Journal Entry - Inquiry Conference

Although this past week was extremely busy with the state swim meet I was coaching, I was glad that I made it into Inquiry conference for a couple of hours. When I was there, I watched a presentation from Daniel Atwood entitled Men-Tsee-Khang: Contemporary Tibetan medicine in Dharamsala, India. Daniel talked about how Tibetan medicinal practices have kind of shifted from the ancient Tibetan techniques to a more biomedical approach, including some western ideas, along with other influences as technology advances and times change.


I also was able to watch a presentation given by Dianna Pratt called Oxford Street: A visual and verbal narrative. This presentation was very interesting, and touched on the history and present of Oxford Street located in East London, South Africa. Dianna, through interview and photography, captured the present-day Oxford Street, and communicated what aspects, specific attributes, and locations along Oxford Street were valued and remembered by residents of East London. Also, how the history of Oxford Street has shaped how it is today.

Afterwards, there was a great discussion, in which the audience asked questions and talked with Dianna Pratt, Daniel Atwood, and Rachel Rueckert (my field facilitator) about the visual arts and incorporating them into your cross-cultural experience. Dianna and Rachel are photographers, and Daniel was using the medium of filmography in his project. Rachel had an interesting take on the ethics of "taking" a picture, and how when she first started off on her field study to Ghana, she took her expensive equipment, with the hope that she would capture this great "national geographic" picture, but instead found that not only did her equipment come between her and her experience abroad, but there was more of an ethical underlying variable that she struggled with, specifically when it came to sharing the pictures and entering them into contests.

Daniel, on the other hand, had a different approach, in that he had completely candid shots, in which he would be pretending to be doing something else but he would really be taking a picture of an unknowing subject in order to capture them in their natural state. This rose the topic of how people act differently in front of a camera.

To apply these things to my field study experience that is getting closer and closer everyday, it is interesting how a project that is designed to immerse oneself in a community can actually do the opposite if specific measures aren't taken. Rachel's photography equipment seemed to be a burden to her physically and emotionally, and she perhaps would've had a different experience without it. Daniel tried to sneak pictures of subjects to avoid them acting unnatural, perhaps to the point of being a little unethical (though he stated that the pictures are simply for himself and not for publishing purposes or anything). Everyone brings baggage to the field, literally and figuratively. What are the conclusions I want to draw from my project, and are my intentions going to stand in the way of my experience?

What kind of baggage will I bring to the field? When I enter the field and am out of my comfort zone, away from familiarity, and feeling the eminent culture-shock/loneliness, then how will I deal with it and will this bring me further from my project goals? Will my project goals themselves sometimes act as blinders and not allow me to see everything for how it is or interact with others in the community how I would like?

Inquiry conference really opened up my mind to these potential problems and I think really helped me to step back and think about what I really want to accomplish while abroad. Because of this, I have recently really diluted my project goals and methods to focus specifically on interaction in the community and with families, rather than trying to meet quotas and draw solid conclusions. The experience is what I want to take away from this, not a spreadsheet full of numbers.