Writing and Managing Multimodal Field Notes

Fernando Hernández-Hernández and Juana M. Sancho-Gil

Table of Contents
Introduction: Exploring a Slippery Issue
Field Notes in the Context of Ethnographical Research
The Practice of Taking and Collecting Field Notes
Field Notes Beyond the Written Text
Field Notes, Field Diaries, and Reflexivity
Inconclusive Remarks
References

Summary
Researchers from various disciplines collect and generate field notes as a strategy to
describe and reflect (through texts, photos, drawings, diagrams, or recordings) the
complexity they face when addressing entangled and many-faceted phenomena. Field
notes are as common research strategy not only to capture and amass instantly what
researchers listen to, observe, think, and feel, but also to make explicit their reflexivity
process, based on their observations and experiences. Field notes are not only a method
for generating evidence, but a reflection of the ontological, epistemological,
methodological, and ethical positionality that guide the researcher’s gaze.
Paradoxically, although field notes are something most researchers use and are
fundamental in their reports and publications, they are generally the hidden and
idiosyncratic side of academic field work.
The preparation of field notes is an extremely intricate issue, as the very same meaning,
purposes, and roles of field notes heavily rely on the ethnographer’s onto-
epistemological positioning. It is useful, then to contextualize field notes within the
tradition of ethnography, without ignoring the fact that they are used in a wide range of
disciplines (including anthropology, deology, architecture, geography, ethology,
archaeology, and biology). It is also important to problematize the practice of taking,
collecting, and generating field notes by taking into account the fact that the traditional
vision of field notes as written (alphabetic) notes is being challenged by the availability
of mobile applications that enable researchers to create and organize multimodal
information. It is important to note the relevance of the so-called “headnotes,” as there
are many impressions, scenes, and experiences that cannot be written down or can be
difficult or impossible to document. In addition, the text goes beyond the reflection of
interaction by introducing the notion of intra-action to overcome the metaphysics of
individualism underlying conventional understandings of “interactions.” The growing
multiplicity of languages, modes, and means of expression and communication must be
examined alongside the strengths and limitations of multimodal field notes. Finally, the
practice of keeping field notes requires a recognition of the reflexivity imbedded in this
process. Field diaries can be seen as the first step toward ethnographic reporting, and
here reflexivity becomes a fundamental part of the analyses involved.
Keywords
ethnography, field work, reflexivity, matter, visual methods, positionalities,
entanglement, intra-action, field diary

Introduction: Exploring a Slippery Issue

“What happens in the field is much more than data collection.” (Rappaport, 2008, p.
7)
In 2015, we began doing ethnographical research with young people on their learning
transitions inside and outside five secondary schools (Hernández-Hernández, 2017).
During the fieldwork, we took multimodal field notes, in the form of text, sketches,
photos, and videos, and made observations and carried out conversations, with both
students and teachers. This allowed us to write descriptive and analytical ethnographic
reports. Using different software, we converted these sources into multimodal field
diaries. These diaries, composed of the insights garnered during our research meetings,
and the ethnographic accounts of the youth we interviewed, plus our headnotes
(Ottenberg, 1990), were the bases which allowed us to write five interpretative
ethnographic reports (Hernández-Hernández & Sancho-Gil, 2017). What we have not
explained in these reports is, as Wolfinger (2002) summarizes, what and how we choose
to annotate, photograph, or observe. When in the field, had we already decided what to
write about and photograph? What did we notice? What did we choose to focus our
attention on? What did we subsequently recall? Of what we remembered, what did we
choose to document in our notes and photos? And in how much detail? (pp. 85–86).
Responses to these questions are relevant because decisions made at this stage of the
research process have an impact on and are driven by our ontological, epistemological,
methodological, and ethical positionalities, culminating in a vision that is reflected in
the ethnographic reports. Based on the relevance of these questions, this article pays
attention to assumptions, debates, suggestions, and tensions involved in the recording
and compilation of field notes (whether by writing, drawing, photographing, or video
recording), drawing on both our own research experience and the academic literature on
this pertinent issue. This collage of references has been organized a way that makes
clear that the process of taking field notes is not merely a method, but rather an
entangled progression where ontological, epistemological, methodological, and ethical
positionalities converge in the ethnographical research.

