As a preliminary point, the role of the researcher, as communicated to the informants within the observed environment and as appearing in the ethnographic writing, is not constant and fixed throughout, but ideally maintains a certain amount of flexibility. The role needs to accommodate, firstly, the various stages of the research: for example, becoming familiar with the setting requires complete ‘immersion,’ with a conscious openness and flexibility towards a large variety of information and sources. Following the generation of a certain amount of qualitative data on the bands, I was able to conduct interviews with a narrower focus, using categories established on the basis of the already collected data. Secondly, the role also needs to accommodate the different methods employed: for example, observation in an online
context requires active browsing – exploring – and interactiveness, while the content analysis of online text requires a more detached and controlled (i.e. less flexible) researcher role. We therefore need to take caution when assuming an automatic correspondence between ethnographic research and participant observation, as has been frequent in methodological accounts, or making broad statements with regard to researcher role and the field, even within the context of one study.50 Nevertheless, while the degree of participation and the mode of observation is not the same in all aspects of the research, the term ‘participant observation’ characterises the relationship of the researcher to the field and the type of knowledge generated.
Insider knowledge
In traditional ethnographic writing, a symbolic boundary is drawn between the ‘inside’ of the field and the ‘outside.’ Maintaining this terminology, participation to a varying extent relies on knowledge ‘internal’ to the observed culture, i.e. arising from the experience of members of that culture. This ‘insider’ knowledge influences the research design, the chosen settings and methods, as well as the interpretative and analytic process. Cavicchi’s ethnography is a successful attempt to ‘understand the experiences of people in their own terms rather than the terms of outsiders’ (Cavicchi 1998: 10).51 The root of this approach is the so-called native anthropology, whereby the researcher observes their own culture, their ‘own community, who share your values and experiences,’ making use of their insider knowledge (Cavicchi 1998: 11). Cavicchi observes that ‘native’ does not refer as much to geography as to the relationship with the informants (ibid.) This premise especially applies to the virtual environment, where boundaries of social groups can be drawn along a variety of factors outside, or in conjunction with, geographical location – such as interest, taste, profession, political views, alongside more traditional categories such as gender, race, and class. In the present case, relevant aspects also include music making activity and musical preferences.
This study can to an extent be considered ‘native anthropology’ on grounds of my familiarity with the online context, including the ways bands and music listeners use social
50 C.f. ‘Observation and participation (according to circumstance and the analytic purpose at hand)
remain the characteristic features of the ethnographic approach.’ (Atkinson et al. 2001: 4-5, quoted in Mason 2002: 55)
51 Cavicchi acknowledges the influence of Unni Wikan’s ‘experience-near anthropology’ (Wikan 1990:
networking sites. In more general terms, music-related online spaces were not an unfamiliar territory.52 From the middle of the 1990s, when I first acquired Internet access, I had been active online as a music fan, receiving and contributing to newsletters, posting on music forums on a daily basis, editing fan site content, regularly visiting bands’ and artists’ websites, reading online music magazines, managing the online presence of bands I played in, and so forth. I had also been registered on MySpace, Facebook, and further sites that proved relevant for the research, having established my own online ‘friendship networks,’ which from my arrival in Liverpool at the end of March 2007 onwards included an expanding number of bands and musicians based in the city.
At the same time, the city of Liverpool as a living environment and cultural space was a new setting, along with the music making activity taking place there at the time of the research. I had learnt about Liverpool’s musical past and cultural history, but the ‘here and now’ of the research field was an unknown that bore similarities to the remote field of ‘traditional’ (as opposed to ‘native’) ethnography. Finnegan is aware of the danger of ‘[b]eing too much of an insider (and ceasing to be a detached observer),’ which is enhanced when one is researching one’s native community (1989: 343, also quoted in Bennett 2002: 456). For this reason, as Cohen observes, ‘many anthropologists deliberately adopt a position of naivete and distance when writing ethnographies in order to make the familiar seem strange’ (1993: 125). Here, the duality of being ‘native’ in one sense – in the online setting – but also a newcomer – in Liverpool and to contemporary music making in Liverpool –, has ensured a productive balance. On the one hand, knowledge of the online environment – alongside general experience of the music making and online activity of amateur rock bands elsewhere – assisted the process of locating the relevant virtual spaces occupied by local bands and music fans, interpreting the activity taking place in these spaces, and establishing meaningful criteria of analysis. On the other hand, the ritual of arriving in a new environment and consciously and systematically familiarising myself with it helped to maintain a necessary distance and ‘outsider’ perspective. A systematic – even if flexible and adaptive – research design, the rigorous recording and analysis of data, along with constant self-reflection in relation to the field was nevertheless essential in order to avoid the dangers of becoming ‘too native’ and losing the critical-analytical insight. It is this approach that Hodkinson terms ‘critical insider’ (2004: 131).
52 As opposed to, for example, the studies of Markham (1998) or Boellstorrf (2008), who explore online
environments previously unfamiliar to them – MOOs and SecondLife, respectively – as part of the research. Markham in particular, taking an ‘autoethnographic’ focus, analyses the process of becoming familiar with the unknown virtual world.
