Field Project
The place I chose for my field project is a small Mexican restaurant in Oak Cliff. It is where I work and two of my field notes were written after my shift while one was written in the moment during one of my days off. Aside from my own observations, I also talked to the owner and other coworkers who have been there more time than I have and know many of the reoccurring customers. I initially wanted to write about each customer I personally got to know but decided to only write about a particular table where all the customers like to sit, a familiar face and a new one, and the newest member of our crew. This decision was taken because the other poems were meant to be written using the customer’s persona and after reading the Buzzfeed article along with some class discussion, I opted to not risk writing through someone’s eyes until I have done more research. Those poems are an ambition for a later project and time.
My first set of field notes was generic bullet points. While I used some of the things I wrote like “everyone is always on their phones” and “people sit away from each other on the same spot”, it was not specific enough nor did it come from detailed observation. In one of the essays from class, Thick Description, the author talks about looking at the difference between a twitch and a wink. Noting the small details that mean different things given the context of the situation. What I might have observed and interpreted on that first set of field notes might have not been an accurate “capture” of the action, as I was only recording a movement and not a gesture with meaning. For example, I had written about a man who was always on his phone when he ate alone. I tied this to people being absorbed by their own technology and didn’t give it much thought as to why he specifically liked to be on his phone.
When I made a third observation on this same man (he came everyday), I noted he was on his phone again even though there was someone with him. I again assumed he was trapped in his phone and didn’t care about his surroundings but then realized he wasn’t actually doing much on the phone.
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He was having an actual
conversation with the woman next to
him and only looking at his phone – the rest of his attention was clearly on the woman. When the food was brought to him, he chose to look at the woman rather than his food and that’s when I started to wonder if he was avoiding his food on purpose. Perhaps it wasn’t that he was consumed by technology when he went to eat alone but rather he was choosing to ignore the food in front of him and found anyway to distract his eyes from the plate. The questions and commentary changed from the man and his technology to the man and his relation with food.
My last set of field notes was the one written in real-time and I took note of not only the people but also began to create meaning behind their context. It did not feel like guessing or making them mean something more than they were, but helped give context as to how each person had come to the restaurant and why.