Barz Critical Review

I found Barz’s section on the importance of fieldnotes to be very interesting. He talks about the role of fieldnotes as a bridge between one’s research and the ethnography that serves as the culmination of a project. He says,

In my own experience I have found that fieldnotes are integral to both the processes of field research and ethnography – they function as an intermediary point that links the processes of ethnography back to the processes of field research. With fieldnotes acting as such a fluid and malleable intermediary point, boundaries between experience and interpretation become less distinct, allowing ethnography to become more directly linked to experience, and field research to become an integral part of interpretation. (p. 210)

I was surprised that this description reflected exactly the purpose that my fieldntoes served. While sitting in on the electroacoustic improv ensemble, I wrote down many scattered questions and isolated thoughts that came to my mind. While writing up the presentation of these notes, I discovered a path that incorporated just about all of what I had written and pointed me in a direction that I will most likely use as the focus of my ethnography.

Barz clearly believes that one’s fieldnotes are the second step in the creation of an ethnography being preceded by fieldwork and succeeded by the final ethnographic paper. Personally, I feel that fieldnotes should be included in the research category. I think that the creation of fieldnotes is vital in determining the path that one’s research will take. I am curious as to what everyone else thinks about this. Is the creation of fieldnotes really its own step or is it a part of the research?