Kieran Fenby-Hulse Curating the Fieldwork Playlist
he following contributions all highlight, going on to consider what a Fieldwork Playlist in a variety of different ways, how music might tell us. canT shape and even transform the fieldwork experience. In this essay, I consider the music The Mixtape as Message that has been chosen and what this assemblage of musical tracks, this anthropology playlist, To understand the playlist outlined in this might tell us about fieldwork as a research volume, I begin by considering the playlist in practice. In addition, I have been given the historical, social and aesthetic terms. The origins privilege of curating the tracks, a creative task of the digital playlist lie squarely with the enabling me to tell the story of fieldwork as mixtapes of the 70s, 80s and 90s, a medium by I understand it as an outsider. which friends, colleagues, and lovers could share It should make it clear from the start that music. Both an artefact and a social activity, I’m not an anthropologist. I’m a researcher the mixtape was usually a single cassette that trained in musicology who now works in the consisted of a series of re-recorded tracks from area of research capability and development, either the radio or your own musical collection. studying research practices and research cultures The tape was usually 60 to 90 minutes in and supporting researchers to develop their length and had a title, a theme, album art, and practice and the environments in which they occasionally descriptions of the songs that work. In this sense, I exist across and between had been selected. The mixtape enabled users disciplines. My research practice is largely rooted to create musical stories, or narratives, for in notions of synthesis and creativity, drawing particular events and activities, as well as coded on a range of methods and methodologies taken messages for friends and loved ones. Mixtapes from the social sciences and the humanities. I could be ‘Best of…’ compilations, such as the draw on this approach in this essay, examining Best of Metallica or the Best Jazz Tape Ever. what the musical tracks can tell us as cultural They could be used to showcase your musical and aesthetic artefacts, but fusing this with collection and musical knowledge and to a creative exploration of music as a narrative educate friends on musical genres or the latest medium. up and coming bands. Mixtapes also offered My invitation to contribute to this a powerful (and affordable) way of showing collection stems from my previous research affection. The romantic mixtape functioned as into the emotional and communicative power a kind of narrative capacitor, the creator’s of the mixtape and, in particular, how in recent message embedded and storied within a times the mixtape has been reimagined and carefully selected series of musical tracks, refashioned (via online music platforms, such which the listener then had to decode. The as iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon Music) as value ascribed to the romance mixtape is not a digital playlist (Fenby-Hulse 2016). It’s worth economic, but emotional, and resulted from the providing a brief overview of this work before care taken in crafting the perfect selection. As
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the character, Rob, describes in Nick Hornby’s collate and order music. As Dylan Jones, author novel High Fidelity: of iPod Therefore I Am, states:
[M]aking a tape is like writing a letter Albums ceased to matter, and I could edit —there’s a lot of erasing and rethinking with impunity. Why bother with REM’s and starting again. A good compilation New Adventures in Hi-Fi when all you tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You’ve really want is Electrolite and E-Bow The got to kick off with a corker, but hold the Letter? Why continue to ruin Pet Sounds, attention (...) and then you’ve got to up it the best album recorded by anyone in the a notch, or cool it a notch, and you (...) 