiry that the author has initiated. I guess blogs do this, but they also seem to encourage the sound-bite length information.

So besides the obvious fact that I am no longer actively doing fieldwork (I arrived in LA a year ago today), I'm also not eager to post my preliminary dissertation writing thoughts. I'm finding the internet is increasingly becoming less and less interesting to me. And the solipsism of posting on it has also lost its luster.

Re-framing my interpretations

I've been struggling, for the last few weeks, to re-frame my interpretation of my data. I am exceedingly comfortable being a critic. Why something is wrong or perverse, these are easy for me to point to, but explaining why something might have meaning or be positive, that's far more difficult. I need to integrate the positive into my own work, as the organizations I tried to work with were quite enthusiastic about the vaccine and its availability. All I could see were the flaws and limitations of the vaccine, making it uncomfortable for me to work with the groups who wanted to promote the vaccine. It does beg the question: why did I keep working with people who want to promote it? I suppose part of it is circumstantial -- there aren't clear-cut anti-vaccinators. They tend to be mixed in with the more general anti-vaccine people -- people with whom I did do work. Part of the issue is the way that the identifications with certain beliefs and practices do not hew along clear lines. In fact, that is one of the things I intend to write about, how this vaccine falls apart when you try to hold it along more traditional vaccination definitions and categories.

At a recent cancer survivor support meeting, held by one of the groups I tried to work with, I encountered a mother whose 19 year old daughter had been diagnosed with cervical cancer. It reminded me that this vaccine, though not directly beneficial to these women who were so enthusiastic about it, is not "all bad". It's just awfully hard to figure out how to imagine it as problematic. The best I can write is a lukewarm appraisal of how it is not the worst thing. Faint praise does not really seem compelling, and yet, it has meaning to some people, and I have not tapped into that sufficiently.

Incredibly bizarre

I've been avoiding reading blogs, not checked my google reader, and sort of blissfully checked out of the internet as much as is humanly possible (while still being lured back by facebook, damn them). I found a personal essay on Plan B, aka the "morning after pill," and was eager to read the personal account. I'm not entirely sure if I should recommend it -- as the author ultimately seems conflicted about her choices and believes that the conservative anti-Plan B opinion that its borderline similarity with abortion, "Here you actually have the potentiality for a pregnancy," is a logical position.

When conservatives try to avoid condemning hormonal birth control outright, they argue that it does not have the "potentiality" for pregnancy, which makes absolutely no sense at all. It would seem that by taking hormonal contraceptives, one is exposing oneself to much higher rates of "potentiality," even though the body is not physically capable of becoming pregnant (except when the hormonal contraception fails or the user fails to take it properly, neither of which is a condemnation of the user or the object, but simply a point to keep in mind). Hormonal contraception does in fact lead, I believe, to many acts of potential pregnancies (assuming one is taking it to contracept and not for other purposes)...maybe that can be my tagline, should I ever really finally work in sexual health research for real. "Hormonal contraception leads to acts of potential pregnancy." If everyone else can play fast and loose with semantics, I don't see why I shouldn't.

But...trying not to become a totally tangential poster, given that I post so rarely, I think the Plan B article is worth reading. If for no other reason than hearing someone's experience with acquiring it before it was available over the counter is pretty powerful. I find it odd that it's framed as a "fateful moment when she [the author] made the choice," but I am pleased that there is a firsthand account of the experience, which I've rarely read anything about. I think Plan B is still not available everywhere without a prescription. It's state-by-state, but I know that Planned Parenthood has a campaign to allow you to call them and get a doctor to prescribe it without an office visit. The difficulty in getting contraception (more generally) in this country is really damn disturbing and the ways in which access to it has gotten tied up in other aspects of gynecological care makes me crazy.

Letting go of larger aspirations

I've realized, as I write the grant proposals, re-hashing what I'm going to do, and as I start the outlining of the thesis itself, that I need to let go of the sense that I am having an impact on the world. A friend whom I haven't seen in a while told me about her research project. And while I found her work interesting and unusual, I wasn't sure...why it matters. I know there have been moments when I've realized that dissertations are about rites of passage, proof of diligence and dedication. But somehow, I get stuck in my work when I ask the question -- "who cares?" The fact that my dissertation topic has some applied, real-world relevance has been a source of pride. I think it has also been a form of arrogance, assuming that my work was more "real" than some of my peers' work. I simply need to prove that it matters to me, and that I've satisfied that criterion with rigorous research.

The problem with that, however, is that it makes it much harder to complete. If I know why it matters to me, why should I care what others think? I'm not sure if this is a defeatist attitude, a lazy attitude, or (again) an arrogant attitude. I need someone to tell me why I should bother.

I just can't stand it anymore

I have never catalogued how many versions of writing I have produced on my research topic. You would think that after writing grants and exams and half-assed papers on the subject, that I would have a clear and coherent way to convey my ideas. No. No, I continue to write in belabored circles. I know that there is a way into this that I can't quite find, yet. But time is pressing on me to figure that the fuck out. Seriously, I've been writing something about this at some point or another for almost 3 years. THREE YEARS.

