|
“Go Ugly Early:” Fragmented Narrative as Interpretive Method Annette N. Markham, Ph. D. draft of article forthcoming in the
journal Qualitative Inquiry.
Please contact author for citation details. Copyright © Annette N. Markham. 2004.
All rights reserved. Abstract This article is a study of method
as well as the presentation of ethnographic research. The author presents a case study which explores
the meaning of a popular phrase “Go Ugly Early” as it is claimed and lived
out by a group of males in a college bar.
Acknowledging that similar methods can accomplish some of the same
results and effects, this piece can be read as an example of writing as
inquiry, layered account, impressionist/mixed genre tale, or hypertext. Through form and content, the author illustrates
the political value of fragmented narrative as it disrupts the linear flow of
argument, reveals some of the disparate and disjunctive influences on the
researcher’s process of sensemaking through the course of a study, and open
more spaces for multiplicity. Through fragmented segments of scholarly, fictional,
research journal, and participant narratives, the article explores how these
various sources of information play and interweave in the interpretive
sensemaking process and in the construction of a research report. Interpretive power is distributed to both
the author and readers: Readers can
experience the evocative aesthetic of bricolage and polyvocality, but at the
same time are bound by the author’s control of the fragments, which unintentionally
or intentionally lead readers to particular interpretations and conclusions. Introduction We must come to form in order to be in touch and so we speak. Our stories are the masks through which we
can be seen, and with every telling we stop the flood and swirl of thought so
someone can get a glimpse of us, and maybe catch us if they can. (Grumet, 1991, p. 69) The expression “Go Ugly Early” is
written in large letters on the backs of sweatshirts advertising a
long-standing and much loved college bar (called Jake’s in this study) in a
medium-sized Though many don the sweatshirt, few
reflect carefully on what the phrase might mean, which might seem odd to
outsiders, as the meaning of this phrase is an obvious curiosity. To some members of the college town, it
simply represents the bar it advertises.
For others, “Go Ugly Early” means much more. In the midst of an ethnographic project to
study the way this phrase lived in cultural context, I met a college aged
male who assured me that he and his friends “really know what it means.”
I took him up on his offer to show me how the phrase “Go Ugly Early”
lived. Indeed, this group of men both gave
life to the expression and aided me in my search to see how it functioned in
the larger university culture. The
phrase began to take shape as an underground theme, even a mission statement
for a particular subculture of college life:
Men who idealize the image of the stereotypical American male whose primary
goal in life is to have sex with as many women as possible, using whatever
means available. Whether or not the
members of this subculture actually behave in ways that would put them in
this stereotypical category, their homage to this penultimate male figure
illustrates and perpetuates a disturbing tolerance of acts that violate and
demean women. This article presents an
ethnographically informed expression of culture along with a study of
method. The case study describes in
rich detail the lived experience of a group of men deliberately invoking the
phrase “Go Ugly Early.” The findings
are evocative and disturbing, illuminated here in fragments of data,
interpretive analysis of discourse, excerpts from research journals, and the
structure of the research report itself.
At the same time, this article explores
the idea of fragmented narrative as a method of analysis in interpretive
inquiry. While the narrative of the
ethnography is presented in somewhat linear fashion, it is interspersed with
ideas presented in other genres. The
juxtaposition of these elements is, to a degree, highlighted by reflections
on the epistemological premises and potential consequences of fragmented narrative
and knowledge. The goal is to
illustrate--by virtue of doing it here, two ideas about method: First, fragmented narrative, pastiche, or
bricolage can function politically to encourage multiple perspectives, yet
the interpretations are not unlimited, as the author still structures the
experience of reading. Second, the arrangement
and rearrangement of disparate but related threads of information can be an
essential process of analysis. This method of inquiry is not
new. The premises undergirding my
particular approach derive from Derrida-inspired notions of juxtaposition as
deconstruction; Richardson’s call for attention to writing as a form of
inquiry (1995); Rambo-Ronai’s method of layering narrative accounts (1995);
Michael Joyce's (1998) contention that the computer-mediated age is teaching
(reminding) us that we have always made sense in fragmented, hypertext forms;
and Tyler’s compelling argument that postmodern ethnographic writing does not
seek to present a linear set of arguments about culture, but rather seeks to
evoke (1986). It is vital to call attention to
fragmentation or hypertext logic in methodology and writing, even as these
types of accounts become more and more familiar in our journals. Individual sensemaking processes, dyadic
and group relationships, and that which we call “knowledge” are increasingly
comprised of non-linear sound bytes, transient connections, truncated texts,
hyperlinked cognitive processing, multi-mediated understandings of what is
real and meaningful, and so forth. Our
taken for granted methods of collecting and analyzing data in these environments
and representing culture in our scholarly work can only benefit from
interrogation and reconsideration of how we derive and constitute the picture
of social life we present to our colleagues and public. Attention to how fragmented discourse functions
not only helps us understand how people are experiencing everyday life, it
also helps us as scholars explore new ways of making sense of social life and
expressing knowledge. Though much theoretical interest in
non-linear construction and presentation of scientific knowledge exists, few
academic journals seriously consider alternatives to the traditional form of
scholarly report. A few journals
experimented with hypertext in the mid-‘90s (e.g., Computer-Mediated Communication
Magazine, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication) but shifted back to a
traditional format after a short period of experimentation, for many reasons. Creating hypertext is labor intensive, with
little payoff, particularly if combined with the fact that potential readers
may not yet be comfortable with disjunctive presentations of research (email
conversation with John December, Editor of CMC Magazine, October 2003). Even so, the theories behind hypertext can
help to highlight some of the ways traditional academic discourse may
actually misrepresent the sensemaking processes they seek to describe and
explain. None of this is unfamiliar to
readers in interpretive sociology. My
point is to offer a rich example of some of the ways disjuncture,
fragmentation, and juxtaposition influence sensemaking for the researcher as
well as the reader, with significant impact on the meaning of the object and
outcome of study. The impact is not
insignificant, politically speaking. Fragmented
narratives can function as political action in many ways: It can resist traditional academic systems,
which may acknowledge alternate ways of knowing but nonetheless, continue to
lock sociological inquiry into normative forms which serve to reify the
traditional system itself. It can also
open the space for reflexivity for both the author and the reader. A researcher’s choices throughout the
research process matter, in that they lead to interpretations and subsequent
forms of presentation which have persuasive effects. Revealing even a few of the author’s
choices in the production of social knowledge can open a space for critical
and reflexive authorship and reading. Juxtaposition and fragmentation help authors
see--through disjuncture--their own habits of interpretation, to reveal, or
at least question, taken-for-granted patterns of sensemaking. Fragments also tend to reveal and therefore
make available the interstices of reading, so that the reader is not locked
into a single line of argument, the form of which is transparent in its
smooth familiarity. Multiplicity is
made more possible. One must understand that the goals
of research may be distinctively different than in traditional research. In fragmented narratives, power is more
distributed: the piece can simultaneously
make the author’s particular set of arguments and allow for alternatives by
revealing the practices at work in the interpretive process. In the end, the author’s something
important about the topic is learned, but the outcome is not completed
controlled or predicted by the form. *** Reasoning need not be bound to argumentative prose or be
expressed in clear-cut inferential or implicative structures: Reasoning may be discovered in all sorts of
symbolic action--nondiscursive as well as discursive. (Fisher, 1984, p. 1) *** Lauren gazed at the bottles of
alcohol lined up against the mirrored wall behind the bar, thinking of her
choices and half listening to her friend Jill, who was talking about three
graffiti-framed fraternity guys sitting at a table behind them. Their reflections were obstructed by the
bottles, but she thought she could distinguish their boisterous voices in the
escalating cacophony of the evening.