1960s, by suffering the absurdity of Sloop can’t have two tracks by the same artist side John B when you can simply delete it. by side, unless you’ve done the whole thing ( Jones 2006: 18). in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules. (Hornby 1996: 77) iTunes-iPod synchronisation enabled users not only to create a personal library of music at the A mixtape required time and dedication. Much level of the musical track, but also to curate their thought was needed to determine what songs to music collection through the use of playlists. As include, how the songs were to be ordered, and Jones notes, albums could be easily tweaked and how this relates to the message you were trying playlists created to suit your mood or a specific to convey. activity. From the middle of the 1990s onwards, For Michael Bull (2007), the iPod revolu the form and content of the mixtape began to tion enabled users to find a place of warmth in change—a direct result of increasing access to a cold urban environment. By creating a range the Internet at home and blank CDs becoming of playlists to suit their personal mood (music to a more affordable format. The birth of peer-2- go to sleep by, music for the gym, relaxing jazz), peer (P2P) file sharing also contributed to the iPod users furnished themselves with a music mixtape’s loss in popularity, with the mix CD library that could cater to their daily working and digital playlist becoming the preferred lives. The iPod enabled listeners to aestheticize media for music sharing. Indeed, P2P file their urban environment, the portability of sharing provided music lovers with access to a vast music library allowing iPod users a diverse and global library of music, enabling to rewrite the urban spaces in which they playlist creators to create ‘the perfect’ mix CD, as were enclosed, to transport themselves to an the sequence of tracks was no longer dependent entirely new space, a dreamworld or perhaps upon an individual’s limited music library. a reimagining of the space that they were in. The introduction of the iPod in 2001 In contrast to the cassette-based mixtape, took music listening and sharing to the next the listening experience offered by the iPod level, enabling users to create endless playlists was rarely social and more often private and quickly and easily. In addition, the iTunes music personal. While providing respite from a cold platform offered users with a legal route by urban environment, the iPod playlist fostered which to purchase not only albums, but also a listening environment and culture that single tracks, offering a new way in which to lacked the social warmth that was associated
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with sharing and listening to mixtapes. What The first thing that leaps out from looking connects the mixtape to digital playlist, though, at the playlist is that all the tracks are vocal is the way in which musical tracks are carefully tracks, with a tendency to draw on music that collated and curated. Although a term usually features a solo voice. There is no techno, classical, associated with work taking place in museums or instrumental music here; neither is there any and galleries, the idea of curation has become choral music. It requires no intellectual leap a buzzword in popular culture. As Steven of faith to conclude from this that the playlist Rosenbaum has said, ‘Today, curation is the carries a human tone. The largely solo voice focus, coin of the realm. Film Festivals curate their and the lyrics and musical stylings to particular program. Web sites curate their editorial. The songs within the playlist, bolster this feeling team at the shopping site Gilt Group curates by creating a sense of intimacy and directness. the items it offers for sale.’ (Rosenbaum 2011: 3). Songs such as Kristofferson’s ‘Help Me Make it For Rosenbaum, curation is an activity Through the Night’ and Sade’s ‘By Your Side’ use that involves expertise and careful selection sparse instrumental textures that accentuate the and is something undertaken in a range of voice, drawing the listener in. The lyrics in these different realms. However, as Mieke Bal (2012) songs, as well as in songs such as Rawl’s ‘You’ll has argued, the act of curation is nuanced Never Find Another Love Like Mine’, further and is about guiding thought processes and establish the one-to-one connection with the cultural mediation. She understands curation listener through storytelling and direct address as a performative act that is fundamentally to the listener. concerned with ‘framing objects and speaking While the overarching mood or meta- through those framed objects to addressees’ narrative of the playlist seems to lie with (2012: 179). It is from this perspective that intimacy and directness, the broad and diverse I want to engage creatively with the idea of range of musical styles and genres presented the Fieldwork Playlist and devise a thoughtful unsettle this somewhat. This is not simply a playlist that takes listeners on an anthropological playlist of acoustic, singer-songwriter music; it journey. includes soul music, country music, dancehall, reggae, pop, Mayan evangelical music, Interpreting mbaqanga, R’n’B, rock, and vocaloid