ArticleExpertise1

Tracing
ethnography: A performance approach to the ethnographer’s
dis/appearance.

Chaim Noy

Tracing
ethnography

In this article I will
employ reflexive methods with the aim of critically examining the
production of academic knowledge, with particular reference to
ethnographic practices. Specifically, I use this space to rethink an
ethnographic research I conducted during Autumn, 2006, at the
Ammunition Hill National Commemoration Complex (Giv'at
Hatachmoshet), in Jerusalem, Israel . I offer a performative
rending of ethnographic practices, which rests on an attempt to
employ a type of theorizing of my ethnographic stint in the field
that resembles the type of theorizing I employed while accounting for
the visitors' actions and meanings at the site. In this sense I use
reflexivity critically, as I try to put visitors' visits and
researcher's ethnography on the same footing.

Thus I problematize
ethnography by viewing my observations in the museum not (solely) in
terms of "academic research" but (also) in terms of "museum
visits". By doing so, I acknowledge the power and authority
(sovereignty) of the modern institution of the museum, which leads
more broadly to suggesting that what is commonly viewed as
(ethnographic or situated) research, might be, under different
circumstances—such as ideological contexts and institutional
semiotics—framed differently . Alternative framing
possibilities are always available, and pursuing them can lead to
both reflexive insights into the construction of academic
knowledge—i.e. epistemology, and to enriching the practices of
ethnography itself—i.e. methodology. Thus the research is
steeped in explorations of reflexive ethnographies ??from Marcus &
Fischer to … and new museum studies ??, with performance
studies as the connecting thread .

Being
There

The expression "Being
There" nicely captures the performative rendering of the
ethnographic research I have conducted at the Ammunition Hill Museum.
This expression's twofold designation indicates the complexities of
doing ethnography within museum spaces. The term "being"
touches on an existential notion of presence; a Heideggerian
being-in-the-world or Dasein. This type of
being-in-ethnographic-research concerns the meanings and implications
of being some-where; being within physical and semiotic confines of
various places, in the present case of a highly symbolic and
institutional commemorative space.

The term "there"
complements the notion of Being, suggesting a particular site—a
sitedness—in which "being" takes place (Dasein
literally means "being there"). This is true for all
being-ins the world, and specifically complicated for ethnographic
inquiry, which is by definition a situated and embodied inquiry, with
distinct "fields" or "sites" where it is
practiced. Ethnography emerges a research of being—observing,
recording, interviewing, participating, etc.—"there."
In situated research practices there are always spatial references to
specific places and locations, achieved by indexical references that
reveal the spatial relations between the researcher and the field.
"Here" or "there" are common indexical terms used
to describe the distance between the field and the homeplace, whether
distant (there), or proximate (here).

As suggested earlier,
I pursue my "ethnographic visits" to the Ammunition Hill
Musuem in a manner that is similar to and that parallels the way I
researched and conceptualized performative entries in the Ammunition
Hill Visitor Book. Indeed, the indexical deictics "here"
and "there" relate to how visitors who inscribe the visitor
book accomplish the task of producing entries performatively.
Accomplishing a meaningful and effective statement of presence
necessitates an anchoring of the performance in the space/on the
stage whereat it is revealed as a meaningful social action (Noy, in
press-a)??. For visitors at the Ammunition Hill, at least for those
who chose to inscribe in the VB, the matter of their actual
(corporeal and "authentic") presence is crucially
important, and it is vital for the effectiveness of their
performances. The visitors made this clear by repeatedly indicating
that their performances are performed in situ, and that they
are anchored to the "here" of the site. A typical
commemorative entry includes the words "I was here."
Visitors' notion of "here," however, varies, and extends
from the literal pages of the VB, through the space of the Ammunition
Hill Complex, all the way to the (the Holy City of) Jerusalem, and
the Land of Israel (Noy, forthcoming).

While ethnographers
commonly view the field as being "there," at a distance
from both homeplace and workplace (academia), if I am to render anew
my ethnographic excursions to the Ammunition Hill Museum and assume
the responsibilities and the obligations implied in the research, I
should acknowledge and consider the hereness of the research. Doing
so removes one of the veils that hide the similarities, or that
creates the differences between other visitors and other visits and
my own.

Tracing
ethnographic presence

In works on visitors
and visits at the AHNMS I argued that the visitor book is used
precisely to capture in-situ traces of these visitors and of their
visits. As these traces are aesthetisized ideological productions
that are publically accessible, they amount to performances.
Specifically, these are performances of participation in the
national(ist) narrative unfolded at the site. I will now suggest
three short instances that illustrate how my own presence and my own
traces in the site are observable and traceable. Contra much of the
research conducted in social sciences, and following earlier works on
the (social) role of the researcher (Noy, ??), I will

. This presence is
captured (perhaps paradoxically) by my own capturing devices (i.e.
still photography and video) and by the visitors themselves.

First, the presence of
my video installation, which included two cameras, a tripod, and
additional technical equipment, inside the spaces of the museum was
interpreted by some of the visitors as a display. This is after all
not too surprising, because the role of a "researcher" is
not common or to be expected in these spaces. (Re)viewing the video
recordings, which captured visitors' movements and exchanges near the
visitor book, reveals the interest visitor show with regards to the
shooting installation: they approach it, look directly into the lends
of the camera lends, and discuss its meaning with fellow visitors.
While I did not remember this from my fieldwork, the video tape
captured a number of instances where I had to actually approach
visitors and ask them kindly to avoid manipulating the tripod or
cameras. This is of course and execution of authority on my behalf,
thus marking myself from other visitors and situating myself above
them in terms of the range of situated actions that are available to
me.

