Comments on: Photo/Stories from the field: ‘I hope we are not boring you?’ /2017/07/26/photostories-from-the-field-i-hope-we-are-not-boring-you/ Εxploring the relationship between childhood and public life Fri, 21 Sep 2018 07:09:48 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 By: Photo/stories from the field: portrait of an ethnographer /2017/07/26/photostories-from-the-field-i-hope-we-are-not-boring-you/#comment-205 Fri, 21 Sep 2018 07:09:48 +0000 https://childhoodpublics.org/?p=2277#comment-205 […] professional bodies (and here maybe Goffman had a point about ‘youth’!). Gendered bodies. Tired bodies. Bodies in pain. Hungry bodies. Bodies occupying that ethnographic present and yet having a past […]

]]> By: Perpetua Kirby /2017/07/26/photostories-from-the-field-i-hope-we-are-not-boring-you/#comment-185 Wed, 06 Sep 2017 14:42:32 +0000 https://childhoodpublics.org/?p=2277#comment-185 Melissa,
I really enjoyed reading this post. Navigating caffeine in the field is not something I’ve read about before but something I’ve felt to be noteworthy. As my children are older it was less sleep deprivation and more my ageing body i think that has caused my tiredness. I never felt able to ask parents for a cup of tea, as I was already asking so much of them it seemed, and there were times when I was distracted by my hope of an offer. When it came, sometimes I too sat with cup in hand, body heavy, unable to focus my attention. At other times, I would wander around cup in hand, fumbling to write notes or take photos, reluctant to give up the coveted drink. I became aware how holding a hot drink positioned me very much as an adult, how I became more cautious and less able to move so freely with the children. The offer of a drink does something too. In the school where I researched, I remember the day some months into the fieldwork, when a staff member first included me in the group round of tea making, offering me a drink rather than expecting me to get my own, and it felt like a breakthrough, signalling an increasing acceptance of me within the classroom. At the same time, I felt the weight of reciprocity signalled by this small act of generosity, alerting me not to ‘stand’ too distantly from those I am observing.

]]> By: smnolas /2017/07/26/photostories-from-the-field-i-hope-we-are-not-boring-you/#comment-179 Wed, 09 Aug 2017 09:19:00 +0000 https://childhoodpublics.org/?p=2277#comment-179 In reply to Susana.

Hi Susana,
Great to hear from you. Yes, there’s lots to say about doing fieldwork with babies in the background: both serious issues about the amount of support that researchers are given, and women/mothers have; and more amusing things when with all best intentions and will in the world, you sometimes just have to give in to the exhaustion.
I hope your fieldwork is going well. If you have a photo-story you would like to post on the blog we would welcome that.
All the best,
Melissa

]]> By: Susana /2017/07/26/photostories-from-the-field-i-hope-we-are-not-boring-you/#comment-177 Mon, 07 Aug 2017 13:04:11 +0000 https://childhoodpublics.org/?p=2277#comment-177 I feel so identified by this! I started fieldwork with families when my (now 14 months old) baby was 7 months. Although I haven’t fallen asleep (I think?), it’s been sometimes so hard to follow the conversations or to think what to ask next in an interview, feeling that my brain is working at half the speed it’s used to… cups of coffee have never been so welcome in fieldwork!

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