She wondered what she should drink--beer would be cheaper, but a “What are you going to drink?” she asked without turning her head. “Do you want to get a Jill was still trying to figure out
who the new arrivals were: “I think I had a class with one of them. Was it Supervision 234?” “Mmmm, don’t know,” Lauren
murmured, trying to catch a glimpse of them without actually turning
around. She could tell they were
looking at her and Jill and she didn’t want to encourage them with direct eye
contact. She always knew when a group
of guys were checking her out. It was The Gaze, something a woman could feel
on the back of her neck. She sighed,
wondering what she was doing here. She
wanted to roll her eyes at the entire scene, but she knew she looked silly when
she did that. Definitely, looking
silly was not something she would ever consider here. “Lauren,” her friend said
pointedly, interrupting her reverie.
“Drink. Decide. Then let’s go stake out a spot.” *** The front of the sweatshirt (and
t-shirt and ball cap) in question advertises the popular bar Jake’s with a
small logo, but the more obvious element of the shirt is the huge
pronouncement on the back: “Go Ugly Early.”
A significant symbol of undergraduate culture at this university, the
logo is sported in various styles and colors by men and women, parents and
children, alumni and athletes. Around
the country, people can find a connection to their Alma Mater through the
words “Go Ugly Early.” I’d never heard
the phrase before coming to this university, and it struck me as odd--not
only because the meaning was vague, but also because so many people displayed
it on their backs. What does ‘Go Ugly Early’ really
mean? This question plagued me for a
couple of years and now it haunts me whenever I see the expression or walk
into a bar. But I’m getting ahead of
the present story. Is there only one
meaning? When I asked people what the
phrase meant, the answers were as varied as the individuals wearing the
shirt. Really, there’s no possibility of
uncovering the definitive meaning of the phrase. Still, a deep current runs steadily under
the surface appearance of this phrase, both as it is laid out on people’s
backs and as it is uttered by those who claim to know its true meaning. Put differently, the phrase may be
identifiable as an obvious artifact of this university culture, but under
this obvious facade, meaning-in-context functions to perpetuate and glorify
certain ugly attitudes and behaviors.
Like the floors of the bar it advertises, which hide the rooms used
during prohibition, the ubiquitous and almost symbolically invisible
appearance of “Go Ugly Early” seems to allow socially prohibited enactments
of this phrase to remain unremarkable and acceptable. I have had a particular
conceptualization of “Go Ugly Early” since early in the study and this
definition has not altered as this ethnography has progressed. Certainly, my definition has become more
refined as people I interviewed contributed the details of their own lived
experience as these intersect with the phrase. This outcome may be that I see the world
only from my own perspective, which is an admittedly narrow set of
possibilities. Or maybe I’m right, and
“Go Ugly Early” really means what I always thought it meant. In a way, the truth of the matter is not
nearly as meaningful as the telling of the phenomenon itself. By reading this, we gain insight about one
side of college life in the late 20th Century, or one side of
humanity in any century. *** Stacy (a colleague and interviewee):
“Go Ugly Early” means since it’s inevitable that a guy’s gonna get
drunk and make a poor judgment about who to take home to fuck, he might as
well get drunk quickly and choose the ugly girl early--make that poor
judgment sooner rather than later. . . .
It’s indicative of a kind of general lack of respect for a woman’s
personhood. It seems to me to be
sign-evidence of a tendency to take women as nothing more than sexual
objects, whose sexuality is defined in terms of fairly constrained notions of
attractiveness…. I think it says to men, “Fuck anything you can . . . any hole is a good hole,” that’s what I
think this message says. Ideally, you
would not want to fuck something that you don’t want to face in the morning,
but, you know, if you have to. . . *** No!
No! Sentence first--verdict
afterwards. (Lewis
Carroll, *** Fine with me. But I could be wrong. Not likely. An online search for the term, “Go
Ugly Early” yields hundreds of interesting links and an interesting set of
verdicts. To be fair, there’s a legitimate
kickball team in GO
UGLY EARLY An excellent and very simple
technique tried and tested on many oh my friends. The technique, for all men
who are desperate for a shag, is to chat up
the ugly birds early in the evening when you
are sober and stick with them. Unlike the more usual technique, of chatting
up the pretty ones when you are sober and only moving on to the ugly ones
later in the evening, GUE has a close to 100% success rate. The technique has
10 key advantages: 1. (Out
of necessity) you get pissed quicker. 2. They
are immensely flattered as they have never been chatted up before by a sober
person with teeth, hair and/or money and without spots and a weight problem -
(if you suffer from some or all of these afflictions, they won't mind too
much anyway). 3. By
the time you get incoherently pissed they will laugh and not sneer at your
jokes - they will also ensure you get them to a bed safely as they are even
more desperate than you are. 4. By
the end of the evening, they look just as gorgeous when you go home with them
as they would if you had tried and failed to pull them later in the evening
after chatting up prettier women first. 5. You
have time to get them pissed enough for guaranteed action. Out of a
combination of gratitude and compensation for their appearance they will do
things in bed (or the bar /night-club/street/taxi) that many pretty women
would never dream of (except with an A-list 6. No
solution, apart from 8 pints at lunchtime, has been found for the coyote
effect in the morning but a shag's a shag, and you will never know what fun
can be had with different body shapes unless you try 7. In
the morning always ask for their phone numbers. Because no one has ever asked
for them before they will eagerly give you their home, work and mobile phone
numbers. If you promise to call them they will be so overexcited, they will
usually forget to ask you for your numbers and you thus avoid having to ever contact
or see them again. 8. With
the passage of time, you will always remember them as much better looking
than they were. 9. Practice
makes perfect and after a stream of successes with the ugly birds your
confidence and pulling skills will have increased sufficiently to move on to
their better looking cousins. You will have more success than pre-GUE as all
men get the same proud "just shagged look" from shagging ugly birds
as pretty ones. Pretty women will only be able to tell that you are in demand
and throw themselves at your feet. 10. All
ugly girls have pretty friends who despise them and love stealing their
boyfriends. *** Should I wait to sentence this or
just get right to the point? Is this target
too easy? (Actually, appearing here,
at this juncture in this research report, the subject is already sentenced.) *** Phil: “Hey, Joe, check out the fat chick. Man, that thing looks like a movie
projector screen!” Joe: “Who?
That one standing at the bar?” Phil: “Yeah, that big-un. See that jacket wrapped around her
waist? And she’s wearing those big ol’
baggy pants-- she’s wearing them cuz she’s got a fat ass. Wait till you see that fat ass!” Joe: “Yeah.