music. the Fieldwork Playlist The diverse range of styles provides the playlist with moments of stark contrast that grab The playlist presented in this collection provides the listener’s attention and provide additional a musical rendering of a series of fieldwork nuance and depth to its meta-narrative. Tracks experiences. What I want to explore now is such as ‘Wild Gilbert’, ‘Indaba’, and ‘Melt’ are whether, as a musical artefact, it offers a listener geographically evocative, each rooted in regional an insight into anthropological, ethnographic, or national dialects, languages, and musical and fieldwork practices and, in turn, whether styles. The emotional disconnect between home this playlist could be used as a pedagogical tool and fieldwork alluded to in a number of essays to give an anthropologist-in-the-making an presented in this collection is captured musically insight into the fieldwork experience. In short, in the playlist through shifts and contrasts in I want to question what it means to refashion language and musical style. Indeed, the array anthropology as art. of languages and styles within the playlist can
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foster feelings of otherness and unfamiliarity. characteristics that the anthropologists in this Throughout, though, I have been careful not volume ascribe to the fieldwork experience. to curate a playlist that is based on shock Given that the music of this playlist (and musical contrast and feelings of ‘otherness’. To the fieldwork experiences with which the music ensure the playlist doesn’t present a dated view is associated) crosses both borders and timelines, of anthropology based on notions of insider it felt appropriate to follow the format of the and outsider, Western and non-Western, or early playlist and, like a mixtape, create an familiar and exotic, I have tried to ensure that imaginary cassette with two sides. where there are stark contrasts, there are also connections, both lyrically and musically, in The Fieldwork Playlist: Side One attempt to complicate and represent voice and 1. The Wedding Present—‘Dare’ positionality. 2. Toto—‘Africa’ As well as musico-geographical differences, 3. Vybz Kartel—‘British Love (Anything the playlist is also host to temporal dislocations For You)’ in terms of when the music was written, 4. Lovindeer—‘Wild Gilbert’ recorded, and performed. Michael’s Jackson’s 5. Michael Jackson—‘Billie Jean’ ‘Billy Jean’, The Wedding Present’s ‘Dare’, and 6. Mayan Evangelical Singer—Song Lou Rawl’s ‘Never Have a Love Like Mine’ all featuring lyrics ‘Oh Señor…’ evoke an earlier time within music history. These 7. John Holt—‘Help Me Make it tracks contrast with the more recent ‘Melt’ and Through the Night’ ‘Sahabat’. A number of essays in this collection refer to the longitudinal element of fieldwork As recommended by Hornby in his novel High research and how past experiences inform, Fidelity, the playlist opens with a lively number mingle, and distort the present, a dynamic to grab the listener’s attention. The musical thrust I have hoped to capture in the playlist. and drive of ‘Dare’ by The Wedding Present As Daynes and Williams have said: ‘the is, perhaps, representative of the enthusiasm ethnographer’s knowledge, in that sense, is not for fieldwork before it begins. As noted by based on a fleeting moment—on one interview, Alexander in his essay, this track fosters a feeling one phone call, or the murky circumstances of of being in the moment, of focus. The lyrics talk an online survey—but on life as it unfolds in of new experiences, of risk, of daring. Perhaps and over time’ (Daynes and Williams 2018: 7). this song also speaks of the challenge faced by As noted above, curation is a performative modern anthropology today and the need for act. Its narrative power stems from the way anthropology to challenge traditional, and often in which cultural artefacts are mediated and widely held, notions of knowledge creation and framed. The order in which the tracks are placed dissemination. For Ingold, anthropology should in relation to one another, then, is important in be less concerned with notions of knowledge shaping how the Fieldwork Playlist is heard. generation and more with notions of wisdom. Drawing on some of the musical contrasts and As he states, ‘it is the task of anthropology … stylings discussed above, I hope to activate within to restore the balance, to temper the knowledge the listener a sense of fieldwork by bringing to bequeathed by science with the wisdom of the surface some of the feelings, attributes and experience and imagination’ (Ingold 2018: 10).
