reflections on fieldwork
“For survival we speak humor in the diaspora”
Engaging in this research project during our first semester in the Ph.D. program has been an exercise in exploration. The goal of the Field Methods in Ethnomusicology course was to try out various ethnographic research methods in the field. To this, we intentionally added the parameter of collaboration. We came to this work from different avenues of interest—while Daniel focuses on Black Puerto Ricans in New York City, Maris investigates Black vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in New Orleans and Puerto Rico. When we began, we had no idea what we would be getting into with each other or the project, what we would find, or how we would be received by the Philly Rican community. As a result, we began from the only place we could: an ethic of care, an openness to possibility, and a commitment to laughing through the challenging moments.
The further we delved into this project, the more we began to articulate and hone our research praxis: How not to be extractive? How to be our whole selves with our intersecting and divergent identities? How to honor the distinct knowledges we possessed individually and brought to the research process? How to collaborate with each other and our interlocutors? How to honor and respect the information that was shared with us? How to make sure our interlocutors (and others) could see and engage with our work?
Our project emerged from conversations with a number of people who graciously shared their time, as well as their intellectual and emotional labor, with us. If we learned anything it is that relationship building is at the heart of ethnographic research and that these relationships must be reciprocal. Therefore, we created this website to make scholarly products that were born from these relationships accessible to everyone who contributed to their creation. We are also inviting those who have helped us along the way—Johnny, Marilyn, and Doña Rosa—to a public presentation of our class projects. There is no perfect ethnography, but we are trying to do a better kind of ethnography, one that is sensitive to the needs of the communities we work in, relate to, and come from.