Whoa doggy! Check out that
profile. That jacket--you know she’s
hiding a big ol’ butt under that jacket.” Phil: “Yeah, dog, but a few more beers and she’ll
be lookin’ good to you.” Joe: “Remember when we hooked Greg up with that
chick that weighed at least 250 pounds, and she was six foot, maybe. She was big.” Phil: “That was funny as hell! I still give him shit about that-- ‘Hey
Greg, you scored a fat chick!’ and he’s all defensive, like, saying, ‘What
are you talking about?’ He’s always saying I was jerking her around, that my
eyesight was off. But we didn’t have
the beer goggles on yet. We were sober
enough to see that wide load!” Joe: “Yeah, he’s got to be regretting that
move. He’ll get fat jokes for years
about that one.” Phil: “Well, you can have the one with the
jacket. I’ll take her friend. Check out those hooters! Out to here!” Joe: “You don’t have a chance in hell,
Phil. I’ve seen her around and she’s
always flirting and showing off her big tits for the guys. Gets them drooling and then blows them
off. That shit’s too hard to get. Don’t waste your time.” Phil: “Yeah, but she hasn’t met the power of my
sword yet. A little ‘UH! UH!’ on the
dance floor and she’s all mine. I
could fuck that.” Joe: “You’re such a dumbshit, Phil. I’m telling you, don’t waste your
time. Who’s buying the next pitcher?” Phil: “I’ll get it, want anything else?” [These statements are taken directly from transcribed conversations
among seven males at Bar X, audio recorded by me. All names are pseudonyms.] *** In The Call of Stories
(1989), Robert Coles recalls a moment when his friend and adviser told him:
“Remember, what you are hearing is to some considerable extent a function of you, hearing” (p. 15, emphasis in
original). He also notes that “as
active listeners we give shape to what we hear, make over their stories into
something of our own” (p. 19). *** Research Journal, October Friday night. I was sitting on the couch wondering if I
could muster up the energy to go back to the office to work. So, a few minutes ago, I asked my roommate
if she had any books or articles on postmodernism or fiction or interpretive
ethnography. I figured I could justify
staying on the couch if I read something that made me feel as though I were
actually accomplishing something useful.
I started looking at some of Heather’s books while she looked through
her files. “Anything will do,” I said. I could hear her murmuring,
“Foucault. . . . Burrell. . . . Here’s
one but it doesn’t really talk about postmodernism or fiction. It just does it. It’s Pacanowsky.” “Well, maybe I’ll read it
anyway. Is it something about cops?” “No. Slouching
toward She left. I started reading the article, wondering
how long I could hold out before I got distracted enough to turn on the
television. Imagine my surprise when I
realized that the article was appropriate and
meaningful! Go figure! How odd that the only option for reading in
my own house is something completely applicable. I guess the project must be fated to
happen, so I’ll keep working. From Pacanowsky, here’s a thought:
“Fictional descriptions, by the very nature of their implicitness and
impressionism, can fully capture (can I be so strong?) both the bold outlines
and the crucial nuances of cultural ethos” (1988, p. 454). Stories are “aesthetic experiences which
help I should remember to include a
comment Pacanowsky makes when he reads a book by Susan Krieger (1983). He ponders the fact that she uses a Studs
Turkel-esque form to make sense of her experience and then includes a
“normalizing essay” in the appendix justifying fiction as a scholarly
genre. Pacanowsky asks, “How many
pages of scholarly index do you need to get away with how many pages of
fiction?” Cool question, to which I,
in my somewhat rebellious state, might respond: None, or thousands, depending
on who’s on top these days, who you want your audience to be? Fiction works for me, I might add, and I’m
writing in the margins as a result.
And as I figure it, what’s the point of being here in the fringe if I
can’t do what feels right? To which
Pacanowsky might respond--and does, if I turn my reading of his text into an
imaginary dialogue between the two of us, “Who cares if the fiction I write
doesn’t make it into the American Lit syllabi of the 21st Century? . . . The
issue isn’t one of producing the world’s finest writing; the issue is what does fiction allow that normal
scholarship does not?” (pp. 460-461, emphasis added). *** I must say, I’ve altered this
manuscript so that it hardly appears fringe or alternative to my eyes. I transformed it into a study of method because
even now, in 2003, people kept saying things like “It’s too much like a
story,” “It doesn’t sound like a very credible study,” and “Where’s the
theory?” *** Problematizing the distinctions
between fact and fiction is a current and recurring--if not common--theme of
writers writing on writing (or other less privileged forms of research
representation such as performance or artistic expression) (e.g., Ashmore,
1989; Clifford and Marcus, 1986; Coles, 1989; van Manen, 1990; Van Mannen, 1988,
1995; as well as numerous literary critics).
Many contemporary writers not only question the principles and
premises of ethnographic realism (e.g., Regardless of form, the
presentation of ethnographic interpretation is a (re)visionary and
fragmentary result of much picking and choosing and shaping and editing. For The therapy Neither discourse nor the text can
determine or control rhetorical effects.
To take it one step further, if the
purpose is to break the frames we have arbitrarily set around the ways we
present what it is we think we know, the form should also break frame. This article is an attempt to break the
frame of traditional ethnographic reporting, to make readers think about many
things while forming their own impressions.
Of course, the reader might mention here, “You’re framing your
attempts to break frames,” to which I can only nod my head. It’s what we ethnographic researchers do, this
building of frames for understanding.
Perhaps the next questions would be; “What materials do we use to
build our frames?” Why do we build
certain frames and not others? And
even more importantly: In what hidden
places do data reside in our studies of Other? *** “To truly question something is to
interrogate something from the heart of our existence, from the center of our
being” (Max van Manen, 1990, p. 43). *** Research Journal: I am exhausted, my hands hurt from
transcribing research notes and transcripts.
But my mind is spinning out field and code memos and I fear to let
them drift away. I’m starting to see
the sweatshirts everywhere. Those
white letters glaring at me every time I turn around. Most people I’ve talked to don’t even think
about the phrase when they wear the shirt, and here I am, obsessing about
it. Would any shirt advertising that
bar be just as popular? Or would any
bar with the phrase “Go Ugly Early” be just as popular? It seems to be the place with the mystique, not just the shirts or the phrase. And even as I associate the expression with
the place, one could just as easily explore the graffiti, the shape, the
people, the traditions. Yet, there’s
that phrase, and it either lays like a veneer over the top of everything or
it is saturated into the very walls of this place. Either way, you can smell and feel it like
ancient spilt beer and cigarette smoke. Express yourself, baby. Don’t repress yourself. Madonna sings that, not that she has
anything to do with this project. Just
came to the forefront of my mind, lined up with the rest of the thoughts and
jumped out onto the paper when it was its turn. Several colleagues and I are going to go to
the bar and observe the sweatshirt in action.
I’m not really in the mood to hang out in the fishbowl, frankly. I have enough trouble at bars. I don’t want to be more conspicuous than
usual, in this small midwest town where any clothing remotely resembling
urban garb causes people to stare curiously.