I'm trying to pull together a grant that I sort of forgot was due on Monday. It's only for $3000, and yet, I need a) prestige and b) whatever dribs and drabs I can find. Especially since it's one of two grants for which I'm eligible. It's producing huge amounts of anxiety. I'm staying in on a Friday with the grand assumption that I will accomplish this statement of project in a coherent manner. I'm just not adept at sustained writing. I find it miserable and unpleasant. I was telling someone the other night that I prefer lectures -- I like the rough draft and no edits. I prefer the kamikaze approach to intellectual development. Throw oneself out of the plane and figure out if there's a parachute. Hence further evidence that I ought to be a pundit. I could do the on-the-spot talking points so damn well. Measured, diligent academic endeavors make me so unhappy. Besides, we live in a time of sound-bites. Why should I be methodical?

Outlining

I have created a plausible outline for the monstrosity. Obviously, it's a first stab at the thing. But I'm sort of excited that I am exploring shapes of the future. After meeting with 5 professors a couple of weeks ago, I'm finally finding time to sit down to think about what they said. 5 different ideas, 5 different approaches to the behemoth, 5 different attitudes about the whole process. I can't say that any of them were particularly revelatory. It seems the hard part is really up to me (which is not what I wanted to hear). The problem is that when it comes to the methodicalness, I'm damn lazy. I like the abstractions, but I have to confront that as an anthropologist, I'm expected to create a thingy that is grounded in people. I have been struggling with this problem a lot. I think my interpretations are very empirically-based, but I find the individuals' interpretations of the phenomenon a little boring. It just seems that what people (mis)understand only points to my main argument again and again. And as I've been trying to acknowledge lately is that the stuff I'm passionate about is not necessarily the concrete stuff I've been studying.

Circularity and circularness. And I get so distracted so easily. I currently have 2 other projects (both of which I feel ambivalent about my involvement, and yet which require me to complete them in some way or another), 2 grant proposals, and then all the personal projects that have nothing to do with academia, filthy lucre, or fantasies of renown. I really yearn for the mundane lately. Things that don't seem weighty. Or at least sort of weighty, yet not persuading me fully of their weightyness.

Too controversial

I haphazardly pulled together a syllabus yesterday during jury duty (after an intensive phase of napping while waiting for the judge to return to her courtroom...it's like I'm geriatric). My ex-advisor, whom I have no qualms about using when the moment suits to help me pull in grants, has been encouraging me to apply for a university teaching fellowship. While the money would be nice, being in Baltimore next year is not in the game plan. Yet I apparently suffer from a deep inability to resist potential income streams, even when they are not in my best interest. I figure I can always turn down the offer.

I presented to this ex-advisor the syllabus, and she immediately lighted upon the first sentence describing the central point of inquiry: most people in the U.S. spend more time in their lives contracepting than reproducing. She immediately told me that the first sentence was too political and would upset the committee. Basically, I was going to alert the old white men at the institution to my renegade intentions and freak them out. As she read through subsequent parts of the course description, she whittled away at all potentially "radical" concepts. She urged me to make this more of an overview of reproductive health anthropology, rather than my more interesting approach. I want to spend a lot of time showing how the focus on reproduction is naive, and that we need to integrate theories of sexuality and recognize sexual health more holistically in medical discourses. If she takes that away from it, it becomes an insanely boring class.

I know that her impulse was less about quashing me, and more about helping me to make a politic and compelling proposal, but this is exactly what I hate about the academic world. It is not really all that open to ideas, and certainly not at this university. I like to think that my more innovative stuff is what will make me a good instructor, but not if I can't engage with it. On the flipside, perhaps the lesson is that one needs to present a conformist front and then fuck shit up when you get the bodies in the class. Perhaps deviance is the answer.

David Simon comments further on "The Wire"

Really, I am going back to my work imminently. I thought this post-production reflection on the interpretation of "The Wire" in the US and the UK good to read. Simon acknowledges the limitations of the show (gender issues, immigration, etc), but he also points out why the stories they told were important to represent.

I received an email from someone who has lived most of his life in the Baltimore area (though grew up outside the city), and it disturbed me how pessimistic and critical he was of the state of the city. Ironically, there was a time when I offered similar critiques, and he vociferously defended the city. What upset me most about this person's critique was that it felt so hateful. My past critiques of Baltimore have always felt deeply emotional and sad, but this person just sounded bitter. In contrast, Simon does acknowledge that things in the city don't change, even as there are public claims to decreased crime and mayors become governors, but he also pushes the problem a little further and tries to unpack the complexity of the city's dynamic.

Unlike the email I received in which the final position was ultimately, "fuck Baltimore," Simon actually seems concerned with both the global and local challenges of Baltimore. What I found so compelling about the show was that as the seasons developed, it was clear that what happens in the streets branches back to those who live in the plush neighborhoods of Roland Park or Guilford. And I guess I see public health and public policies so often concentrating on the individual actors who are caught up in structural phenomena that are far more intricate than just "getting people off the streets".

Perhaps when I'm not thinking so chaotically, I'll write about this more, as it merits more discussion than a lazy nod to its link.

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oh, but WTF, at the bottom of the page of the article, there's a slideshow of "Snoop" and "Marlo" modelling "cutting edge" fashion...um, not that (fictional) gangsters shouldn't be dapper, but there is something super-contradictory to have Simon's political economy critique coupled with high-end fashion and consumerism.