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.
Latest Posts
New Year Resolutions
For many of us, 2016 was a tough year. We witnessed widespread human rights violations across the globe, terrorism, mass shootings, hate crimes, racism, political turmoil, and said goodbye to many influential people. All this in addition to our own personal struggles. At times we cried, we were enraged, we were heartbroken and we were empty. Some of us protested, some volunteered and some donated resources to do our small part to bring peace, love and acceptance to all. We are looking for a way to be the hope/peace/love/joy we want to see in the world, and a way to right the injustices we see all around us.
I understand that my privilege allows me to volunteer my time and my resources to social justice initiatives even though my lived experience prohibits me from truly understanding. I will be starting 2017 in Brooks County at Sacred Heart Cemetery continuing the exhumations we started in 2013 and 2014. We worked with Baylor University to remove over 100 unidentified migrants from the ground so they could begin their journey towards identification and repatriation. Volunteering to bring awareness to this humanitarian crisis, to bring closure to family members and to give a voice to a marginalized population feels like the most appropriate way to start the new year and put the trials of 2016 in the past.
This trip will be different than previous seasons in several ways. This year we will be joined by faculty and students from Texas State University. We have worked with them the last two years in the lab and are eager to work with them in the field as well. Our previous trips have occurred in May or June, so a January trip should be more comfortable for the manual labor we will be conducting at the cemetery. In addition to the UIndy forensics team, we will also be joined by a group of cultural anthropologists from UIndy. Supervised by Dr. Alyson O’Daniel, they will be conducting participant observation at the cemetery and community outreach at the South Texas Human Rights Center. My family will also be joining me to better understand what I do during these trips to Falfurrias.
I look forward to working with an amazing group of people from UIndy, TX State, the Brooks County Sheriff Office and the local community. I am eager to catch up with our friends in Falfurrias and continue to contribute our small part to these identification efforts. Happy New Year to you all!
~KEL
Embracing the Unknown
Before embarking on this trip to South Texas I’ve been asked countless times why I’m going and what I’ll be doing. While I have prepared answers for these inquiries, I’m also acutely aware that they do not truly reflect the variety and depth of work and emotions I will be facing. It’s simple to tell people I will be assisting the UIndy forensics team at Sacred Heart Cemetery in the exhumation of unidentified migrants, it will be quite another thing when I’m there experiencing the heat, smells, sore muscles, and high emotions. I can tell people I will be helping at the South Texas Humans Right Center, but once I’m there in the thick of the crisis and tensions I will have a new perspective of and connection to the situation at our border. If I’m talking to families who have missing loved ones or those who may soon be reunited, I cannot imagine the flood of emotions I will experience. I believe this is not a trip I can truly prepare for, because the actuality will be far different than any expectations I can form. For me, this is both incredibly exciting and terrifying. I look forward to the flexible, anything-can-happen nature of this work but also worry about my in-the-moment reactions. For these reasons I have focused on the practicalities of making sure I have what I need and not worrying about all the things I cannot control.
I am traveling with the team as an undergraduate cultural anthropology student. Although I have traveled abroad and been immersed in other cultures before, it has never been in the context of field work and active participant observation. Nor have I ever been involved with crisis response. This is a unique opportunity that I am so thankful to have been offered. It will be interesting to see how everything plays out and what people and situations we encounter. Taking jottings through the day and typing up field notes in the evening will also be a new experience that I will have to learn to balance with our demanding schedule. However, I look forward to the reflection and insight I can gain through an observant, focused directive.
Amidst all the emotion and trials I will face I am thankful to be apart of such an amazing, dedicated, and experienced team. It’s exciting to be apart of an important effort and have the chance to offer whatever assistance and insight I may be able to. I can only go in with an open heart and mind to embrace whatever happens, offer help when I can, and observe and record my experiences in the hope that my effort can make some small difference.