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Retaining the liveliness and enthusiasm event: the devastating 1988 hurricane that took associated with the opening track, the next two over 300 lives in the Caribbean and the Gulf of tracks speak to cross-cultural understanding. Mexico. Despite the tough subject matter, the The musical contrast between Toto’s ‘Africa’ song is upbeat and jocular in nature (discussed and Vybz Kartel’s ‘British Love’ could be in detail in Jamieson’s essay). The combination representative of differences in perspective of difficult subject matter with upbeat music and between research and researched, as well jocular lyrics could be understood, in the context as the cultural baggage (and assumptions) of this playlist, as a reference to the complicated the researcher brings to the field site. Taken and emotionally challenging nature of fieldwork together, the tracks allude to the tensions in the research, with highs and lows: moments of joy early stages of fieldwork when our assumptions, and laughter as well as moments of frustration values, and biases come to the fore, highlighting and sadness. what Monaghan and Just describe as the Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ transforms implicit practice of anthropologists in cross- the soundscape of the playlist, projecting the cultural comparison (2000: 20). listener into a musical space that is, for many, The heady mix of musical styles that open more familiar. The music of Michael Jackson the playlist is discombobulating and serves to has global appeal, with this track coming from unsettle the listener. The musical effect here is, one of his most famous albums, Thriller. A track perhaps, akin to the ‘culture shock’ described that speaks of Western modernity, this toe- by Jenkins in her essay, a common feature tapping number makes the listener immediately of anthropological fieldwork as researchers aware of the body. It is not a track that immerse themselves in the communities that inspires introspection, but movement. Physical they are there to study. Toto’s ‘Africa’ and Vybz awareness and embodied knowledge are key Kartel’s ‘British Love’ provide additional nuance parts of the engaged anthropological endeavour. to the playlist’s narrative through cultural and The body, though, can sometimes feel at geographic references. In the case of ‘British odds with the intellectual element required in Love’, rap and Jamaican dancehall blend fieldwork. As Jenkins discusses in her essay, time together with lyrics that reference UK locations alone to think is not guaranteed. The track that and culture habits; in Toto’s ‘Africa’, an imagined, follows this lively number is used intentionally romanticised picture of Africa is painted. Both to jar with the sense of familiarity and bodily songs serve to complicate the sense of place and presence fostered in ‘Billie Jean’; its power geography outlined above through cross-cultural results from their absence. The track is a musical explorations and understandings of place that memory of Mam Evangelical Music described affirm both difference and distance. by Weston. This musical fragment is inseparably ‘Wild Gilbert’ that follows shifts us from connected to his insomnia and symbolic of the Jamaican dancehall to Jamaican reggae. Whilst challenging elements of his fieldwork. By having geographically we remain in the same space, no name or performer, the remembered refrains temporally we are relocated as ‘Wild Gilbert’ from Weston’s fieldwork open up an imaginative was written more than twenty years before space for the listener and shift the focus of the ‘British Love’. This musico-temporal dislocation listener from the body to the mind. This track is emphasised by the fact that ‘Wild Gilbert’ thus becomes representative of the moment refers to a specific temporal and geographical within the research process when pathways
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aren’t defined and outcomes are unclear, and intimate nature of much fieldwork. As Daynes when research is not going quite the way you and Williams (2018) note: had planned. The final track on Side One seems [I]ntimacy allows for access to a culture, an appropriate follow-up. For Weston, the to the norms and codes shared by insiders, Mam-language Evangelical Christian music but it also yields a deep understanding that became inextricably wed to his insomnia and is difficult and sometimes impossible to the repeated and disturbing appearance of attain when using other research methods: a mouse in his bed. Holt’s upbeat version of the time spent observing, participating, ‘Help Me Make it Through the Night’, on the talking, and listening, gradually allows other hand, offers a grounding antidote that the ethnographer not just to see, but to brings the listener’s attention back to the body, understand what he sees. (2018: 