Document Type
Article
Abstract
In this presentation I will look at the various levels of interaction between the three agents, the researcher, the assistant and members of the community within which research is being conducted within the context of my fieldwork amongst the Ovahimba people over a period of seven years. The potential interaction between these three agents are manifold and can be questioned in a number of ways, of which: What the researcher wants, what the assistant thinks the researcher wants, what the assistant wants in terms of his or her respective relationships with the researcher and members of the community, what members of the community want from the assistant and also through the assistant from the researcher. I will also examine how research methods were adapted to the level of skills of assistants and how in turn the assistants' skills influenced research methods, as well as why finally, I decided to work without assistants and outsource the skills I did not have, e.g. Word by word translation from Otjiherero to English. Various case studies will be referred to throughout, most notably the dramatic case of Tjomihano, the only assistant that was a member of the local community.
Repository Citation
Sherman, Rina. "Reading Between the Lines: Understanding Assistants in Fieldwork." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 9, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1–45. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol9/iss1/5