And I’ve had enough years of the bar scene. I am so sick of that scene. Played it, performed it, been there, done
that, drank that drink, got that tee shirt.
It is the same tape playing over and over and over. Not only in my head but in the place, as I
walk through the door of “anybar” in “anytown.” I walk through the door and the tape starts
rolling. It’s the same rerun of the
same black comedy. Maybe the names and
faces and shapes of the barstools change.
But otherwise, business as usual.
It shouldn’t surprise me that I
never look into people’s faces or eyes.
I always wonder why I avoid looking directly at people, unless I know
them. I’m not shy, that’s
certain. I have no trouble with
strangers or talking in crowds or being a part of stuff. But I always avoid eye contact, face
contact. A couple of years ago, it
occurred to me that I couldn’t remember what people looked like. Even people I knew well eluded me; their
eye color, their bone structure, their build.
Absent. I realized I would
never be any good picking people out of a lineup. I think, basically, that I don’t like
looking too closely at other people because I am afraid to find out what they
are looking at. And I am afraid they
are looking at me. So I don’t look at
them so I don’t see they are looking at me and I can remain anonymous to a
certain extent. People have told me I am somewhat
oblivious to the gaze of others. It’s
true that I don’t notice particular incidents, but I would never think of
myself as oblivious. I know, I feel
it, I sense that people are staring.
I’m not trying to be conceited when I say that. I think most women get stared at a lot, for
many reasons--mostly to do with the way they look, of course. Sometimes I wish--more than anything
else--that I wouldn’t be stared at.
And then, in the next thought, I have to withdraw the wish because I’m
starting to wonder how I would feel if no one ever looked at me again. What would happen to my sense of self? Scary thought, that. One time I experienced anonymity in a
bar. I had just played volleyball and
looked like hell and went into a bar with the rest of the volleyball
team. I walked around in the bar and
had a great time, and for the first time in my life, did not feel a single
shiver on the back of my neck.
Blissfully smooth, my skin, never a shimmer of hairs at the nape,
undisturbed. And in a public place, no
less. Once, it only happened
once. What would I give to have that
feeling all the time? Anything. Ha!
What would I feel if that were my only
choice, constant slumbering of the sixth sense because nobody noticed. . . Sick and wrong, that skeleton. But then again, maybe not such a skeleton if
it’s embedded in a larger social structure whereby women have been trained to
do the right thing, walk the right way, conduct one’s every action in order
to be observed and admired, believing eventually that to be noticed (read:
judged) is the same as being loved. Regardless, and back to the
previous point, I’m not really in the mood to play the game at the bar while
conducting a study. I suppose if I
have a drink at the bar down the street before I go to Jake’s, I won’t be so
nervous. Maybe I won’t hate it. Maybe I won’t want to slink into a
corner. Maybe I won’t get brushed up
against. Maybe I won’t fall into the
trap of playing the game and playing it better than anyone else because if
I’m going to be in the system, I want to be IN the system and succeed in
making it MINE. As long as power moves
are going to be made in this place, let me make some and be equal. Let me play it better than they do. Let them want me. They’ll never take me or have me. Let me be more powerful, more strong, more
cunning, more wild, more outrageous, more of everything than they could dream
of being. Let me be more peaceful,
more wise, more soft. Let me be the
one they look up to, the one they admire, the one they want to be like. Let me be more noble. Let me show them what it can be, what they could be, what they could be a
part of if they could only get over themselves (as if I am over myself). Ha!
What a joke! On me! Step back into reality, and please shut the
closet door on your way out.
Yikes! I’ve been typing all
that garbage and staring at the “Starry Night” painting on my wall, thinking
of all the things I wish I was, and all the ways I want to be. And one statement snaps me out of it
because I realize that I’m such a goon for talking me me me, and then saying to them (who are, of course, different
than me, oh Me, so in the mood and mode of magnanimity and egocentrism): “Get over yourselves.” HA!!!
Let me end the litany by saying instead, “Let me pour honey all over
myself to make me sweet and let the bees come.” Smart, very smart…Right. *** Dear Annette, I really enjoyed reading this
manuscript, but to tell you the truth, there are some parts I would take out
if I were you. I am not sure you want
to expose yourself so much, as with the research diary entry wherein you draw
perilously close to your own “skeletons.”
I would recommend a revision wherein you remove most of the personal
references and simply stick to the ethnographic reporting. This seems a better way to present yourself
to your academic colleagues. (excerpt
from a letter sent by a colleague who was reviewing a draft of this piece). *** “The ethnographic text is not only
not an object, it is not the object; it is instead a means, the
meditative vehicle. . . . It is
emergent rather than given” (Tyler, 1986, p. 129, 133). As we have come to understand in
interpretive schools of thought, the separation of reader, author, and
participant is flawed and arbitrary.
However, this distinction appears to be still necessary in the academy
in that we do not accept fragmented thinking-in-process or the unexplained
insertion of the researcher’s experience into the research report. Even as we acknowledge that knowledge is
fragmentary, partial, constructed, and so forth, we are still uncomfortable
with fragmented, partial academic reports where the messy construction of
knowledge is made visible. My own understanding of the phrase “Go
Ugly Early” colors my interpretation from start to finish, so it must be
acknowledged, can be interpreted, should be scrutinized. So too should the reader interrogate the
understanding he or she brings to the reading. The expression does not live only
on the backs of Jake’s sweatshirts, although from this place the expression
addresses the observer as well as the wearer.
As we live, we encounter this phrase, or many like it. As we encounter this specific phrase here
in this interpretation, it derives meaning from our own experiences before
the reading of this piece and also as the reading continues. The expression also lives in the attitudes
and behaviors of those who execute the directives of “Go Ugly Early,” whether
or not they utter the phrase or wear the sweatshirt. And as they live it, we live it, because
our lives are inextricably linked in a dense tapestry of interconnected
threads. To study my own background is to
offer the reader one of the voices that influenced the telling of this
story. The insertion of the
researcher’s experience need not be self(ish) expression or venting, though
this is not always absent. It reveals
one way in which the phrase “Go Ugly Early” plays with our knowledge of self
and others and our enactment of everyday life. At the same time, the insertion of the
researcher’s experience is limited and limiting. One can readily see the complications of
presenting a sole female’s perspective on the matter. This calls attention to the limitations in
any account seeking to be dialogic. In
this case, even though the reader, male or female, will add his or her own
interpretation to the mix of data, the participants are only present in the
voice I give them. Ultimately, my
attempt to frame knowledge of this phrase, “Go Ugly Early” may intersect with
the reader’s response, but without the participation of the actual study participants--except
via what they uttered, I captured and then re-presented here. The data continues to shift, the
interpretation can suit the author and the individual reader, yet
understanding remains partial, incomplete. *** “Hey, do your feet hurt?” “Huh?” Amy said, turning around. It was one of the guys she’d seen in the
mirror earlier. She thought she knew
him from somewhere, but couldn’t remember where. “’Cause you look like you just
dropped down from heaven,” he continued. Stunned, she repeated, “Huh?” Oh
great, that was stupid. Nice move,
very articulate. “Ha! Just kidding! But you never know when it might work, so I
keep trying it out. Seriously, don’t I
know you? My buddies and I were
noticing you two--actually Greg over there was afraid to come talk to
you.” She glanced over his shoulder to
where he was pointing. Greg glanced
over, raised his head and glass in greeting. “You should tell him not to be so
nervous,” Amy replied. “We won’t
bite. At least I don’t think Jill
bites. Jill, you haven’t bit anyone lately,
have you?” “Huh?” Jill turned around, “Oh! Hi!