Field Notes in the Context of Ethnographical Research

Geographers, ethologists, archaeologists, geologists, biologists, and other researchers
from different areas of academic research collect and generate field notes in their work
as a strategy for capturing (by writing, photographing, drawing, or filming) part of the
complexity they face when studying entangled and many-faceted phenomena. Field
notes are as a common research strategy, not only to capture and collect instantly what
researchers observe, listen to, think, and feel, but also to made explicit their reflexivity
process, based on their approach to, or their means of immersion in, the phenomenon
being studied. Paradoxically, although field notes are something most researchers use to
produce evidence and information and are fundamental in their reports and publications,
they are usually overlooked as a focus of research, and assumed to be widely personal
and wildly divergent in their applications.
In the case of ethnography literature on the foundations of this research approach,
authors dedicate a great deal of attention to issues such as writing the ethnographic
research report (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983; Van Maanen, 1988; Amit, 2000;
Emerson, 2001; Pyrczak & Randall, 2005; Kahn, 2011). However, questions related to
the process of taking ethnographic field notes by different means have received less
consideration, not only as a methodological matter, but as an arena that allows
exploration of researchers’ ontological, epistemological, and ethical positionalities. In
the early 21st century, ethnographers have not only started to look more carefully at the
epistemological and methodological “value” of field notes in their research, but also to
make visible their note-taking process (Condel, 2008; Kahn, 2011; Taussing, 2011;
Eriksson, Henttonen, & Meriläinen, 2012; Phillippi & Lauderdale, 2017). Even so, what
Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw pointed out in 1995 still holds true: field notes remain
“invisible work” in the greater context of ethnographic literature. This may be due to the
fact that field notes are considered private documents for the most part, and somewhat
disorganized, unfinished, and personal as a result. Therefore, the transition from field
notes to research reports and research findings, and the attendant affirmations or
conclusions, remains an arena left unexplored. Although there is no consensus about
how ethnographic field notes should be written, collected, or produced, given that they
are assumed to be personal and individual tools, and there is little agreement about their
overall value in ethnographic research, most ethnographers (and many other qualitative
researchers) produce field notes (both as written text and visual notes), particularly
when they are in the field doing observations. Nevertheless, as Eriksson, Henttonen, and
Meriläinen (2012) have pointed out,
field notes are important because they involve the critical acts of sense
making and interpretation, which inevitably have some kind of bearing
on the research findings and results. To be able to understand what kind
of bearing the field notes can have on your research, it is necessary to
practice reflexivity in respect to one’s own field notes and their analysis.
(p. 1)
In this regard, Rachel Fendler’s field notes, which were part of the research on the
learning transitions among young people mentioned above (Giró-Gracia & Fendler,
2017), can be considered as an example of that entanglement of description, reflection,
and interpretation in the field notes:
This classroom, the students’ classroom, became our private space in the
school. Being apart from the other classrooms allowed us to have
 privacy, even though we were inside the high school and during school
hours. It also introduced certain challenges, especially of a technical
nature. The lack of computers in the classroom made us trust that the
young people would bring their or, when necessary, as in the film-
observation session, bring a laptop and a projector of our own to make
sure that the activity could run smoothly. Even so, we value the
independence that our own space gave us, and to be able to organize it in
the way that best suits us at every moment. (p. 53).
Wolfinger (2002) points out that generating field notes seems like simply the result of
going to a research site, seeing what happens, talking to people, and then write
everything down, taking photos, making drawings, or shooting a video. However, this
straightforward account does not address the choices and dilemmas researchers face in
the field, when they are surrounded and affected by multiple and diverse stimuli, which
are processed via the ethnographer’s tacit knowledge and previous experiences. Van
Maanen (1988) provides a clear and pertinent summary of this issue:
To put it bluntly, fieldnotes are gnomic, shorthand reconstructions of
events, observations, and conversations that took place in the field. They
are composed well after the fact as inexact notes to oneself and represent
simply one of many levels of textualization set off by experience. To
disentangle the interpretive procedures at work as one moves across
levels is problematic to say the least . . . Little wonder that fieldnotes are
the secret papers of social research. (pp. 223–224).
Wolfinger suggest that field notes become a part of the researcher, because they “serve
the crucial role of connecting researchers and their subjects in the writing of an
ethnographic report. . . . Therefore, it is important to understand the processes
underlying their creation and how these processes can affect ethnographic texts” (2002,
p. 92)—particularly because they reflect the ethnographer’s background knowledge and
deeply held beliefs. As Erickson (1984) notices, “Fieldwork is heavily inductive, but
there are no pure inductions. The ethnographer brings to the field a theoretical point of
view and a set of questions, explicit or implicit” (p. 51). In this way, the ethnographer’s
positioning affects both the content and the meaning of fieldnotes. By recognizing these
assumptions, ethnographers can develop a more thorough understanding of their note-
taking, and ultimately of the social worlds they study (Wolfinger, 2002). In the practice
of our own research group, we begin our ethnographic projects by writing and sharing
autoethnographic accounts to situate how the research topics are affected by our
inherent biographical, epistemological, and methodological biases. In developing this
strategy, we have come to understand not only the importance of researching our
collaborators’ experiences, but also the value of exploring our own personal experiences
as related to the topic in question. This step is not only epistemological and
methodological, but partly political: we do not ask people to share stories that we
ourselves are unable (or unwilling) to share. It is also a useful strategy because, given
the impossibility of avoiding the unpredictable, this step helps us to at least foresee the
kind of collaboration that we will find in the fieldwork, as well as the final structure of
the ethnographic report. It is also a way to be more aware of the implicit biases that may
influence our field notes (Hernández, Sancho, Creus, & Montané, 2010; Sancho &
Hernández-Hernández, 2013). In addition, these early personal narratives also act as
starting points or triggers for the need to (re)learn, reflect, and reconsider research
methods, observation strategies, and the initial guidance necessary to produce useful
field notes (Hernández-Hernández & Sancho-Gil, 2015).

