Fieldwork Diary Entry (March 17, 2014)

Sitting down to yet another few hours of crammed reading. Seems strange to study this way.  Reading around a subject as a way into it. There has not been much written about this area of dance. Most of the material I have found so far written in the UK all seem to be coming from one person- Sherril Dodds.  I write to Ms Dodds to see if she is willing to be interviewed but she declines.


Sherril Dodds - my main academic resource on UK popular dance thus far

I don't really have much choice but to wade through theory at this point. I would rather be doing fieldwork and finding my own conclusions than having to find the right academic contextual springboard to launch myself from. I suppose it can't be avoided. But is this how the construction of knowledge has to happen? That it has to be verified by some other academic before it can be validated?

Sometimes this is precisely what turns me off academia; that it is endlessly self-referential. Artists don't have to do this. Many authors don't have to do this. Other creators of things don't necessarily have to do prove or disprove their output. But as anthropology is a social science, I guess the science side of it must be satisfied by 'either-or' proclamations against something tried and tested.

Part of the rant is frustration as my fieldwork is not happening. I am ill again after having just recovered from a three week bout of bronchitis which means that I cannot go to NLNL as planned. I won't feel that things are moving until I get out into some sort of field site. I feel a bit of a fraud that I am doing dance fieldwork without actually doing or watching any dance. For me, fieldwork has to be an embodied experience wherever possible. Otherwise it feels disingenuous.