Second, in addition to
the technical installation, my presence also drew visitors'
attention. Here, again, with the help of video recordings I can see
how visitors negotiate my role in situ. They do so subtly, but the
whispers they exchanged and the glances they sneak (unseen by me at
the time) indicate that they try to decipher my (institutional) role.
For instance, in one occasion I was fixing the camera unto the tripod
and searching for the best angle for shooting. Absorbed in these
technical operations, I did not realize that some youths (who were
high school students from the city of Natania) had actually
approached the nearby hall and were able to see me. Since the video
camera was shooting, the tape clearly discerns the utterly surprised
call of the first of these youths to have noticed me, exclaiming,
"Woow! I thought it's a sculpture!" ("Yuuh!
hashavti sheze pesel!"). Indeed, why should the figure of
myself, bent over the tripod in an empty, darkly lighten museum hall,
not be taken to be a statue, which is to say why should I not be
taken in the context of a museum to be a display of sorts. If in this
context I am not a visitor, what else might I be? What else might my
actions there embody? What are the other viable interpretative
possibilities available for visitors who encounter the ethnographer
in situ? In any case, the video clearly records the momentarily
surprise—actually, a horrific moment—when what seemed to
the youth walking a head of his friends as a commemorative sculpture
suddenly started moving. This moment of animation amounts to no less
than an act of resurrection, which—I should stress—lies
squarely within the commemorative ideology of the Ammunition Hill
Museum, which tries to "bring to life" those commemorated.

Collecting
practices

In this section I will
briefly argue for another parallel, or in terms of power relations
for another competition, between the semiotics of the museum and
those of the ethnography. This parallel is evinced in the
intuitions'—museums, on the one hand, and academic knowledge,
on the other, to sample and collect artifacts (broadly defined), and
by and by also to re/de-contextualize their meanings. As Susan
Stewart commented, "[i]t is the museum, not the library, which
must serve as the central metaphor of the collection …
[because it is there that] closure of all space and temporality
within the context at hand occurs."

Indeed, much like other
types of empirical research ethnographies too are concerned with
collecting, storing and classifying data. In this respect I will
broadly note that over and above interviews with museum personal and
visitors, my research was dedicated to capturing and documenting
visitors' interaction with the visitor book. This was done through
observations and note-keeping, as well as through comprehensive
digital recordings of the visitor books themselves. In this way,
ethnographic documentation produced a second-order type of
documentation of the visitor book, which we should remember, is
itself a documenting medium: it is there for documenting visitors'
inscriptions (and hence its ideological operation a commemorative
agent). Figure 1 (below) shows the digital collection of visitor book
pages I have documented. The collected is located in my hard disc,
and its representation in the figure was produced by a screen
capturing software.

-- Figure
1: here --

So in a way I have
created my one museum, with hundreds of visitor book pages from
dozens of visitor book. I too have moved these pages from their
original content of inscription ("decontextualization), for
research that li?? with the academic ideology of knowledge (rather
than with the national ideology of commemoration). Nonetheless, these
are similar procedures performed by different actors and different
ideologies.

(Techno-)Ideologies
of Representation

The third and final
moment that completes the circle that describes the power
(inter)relations between museumal and ethnographic ideologies and the
means of pursuing them, concerns issues of representation (indeed,
issues much discussed and I shall try to be brief and innovative). I
will argue that both agencies essentially manipulate means of
representation, and that these means convey ideologies of
representation which have both similarities and differences.

In the little space
available here I shall supply only one illustration of the
dis/appearance or erasure of the researcher from the research.

-- Figure
2a and figure 2b here --

* * *

As a concluding note I
would like to push further the semiotic notion that an ethnographer
in a museum is (also) a visitor to a museum. If indeed, as I have
very partially addressed above, I am a visitor, what does this mean?
The lead to this answer lies within the realm of the visitors, and
specifically with the socioeconomic and socioethnic attributes those
visiting this particular site. As I have recently indicted (Noy, in
press-b), the Ammunition Hill's days of glory have long passed. This
fact is clearly marked by the demography of the local (Israeli)
visitors: these are predominantly Israelis of low class, from
peripheral settlements and towns (such as Tiberius and Sderot) or
peripheral neighborhoods in Jerusalem (such as Giva'at Ze'ev), and of
Mizrahi background. These characteristics stand in stark
contradiction with the site's management, which is Ashkenazi, and
relates to a military elite (specifically to the Paratrooper Brigade
which is the predominate category of masculine heroes being
celebrated and commemorated at the site). Visitors' characteristics
also present a contradiction with my background, which is of
an upper-middle class, relating to a social elite relating to
academia. Indeed, what I do at the site is precisely engage in that
elite practice of modernity, embodying the role of the generator of
knowledge or "researcher."

Notwithstanding my

References

Noy, C. (In press). 'I
WAS HERE!': Addressivity structures and inscribing practices as
indexical resources. Discourse Studies.

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