The Practice of Taking and Collecting Field Notes

Field notes are deeply affected by the meaning we impart to our inquiry process, the
site, and the field work. The field work can be situated in a place, a site without limits,
in which the researcher decides to lean into his own biography, academic background,
and prejudices. For us the field has no limits, and it is multi-sited, entangled, complex,
and multifaceted. We agree with Marcus (1995) when he questions the hegemonic
conception of an ethnographic site as a “container of a particular set of social relations,
which could be studied and possibly compared with the contents of other containers
elsewhere” (Falzon, 2009, p. 1), and supports the notion of multi-sited ethnography.
Drawing on a pre-eminent position in ethnography for many years, Marcus argues that
the study of social phenomena cannot be explained by focusing on a single isolated site.
What is at stake in this assertion is not only the question of the boundaries of any social
practice in an interconnected world, but the fantasy of field workers who still imagine
that the limits of the field are defined by what is under their direct scrutiny. To
understand others’ experiences we need, as Falzon has mentioned, a strategy that
“involves a spatially dispersed field through which the ethnographer moves—actually,
via sojourns in two or more places, or conceptually, by means of techniques of
juxtaposition of data” (2009, p. 2). In the following notes written by Rachel Fendler
during her field work with secondary-school students, we note the importance of
thinking about these issues earlier on in an ethnography:
In one of the definitions comes the term “field research,” and we talk
about what that means and what the “field” means, what
“autoethnography” means, proposing a couple of ways to do it: with a
field diary of our activities during the week and documenting something
specific, such as their interests. We come back to the idea that
documentation or evidence must make sense within the research, and we
must see what we mean to collect the most important. (Giró-Gracia &
Fendler, 2017, p. 74
In our experience, an ethnographic report should: (a) give a detailed description of the
interactions between humans, so that the reader can imagine what happened in the field;
and (b) display an awareness on the author’s part of writing a story that reveals a
network of experiences, objects, and circumstances. This means considering the literary
aspects of good writing, namely: (a) pay attention to the researcher’s place in the story,
who not only explains what is observed and experienced, but also understand her
personal reactions to situations and tensions; and (b) take theory into account
throughout the report by establishing a permanent conversation with other authors and a
permanent reflexivity process. Finally, we should keep in mind that the notion of
naturalism is connected to the fictionality of all ethnographic research (Hernández-
Hernández & Sancho-Gil, 2015).
In this interconnected process, “field notes are meant to be read by the
ethnographer and to produce meaning through interaction with the ethnographer’s
headnotes” (Sanjek, 1990b, p. 92). This is important because, as Ottenberg (1990)
notes, there is another set of notes to be considered: “These are the notes of the mind,
the memories of my field research. I call them my headnotes. As I collected my written
notes, there are many more impressions, scenes, experiences than I wrote down or could
possibly are recorded” (p. 144). Field notes are complemented by headnotes. This
understanding also enlightens the researchers’ analysis. For this author, “headnotes are
the driving forces, albeit subject to correction by the fieldnotes. The written notes have
a sacred quality that is also illusion. The process of employing fieldnotes should make
them an adjunct to the more primary headnotes” (p. 147).
According to Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw (1995), field notes might include
descriptions of the physical environment, people, and their actions, as well as dialogue
drawn from interactions. But especially, we should also consider “intra-actions,” per
Barad (1996), to get beyond the metaphysics of individualism underlying conventional
understandings of “interactions.” Barad emphasizes the “intra-action” between subjects
and objects in the world, or rather, “phenomena,” given that the latter in that frame are
already interconnected before being agentially separated (Barad, 2003, p. 815). The
following excerpt from Fernando’s field notes illustrates some of these characteristics:
Carmen, the teacher of the students, pick us up at 10:00am. With Maria,
the other researcher, they guide me through corridors and stairs until I
reach the door of what looks like a Natural Sciences classroom. It seems
an ironic coincidence that ethnographic research linked to the learning
trajectories of this group at their last year of compulsory Secondary
School, has its meetings in a Science room. Crossing the door, I find
myself in a classroom organized in rows facing a whiteboard where the
spotlight of the projector linked to the computer falls. In the background,
blinds cover a large window through which the sun sets, and from where
we can see the view of Barcelona. From the top of the wardrobe, that
covers part of the wall, several stuffed animals look at us.(Hernández-
Hernández & Domingo-Coscollola, 2017, p. 248).
