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Fieldwork and Subjectivity: On the Ritualization of Seeing a Burned Child
Author(s) -
Slobin Kathleen
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1995.18.4.487
Subject(s) - intersubjectivity , subjectivity , reflexivity , introspection , ritualization , framing (construction) , perception , psychology , sociology , rhetorical question , cognition , epistemology , social psychology , cognitive psychology , anthropology , linguistics , social science , history , philosophy , archaeology , neuroscience
Field research, an exercise undertaken to generate descriptive and analytic studies of human activity in varying social and cultural contexts, is a complex process of framing and unframing undifferentiated experiences. As such, field studies are conditioned by the immediate play of subjectively arrayed cognitive, emotional, perceptual, and linguistic processes even as they are designed for future objective accounts. This article offers a redescription of an emotionally laden encounter with a burned child. The article presents a phenomenological account of the encounter which, as a highly charged event, focuses attention on reflexive processes related to introspection, intersubjectivity, and sensory perception as ritualized aspects of fieldwork. Finally, the concept of ritual is examined in terms of its rhetorical function as a frame for writing lived experience in the field.