7) while the lyrics highlight the importance of companionship. Isolation can be one of the most ‘Melt’, which follows, provides a sharp contrast challenging aspects of undertaking fieldwork; to the acoustic instruments and allusions to rural support and companionship can be essential, America of Kristofferson’s ballad. This vocaloid particularly when researching emotionally track brings the digital to the fore. Dated and challenging and difficult topics. stereotypical understandings of anthropology can conjure up ideas of studying detached or The Fieldwork Playlist: Side Two ‘primitive’ rural communities. ‘Melt’ tells us that 1. Kris Kristofferson—‘Help Me Make it this is not the case for modern anthropology, Through the Night’ the track giving the Fieldwork Playlist an urban 2. Ryo—‘Melt’ and digital edge. ‘Melt’ also calls into question 3. Soul Brothers—‘Indaba’ notions of authenticity, the use of a digitally 4. Sade—‘By Your Side’ mediated vocal distorting our perception of what 5. Lou Rawls—‘You’ll Never Find a Love it is to be human in the twenty-first century. Like Mine’ ‘Indaba’ complements ‘Melt’ through its 6. Najwa Latif (featuring Sleeq and lively dance feel. Yet it couldn’t sound more Syamkamarul)—‘Sahabat’ different. ‘Indaba’ takes us away from the digital world of vocaloid music to the specific South Side Two opens with Kristofferson’s ‘Help Me African genre of mbaqanga. The upbeat nature Make it Through the Night’. While the lyrics of the track refocuses our attention on the body, are familiar from our previous listening, this and in relation to the digital world of ‘Melt’. The version is musically very different. The use of change in language and musical style serves to two very different renditions of the same song highlight the diverse cultures and communities at this structural juncture in the playlist could be with which anthropology is occupied. Yet, as thought of as depicting the pivotal or ‘lightbulb’ Van Wolputte discusses in his essay, Indaba can moment in understanding that can occur during also ask us to turn ourselves around and, when the research process. taken in relation to ‘Melt’ (and all the preceding The sparse acoustic accompaniment and music), this track can lead us to reflect on the soft vocals of Kristofferson’s version draw the impact of technologies, increasing globalisation listener in and return us to the idea of the and cross-cultural influence.
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Sade’s ‘By Your Side’ draws explicit atten sense of nostalgic romance. There is little doubt tion to cross-cultural influence. The inclusion that the act of writing-up after the fieldwork of a British Nigerian singer-songwriter asks us can create feelings of dislocation, in terms of to consider the effect of international mobility not only space and place, but also between mind and the growth in diasporic communities on and body, between what was once said and done, anthropology. As Ingold argues: and what is to be written. This track, to my mind, makes the ‘me’ in research felt. The song’s What was inconceivable for the anthro nostalgic longing brings an awareness to our pology of the twentieth century, that cul- feelings. Stephen Nugent’s addition of ‘Feelings’ tural and biological variations are con- by Morris Alpert, discussed in the editorial, cordant, is emerging as foundational for would have perfectly complemented this track the anthropology of the twenty-first. It is and, indeed, the overarching narrative of the borne out in studies of neuroplasticity that playlist here. demonstrate the malleability to experience The playlist concludes with ‘Sahabat’ by of the developing brain, in studies of how Najwa Latif (featuring Sleeq and Syamkamarul). movement trains the body and perception Released in 2012, ‘Sahabat’ is an upbeat pop the senses, and even in studies of anatomy song that returns us to the intimate and direct which reveal the effects of nutrition and nature of fieldwork through the use largely of activity on skeletal growth. (Ingold 2018: solo voice and acoustic guitar. It is a song of 127–128) hope and friendship. In her essay, Allerton describes the song as ‘an acoustic glimpse of In addition, the lyrics of the song recall the a more optimistic, youthful nation’. My inclusion importance of intimacy and trust and, in this of this song at the end of the playlist echoes that case, the importance of sustained relationships reading, the song framed so that it provides over time. To my mind, the song speaks of the comment on a possible future for anthropology. complication of leaving the field, of the ethics For me, the most interesting element to the of care to the communities researched, and song is that while it starts with the voice of how to sustain and preserve those relationships Najwa Latif, it also includes a rap by Sleeq and and ensure the research is of