Field notes on Family Records and Subject Files

I have a difficult decision ahead in regards to the family records and subject files for Warsop and Bull Savannah. Most of the material (interviews and census data) has names in it which may conflict with the general confidentiality of the survey. This part of the information could be blacked-out or censored so that anonymity remains, but I am not sure this would hold the same type of representation for the exhibit. The format of the records is a typed summary, done by whomever was responsible for the fieldwork in that quadrant, usually Edith Clark and assistant or the Obrebski’s. The narratives from a number of community members are a intriguing window into the lives being recorded by Obrebski – however much of these observations exist in the monographs themselves as well.

I believe that Rob would say that this is where I decide what kind of story I wish to tell with this material. From my reading the family narratives are an important voice to be heard if we are trying to know a more fill story about Obrebski’s study of the Jamaican village. The individual stories create a more cohesive understanding of the whole community. One specific example is the way the story of the bible seems to be underlying in much of the community relations. Obrebski notes in his monograph on religion that the bible is regarded as a part of the village history.

After looking a more of the subject files I considered that they would be best used as reinforcement for the monographs and more completed documentation – more to fill the gaps where the larger documents fall short of the story line. At this point I am restructuring my game plan a bit. First, I’ll go back and finish the letters box. Then go to the monographs and publications in boxes 20-23, and pick the most complete parts of the documentation. I can use these to understand the full scope of the available documentation in order to fill the gaps afterwards with supplementary data. There is a chance the breakdown of the monographs will lend themselves as categorization for the digital exhibit.

After a healthy “bring it home” chat with Coach Kovacs, I am invited to continue this internship into the spring semester so that I am not rushed with the story. I know that I could have completed this as an excerpt to be done by next week, however it seems that the collection will be best represented with a bit more time and effort. This makes sense looking at the way the project took a real loop when I was trying to discover how to get the right point of view for the story. I’m relieved and excited to continue my work (and the blog!) through next semester and my preparation for grad school. My hope is to have the Obrebski exhibit available for public viewing earlier in the Spring semester, even though I will continue to add to the digital collection.

Correspondence

Spent all day scanning letters from WISS to Obrebski and vice versa. These included details of research progress and restructuring of responsibilities so to avoid researcher conflict. Rob showed me how to determine (for the most part) whether a document is a typewritten original or a carbon copy by looking at any pixelation in the text. Danielle hooked me up with AAT in order to make sure my physical descriptions were appropriate metadata.

Its rather pleasing to know I’m recording information as accurately as possible.

Elements have merit regardless of how tedious they are

Today I restructured the MODS elements I am using:

Title: Item Title
Name: Item Creator
Original Date: Item Date (if avaiable)
Language: English
Physical Description: Number of pages; typewritten or handwritten; original or carbon copy
Abstract: Notes on document contents, keywords and subjects.
Note: Used for Obrebski classifications
Location: Joseph and Tamara Obrebski Papers (MS 401, Box X:X). Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Record ID: OP0000
Creation Date: Date item is scanned and record ID assigned
Category: WordPress classification
Tagged: Blog post classification

Digging back into the archive

At the beginning of this project I had the idea that much of the collection would be translated into the digital exhibit. After spending time with the material it has become evident that the collection as a while speak to a brief moment in Obrebski’s ethnographic history. This was a jumping off point for his later analytical and academic works in the United States (particularly New York City), which examine the methods anthropologists use to gather data of all kinds.

As a student of Malinowski, Obrebski was at the cusp of the ethnographic era of data collection. Important questions were asked, like how the researcher is expected to observe without becoming intertwined with the data itself. At the same time, what is happening in the community of note that can not be observed without integration?

It seems like the strongest way to present Obrebski’s Jamaican Papers is to provide a window into the collection. The story is partial – Obrebski was asked to “wrap – up” in Jamaican order to work with his US colleagues on potentially more pressing issues than WISS had to offer. Knowing this, we can still see importance in the data gathered by the Obrebskis, Edith Clarke, and a number of WISS students/employees stationed in Jamaica in 1947-48. This is the story of the information that has been maintained. I do want to thank the Obrebski family and the Halperns for remembering the significance of Obrebski’s ethnographic look at two small villages in Jamaica.

How is Malinowski Controversial

Yesterday my Politics and Technology professor in the Communications department gave a lecture on ethnography which emphasized the controversial techniques of Malinowski. As the last component for the course we are reading “High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy” by Carla Freeman, a modern ethnography text about Freeman’s new anthropological study of women informatics workers in Barbados. This is interesting for me because it is a contemporary study which references the type of cultural study made popular by Malinowski, and carried on by his students like Obrebski.

According to this lecture, critiques of Malinowski address the labeling of societal traits perhaps without perspective and that of the anthropologist embedding themselves in the area of examination. I wonder how this will be addressed in Freeman’s book, as the way the new form of anthropology looks at cultural interaction requires very close interaction with participants of the community. Freeman goes on shopping trips and into women’s homes for interviews, which is a strategy for accumulating more personal data and observation, however brings the researcher much closer to the subject. I am curious to see how this may interfere with observation of the subjects in Freeman’s study. In terms of Malinowski’s effect, though criticized for sometimes not getting close enough to the village of study, it is this interaction of researcher and subject that allows one to lose themselves in the research and to perhaps lose some perspective in the observation process.

Pre-festival volunteer turnout encouraging

Tonight’s meeting went well on a number of fronts. During the past week its been difficult to determine exactly how the festival staff would come together knowing we have such little time left. When the meeting hit, I was hoping for some conclusion to how things would actually fall together. Now, I realize that the only way you get anything done is by having some sort of faith that you can actually do it. As Jeffrey says, “An idea is only as good as the energy we put behind it”. As the meeting went on, the donuts were slowly disappearing and the festival shifts were not filling up. So, we broke up into a few groups and had volunteers load up on print material. The majority of shift sign up happened AFTER the meeting, as I was checking in with people personally. This was such a relief, and I think it worked out as I was able to familiarize myself with the volunteer body. It turns out the conclusion that I was looking for came from the volunteers themselves, the blood of the festival that makes it happen every year.

Thank you to everyone who showed up, I look forward to having a great festival with all of you.

Off to Amherst College

Today I am working on background research of Obrebski. Since I don’t have a prior experience with Anthropology this is requiring me to go into Malinowski’s work. There are a few texts here at the WEB DuBois tower that I can access, summaries of Malinowski works and a text on Sex Culture & Myth. It is this area that I find interesting as it relates to Obrebski’s time in Jamaica. Many of the family interviews performed by Edith Cobb and Tamara Obrebski link to Jozef Obrebski’s documents on religion, including sex politics and myth.

I’ll be heading over to the Amherst College library this weekend to access an online article on Sex & Repression in Savage Society – which I am curious about as a prior anthropological work. It will also be interesting to find out what restrictions are placed on this kind of digital material that it can be accessed from Smith College and Amherst College but not at UMass.