Um, what were you saying?” “He’s--I’m sorry what’s your name?” “Drew.” “Oh. Drew here was wondering if we were biting
people tonight and I told him I didn’t think so.” Jill laughed and replied, “Oh,
okay. Um, no. At least not at the moment. Hmmm... depends on who they are, I
suppose.” Drew squeezed between Jill and Amy,
who were still standing at the bar.
“Man, it’s crowded in here,” he said as he signaled to the
bartender. “So what are you guys doing
here?” “Oh, just hanging out. Drinking,”
Jill replied. Amy joined in, “Definitely. Drinking.
Definitely. We’re supposed to
meet some friends here later, but we thought we’d come early to try to find a
seat. But we’re obviously not getting
anywhere fast. I can’t believe there’s
a line already.” *** Phil and I talked for several hours
at Bar X about what he and his seven buddies do there. He told me that the primary purpose for
going out with this group of guys is “not only to attempt to pick up women,
but it’s also to slam the people who are attempting to pick up women. It’s a
game. All us guys are mean to each
other.” Over the course of the
evening, I watched and audio taped these friends, witnessing their
interactions with each other, with women they wanted, and with women they
didn’t want. I’m sure that part of
their evening’s behavior was exaggerated for the benefit of the curious
anthropologist with the tape recorder.
Yet, these seven male friends declare that they know what it means to
live the phrase “Go Ugly Early.” Here,
in the evening’s discourse, was an embodied, living and breathing enactment
of “going ugly early.” The phrase may mean different
things to different people, but for these guys, “Go Ugly Early” is closely
associated with “beer-goggling.”
Through my conversations with Phil and other male friends familiar
with this particular meaning of the phrase, I’ve come to understand that
“going ugly early” is the result of a complex set of goals, behaviors, and
outcomes. One of the primary goals of
going to a bar, according to countless undergraduate men I talked with over
the course of this study, is to eventually take a woman home to have
sex. Of course, the more attractive the
woman is, the better off the male is, both in terms of his own pleasure and
winning the respect of other men.
According to Phil, the males in his group do not just play the game
for fun, they play to win (big surprise).
And taking home the best looking woman in the bar is definitely
“winning.” However, the chances of
taking home the “best” female in the bar are low. Therefore, the options are to take an
“ugly” woman home or take no one home.
Because either option results in “getting shit from the rest of the
guys,” getting laid is better than not getting laid. According to Phil, another
important goal of going to a bar is to hang out and drink with friends. Interestingly, friendship--at least in this
group--is demonstrated by “giving each other a hard time. We’re really mean to each other.” As I watched and listened, I realized that
any behavior, friend’s or foe’s, could be responded to with derision,
laughter, and taunting. This type of play, as well as
aggression toward one another, seems to be closely related to the consumption
of alcohol. The consumption of alcohol
is also clearly associated with “beer goggles.” The concept of beer goggling is described
fairly simply by Phil and his friends; as the consumption of alcohol
increases, accurate perception and vision decreases, so that things (women)
that are normally not within acceptable norms of beauty get more and more
appealing as the evening progresses.
Therefore, it is more likely that at late hours, a man will attempt to
pick up a woman he would otherwise not be attracted to. Now we get back to “going ugly early.” The logic goes something like this: If having sex with an ugly person is better
than having no sex, and if a guy knows that at the end of the evening ugly
women will appear deceptively and falsely beautiful through beer goggles,
then going for an ugly girl earlier in the evening is more likely to result
in getting laid, and it costs less money because you don’t have to get drunk
to choose her. *** Academics in *** Phil: “You can’t go
with a fat chick when you’re not drunk yet.
It’s three o clock in the morning and I got the ol’ beer goggles on
and I think, ‘Huh! Yeah! Check that out, boys!’ And if all the other guys are drunk,
they’ll say, ‘Yeah, go for it.’” Annette: “But if
they’re not drunk will the other guys still--what, protect you?” Phil: “Hell,
No! Cuz they’re not goin’ home with
her.” Annette: “But wait a
minute, won’t they still give you shit about going home with her?” Phil: “Yeah,
afterwards. They want to make sure you
do it first with that person. Then
they can give you shit later. That’s
what we’re going to do to him (gesturing toward friend at the bar). We’re gonna wait till he--see that fat
chick he’s talking to?” *** I can’t say that these males were
“going ugly early” during the evening in terms of picking out ugly women to
seduce. Their behaviors weren’t so
specific. Rather, they engaged in
actions and conversations that reinforced and reproduced a particular
attitude toward women and relationships that would permit and valorize the
act of going ugly early. They observed
and scrutinized every woman they saw or knew, including my friend Julie and
me, focusing specifically on two body parts--breasts and buttocks. As women walked by, they would be
scrutinized and evaluated based on the perceived size of these body parts. No other part of the female body was
discussed, ever. At one point in the evening, I saw
and waved to a female friend across the bar.
Phil asked me who I was waving to and when I pointed out Phil: “Yeah, we
noticed her earlier tonight.” Annette: “Why?” Phil:
“--hooters. Whatdya mean, why?” Annette: “Well, I
was just curious.” Phil: “--those big
ol’--” Annette: “Hooters?” Julie: “Her hooters? You mean her breasts?” Phil: “Hey! You guys have your definitions, I have
mine.” Annette: “Well, I just wanted to clarify because you
never know what you might be meaning.” Phil: “Yes, okay,
I’m sorry, yeah, her breasts. Her
breasts. Her breasts. Her breasts are very large.” As the conversation and the evening
continued, Julie and I were not only subjected to the groups’ observations
and evaluations of other women’s anatomy, but their comments about our own
anatomy. Once, when Phil was talking
about women wearing jackets around their waists to hide their “big ol’
butts,” I said, “I can’t believe you’re saying that.” Reaching for my jacket, I said jokingly,
“Excuse me, I have to wrap this jacket around my waist,” to which he replied,
“Hey, you’ve got a nice pooper. You
ain’t got any reason to wrap that there around your waist.” Stunned, I wondered at the utter audacity
and crudeness of these men. I don’t
know why the term “pooper” put me over the top, rather than the seemingly
infinite number of other terms they tossed out. Later, another member of the group,
interested in closely examining the size of my butt, actually lifted my skirt
for a more “accurate” evaluation. With
my hand balled up in a fist, I hit him straight across the jaw as hard as I
could. Though it hurt him, he
laughed. At me? At himself?
