Ethnographic Anxiety and Its ‘Telling’ Consequences

Murphy Out of Place: Ethnographic Anxiety and its ‘Telling’ Consequences Liam D. Murphy ABSTRACT: In Belfast, Northern Ireland, as elsewhere, myriad problems of epistemology and research design confront ethnographers entering the field for the first time. While these often remain a permanently taxing wellspring of frustration and anxiety, their apparent resolution through experience can occasionally lull researchers into a false sense of security in the context of social interaction with field respondents. By explor- ing an instance in which the author neglected to apply his understanding of the important Northern Ireland phenomenon of ‘telling’, the article shows how method and epistemology should always be borne in mind during fieldwork situations—even those implicitly discounted a priori as nonethnographic. While such relaxation of self- awareness may precipitate various blunders and ethnographic faux-pas, it also opens up spaces of critical inquiry into the collaborative constitution of selves and others in field situations, and refocuses the ethnographer’s awareness of his positioning as an outsider in webs of social activity. KEYWORDS: fieldwork, reflexivity, telling, religion, Belfast, Northern Ireland, method, ethnography Anthropology is an academic discipline whose this socially complex city proved especially practitioners pride themselves on intimate daunting as I began my doctoral fieldwork knowledge of their surroundings, but this is al- among charismatic and evangelical Christians. ways more easily declared than accomplished— Preoccupied with the most immediate con- regardless of where one chooses to conduct cerns of life, epistemology and the issue of self- fieldwork. Even among seasoned ethnographic representation were, of necessity, secondary veterans, the world as we find it often con- considerations to me in those first weeks. Find- founds even the most well considered research ing a flat, providing for my financial security agenda. Mastering the practicalities of every- and getting accustomed to my new neighbour- day living can displace the ambition to ‘really’ hood in south Belfast absorbed me—especially begin one’s research, and can even lull field- as regards the locations of shops, grocers and workers into a sense of false security about launderettes (the pocket-sized booklet of maps their achievement (indispensable though this that I carried with me at all times soon became is). Elements of my own experience in North- dog-eared and ragged). Having visited the city ern Ireland may perhaps serve as a cautionary before on several short trips, I struggled for tale in this regard. some weeks to re-acquaint myself with key As a novice fieldworker, newly arrived in Bel- landmarks, bus routes, main traffic arteries and fast in September 1997, my ambition to ‘know’ intersections, the ‘functional’ distinctiveness of Anthropology in Action, 13, 1–2 (2006): 78–86 © Berghahn Books and the Association for Anthropology in Action doi:10.3167/aia.2006.131210 Ethnographic Anxiety and ‘Telling’ | AiA different neighbourhoods (economic, govern- and anecdotal remarks have certainly found mental, residential etc.) and the many informal their way into these pages. and quasi-official boundaries that delimit the In addition to in-depth interviewing, in the various residential enclaves and housing es- best ethnographic tradition, participant obser- tates throughout the greater urban area. vation was central to my methodological toolkit. Only with the passage of many weeks did Throughout my time in Belfast, I was fortunate these early preoccupations give way to more to discover the many options that existed for substantive considerations related to my field- pursuing this aspect of fieldwork, as by and work. Even then, those familiar with the com- large, and regardless of religious conviction, plexities of ethnographic research design will those I met were exceptionally gracious in al- doubtless recognise or even identify with my lowing me to participate in the weekly rounds efforts to curtail the bewilderment that threat- of activity. Indeed, by late autumn, 1997, I was ened to engulf me during my first months in becoming increasingly alarmed that there the field. My central concern was to define a might prove too many organisations, churches, community of subjects among who to conduct encounter groups and communities in which I research—a deceptively difficult task—some- might reasonably expect to meet and get to know how much easier in my dissertation proposal religious virtuosi, entrepreneurs and devotees. than it ever proved on the ground. Much trou- As fieldnotes, newspaper clippings, audio- bled by this unresolved issue, I often com- recorded interviews, religious tracts and book- forted myself with the certain knowledge that length testimonies accumulated, my first months ‘my’ choices were almost certain not to be my in the field posed the nightmarish logistical own, but ‘theirs’. The stark reality of ethno- difficulty of separating the proverbial wheat graphic investigation is that