The ethnographic methodological literature (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995; Coffey,
1999; Atkinson et al., 2001; Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008) provides different guidelines
concerning how to collect and report observational data for ethnographic research. Data
is most commonly registered by written and visual field notes. Most of the literature on
field notes advise the researcher to plan field work in a detailed manner ahead of time.
In terms of what to look for in the field, researchers are guided to pay attention to
people (and other actors), and to observe how they talk, behave, interact, and move. In
addition, the physical environment and the use of any material artifacts must be
recorded. Field notes should be as accurate and detailed as possible, with the aim of
capturing people’s language and idiomatic expressions in the field, as well as significant
details of their environment. Digital tools can help to produce field notes, as illustrated
in this excerpt from Xavi Giró-Gracia’s field notes, in which he gives an account of the
moment an audio recorder was introduced in the ethnographic field:
From the second meeting, we began recording the sessions with a
professional audio recorder, which Rachel borrowed from her husband to
record live music. At first this caused some surprise in the group, not
only because of the recording of what was being said, but also because of
the dimensions of the device. To allay their doubts, we told them that the
recordings would not be made public, but would serve as a source of
information specially for our field notes, and to be able to remember
what happened in the sessions after a few months. The young people got
used to the situation very quickly and did not hesitate, although
sporadically in some sessions it was, the commentary “beware, they are
recording,” emerged, usually in jest, and the question to Rachel, “Is it
on?” Even so, we never noticed that their words were really limited or
conditioned by the fact that we were recording them and, on several
occasions, reviewing the recording we listened to conversations among
the young people that we had not been aware of during the session.
(Giró-Gracia & Fendler, 2017, p. 59).
At the same time, comparing the content of this field note with the one taken by Juana,
in another site during the same research project, we see evidence of Barad’s (1996)
claims that intra-actions involve the mutual constitution of entangled agencies.
We informed students about our willingness of voice recording all
working sessions as a way of keeping track of all decision-making and
being able to recall our reflections. Both teachers and students
immediately accepted, and I put my cell phone on the table and started
recording.
The same action (voice recording) performed with different tools led to two different
reactions among participants in this research. In the first case, the lack of knowledge
and the size of the device caused anxiety among participants, and more awareness on
their part of being recorded. In the second case, the act of voice recording was
understood as something “natural,” that is, as something they did not need to pay
attention to, as the gadget was already a part of their daily life.
However, there is some controversy over whether it is necessary to make explicit or
avoid reporting on the researcher’s reactions, emotions, thoughts, concepts, and
conceptions concerning the fieldwork. Even more if considering the dimensions implied
in the so-called headnotes that, as argued earlier, they do not only relate to what
ethnographers “see” but to the way they see it and to how them feel affected by what
they observe, feel and experience. In this context, ethical, political and academic
tensions can arise if there is a discrepancy between the researcher’s headnotes and
current discourses about what is considered as ethically, politically and academically
acceptable.
The ontological-epistemological positioning of most methodological guides favors
the idea that the entire fieldwork must be planned and under strict authorial control.
However, something any researcher who has done field work knows is that this control
is not always possible, and that unpredictability is a characteristic (and often, even, a
benefit) of research activity in the field. For Wolfinger (2002), writing (and taking
visual) field notes seems deceptively straightforward—particularly because, as Keesing
and Strathern (1998) have argued, there is a gap between the data described in field
notes and the lived experiences, sounds, smells, and scenes that cannot be captured in
writing or visualized, but settle into the unconscious. What Keesing and Strathern are
sustaining, by using the term “unconscious,” is that the ethnographer, or any researcher
generating field notes, brings a deep, unpronounced understanding that is greater than
the field notes, and gives the ethnography a richness that could not have been obtained
in any way other than through prolonged immersion in the field (Robben & Sluka,
2007, p. 8). Therefore, in our research we consider that our field notes, drawings, maps,
recordings, and pictures are textual and visual representations of the observations and
interpretations we made in the field. We also assume that our social and academic
trajectories and our respective understandings and assumptions influence what
knowledge is produced and how it is produced (Eriksson, Henttonen, & Meriläinen,
2012).

