unc∞rdinated

I've been asked to offer some thoughts on fieldwork and data collection at a BricoLab meeting tomorrow, thought I could use this space to ruminate.  Not everything one comes across during fieldwork is "data". I think qualitative fieldwork is incredible because it produces profound knowledge about settings and phenomena. If one truly knows something they can write conceptual or theoretical pieces about it all day long. However knowing the phenomenon is not the same thing as having data about the phenomenon . And I am ultimately an empiricist and I need data.  I also want to recognize that its not as simple as data/not data. Its not a binary. I believe there is a continuum of data-ness of knowing from qualitative fieldwork, along the dimension of reflecting + encoding.  Let me try to explain what I mean by that... You come out of a session in the field, an observation session, and interview, whatever. You are buzzing with excitement about what you have discovered, yo...

Pranipaatena, pariphrashnena, sevaya. It's a triad of words that has been on my mind a lot. The source paragraph from the Gita opens my dissertation monograph. The proximal trigger was signing my contract as Assistant Professor (tenure track), at the Department of Digitalization, Copenhagen Business School.  I lettered this on site, at the Paradise tattoo parlour on rue Sherbrooke earlier today. It was transferred on to my skin, and tattooed over by Seb. I love the result. I have lettered this exact triad often, but it doesn't always come off. I wanted to do it in one shot, no take backsies, in the moment. Whatever lands on the page is what goes on my skin. So there was a thrill, of a sort. It’s not perfect. The second na in pariprashnena is a bit off. The sa at the beginning of sevaya is a bit small.  And of course, once it was scanned, Seb aligned the three words. And the resulting tattoo is as much his interpretation of my template at it is mine. Subtle choices about h...