ASIS&T, travel, Vancouver
In Misc. on November 6, 2009 at 3:47 pm
The highlight this past week was a guest lecture by Prof. Takhteyev and his dissertation on software development in Brazil, specifically around a programming language called “Lua”. Extremely readable, and he’s currently editing it for the purpose of publishing it as a book. He emphasized how important writing was to him as a tool, perhaps juxtaposing the way ethnographic research can result in a wall plastered with photos taken in the field, and diagrams or models. It reminded me of the emphasis Prof. Cain emphasized writing as a process, that you write, and rewrite, perhaps for a particular end, but as a research process, never really ends.
Heading off to Vancouver, a little too ambitious about what I’ll get done on the plane, such as finalizing the logo for SPO, edit one of my papers for journal submission, and start planning the presentation I have to make on Wednesday morning when I come back, and do some course reading.
Oh, and enjoy my time in Vancouver, naturally. I’ll try to make some updates on my activities there.
ethnography, infovis, process
In music-esque, thesis on October 28, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Ethnographic research is difficult, in the way it challenges the more scientific approach to research. Instead of going in with a theory, as is typical of deductive reasoning in most scientific approaches, an inductive approach demands that we begin with observation. The identification process is not identifying a problem and hypothesizing a solution, but identifying an interesting phenomenon, and immersing yourself in it. This is pretty easy to understand. We do no go in assuming we know how Mendelssohn responded to his reception in England, nor can one go into a study of Kabuki theatre in Japan claiming to know anything. Yet in that context, music is the focus, supported by research into the social, historical and cultural contexts, vis-à-vis fieldnotes and general immersion (especially in ethnomusicology) into the musical world.
One of the things I recall from my ethnomusicology course, was a simple question: What do you do, while in the process of writing your ethnography, you encounter information that challenges or contradicts what you have been writing in your analysis? It’s not a trick question.