Field Notes Beyond the Written Text

The Emergence of Multimodal Field Notes

The 21st century seems to have ushered in the age of multimodal information, a trend
that has profoundly transformed the nature of research evidence. In the era of
multimodal literacies, and when there are mobile applications that enable researchers to
create and organize multimodal information, “Digital technologies open new windows
for ethnographic explorations of cultural experiences” (Eisenhart & Allaman, 2017). So,
the traditional vision of field notes as written (alphabetic) notes (Walford, 2009) is
being challenged by the multimodal turn (Dicks, Soyinka & Coffey 2006). This trend is
strongly driven by the proliferation of digital media, which is generating new problems
relating to the management and interpretation of information. There is an increasing
number of ethnographers who, in the digital era, use different approaches to the
collection of information such us “participant observation, multimodal field notes . . .
videotaped interactions . . . collecting participant artefacts . . . and repeated interviews
. . . about their attitudes” (Knobel & Lankshear, 2016, p. 159).
Authors such Murthy (2011) talk about “digital ethnography,” which is linked to
the use of Apple iTouches with Canon PowerShot digital cameras “to create multimodal
fielnote entries from the field” (p. 164). For this author, the use of “wikis, blogs, or
other technological innovations, presents potentialities for new types of field notes than
can be inputted online form the field and embedded with video streams, audio
transcripts of interviews, digital pictures, and, of course, textual field notes.”
Specifically, he exams some specific digital ethnographic applications such as
“fieldnotes with blogs/wikis, embedded ethnographic technologies (the “cyborg
ethnographer”), digital pens, and CMS groupware” (p. 164). As Sanjek (1990a) argued,
and many ethnographers have confirmed over time, a central aspect of a successful
ethnography is the “strength” of the researcher’s own field notes.
Multimodal and digital twists and turns have opened up incredible opportunities to
collect and manage information. However, the excess and diversity of information is
today one of the most important challenges faced by researchers, and has a significant
impact on their studies.
On the other hand, in an increasingly visual world, the role of images (photos,
video, drawings, and sketches alike) in research has grown, because images can reveal
dimensions that are not accessible by other means (Banks, 2008). At the same time,
visual methods have experimented a displacement “from an emphasis on realist visual
recording methods in the mid-20th century to later incorporate contemporary
approaches that engaged with subjectivity, reflexivity and the notion of the visual as
knowledge and a critical ‘voice’” (Pink, 2003, p. 180). In the case of ethnography,
researchers soon realized that the visual image, whether conveyed by photograph,
video, cinema, or drawings, is not an accurate registration of reality, as early
practitioners believed, “but that ‘raw’ photos and footage, just like ‘raw’ field notes, are
constructions encapsulating the intention, agency, and objectives of the ethnographer,
and thus subject to reinterpretation” (Robben, 2007, p. 386).
Field notes in the form of images gaze on the situation that is being explored,
particularly when the methods of generating images are photo documentation and image
elicitation (Rose, 2012). These methods address the production of a series of photos or
videos taken by researchers and collaborators in a focused manner to document, reflect,
and analyze social practices. As Banks (2008) suggests, “the value of visual methods
lies on promoting exploration, the accidental discovery and collaboration in social
research” (p. 159). Images generated in the field do not only illustrate the written text
but are also able to produce additional evidence and modes of reflexivity and knowing
through the research. As stated by Gillian Rose, “this body of social science work uses
various kinds of images as ways of answering research questions, not by examining
images—as do visual culture studies—but by making them” (2012, p. 10). As part of
the field notes spectrum, images also serve different functions and are not subordinated
to the text, but “might provide their own theories, have their own power, their own say
in the structure” (Elkins & McGuire, 2013, p. 1). Images are both part of the
ethnographic field work and a discourse or writing mode. At this point, it seems
relevant to remember that, according to Rose,
an image may have its own visual effects . . . these effects, through the
ways of seeing mobilized by the image, are crucial in the production and
reproduction of visions of social difference, but these effects always
 intersect with the social context of viewing and with the visualities
spectators bring to their viewing. (2012, p. 16)
Images can have an effect not only on the collaborators and readers, but also on the
researchers, and on the kinds of epistemological, methodological, ethical and political
positionalities they produce. Let us introduce an excerpt from Maria Domingo-
Coscollola’s field diary, where it is possible to appreciate how the field notes reflect the
introduction of the photos in the research process, and their role, as evidence (field note)
at the encounter with youth collaborators.
Carmen (the teacher) introduces me. There's an atmosphere of
expectation . . . the four boys and two girls are looking at me. I smile and
thank them warmly for having accepted to participate, for being there . . .
Then, I asked them whether I was able to take some photos of the
meeting and if, in addition, I will be able to record the session (so that I
can have evidence of the encounter . . .). Everyone quickly says yes,
without any inconvenience and with a good face. I took a photo of them
unexpectedly (I have a backlight, but it does not matter). Then, I tell
Carmen (the teacher) if she wants to go out in the picture too. She
quickly puts on and I shoot another photo very quickly. Then, I say let’s
get started and I start to record. (Hernández-Hernández & Domingo-
Coscollola, 2017, p. 249).
In the research project to which we have been referring, we took as a starting point
Deleuze’s notion of image (1983), which posits that we do not make images of things,
but the pictures are things in themselves. From this approach, images generated during
the field work would expand in their usefulness and beyond their original meanings as
they become part of the ethnographic report (Miño, 2017). This approach allows us to
pay attention to how these images have the power to fictionalize people, objects,
relationships, and even the researchers, by reinforcing and excluding certain aspects and
meanings of the Other, the social milieu, and the research process. The images also
account for the social life of people reflected in this visual evidence, which are
transformed into something else by being photographed, thus creating a new reality
independent of their original reference points. The following paragraph, which is drawn
from Xavi’s field notes, allows us to reflect on what can happen when a video camera
becomes part of the life of a group of young students.

