Fieldnotes From History (40)—Provincial Elections (a)

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (18 June 2011)—Living and Learning: Teaching the Emperor.

[a] Bustling RF

Click below for other fieldnotes dealing with Taiwan's 1985 provincial elections:
Election 1         Election 2          Election 3          Election 4          Election 5          Election 6
Election 7         Election 8          Election 9          Election 10        Election 11        Election 12
Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

The next several dozen entries in this series represent my memories—in the form of fieldnotes that were already well on their way to being letters—of Taiwan's provincial elections in November 1985. I had taken down what I call "jottings" at the time, and "now," two months later, I was ready to get a little bit more detail down in the form of fieldnotes. If you are somewhat unfamiliar with the five-stage process that framed my work habits even back then, it might be worth a quick look at the introduction to this series. Suffice it to say here that in Taiwan in 1985 I was working from "jottings" to "fieldnotes" most of the time. Every month or so, I would write a letter that made it all into a more sustained narrative. Even early on, I realized how powerfully the knowledge that I would be writing letters influenced my fieldnotes. You may see it, too. It has remained my method to this day.

[b] Restart RF

Like many fieldnotes, these were "written up" (a term I dislike, but am occasionally willing to use) after the fact. I wonder if most students of anthropology know how common this is. The implications for research, eye-witness authenticity, and historiography are numerous. It is a reality that has never gone away for field researchers of all kinds, though, and I suspect that it never will. Part of the ethnographic process—and most of us would call it a very big part—is devoted to catching up in its several and peculiar cultural forms.

Comment

February was a busy month for me in 1986. I had only recently gotten my ethnographic groove back, and had come to realize that a whole bunch of stuff had happened in the dull months, for which I had no written record. Of course, those months were not really dull at all. These fieldnotes will show a little bit of that autumnal vibrancy. I had taken a long "visa" trip to Hong Kong, moved to new levels in my study of Chinese, and watched the provincial elections unfold. Yet nowhere did I have more than a few jottings to record any of it. This is so common to the fieldwork experience that anthropologists seldom bother to discuss it. I would like to "problematize" it here (as we say in the academic biz).

So a bunch of stuff happened and the ethnographer didn't get it down. That was the basic situation for me in late-1985 and almost everyone who has ever wielded notebook and pen in a fieldwork setting. What to do? Well, the response of many is to give up—to reconfigure the fieldwork operation in ways that lessen the need for footnotes. I have a distant colleague (another school) who tells the story of the awful realization that she had taken no fieldnotes to speak of (this was a good year into the experience) and had either to try to catch-up or rethink the whole process. She says that she started to write out "old" notes, but they were so far distant from the relevant issues—and her thinking had developed in such dramatic ways over the course of the year—that they came out "all gummy."

[c] Alley RF

I have had similar experiences over the years in situations that didn't seem "like fieldwork" when it all started. It is far more common than the stories of carefully-crafted research that students tend to hear in classes across the country. In my colleague's case, she gave up. She decided not to have fieldnotes, and to concentrate on a compelling analysis of several key issues. It worked for her, but she admits to this day that she would rather have written fieldnotes. The "why?" behind that last statement would require a series of posts on their own, and wrap together all sorts of myths and narratives embedded in the culture of anthropology about how to do it...right.

For now, let's just examine the idea that ethnographers are almost always wracked by guilt. Although all guilt is self-imposed, fieldnote guilt seems even...well, more so. I had just started to emerge from my own ethnographic slumber with a series of "reacquainting" fieldnotes covering issues of language and acculturation. Now I knew that it was time to get at least a little bit on paper from the big stuff. In my little world, it didn't get bigger than hospitalization (we'll cover that soon) and the provincial elections of 1985. It was catch-up time. 

Notes
[1] Zhongshan North Road (中山北路) is the major north-south artery in Taipei. At that point in the year I had sublet an apartment from a missionary family that was on a six-month leave. It gave me an exquisite window—literally and figuratively—onto the electioneering that autumn, and allowed me to see the major battles fought out on the pavement of the great thoroughfare as well as the little alley skirmishes that added color to the whole event.

[d] Another election RF

[2] The trucks and loudspeakers were everywhere. I am not sure that an American used to even thickets of lawn signs and advertisements flooding the airwaves (not to mention the ubiquitous knocking on doors) can imagine what it is like to have small trucks laden with candidate pictures and sound equipment slowly buzzing the neighborhood from early morning until mid-evening.

[3] As I reread the note I am struck by the tenor of the opening paragraph. Knowing the context as I do (being separated by several months from the events), it is as though I am trying to establish a "topic" out of thin air. Of course, it reads like a fairly standard introduction. I know, however, that it represented several sentences between ethnographic chaos (giving up) and the reestablishment of research and writing order.

___________________________________________________

15 February 1986
Taipei

For ten days in November, 1985, the streets and alleys were crowded all around my small apartment near Zhong Shan North Road. Unusually crowded—packed with more than just the sounds and smells of Taiwanese street vendors hawking fruit, bamboo, noodles, cold drinks, ice cream, and rice dumplings. Added to the daily racket of alley vendors and children were new sounds, sounds I had never heard before—the sounds of Taiwan’s local elections. The sounds were unusual. Elections in Taiwan are Hobbesian—nasty, brutish, and short. The last local election was held in 1981; this was only the fifth set of elections in the history of Nationalist rule on Taiwan. Elections on Taiwan are occasional, and they are short; they are limited, and they are controlled. Above all, however, elections in Taiwan are loud.

Loudspeaker campaigning in the streets and alleys of Taipei, Kaohsiung, Tainan, and other cities on the island, was the backbone of each candidate’s campaign. Small Yue Loong model pickup trucks (decorated with freshly painted plywood, the candidate’s picture—serious, paternal, in a three-piece suit and tie—and huge blue characters denoting his name) zipped in and out of alleys playing megadecible recordings of the candidates’ election platforms in Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Hakka dialects. When two candidates met in an alley—the odds of contact were high, like dipping a wet spoon in a bowl of sugar and finding granules—each truck’s crew turned its volume up a few notches, straining to be heard over the opposition. “I will clean up your neighborhoods” one would implore as the other truck broadcast the words “I will never betray your trust.” 

[e] Roots and branches RF

Click below for other fieldnotes dealing with Taiwan's 1985 provincial elections:
Election 1         Election 2          Election 3          Election 4          Election 5          Election 6
Election 7         Election 8          Election 9          Election 10        Election 11        Election 12