Doesn’t really matter. The more
important observation is that he felt the urge and the freedom to behave this
way in the first place. I was, and in
many ways still am, baffled. *** Why didn’t I leave? I felt sick every time I talked with these
guys. That night at the bar was a
horrific research experience. How could
they say those things?! What kind of
game is this? *** Linear arguments constructed in
traditional forms give us a false sense of security about the solidity or
unity of our interpretations as well as the ways we arrive at those
interpretations. In other words, the
mind doesn’t always come to understand a concept or a culture in a
straightforward fashion. We comprehend the world in moments, fragments,
glimpses. I might see something one
way one day and completely revise my understanding of it another day, based
on any number of things that happen:
conversations I have that spark new ideas, scents on the wind that
provoke particular memories, movies I watch, parks I meander through to
collect thoughts and leaves. We know,
in this postmodern and media saturated era, that thoughts do not come
prepackaged and linear, yet there is much persistence in presenting social
research to the contrary. I’m not the
first to notice this, by far. I just
want to add another example of the messiness of actuality in the process of
interpreting. *** Only now, five years after
collecting that data, I understand that if I were perceived as fat or ugly by
these participants, I would not have been invited to hang out with them. Their privilege is to draw tight boundaries
of what is acceptable and what is to be immediately scorned, mocked, and
rejected. My privilege was to be
within their boundaries. I willingly
allowed them to believe so and willingly went there in person and in my head,
so that I could get the data. One
might ask again, but with different intent:
Where does data come from? What
are we willing to do to get it? *** Annette: “So what’s the purpose of the game?” Phil: “There are no
rules. It’s not like a game--no
definitions.” Annette: “Right, but is there any purpose to it?” Phil: “No. It just happens.” Annette: “So you just cut each other down?” Phil: “Hell
yeah! All the time.” Annette: “And the purpose is to see how far you can
slam the other guy down?” Phil: “Oh yeah! Oh.
Yeah.” Annette: “If you can put him further down, you’ll be
more elite?” Phil: “No one can
put me further down than I’ve always been, because. . .I can accept
reality. We do it to keep other in--to
give each other reality checks, by saying, ‘Well, last weekend, she was with
someone else,’ to keep him from--from getting hurt--” Annette: “To keep him from falling in love?” Phil: “Yeah. That's mostly it. Greg falls in love all the time. He might really get hurt. If he wants to
fall in love with a girl, he’s going to hear us and then he’ll make his own
decision and then go do whatever he wants to do. But we’re gonna put the effort to protect
him as far as being hurt. But if he’s
gonna take someone fat like that out there home Annette: “But if he’s gonna get hurt you’ll give him
shit?” Phil: “No, we won’t
give him shit about someone he cares about.
We’ll give him shit once.
Once. One time. One time.” Annette: “But not over and over? Phil: “But you see
the fat chick, if he took the fat chick home, we’d tease him forever. Annette: “But you’ll only tease him once about her Phil: “Yeah, cuz
she’s not that bad.” Phil: “We are a very
close group. A very close group.” *** There’s so much going on in my
head, I don’t quite know how to say what I am thinking so the reader will
understand, which in many ways supports the point I’m trying to make. I could use the analogy of improvisational
jazz. Or, remembering a conversation a
colleague and I had about this ethnography last week, I could use an artist
like Picasso to help me visualize what I’m trying to do through this piece. Indeed, the premise of this entire
project is that we neither come to a single
understanding of the expression “Go Ugly Early,” nor do we use the same processes to come to our particular understandings. Seemingly, then, various interpretations
are like the cubist phase of Picasso’s work, the subject seen from a variety
of perspectives. Even as these
perspectives might be rendered in a particular way, they are also read in a
multitude of ways, and each reader comes to an individual understanding of
the expression that may or may not be coherent, singular, or in line with
what the author intended. In other
words, meaning doesn't suddenly become clear once I've written the
report. I may have a particular set of
ideas I want to convey, and a particular set of interpretations I want to
encourage, but meaning is never settled, no matter how “final” the version of
the report may seem. *** Trevor: “Hey
Philman, do you wanna fuck her?” Phil: “Who?” Trevor: Greg: “I did twice,
yeah yeah. Get her in the ass.” Phil: Woman: Phil: “--You just
think I’m cheap and easy, don’t you?!” Woman: “I don’t
think you’re cheap and easy. I think I
love you and if you go home with me
Phil: “Then why
would I go home with you?” Woman: “Just to say
you can.” Woman: “You’re so
cute.” *** Research Journal: Hmmm, should I include a segment
here on how the reader might interpret the previous excerpt from a
tape-recorded interaction at the Bar X?
Who is going ugly early here?
Are certain characters being
ugly? Another line of questioning
might be directed at the author who chose to reproduce this particular
segment in this particular way. Is the
author framing the expression? What
definition of “Go Ugly Early” is the author trying to illuminate here? Why has the author chosen this definition? One might even ask why all the males whose
names were known by the researcher were given pseudonyms, so their names are
made up, yet the woman, whose name was not known, remains “woman,” a category
rather than an individual with a name.
I am thinking I ought to provide my
rationale for making the choices I did.
I am thinking I should provide a close interpretation of how this
conversation constructs particular attitudes toward women, how certain social
structures are reproduced and perpetuated.
I am thinking I should discuss how these discourses embody some of the
ways people “Go Ugly Early.” Or, I could simply revise my
interpretation based on this critical self reflection; change the “woman” to
an actual name and reconsider or at least justify the presentation of this
particular segment of discourse. That’s the slippery slope, is it
not? Figuring out what to leave in,
what to cull out, how to guide the reader through the presentation of
discourse, and how to help readers understand what it all means while being
self reflexive about the researcher’s role in the process. Here, I supply both the original writing
and this train of thought as a means of allowing the reader to see some of
the work-in-progress. Through the fragmentation of interpretation,
we can more clearly see some of the incoherencies of meaning-making. Many scholars have made the point that
knowing is never universal or absolute. Language does not seem to always work
toward or in accordance with some grand narrative or universal truths. Rather, our knowledge of “truth” is
somewhat tentative, and the human agent is one who “constructs
interpretations of the world” (Burrell and Cooper, p. 94). Rorty (1989) calls this position “irony,”
the realization that the terms we use to describe ourselves and others are
always subject to change and that “anything can be made to look good or bad
by being redescribed” (p. 73). His
definition of an “ironist” bears repeating in full: I shall define an “ironist” as
someone who fulfills three conditions:
(1) She has radical and
continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she
has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by
people or books she has encountered; (2) she realizes that argument phrased
in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts;
(3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that
her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a
power not herself. (Rorty, 1989, p.
73) My project in this essay is not one of
simply representing the voices of the participants. I am speaking for and with others, using my
own understanding of the expression “Go Ugly Early” to help me select their
words to make my claims. Yet,
simultaneously, I am trying to decenter authority by fragmenting the
singularity of interpretation--through the form of the report. As Grumet says, “every telling is a partial
prevarication,” and “multiple accounts splinter the dogmatism of a single
tale. If they undermine the authority
of the teller, they also free her from being captured by the reflection
provided in a single narrative” (1991, p. 72). Of course, I should point out that as much
as I want to provide multiple and decentered accounts, my understanding of
the world passes through my body and my being and my life and I make choices
as the author. About this subject, I’m
pretty biased, because I live--forever, it seems--in the grip of the gaze of
the men in this study. *** Annette: “The point is that they do it to each other
to hurt each other and it seems like an elaborate game-” Julie: --Playing a
‘my dick is bigger' game-- Annette: --Yeah.
