Midway, sort of
As I write this, 180 days of fieldwork have been experienced and noted, encountered and photographed, engaged and sensed, scribbled and mapped, configured and unfolded. That amounts to just about midway, would one regard it relationally to the actuality that I have one year set off to do fieldwork as part of my doctoral studies curricular wise. Regarded relationally to other factors though, such as to me approaching my research, any given engagement thereof, as a processual endeavour where fieldwork, coursework, analysis, reading and writing concurs in a clusterous way, well, then 180 days occur quite a bit from midway and I have yet the bulk of my research engagement for this particular project left to experience. Meanwhile, (ac)counting for the roughly 60 days of prestudies leading up to this yearlong fieldwork, most of which doubtlessly occur relevant not just for the trajectories by which my research is engaged, but also for the assemblage of experiences by which it occurs conducted, well, perhaps the computation happens to be relatively off as well. Importantly, regarded with respect to the notion that the number of days elapsed per se occurs quite irrelevant unless intricately related to the experiences advanced through them, well, then it is the deepening of contextual understanding for the given subject matters of interest that occurs most meaningful to emphasize (correspondingly to forces of time).
That said, my depth of understanding undeniably correlates my time being in this place, and it is to this purpose that I find it a worthwhile undertaking to keep track; such as of days and of the happenings taking place each and every one of them, respectively and collectively. As I have mentioned in a previous post, for me, this is not a practice of quantifying my research but rather one of spatiotemporally thinking through the movements by which it comes into being: I account for the days correlationally to my fieldworking experiences in an attempt to through temporal and spatial aspects consider how ethnographic encounters already experienced dynamically correlates, let alone nuances, those yet to come; I trail the gathered configurations and processual character of the overall becoming of my ethnography by counting for the duration of its occurrence(s). Hence, much as I map happenings and concerns on my noted color sheets in an attempt to readily connect the dots of experiences on the one hand, the practices to the settings of their occurence on the other, I map the days so to readily realize how forces of time correlates deepening of my contextual understanding, knowing and being.
In some sense, I make through my scribbling of numbers in my diary both every day and the everyday matter, and this is really what the day-count for me boils down to. So, independently of me being midway or otherwise, in my diary from yesterday, habitually as this tracking now occurs and habituated to being immersed in this setting as I have become, the figure of 180 stands written in the corner. 180 days already, hugh, it feels like yesterday that I sat on the bus from Rome to Ostuni, excited to the burst of explosion to engage this fieldwork and to myself finally getting to, for a longer period of time, experience the everyday settings and workings through which olive cultivation and olive oil production in this context is practiced. At the same time, as I now browse the then yet to be written in notebooks, or regard the then still to be post-it covered color sheets, or scoll the now thousands of photos on my phone, I realize how quite savvy I during this period of 180 days have become. Not just that, I become reminded of the novice that I once was. Similarly, I become aware of the somewhat more skilled apprentice I through my practical engagements thus far grown into. Critically, I am curious to further explore that which I up to this point experienced and to situate my very much embodied and emplaced understanding relationally to the wider scope of matters correlating how olive cultivation and olive oil production within this context takes place (such as relationally to the transnational food system it is part of).
On that note, much of my day-to-day participant practice mode of methodology occurs momentarily completed. While I throughout the remaining six months of this time-framed fieldworking period on a regular basis continuously will learn-by-doing with well established research collaborators, these undertakings will be complemented with a sort of multi-sited mode of ethnographic engagement where I will work with regulative documents and archival records, make study visits and conduct interviews, partake in sensory analyses and domesticating practices, explore the landscape and delve further into effects of Xylella fastidiosa, to mention a few such undertakings. To at this point engage this methodological approach stems from a couple of reasons. Firstly, my research question has during my time here become more specified, wherefore my methodological approach has become correlationally adjusted. Secondly, I wish to further explore, expand, contextualize and probe the olive oil (hi)stories and practices that I up to this point taken practical part of. Thirdly, the reality of conducting fieldwork in times of a pandemic requires me to creatively advance my research through other means than only through participant practice.
With those words and 180 days of much sensuously imbued fieldworking experiences accounted for, I am still excited to the burst of explosion, yet curious to find out more, perpetually keen to experience, and, importantly, evermore attentive in furthering my research by exploring and experiencing the glocal forces of matters—social, historical, material and transnational—through which stories of olive oils in this context occur.
