Fieldwork in Malta

Abstract

Jeremy Boissevain takes us step by step through the sequence of events leading to and through his fieldwork in Hal-Farrug. The preliminary stages of getting to Malta, seeing people and filling out documents, finding a village, then settling in a family of four in improvished quarters, and the initial fieldwork contacts with the people, give us an intimate and useful view of events that are rarely reported in the ethnographic literature. Of particular importance to an understanding of the anthropologist's work in the field is the description of the problem villagers had deciding what he was and why he was in Hal-Farrug. This is always a problem and one that is frequently underestimated by fieldworkers. The anthropologist plays many subroles within the limitations of his overall role as an inquisitive and usually agreeable stranger, so his activities and the reasons for them seem especially confusing. Jeremy Boissevain describes in detail his many daily contacts with shopkeepers, the parish priest, and neighbors. It becomes clear that much of the most valuable data came from unplanned casual contacts. Someone he met on the way to the priest's house, people he met in local bars, others in church, casual contacts in the shops - these provided essential data that cannot be acquired through more formal planned activities. This is one of the truly satisfying aspects of the field experience, but it is also anxiety-arousing since one never knows from day to day and moment to moment whether one will be able to make productive contacts or where they will lead once made. But Boissevain does not neglect the other means for gathering relevant information. The use of current documents, archival resources, photography, direct interviews, genealogies, and census-taking are discussed. And finally, data processing and write-ups are treated, both of which are very instrumental in determining the shape of the case study that students and colleagues will read.