benefit to those increasingly features the vocals of Syamkamarul. communities. In short, the focus on the individual voice is, Rawls’ ‘You’ll Never Find a Love Like Mine’ as the song progresses, replaced with a host of builds on this idea of sustained relationships. different voices, singing in harmony. For Ingold: A disco classic from 1976, this track conjures up a different musical world, the style very much of [W]hat drives anthropologists, in the final the time. The track has the potential, for some, resort, is not the demand for knowledge but to create feelings of nostalgia, something that is an ethic of care. We don’t care for others by accentuated by lyrics that allude to better times. treating them as objects of investigation, by As Monaghan and Just have said, ‘fieldwork is assigning them to categories and contexts what gives the enterprise of anthropology a good or by explaining them away. We care by deal of its romance’ (Monaghan and Just 2000: bringing them into presence, so that they 13). This song, for me, perfectly catches that can converse with us, and we can learn
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from them. That’s the way to build a world References with room for everyone. We can only build Bal, Mieke 2012. Curatorial Acts. Journal of it together. (Ingold 2018: 131) Curatorial Studies 1 (2): 179–256. https://doi.org/10.1386/jcs.1.2.179_1. I hope to have shown in my discussion how the Bull, Michael 2007. Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Fieldwork Playlist as a musical artefact can help Urban Experience. Abingdon: Routledge. us to reflect on the discipline of anthropology Daynes, Sarah and Terry Williams 2018. On Eth- and the fieldwork experience. Through my nography. Cambridge: Polity Press. curatorial approach to the playlist, I hope to have given an impression of what it might be Fenby-Hulse, Kieran 2016. Rethinking the Digi- tal Playlist: Mixtapes, Nostalgia, and Emotionally like to undertake fieldwork. Without the title Durable Design. In Raphaël Nowak and Andrew to the playlist, the list of tracks are meaningless, Whelan (eds). Networked Music Cultures: Contempo- however. It is the title that largely provides the rary Approaches, Emerging Issues. London: Palgrave interpretative frame through which to listen and Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58290-4_11. understand. We will all no doubt read slightly different things into the playlist, dependent Holt, John 1973. ‘Help Me Make it Through the on our own experiences, understandings, and Night’. Composed by Kris Kristofferson. 1000 Volts of Holt. Trojan Records: United Kingdom. context, but there are elements to it that I hope cut through when the tracks are presented Hornby, Nick 1996. High Fidelity. London: Indigo together. An ethics and care, to my mind, sit Press. within, across and between the selected tracks, Ingold, Tim 2018. Anthropology: Why It Matters. along with notions of voice and place, of the Cambridge: Polity Press. human and the digital, of the body and the Jackson, Michael 1983. ‘Billie Jean’. Thriller. Epic: mind, of then and now, of the individual and the United States. community. Jones, Dylan 2006. iPod, therefore I am. London: Anthropology and the fieldwork that Phoenix. underpins the discipline are evolving practices. Kartel, Vybz. ‘British Love (Anything For You)’. The playlist here provides a musical insight into Adidjahiem Records: Jamaica. anthropology in 2019. As the field changes, so too would the playlist. Indeed, future playlists Latif, Najwa 2012. ‘Sahabat’. Featuring Sleeq and Syam Kamarul. Najwa Latif. NAR Records Sdn may see an increasing number of urban and Bhd: Malaysia. digital tracks, music without voice, new instruments and technologies, languages old and Lovindeer, Loyd 1988. ‘Wild Gilbert’. Why Don’t We All Just Have Sex. TSOJ: Jamaica. new, and music that draws on a complex range of styles and influences as the world becomes Mayan Evangelical Singer n.d. Song featuring lyrics increasingly digital, global, and complex. ‘Oh Señor…’. Unrecorded performance. Guatemala. Monaghan, John and Peter Just 2000. Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Rawls, Louis 1976. ‘You’ll Never Find A Love Like Toto 1981. ‘Africa’. Toto IV. Columbia Records: Mine’. All Things in Time. Philadelphia: Philadelphia United States. International Records. The Wedding Present, David Gedge 1991. ‘Dare’. Rosenbaum, Steven 2011. Curation Nation: How to Seamonsters. RCA: United States. Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators. New York: McGraw-Hill. Kieran Fenby-Hulse Senior Lecturer Ryo 2007. ‘Melt’. Performed by Hatsune Miku. Research Capability and https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm1715919. Development
Soul Brothers 1997. ‘Indaba’. Born to Jive. Earth- works/ Stern’s.
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