Right. But they do a lot of
things to hurt each other, and they
do a lot of things to protect each other also. But all of this time they say two primary
things. One: ‘My friends are the most important thing
ever. They last a lot longer than women.’ And the second thing they say is, ‘I want a
woman that will last forever. And I
want to have kids with her. And I want
to only get married once in my life and that’s gonna be forever.’ Phil said it on the dance floor. And Chunk said it too. But they play this game and they make
it--and they build it up, and they perpetuate...Well, I guess we all do, I
mean, we’re not any less guilty. But
they cut each other down to build themselves up. Julie: Exactly. We're walking out of that bar and Phil says
something about ‘cock blocking.’ Says
something like, ‘Hey, if one of the guys wants some chick, we’re going to
step in the way. We’re gonna get in
the way of that.’ Then Chunky jumps
in, ‘Yeah, but you know, what if that’s like the woman I’m supposed to be
with forever, I’m gonna be really pissed.’
And Joe and Phil say, ‘Ha!
Well, you know, we’re gonna fuck with that!’ And here’s this man--the rest of this guy’s
life may depend on whether his friends approve of his actions or disapprove
and get in the way, or fuck with it.
Poor Chunky! There may be some
woman that has a wide ass who he connects with, who he’s thinking he might
want to marry....and up comes Phil, and up comes Joe--gonna cock block
him. He's telling them, ‘I’d be pissed
at that.’ And they’re just saying,
‘Yeah, well, you know, that's the way it is--’ Annette: They're saying, 'That’s part of the game.' Julie: And I want to
say, ‘No! Those are the consequences
that are gonna fuck his life over! Why
don’t they think about that?!’ Annette: The thing about it that makes it worse is
that the prerequisite for being with the woman you really want to be with is
that you have to be strong enough to block the cockblock. Phil says that if a man wants to be with a
woman, he’ll block the cockblock.
He’ll blow off the cockblock and do what he wants anyway. So they’re fostering a sense of
invincibility and confidence and the strong self. Julie: How many men
could do that? Annette: But that’s what masculine hegemony is all
about. Julie: Right. You just saw a lot of what it’s about. Annette: Yes.
The fact that no matter what they do, they will get and give each
other shit about it. *** The anthropologist listens to as
many voices as she can and then chooses among them when she passes their
opinions to members of another culture.
The choice is not arbitrary, but then neither is the testimony. However, no matter what format the
anthropologist/reporter/writer uses, she eventually takes the responsibility
for putting down the words, for converting their possibly fleeting opinions
into a text. (Wolf, 1992, p. 11) *** Field notes: My intense focus in the directions
I choose comes directly from my experience of the world and my understanding
of the social world of college bars. I
have a particular agenda in this representation. I could patch together other
representations from the transcripts of the interviews and my life
experiences. Undoubtedly, others could
do the same. Probably next week, in a
couple of months, a year or two, or when I’m old and gray, I will disagree
with what I wrote. Probably the people
whose words I used to patch together this story would have some disagreement
with what I wrote. Actually, I’m not
even sure I agree with what I'm writing, especially when I look at my own
place in the game. *** Phil: “So, what are
the chances of us getting naked tonight?” Annette: “Oh, about the same as me going outside and
getting a suntan right now.” Phil: “So I got a
chance, huh?” Annette: “Yeah, if there’s an odd freak of nature--” Phil: “Well, I like
to know what my chances are.” *** The answer was never an obvious or
a simple “No.” It was a teasing
complicity in the idea of “Maybe.” Why
did I elect to respond in this way?
Because Phil was handsome?
Because he didn’t include me in the barrage of horrific, demeaning
discourse about women included in the “ugly” category? Will I answer these questions in this
report or simply leave them hanging as self righteous interrogations of
interpretive methodology without the accompanying tension of offering
everything up. *** “I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,” said Alice,
“because I’m not myself, you see.” “I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar
(Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Ch. 1). *** The guys I interviewed were showing
off. There seemed to be a lot of male
posturing because two women with tape recorders were asking them to “act
naturally.” They had, as it were,
license to be more extreme, more disgusting than they might otherwise
be. After reading some of the comments
to my friend Devon, he agreed, and added that based on his (substantial)
experience of the bar scene, they were “definitely trying to impress”
me. "Annette," he said,
"I've been there. All my friends
and I have been there. There’s a lot
of hidden truth there, but it also sounds like they are exaggerating.” I wonder if their exaggeration and showing
off should be considered when I interpret what is meant by what is said. In other words, should I give them the
benefit of the doubt and minimize (or invalidate) my
reactions/interpretation? On the other
hand, if they are exaggerating, maybe I should ask, “What are they exaggerating?
And why? And why do they feel that they can or should voice their thoughts and attitudes in the ways they do,
exaggerated or not?” *** Joe: “So do ya think
you’ll have the opportunity to get naked with her or not Phil: “Actually, she
won’t tell me. She says I’m not nice
to her----Whoa! Check that out! I think you could call it a movie
screen--in a theater. We got a
screen--” Joe: “--a big ol
mother fucker. Ain’t no beer goggles
here!” Phil: “I feel like-- Hey, see that white underwear? We could show a movie there! I could put a goddamn movie projector there
if she bent over--” *** “Things are seldom
what they seem” (W. S. Gilbert, H.M.S. Pinafore, 1878, II). *** Phil: If I’m gonna
get married, I’m gonna get married one time in life. If it doesn’t work out, I’m never getting
married again. I may be an old man and
lonely the rest of my life, but I don’t care.
I’m that type of person. So I’m
going to wait awhile. Have fun. What’s really weird *** I’ve been thinking about and
writing this stuff and framing men as if they were the only players in this
game: Men as perpetrators, women as
victims. While I’m pointing things
out, I might add that my analysis of "Go Ugly Early" is very
heterosexist. I don’t intend to be so
narrow-minded, but I do mean to focus on one form of relations, which tends to
erase those other forms outside my tunnel vision. I don’t really mean to do this, and I don’t
think this flaw is particularly unique.
I think that in many well-intentioned academic enterprises we become
very focused on a single path of interpretation that traps us by limiting our
vision. But even the best intentions
do not excuse dogmatism. The most I
choose to do here is bring it up as an issue, acknowledge my perspective, and
offer a potential means of identifying and breaking habitual ways of thinking
during the interpretive process. *** Phil: This tape is
gonna be really weird. I don’t know
where in the hell we started our conversation, and somehow we ended up about
me and my ex-girlfriend. That’s the
weirdest thing in the world. You’re
like--on tape here, you’re getting a part of me that none of my friends even
know about. Annette: Well, let me just say that they won’t ever
know about it. Phil: That’s fine if
they do--I don’t really care about it. Annette: Right, but, I would never use your name, or
tell anyone about it that knows you. Phil: Thank
you. I appreciate that. It’s weird.