researchers must from the chafe. Running the gamut from large, be somewhat opportunistic about their sources, bureaucratic and impersonal to small and and one’s opportunities are generally made grounded in personal connections and friend- available through the goodwill, or at least in- ships; formal churches to informal ‘para- terest, of those one meets, often by accident. churches’; permanent to ephemeral; and from While I had already been fortunate in being fully charismatic to partially so to ‘disenchanted’ welcomed by members of several prominent rationalists, early on it concerned me not so churches and religious communities, there much that I would fail to engage potential re- were hardly any guarantees that my good for- spondents, but that I might not make informed tune would endure. Still, I found that a cumu- decisions about how best to focus my efforts. lative approach to sampling, in which I eagerly With how many such organisations could I rea- followed up on all potential contacts (a name sonably expect to become familiar during my dropped here, an phone number scribbled lengthy, but ultimately finite stay in Belfast? down there); showed up uninvited and unan- Certainly during the first weeks of my field- nounced at various public events and services work, this was a torturous question to which I of which I had got wind; assiduously culled returned repeatedly as I forged ahead. Through- leaflets, flyers, newspapers and telephone di- out, I hoped fervently that an answer would rectories; and filled my diary and notebooks suddenly present itself—springing fully formed with interviews with any and all who would from the pages of my fieldnotes, as Aphrodite agree to speak to me over a cup of coffee, was from the oceanic foam or Eve from Adam’s rib. more productive and efficient than I had first Perhaps inevitably, such decisions proved expected. In addition to more formal encoun- more analogous to Procrustes’ bed than to any ters, innumerable spontaneous conversations epiphany or revelation on my part. While | 79 AiA | Liam D. Murphy problems of inclusion and exclusion dogged how social encounters are fraught, on all sides, me throughout my sojourn, I eventually found with efforts to simultaneously organise knowl- solace in an eclectic strategy that, while per- edge about selves and others. At times, such haps imperfect in the sense of not exhausting encounters and the anxieties that mark them every possible avenue of research, was never- as significant (scorching them into the anthro- theless comprehensive in terms of the sheer pologist’s awareness to such an extent as to range of practices and perspectives that it al- easily be recalled years later) are provoked by lowed me to collect. Thus, over the course of sophomoric mistakes made by the researchers the year, I spoke, worked, prayed and/or social- themselves. ised with members of some dozen avowedly Consider, for instance, the following anec- religious institutions and programmes of one dote from my own experience in Belfast. On stripe or another.1 the evening of 11 July 2003 (known in North- In all, and with the hindsight of eight or nine ern Ireland as ‘Eleventh Night’), I was invited years, it is clear that I suffered, in those early to accompany a small cohort of students and days, from a stubborn case of ethnographic researchers interested in ‘making the rounds’ ‘performance anxiety’—a persistent worry of a few of South Belfast’s more notorious bon- that I would somehow fail to pull together into fires. Eagerly accepting the invitation, and only a coherent whole the various threads of my ever having observed such spectacles from a research interest, and that, somehow, I would cautious distance, I was anxious to know at never achieve that critical mass of support from first hand what could be expected to happen at field respondents upon which even the most these events, especially given their notoriety. In well respected ethnographers depend. the several weeks leading up to the night itself, Notwithstanding that such concerns linger, I had made a point of traversing the greater ur- painfully, with many anthropologists long af- ban area in search of these fascinating sites of ter they have been initiated into their fieldsites, loyalist culture, here noting the gradual accu- it is important to recall that these anxieties pro- mulation and haphazard stacking of crates and vide a necessary corrective to the overconfi- tyres,2 there observing the playground antics dent and the careless. While I do not propose of preteens and bored youth, climbing about to overindulge what Geertz (1988: 90) has called on the piles of debris and even setting small the ‘diary disease’, let alone advocate a Mali- fires in anticipation of the main event. Typi- nowskian exegesis on the social functions of cally, the towers to be set alight are erected on anxiety, I do suggest that moments of inner tur- traditional, barren spaces of varying dimen- moil and conflict provide, ex post facto and pref- sions in urban and suburban loyalist enclaves.

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