EXPERTISE draft

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

Tracing ethnography
In this article I am informed by the epistemology of “traces,” which, according to Jacques Derrida (1978; , 1988) and Susan Stewart (1991), function as material links that connect contexts and allow situated meanings to be performed and grasped. I 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 (see Noy, 2008a,b??). I offer a performative rending of ethnographic practices, which rests on reflexive insights: I try to employ a type of theorizing of my ethnographic stint there, which is similar to the type of theorizing I employed while account 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.
I problematize my 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 to suggesting that what is commonly viewed as (ethnographic or situated) research, might be, under various circumstances—such as ideological contexts and institutional semiotics—framed differently (Goffman, 1974). In other words, 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 (Bochner & Ellis, 2002; Marcus & Fischer, 1999) and new museum studies (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998; Macdonald, 2006)??, with sensibilities from performance studies as the connecting thread (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998; Noy, 2007??).
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 museum ethnography. 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" compliments the notion of Being and suggests a particular site—a sitedness—in which "being" takes place (Dasein literally meaning "being there"). This is true for all being-ins the world, and specifically complicated for ethnographic inquiry, which is by definition a situated inquiry, which has a distinct "field" or "site." Ethnographic is a research of being—observing, recording, interviewing, participating, etc.—"there," wherever "there" may be. 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 VB. 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 site, at least for those who chose to inscribe in the VB, the matter of their actual (corporeal, "authentic") presence is crucially important, and it is vital for the effectiveness of their performances in the VB. 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"—a requirement of the discipline—at a distance from both homeplace and workplace (academia), if I am to render anew my ethnographic excursions to the AH museum, and assume the responsibilities and the obligations implied in my research, I should acknowledge and consider the hereness of the research conduct. 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 VB 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 I can observe my own presence and my own traces in the site, which much of contemporary social sciences (still) try to remove. 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 (two cameras, a tripod, and some additional technical equipment) inside the museum was interpreted by some of the visitors as a display. (Re)viewing the video recordings, which were initially intended to capture visitors' actions and movements throughout the museum and particularly near the VB, reveals how visitors show interest in the camera: they approach it, look directly into its 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 asking them kindly to avoid manipulating the tripod or cameras. This is of course and execution of authority on my behalf, discerning 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 of the cameras, 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 then) indicate that they try to decipher my (institutional) role. One occasion took place as I was fixing the camera unto the tripod and searching for the best angle for video shooting. Absorbed in these technical operation, I did not realize that some youths (high school students from the city of Natania) had actually approached the nearby hall. 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 me, 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 any case, in this 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 starts 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.


Collector: Totalizer
-- Stewart (1993, p.161), "It 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.


In this section I shall briefly argue for another parallel or in terms of power relations 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 ethnography on the other, to sample and collect artifacts (broadly defined), and by and by also to re/de-contextualize their meanings.


Techno-Ideologies of Representation
Finally, in scene number three I wish to complete the circle that describes the power (inter)relations between museumal and ethnographic semiotics, by arguing that both agencies essentially employ means of representation, and that these means convey ideologies of representation which have both similarities and differences.

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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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