I’m opening up to you. I don’t
even know you. *** The narrative fragments presented
here, derived from research journals, fieldnotes, actual transcripts of
interviews and recorded conversations, fiction, and scholarly literature,
present a bricolage of ideas and images.
Although it wants to be non-linear, it remains a fairly
straightforward argument, even as it appears in fragmented form. On the one hand, the tension between my
personal and analytical stance to the subject matter was too great to allow
for either a direct and logical argument or an account claiming to be
objective. On the other hand, my
compilation of this analysis is driven not only by a desire to present the
story but to have it published, which requires, if only in my mind, some
adherence to traditional academic writing conventions. My goal in engaging in this type of
work is to explore how we come to know something about another and then, how
we come to speak of this with our colleagues in the written piece. Here, you witness my attempt to strike a
good balance between giving an account of culture and giving an account of my
experiences as these intersect with the role of researcher for this
project. It’s worth noting that while
trying to walk the fine line between discussing the subject and discussing
the process of doing the research, I exercised a great deal of caution in the
attempt to avoid the slippery slope that can result from self reflexivity. Whether or not I have been successful is
somewhat less determined by me than the reader. The process of arranging ideas into
their place on these pages is one of making a subtle or not so subtle
argument. At the same time, however,
it is also an interpretive process. I
learn about my own interpretive frameworks as I place various pieces of data
near others. Cutting and pasting late
into the night yields interesting patterns in my own logic. Tracing my own patterns over multiple versions
of the research report accomplishes an important part of the interpretive
act. The resulting mosaic is an
arbitrary stopping point, which calls to mind the quote at the beginning of
this article by Madeline Grumet, who notes that with every version of a
paper, we momentarily stop the flood and swirl of thought so others can read
and engage what we think. If this were truly a fragmented
narrative, appearing in hypertext on the computer screen, it would come
closer to the idea behind the method.
The patterning of fragments here is intended, as Grumet says, to “make
it possible for us to go beyond and around the text” (p. 67). The juxtaposition of fragmented narratives
“invites reflection and choice” and in some ways requires “participants to
both explore situations and make choices within them” (p. 75). Put differently, I choose the
juxtapositioning of the narrative fragments, which urges the reader to make
certain connections within the constraints I draw. Ideally, the reader is not presented with only
one path to follow. Realistically, of
course, the reader and the subjects are not given as many choices as the
author. For example, in the third
version of this article, the conversation between me and Phil ended as you
see above, when he says, “I’m opening up to you. I don’t even know you.” However, in the original first version of
this article, I included the excerpt you see below as the final
conversational exchange. *** Original Ending Phil: “So I’m officially asking you out for a
date, it’s on record.” Me:
“Where are you taking me?” *** I included that exchange because of
the irony involved in my response to Phil; like a surprise ending, it
potentially shifts the roles established by earlier material. My goal was to evoke a sense of partiality
in research reporting, as if the story were not finished, or as if the
researcher had not gotten it quite right.
I removed it early on, for various reasons, including my colleagues’
perceptions that it could compromise me in some way. I add it here to open up another path for sensemaking: Rommetveit (1980) elaborately
illustrates that one can never really understand what the other truly
means. The idea of reader and author
reaching mutual understanding “[cannot be] accounted for in terms of either
unequivocally shared knowledge of the world or linguistically mediated
literal meaning” (p. 109). Not only is
meaning always ambiguous, the processes we engage in to make sense of the
world are neither linear nor smooth.
Rather, they are seamed through and through, more of a patchwork or
mosaic than a coherent, flawless, and stable whole. Even so, we make certain assumptions of coherence and
understanding, probably so we don’t go insane. We assume that we can be understood, that
we understand others, and that we can, to a degree, know what is meant by
what is discursively performed. As
Rommetveit says, these assumptions are a “self-fulfilling faith in a shared world” (p.
109). In light of us, the reader may
be likely to interpret the above as merely a glitch, rather than a serious
conflict to the argument now drawing to a close. It is intriguing to consider the extent to
which even deliberately provocative choices in interpretation or writing may
not make much of a difference in a world of presumed order and authorial
power. Still, drawing attention to the
author’s choices can reveal the process of invention with the hope of
disruption and multiplicity. *** Alternate Ending #2 Phil: “So I’m officially asking you out for a
date, it’s on record.” Me:
“Where are you taking me?” Phil: “Anywhere you want to go.” Me:
“Noplace is where I want to go with you. On or off the record.” *** “This time it vanished quite slowly,
beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained
some time after the rest of it had gone” (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland, Ch. 7). Bibliography Ashmore, M.
(1989). The reflexive thesis: Wrighting sociology of scientific knowledge. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. Burawoy, M. et al. (1991).
Ethnography unbound.
Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press. Carroll, L.
(1941). Clifford, J. and
Marcus, G. E. (1986). Writing
culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Coles, R. (1989). The call of stories: Teaching and the moral imagination. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin. Cooper, R. and Burrell,
G. (1988). Modernism, postmodernism,
and organizational analysis: An
introduction. Organization Studies,
9, 91-112. Fisher, W. R.
(1984). Narration as a human
communication paradigm: The case of
public moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51. 1-22. Freeman, J. A. (1992).
The perfect valentine. Journal
of Contemporary Ethnography, 20, 478-483. Joyce, M. (June 1998). Keynote Address. Speech presented at Learning On-Line
'98: Building the Grumet, M. R.
(1991). The politics of personal
knowledge. In C. Witherell and N.
Noddings (Eds.), Stories lives tell:
Narrative and dialogue in education, (67-77). New York:
Columbia University Teachers College Press. Krieger, S.
(1983). The mirror dance: Identity in a women’s community. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. MacIntyre, A.
(1981). After virtue: a study in moral theory. Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press. Marcus, G. E.
(1986). Contemporary problems of
ethnography in the modern world system.
In J. Clifford and G. E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing culture,
(165-193). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Pacanowsky, M.
(1988). Slouching towards Rambo-Ronai, C.
(1995). Multiple reflections of child
sex abuse: An argument for a layered
account. Journal of Contemporary
Ethnography, 23, 395-426. Richardson, L.
(1995). Narrative and sociology. In J. Van Mannen (Ed.) Representation in ethnography,
(198-221). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rommetveit, R.
(1980). On ‘meanings’ of acts and what
is meant and made known by what is said in a pluralistic social world. In M. Brenner (Ed.) The structure of action,
(108-149). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, irony, and solidarity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. (1991). Heidegger, Kundura, and Dickens. In R. Rorty (Ed.), Essays on Heidegger
and others: Philosophical papers
volume 2, (68-82). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tyler, S. (1986). Post-modern ethnography: From document of the occult to occult
document. in J. Clifford and G. E.
Marcus (Eds.), Writing culture, (122-140). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Van Manen, M.
(1990). Researching lived
experience: Human science for an
action sensitive pedagogy. New
York: State University of New York
Press. Van Mannen, J. (1988). Tales of the field. Wolf, M. (1992). A thrice told tale: Feminism, postmodernism, and ethnographic
responsibility. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. |