Working with tradition: towards a partnership model of fieldwork

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Slobin, Mark. "Ethical Issues." In Ethnomusicology: An Introduction. ed. Helen Myers. New Grove Handbooks in Music. 329-36. London: Macmillan, 1992.

Stoeltje, Beverley J., Christie, L. Fox, and Stephen, Olbrys. "The 'Self' in Fieldwork: A Methodological Concern." Journal of American Folklore 112 (1999): 158-82.

Tedlock, Barbara. "From Participant Observation to the Observation of Participation: The Emergence of Narrative Ethnography." Journal of Anthropological Research 47 (1991): 69-94.

Thomson, Robert S. "The Letters of Gain Greig to William Walker of Aberdeen." In Folk Song: Tradition, Revival, and Re-Creation, eds. Ian Russell, and David Atkinson. 195-209. Aberdeen: Elphinstone Institute, 2004.

Titon, Jeff Todd. "Bi-musicality as Metaphor." Journal of American Folklore 108 (1995): 287-97.

Toelken, Barre. "From Entertainment to Realization in Navajo Fieldwork." In The World Observed: Reflections on the Fieldwork Process, eds. Bruce Jackson, and Edward D. Ives. 1-17. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996.

Worrall Male Voice Choir. Christmas with Worrall Male Voice Choir. Audio cassette, Worrall Male Voice Choir, Sheffield, WMVC1, 1993.

Worrall Male Voice Choir. The Joy of Christmas. Worrall, Sheffield: Worrall Male Voice Choir, [1982], 2nd rev. ed., 2002.

Zeitlin, Steven J. "I'm a Folklorist and You're Not: Expansive versus Delimited Strategies in the Practice of Folklore." Journal of American Folklore 113 (2000): 3-19.

Notes

[1] This fieldwork later formed part of my PhD dissertation (see Russell 1977, vol. 1, 117-40). The research was undertaken on a part-time basis, as I was employed full time as a primary teacher (1970-85) and as a headteacher (1986-99).

[2] My participation was not a conscious adoption of the classic participant-observer stance, but there are similarities with Mantle Hood's concept of bi-musicality (1960, 55; 1971, 230-41; Titon 1995), although I was unaware of this methodology at the time. I was, however, acutely aware of the importance of context in my fieldwork. Stoeltje et al. have described this realisation as: "the shift ... away from the collection of disembodied texts to an emphasis on the enactment, creation, use or performance of folklore by specific individuals in variable settings" (1999, 167). See also Finnegan (1992, 91-111) and Tedlock (1991).

[3] The decision to participate wholeheartedly is now considered good ethnomusicological practice: "Learning to sing, dance, play in the field is good fun and good method" (Myers 1992, 31).

[4] Lynwood Montell has described a similar experience with the gospel singing tradition in South Central Kentucky as "absorption" (1996, 118).