Positioning oneself in the research setting
Self-positioning in the research setting and presenting oneself towards informants is another key aspect of contemplating one’s role as a researcher in an ethnographic study based on participant observation. As has been observed by ethnographers, ‘[t]hose we try to understand actively try to understand us as well, and to locate us within their cultural landscape’ (Duranti 1994, quoted in Fonarow 2007: 16) – and the way researchers are perceived influences the data that is generated (Fonarow ibid.). Moreover, whilst we can view ourselves as participant observers, whether and to what extent we are being considered ‘insiders’ by those who are being observed is not necessarily evident (Bennett 2002: 464). For this reason, it appears important to consider the key elements along which one is identified in the research setting.
With regard to the offline observations, a distinction needs to be made between my informants and general participants. The former refers to the interviewed musicians, their fellow band members, who were familiar with my research, as well as a number of musicians in other bands who knew about my research and my interviews. The latter refers to the remainder of the people attending the same events, including some of the musicians who could see me at gigs, but I either never engaged in conversation with them or never engaged in conversation about my research, so they would have been unaware of my particular role as ‘observer’ in that environment.
To informants, the following elements of my identity and self-presentation appeared to be of consideration: firstly, my status as a foreigner, more precisely, as a foreign student and researcher. I often received questions regarding my country of origin – in fact, it struck me during my fieldwork that ‘where are you from’ was a question people very frequently asked each other during introductions, even if both speakers were from the UK or Liverpool. In other words, place of origin appeared a very important factor of identification.53 My status as foreign student/researcher, however, proved to be a familiar scenario, a category my informants, being in Liverpool, were accustomed to and did not find problematic or unnatural, even though none of them actually belonged to the same category.
Secondly, my status as specifically a PhD student: from my introductions accompanying the first requests for participation in the research, my informants were aware of this status, and I often received polite enquiries, expressing genuine interest, with regard to
53 This is not the case in my home country (the question, unless someone is an obvious foreigner, i.e.
the progress of my dissertation as well as my professional career plans. Thirdly, my status as musician: this applied primarily to the latter phase of the fieldwork, as I did not play actively in bands during the initial period. From the autumn of 2008 onwards, however, I had been an active musician in two bands, performing at the same venues as my informants, even if in a different musical style (electronica performed with live instruments and vocals). This meant that my participant status was evident to my informants and accepted by them (although the extent to which they were familiar with my music making activity varied). In some cases, their awareness of my background knowledge made it easier for them to express their ideas and observations regarding music making in Liverpool, and they generally felt free to talk about music to someone they assumed to be sharing some of their experiences and concerns. In this sense, my participant status as musician proved beneficial for the generating of ethnographic data.
Fourthly, my status as music enthusiast, evident both to informants and other participants from my conduct at live shows: attending on my own, paying attention to the performances throughout (as opposed to going to the bar and chatting to friends, for instance), taking photos and making video recordings. In other words, I was always visibly engaged – the extent of this varied, but I was always visible as a member of the audience and was aware of this visibility. At some events, this kind of conduct contrasted with being an enthusiastic fan – that is, in cases where some members of the audience were jumping and dancing right in front of the stage. On other occasions, where stereotypical ‘fan’ behaviour was absent, the same conduct – paying attention itself and being close to the stage – meant being perceived as a fan of the performing band.
In the online context, I did not deliberately make myself visible as a researcher – for instance, I did not set up a separate account or website for my ethnographer persona. Instead, I used my existing identity on MySpace, Facebook etc., with the corresponding profiles and circles of friends. Notably, however, my profiles were somewhat adjusted for the purpose by deleting some personal data. This was an attempt to make my profiles as bare and ‘neutral’ as possible to avoid too much information (taste, preferences, and other identity markers) getting in the way of eliciting responses from the people I observed, and to gain more control over self-presentation during the interactions. Using my profile(s), I ‘befriended’ the bands I encountered or joined their ‘groups,’ which meant that I could be perceived as a fan. If someone chose to click on my profile they would also recognise me as a musician, as my
profile pictures indicated this, along with my ‘top friends’ on MySpace,54 which included the two bands I participated in. My ‘top friends’ also included some of the bands I observed as an indication of my affiliation with them, as well as a way of thanking them for their contribution.
In the virtual space, the question of ‘lurking’ arises – the term refers to the practice whereby observation is a one-way process as opposed to a dialogue, which as ‘a research technique’ is ‘widely condemned by virtual ethnographers’ (Bell 2001: 198). The perceived unethical nature of lurking, arising from the invisibility of the researcher and the resulting lack of awareness of being observed on the part of the subjects, could be an argument for participant observation where participation is indeed active. However, I would argue that this dilemma is not necessarily relevant in the same way in the context where MySpace and other social networking sites are dominant. In this type of virtual environment, ‘lurkers,’ that is, unidentified visitors – viewers, listeners – are an accepted presence and not typically unwelcome, in particular in the case of band profiles, where one of the primary aims is sharing music with as many visitors as possible. Practices which make one visible, such as adding the profile owner as ‘friend,’ leaving a comment, or contacting the profile owner in some other form is not necessary, and not always expected. Once again, this reinforces the idea that the Internet is a changing ethnographic environment, and therefore it is imperative that we apply our methods reflexively and with critical understanding of the field.55