A little more excitement was caused by the video camera (Image 4) that
we started using at the end of January. We video recorded all the
sessions from this moment until the final presentation at school, placing
the video camera on a tripod not far from the table where we worked.
The first impression was surprising; Pol says to Esther ‘you have to
come with makeup,’ joking. But, in principle, it doesn’t matter much,
and sometimes, at the end of the session, it becomes a toy for the youth,
who have fun grimacing in front of the camera before going out.(Giró-
Gracia & Fendler, 2017, p. 54).
Because images, like field notes, are not used to fix truths, we can explore, through
reflexivity, the kind of realities they, and we, create and make visible. At the same time,
they are devices that allow us to confront the unknown, the new and the different,
shaping our subjective approaches. In addition, this gaze allows us to explore whether
the images presented in the reports alter how we “see” others and ourselves in the
ethnographic account.
When we start reflecting on these images as part of the field diary, we bear in mind
recent approaches to the interpretation of images in anthropology, cultural studies, and
cultural geography, which have emphasized the need to pay attention to four key areas:
(a) the context in which the image was produced; (b) the content of the image; (c) the
contexts and the subjectivities through which images are viewed; and (d) the materiality
and agency of images (Pink, 2003, p. 187). We also question the totalitarian character of
images collected in the field notes, by considering them as partial, because they only
explore and fix, as mentioned above, some aspects of the social and material relations
represented.

