• Practical constraints
Doing ethnography is time- and money-consuming. Unlike classical academic deskwork, ethnography is a study that one shall get done on the road. Budgets, scholarly interests, and academic politics are attached to fieldwork in the practical worlds (Van Maanen 2011: 5). Due to various practical constraints, this study cannot show a panorama of Estonian knitting. To carry a comparison between Estonian knitting and knitting tradition on a world-wide scale also beyond the scope of my dissertation.
• Language barrier
Doing Estonian ethnography with only an intermediate level of Estonian language is difficult.
The language barrier restrains me from accessing some historical materials, which is practically impossible for me to work on independently, and the financial constraint kept me away from hiring a professional translator as an assistant to this project. Moreover, I was not able to conduct
interviews fully in Estonian: all interviews used in this dissertation were done in English , which is 8 not the first language both to my respondents and myself.
• Personal influential factors
Doing ethnography means to put oneself on the joint-point between two worlds: their own world and the world of cultural members (Van Maanen 2011: 4). The importance of integrating oneself into a foreign context at the same time to keep the identity of being a bystander for ethnographic work is apparent.
I am a visible foreigner in a context of doing Estonian ethnography. Through my practice, I have found that this identity brings me mostly advantages. However, the disadvantage is also to a certain extent noteworthy. First of all, I can barely keep my presence concealed in some situations where I should have been invisible. My Asian features leave nowhere for me to hide: it is just way too exotic in such a context. For example, in my fieldnotes from observation on Craft Camp in Olustvere, I wrote:
…
All respondents are aware of my working language. However, there were still several times that we have
8
used Estonian as a supportive language for the interview.
Right after we talked about the anecdote of Kihnu mitten under a grey Soviet sky, a German lady started a talk about her Chinese friend living in Beijing who “knits like crazy”. Then she asked in details about Chinese knitting. She said that Beijinger claims that there is no folk knitting in China. She asked me if that was true. I said maybe yes, and I made an honest confess that I know very little on Chinese knitting.
I did try hard to push the topic back to Estonia.
…
This experience did not cause any harm to my fieldwork process as I have successfully brought the topic back: another lady with Estonian heritage started to talk about her family stories of immigration right after my attempt of drawing back people’s focus to Estonia instead of the ethnic identity of an extra member in the classroom. However, under some specific circumstances, the situation may get troublesome.
Here I present my reflective notes on an accident that happened in Bradford.
…
The old lady and her brother were introduced by one of their family members to me. It was already in the middle part of the dinner. Since I had very little time left because I have to catch my late bus, I was not that eager to get the interview done. Another concern was because of their age - both of them seem in their 80s to me. I usually do not interview people at this age for various reasons.
However, my curiosity had the advantage over all of those concerns. Also, the lady was very willing to talk - not to mention her family member was very kind and friendly to me. I told them that I have to record the interview and to get the paperwork, i.e. consent form and plain language statement done, so we moved to a small library upstairs. She was talking with passion about her family history before the interview. Her brother was comparatively silent, but sometimes he also add points to her narrative.
Suddenly, she stopped to talk and asks me to cancel the interview because she has a feel of spy. The “spy” thing comes all at once, without any indication beforehand. I even thought it was a joke at the very beginning. I only realised that she is serious when she says that it is very pleasant to meet me but she can’t do this anymore. I apologised. Since I was not clear on which point comes the “spy” thing, so the only thing I could do was to keep saying
“sorry” for as many times as I could.
The lady went away, left me in the library with a shock. Her brother was hesitating. He asked if he really needs to leave. But even if he decided to stay, I am not willing to continue this interview anymore.
*
I have never figured out the reason for what happened in that library, also, for the
connection of knitting and spy movies. It could be the scene of interview reminded that lady of some personal experience (for the consent form, signature, or the dictation app on my phone), or maybe my asian face — like some people from certain parts of the Soviet Union?
After being a “spy”, I had interview-phobia for quite a long time.
I was extremely afraid.
…
By analysing Lyotard and Foucault’s work, Corin (2007: 240) demonstrates the idea that the circumstances of lost-in-translation do happen with ethnographic work, because it may be
ultimately impossible to account for others’ worlds in terms of the elements in our own worlds. The above-mentioned scene during that failed interview in Bradford is a perfect example of the dilemma in getting oneself into other’s world. Furthermore, the refusal (which is the only rejection that I have ever got during the whole fieldwork process) to have a talk about knitting shows the severe concern about self-revelation. The ethnographic situation itself and the interaction between ethnographer and subject leads to the consequence of what should be deemed “personal” (Lovell 2007: 73). It is a shadow side of fieldwork, a potential risk and eternal fear — the cross which an ethnographer shall carry with him/her throughout whole career life.