By Jamie A. Thomas
Near Kariakoo in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Anthropology is Adventure.
As a kid, I used to love reading Choose Your Own Adventure books because it seemed there was always an infinite number of ways to explore the unknown. In one book, I'd be a spelunker in a deep, dangerous cavern; in another, I'd suddenly find myself at the helm of a spaceship running out of fuel. Abruptly after each scene, the book would give you an ultimatum: go to page 6 if you choose to run for the escape pod, turn to page 23 if you choose to attempt lightspeed and make it to the nearest space station. It takes a certain brand of confidence to stick to your gut and turn to page 23.
Years later, I still hold onto the thrill of those books, but now I see investigating culture as a special kind of continuous adventure. Because what is a thrill, except for an emotion extending from an experience we find startling, exciting, terrifying, and changing--at all once. This is what it feels like to land somewhere unknown, and to be overwhelmed by all there is to see, hear, observe, and learn. Amid the overwhelmingness of it all, you must remember that you're a researcher, and that you have choices to make about who to spend time with, where to observe, where you live, and how you participate (or not) in local life.
These are like a series of small ultimatums in the course of a field project, because you never know if you'll ever see the same person again, or get another opportunity to have that interview, say that line again in better Spanish or Arabic, or get that ride out to the rural farm where they make pulque. As a result, the researcher in me has learned a special brand of confidence to adapt quickly, be ready with my recording equipment, revise decisions, go with my intuitions, and become a tenacious muckraker to get information and interviews when my research questions demand it. I learned to always carry around my audio recorder, camera, and mini-notebook, so that I could be ready to document my evolving thoughts, new observations, or take down someone else's contact information.
Years later, I still hold onto the thrill of those books, but now I see investigating culture as a special kind of continuous adventure. Because what is a thrill, except for an emotion extending from an experience we find startling, exciting, terrifying, and changing--at all once. This is what it feels like to land somewhere unknown, and to be overwhelmed by all there is to see, hear, observe, and learn. Amid the overwhelmingness of it all, you must remember that you're a researcher, and that you have choices to make about who to spend time with, where to observe, where you live, and how you participate (or not) in local life.
These are like a series of small ultimatums in the course of a field project, because you never know if you'll ever see the same person again, or get another opportunity to have that interview, say that line again in better Spanish or Arabic, or get that ride out to the rural farm where they make pulque. As a result, the researcher in me has learned a special brand of confidence to adapt quickly, be ready with my recording equipment, revise decisions, go with my intuitions, and become a tenacious muckraker to get information and interviews when my research questions demand it. I learned to always carry around my audio recorder, camera, and mini-notebook, so that I could be ready to document my evolving thoughts, new observations, or take down someone else's contact information.
Adventurous research demands humility.
In the early days of my fieldwork in Tanzania some years ago, I landed in Dar es Salaam, and there was so much I didn't yet know. The city was so unlike Los Angeles where I grew up, or Mexico City where I had recently lived, and yet it was the same. But the devil is in the details, and it was in the details that I could begin to understand what set Dar es Salaam apart. Part of this came from taking notice of how I felt within the urban space as a woman, a Black woman, an African American.
I could see that the city has a powerful, ceaseless rhythm. People are everywhere doing their own thing: selling, getting, driving, waiting, eating. And as soon you arrive, you can see you were not the first. You fall into place. You begin navigating the dense atmosphere of sights and sounds, and notice that someone, just steps ahead of you, already traced this same path. It becomes clear that the path you walk is not your own, but part of a larger network of places and spaces that will persist long after your departure. In this way, urban neighborhoods are institutions, inasmuch as they are deep landscapes of family, friendship, and experience.
But what is central here, is that as a researcher you maintain a keen sense of humility, because the city is not about you, or who you are, or where you're from. Instead your role is to absorb what you see, participate in, and observe, and understand this all as coming through your lens of lived truth, so that you can share these stories in a way that pays homage to the people to whom they belong.
I could see that the city has a powerful, ceaseless rhythm. People are everywhere doing their own thing: selling, getting, driving, waiting, eating. And as soon you arrive, you can see you were not the first. You fall into place. You begin navigating the dense atmosphere of sights and sounds, and notice that someone, just steps ahead of you, already traced this same path. It becomes clear that the path you walk is not your own, but part of a larger network of places and spaces that will persist long after your departure. In this way, urban neighborhoods are institutions, inasmuch as they are deep landscapes of family, friendship, and experience.
But what is central here, is that as a researcher you maintain a keen sense of humility, because the city is not about you, or who you are, or where you're from. Instead your role is to absorb what you see, participate in, and observe, and understand this all as coming through your lens of lived truth, so that you can share these stories in a way that pays homage to the people to whom they belong.
Somewhere in Tanzania's western countryside.
So, when I began my research in Dar es Salaam, I became intrigued by the city. I realized that I couldn't ignore it, not only because this was where my primary field site (a university, and its classrooms) were located, but also because my framing of my 'field site' was somewhat arbitrary. The people who I met at the university, students, professors, staff, all had lives that extended beyond the gates of the university. As they moved around, the urban realities of our location came to define aspects of their lived experiences, and who they were as Tanzanian women teaching Swahili, or South Korean women studying Swahili while on study abroad, both groups of which I encountered. In order to understand their lives, practices, and linguistic behaviors, I began to accompany them on their daily activities; trips to the market, nighttime excursions to the bar, Sundays at church, evenings at home with family. I also needed to see more outside the city, to understand what made Dar es Salaam feel urban: Was it space? Multilingualism? Rush-hour traffic?
Because, as I came to more deeply understand, context is everything to the researcher. Exploring the notion of context, and building a rich, descriptive base for my study became its own kind of adventure.
Because, as I came to more deeply understand, context is everything to the researcher. Exploring the notion of context, and building a rich, descriptive base for my study became its own kind of adventure.
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