Category Archives: Reflections

At last, we have made it to Falfurrias! We gathered at the Indianapolis International Airport at 6:00 am this morning, where we began our long journey to South Texas. Our first flight brought us to Dallas swiftly and safely, with everything going impressively smoothly thus far. However, as any member of my immediate family would tell you, the Cantor curse ensures that no trip is complete without at least a few hiccups. So perhaps I am to blame for the longer-than-expected day of travel that was to follow. After a delayed flight in Dallas, we arrived in San Antonio a couple of hours behind schedule. Fortunately, all of our luggage arrived with us, which is something I think we were all very grateful for. However, difficulties with the rental car company delayed us even further and so at about 3:30 pm we finally set out with our 3-car caravan on the 3-hour drive to Falfurrias, Texas.

We arrived at our hotel at about 6:30 pm, just over 12 hours after our journey began. Needless to say, it was a long day of travel but our work for the day was not yet complete. We briefly settled in our hotel rooms before our stomachs got the best of us, so we picked up pizza from across the street and hunkered down to plan our first day out in the field. After plans had been made, several of us traveled to the only grocery store in town to grab supplies for lunch, as well as to pick up any personal items that may have been forgotten (lets be honest, no matter how many lists one may write, odds are that something will be left behind). At last, we had fulfilled all of our duties for our first day in South Texas and I know that by the end of the night, everyone was ready to begin our work in the field the following morning.

Something that surprised me through all of the setbacks and complications that we experienced today was that everyone on our team remained in remarkably high spirits. After two flights and waiting outside the rental company for at least an hour, the daunting 3-hour drive seemed to fly by and was actually quite enjoyable. I rode shotgun in a car with my fellow graduate students, Justin, Leann, and Jessica. We jammed to some good old AC/DC Pandora radio and watched the gorgeous sunset over the vast Texan expanse. Justin educated us all on several native bird species and we discussed our thoughts on the work and days to come. I think our persistent good spirits and optimism throughout our 12-hour journey reflects each of our excitement for what is to come. I think we are all more than ready to begin doing what we can to help and I can honestly say that I am incredibly proud to be a member of such a driven and determined team.

Erica

I have to admit that between the craziness of semester’s end and my dedication to being wholly present for my family at the holidays, I’ve scarcely had a moment to contemplate our upcoming trip. I sat for a few minutes today and thought about what I needed to do in order to be prepared. I pulled my backpack out of the closet, looked over my packing list, and jotted some notes for the field supplies I would need for myself and the undergraduate students who will assist me in participant observation activities this season. This, of course, is the easy part. For me, preparing myself to be the outsider working within a community is the harder part. The awkward position of insider-outsider is, for me, more daunting than considering how to pack or anticipating what the trip will entail.
Cultural anthropologists are fairly practiced at following the lead of the community members with whom they work. So, the idea of not knowing exactly where we’ll be or exactly what we’ll do is for me familiar terrain. While I know this season I’ll spend time at the cemetery, with the South Texas Human Rights Center, and at the Sacred Heart respite center, much of the trip is to be determined. The thought of this type of improvisation can be more or less exciting to consider of course, but it’s fairly commonplace in the work of a participant observer who is still new to a community and unable to veer far from key participants. What’s harder to prepare for, from my perspective, are the subtle disconnections between my particular expert knowledge base, analytical perspective, and positionality with the team and those of team members.
For example, I don’t share the same scientific expertise or the same situated knowledge of migrant identification as this group of humanitarian scientists. While I believe we all share a common commitment to raising awareness of the crisis, I don’t necessarily share the same sense of the meanings and realities of this facet of the work. For me, everything I do, experience, and observe in South Texas is filtered through the lenses of cultural anthropology and my objectives as a participant observer interested in teasing out social and political complexities of this work. So, before I leave for Texas, I take some time to remind myself of my research goals and questions. Within that, I take some time to remind myself that those awkward moments when the appropriate feelings or responses to a set of circumstances aren’t readily apparent to me can be profoundly illuminating. And, I take some time to consider how the two students who will join me as insider-outsiders in this work might experience the awkward tension of participant observation.

AO