Feeling Fieldwork: Affectivity, Co-creativity, and Multimodality in Ethnographic Music Production
Jamie Glisson · TUNDRA Listen to ‘TUNDRA’ Ethnographic work is an affective experience. While anthropological research methods have often focused on cataloging ethnographic moments through field notes and interviews, most ethnographers will agree that the written word can’t quite capture what it feels like to be in the field. As a musician, filmmaker, and producer in my work alongside anthropology, I decided to explore how skills associated with my songwriting and sound engineering might further explicate the effervescent quality of what fieldwork feels like on an embodied register. Much like an ethnography, an album comes together through a process of refinement, of connecting what may feel like disparate ideas into a narrative whole. The analytical aspect of ethnographic work also bridges the hemispheres of the brain in a similar way that recording music does. The process of translating emotions, interactions, and expression through sound relies on a basic understanding of (read more...)