Field Notes, Field Diaries, and Reflexivity

The field diary is a strategy that allows the researcher to move from the merely
observed to its deeper meaning. Field notes are mediated by the researcher’s intuitions,
biographical and academic background, and her chosen observation strategy such as
(focussed, holistic, or floating). Their value depends on the researcher’s capacity and
willingness to being open and receptive to the “Other,” and the Other’s personal, social,
and material conditions, throughout the course of the field work. The field notes can be
based on scenes, vignettes, critical moments, or fluxes of actions and encounters. They
can be grounded in what the researcher decides to observe, or on what surprises the
researcher during the interactions and intra-actions in the field and beyond.
The field diary is a reflective elaboration of the field notes and it is the foundation
of the research report. The diary is a place, analog or virtual (there are a large number of
software programs available for managing multimodal information), that allows the
researcher to rescue what has been collected in the field notes (textually or visually) and
reconsider what has been observed or gathered in light of the relevant “theoretical”
references (ontological, epistemological, methodological, and ethical) with which the
researcher dialogues, and which guides his gaze.
The practice of keeping a field diary, as a mode of field notes analysis, relates to
the notion of reflexivity. This concept, its genealogy, and the diversity of approaches to
it in social research (Macbeth, 2001; Stronach et al., 2007) can be found in
epistemological and methodological discussions about the way researchers (should)
acknowledge their own subjectivity and its effects on the production of scientific
knowledge. Reflexivity refers to an ontological and epistemological social-scientific
praxis closely associated with (post-)modern sensibilities (Zienkowski, 2017).
Reflexivity also refers to the relationship between the researcher, the empirical field,
and the theoretical and methodological bias orienting observation practices and field
notes. This could allow the researcher to question the realities studied, the ways
knowledge is generated, and the researcher’s own interpretations and theorizations.
According to Eriksson, Henttonen, and Meriläinen (2012, p.11), the basic argument in
recent discussions on reflexivity is that authors should explicitly position themselves in
relation to the objects (conceptual, human, and material) of study. This would allow
potential readers to evaluate the knowledge produced, taking into account the social
values and assumptions of the authors. This development has led to different forms and
uses of reflexivity, to the extent that Lynch (2000) recommends speaking about
“reflexivities.”
Certainly, the researcher should bear in mind the praxis of reflexivity when
generating the field notes and translating them into the field diary and the ethnographic
report. For this reason, the field notes cannot be only descriptive; they must also be
analytical and interpretative. The following extract from Maria’s field diary is an
example of how we introduced the students, who were doing an ethnography about their
learning transitions inside and outside the secondary school using digital technology, to
the difference between the field notes and the field diary.
Then, the importance of field notes is discussed. The question arises
about the difference between field notes and field diary. While Fernando
explains it, I look for my two collections of field notes that are in the
Moodle and show them to the students. Afterwards, Fernando talks about
the hours of work it takes to transform each field note sheet into a field
diary, and explains the question that arises about the difference between
the notes (as evidences . . .) and field diary (as research . . .).
If an ethnographer is reluctant to use to a poststructural ethnographic approach to
disrupt the relationship between the fieldwork, the field notes, the field diary, and the
ethnographic report, a position of reflexivity could support the writing of ethnography
as a practice of narration, not as focused on “capturing the real already out there. It is
about constructing particular versions of truth” (Britzman, 2000, p. 30). In a similar
direction, Wolfinger (2002) remembers that due to the ongoing nature of sense-making
and interpretation of the ethnography, both in the notes and field diary, as well as in the
writing of the ethnographic report, field workers can lend coherence to their research by
practicing reflexivity throughout their research process.

