Commentary Ten: Stoller

Ethnography/Memoir/Imagination/Story

According to Stoller, there is not “one best way” to write ethnography.  Stoller states that “Each body of ethnographic material is unique and therefore requires a specifically contoured textual strategy…there are key elements that are necessary if ethnographers want their works to be read by a wide range of readers over a long period of time” (180).

I can related to the conversation between Stoller and Adamu Jenitongo at the beginning of this essay:  Stoller: “But how do you know what is worth doing” and “Can you ever avoid taking the wrong path?”  

Jenitongo: “No you cant’, my son.  It’s very easy to take the wrong path and waste your time and energy.  We all make those choices.  But if you are patient, life will tech you what is important and you can concentrate your energies on that.”

Many times I feel like I have been wasting my time as I follow the trail of research for a term paper.  Many times I almost have gotten to the end of the paper and decide that I should have gone in a different direction with it.  Then, I stop and say to  myself: “It is not a waste of time to delve into unfamiliar territory.  The experience, excitement, and knowledge is always worth it.”  It might take me longer to re-draft my paper, but what I learned in the process is always valuable to me.  I can use that information for another topic, for a conversation with a colleague, for a lesson for my “kids.” 

During these last days of this semester, I also feel like I have wasted valuable time observing, perhaps what I should not have been observing and not observing what I should have.  And again, I have to remind myself that it was all “good” practice and all a good experience.  I have learned to take less written notes and more mental notes.  I have learned to be a “participating observer” and have peeked the curiosity of many Professors I have observed.  They are wondering what am I looking for?  You see, they  have not had the fortune of taking a class in ethnography such as this.