Inconclusive Remarks
Field notes are common resources for collecting, recalling, and producing information
in many disciplinary domains, including anthropology, geology, architecture,
geography, ethology, archaeology, biology, the arts, and education. Researchers
compile and generate field notes (whether by writing, photographing, drawing, or
filming) as a strategy for coping with the complexity they face when trying to
understand social and material phenomena that are interwoven and multifaceted. Each
of these realms has its specific ends, methods, and contextual processes. However, all
they share problems and dilemmas such as:
(a) the relationship between the ontological-epistemological positioning and the role
and meaning of field notes in the research or documentation process;
(b) the need to consider field notes not as a method but as an event of confluences,
entanglements, and intra-actions between researcher’s imaginaries, tacit knowledge, and
communities of thinking and practice;
(c) the viewing of field notes as an assembly operation, performing the same function
that the storyboard plays in a comic or in a film, because they make visible the
researcher’s gaze, thoughts, and feelings, in a semi-structured manner;
(d) the fact that field notes confront researchers and possible readers with the fantasy of
naturalism and representationalism associated with fieldwork, due to the impossibility
of collecting the full complexity of what flows in a field characterized as multisited,
entangled, multifaceted, and borderless;
(e) the unprecedented development of digital technology, which makes the world
increasingly multimodal and visually oriented, confronts researchers with even more
complex social phenomena and the need to be able to understand, use, read, and write
not only text but also images capable of accounting for new realities; and
(f) field notes are a productive strategy full of possibilities that confronts and allows
researchers to give an account of how the unknown, the new, and the different affect us.
A key issue underpinning this article is the analysis of field notes, and the
foundation, possibilities, and limitations of that analysis. This is important, not only as
part of the research process, but also because of its influence in the academic sphere as
an indicator of professionalism. Fendler (2015) reflects on the tensions of this process:
Codification. The tacit knowledge that you need to acquire in the path
toward academic professionalization is abundant, like in most
professional arenas. Attempting to codify that knowledge, make it
explicit, is an attempt to make sense of it all . . . But it’s impossible to do
so, such knowledge always exceeds our representational capacities. You
have to commit to picking up what you can, as you go along: you learn
on the move. (p. 121)
In our case, we situate our field notes in conversation with the thoughts that emerge as
we read them carefully, in a process of interrogation and searching for what is explicit
and what remains invisible. During this activity, we make clear the underlying decisions
that help us choose what to annotate, photograph, or observe in the field, and the
connection this choice has with our ontological, epistemological, methodological, and
ethical positionality. This is a research process, part of the creation of the field diary,
and later of the research report, which we then link to concepts and readings also
guiding both the field work and our analysis. This is an undertaking that requires
openness, flexibility, and rigor. There are other possibilities that give more security to
the researcher, such as, for example, a coding system, whether manual or through a
computer program. In this way, an operation is set in motion in which the field notes are
filtered, sifted, sorted, and coded so that themes, concepts, regularities, and differences
emerge. Rachel Fendler, in her doctoral dissertation, reflects on the possibilities, doubts,
tensions and dilemmas arising during the coding process of field notes, particularly as
they relate to the question of meaning:
Returning (again) to the doubts that coding introduces, I am struck by the
fact that the code word sifting has evolved in meaning. This illustrates an
issue I ran into while coding, and which is not frequently discussed in the
literature: even when working within specific parameters, meaning is not
fixed. A single code can be interpreted in different ways, and its meaning
is subject to change over time. (2015, p. 121)
As she notes, a coding system can obscure the possible meanings and connections of
field notes and the relationships we can generate from them. This is because the
research, by means of field notes, needs to cope with something similar to what
Nathaniel Hawthorne (2012) calls the theory of “a glimpse light,” which refers to the
impossibility of fully grasping the precise contours of reality. He considers that the
author’s gaze always clashes with the hazy nature of reality. Only by taking advantage
of the dim light that reality offers can we delve deeper into this almost incommunicable
area that always rests upon what we see on the surface.
In the end, with field notes, something similar to what Hawthorne describes does
happen. Field notes allow researchers to approach a reality that escapes them, from
which they can collect fragments of conversations, encounters, images, impressions,
feelings, or evocations, but which always confront researchers with the incompleteness.
We can find guidelines that give us security, that tell us how to organize ourselves. But
we will always find ourselves grappling with the doubt of the unseen, the unthought—
what is left on the margins. Recognizing these limitations is one way of approaching
ethnographic research, and by doing so we can weave the moments we collect in the
field notes, while remaining aware that another researcher will gather other insights in
the same field. Nevertheless, that is why we do research: to make sense of a fragmented
reality, and to explore and understand some of its underpinning interactions and
relationships.
Links to Ethnographic Writing Resources
1) Seth Kahn, “Putting Ethnographic Writing in Context”:
The author explains the different kinds of writing that are involved in the creation of
field notes, up to and including the final product. Available
*online[http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/kahn--putting-ethnographic-
writing.pdf]*.
2) Jens Gerken, Stefan Dierdorf, Patric Schmid, Alexandra Sautner, & Harald
Reiterer: “Pocket Bee—a multi-modal diary for field research”:
The authors present an overview of Pocket Bee, a multimodal diary tool that allows
researchers to remotely collect rich and in-depth data in the field. Based on the
Android smart phone platform, they especially focus on an easy-to-use interface.
They introduce the notion of core questions that serve as cognitive triggers for
 predefined events. Multiple modalities allow participants to compose notes in the
most appropriate and convenient way. Available *online[hci.uni-
konstanz.de/downloads/pocket_bee_camera_ready_v1.pdf].*
3) EthnoAlly is a mobile application that enables researchers to create and
organize multimodal field notes for ethnographic studies. The mobile app
produces GNSS-tagged multimodal material which is then archived, organized,
and analyzed on a cloud application server. EthnoAlly functions as a personal
assistant for ethnographers in their exploration of people and places, as well as
a participatory tool that researchers can use with their interlocutors, both in
person and remotely—for example, in the form of multimodal diaries.
Available *online[https://docubase.mit.edu/tools/ethnoally/].

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