Touched and Changed: Self-Reflexivity and Reciprocity in Fieldwork

Abstract

As I stood with a tumbler filled with gin in my right hand, heightened nerves and trepidation overcame me. I was standing in front of the final burial and resting place of my Nigerian adoptive father. It was summer of 2022—the first time I was able to travel to Calabar and see my adoptive family since his passing in 2020. COVID was of course to blame, as it prevented me from traveling. Prior to this, I fondly recall phone calls (and messaging via WhatsApp) from my home in Ohio (USA) with my adoptive mother and the rest of the family about his passing. Yet even with my amplified anxiety as I stood there, I was also oddly calm and at peace. The comfort of my adoptive mother and brothers standing beside me helped subdue the restlessness I felt.I was about to pour libation to my adoptive Papa with the support of my Nigerian family. This was not the first time I poured libation in the name of the ancestors of the Ekpe/Mgbe society. However, even though I had done it before at the request of my teachers, I am never at ease about it. Even though I was well trained on how to do it, following the proper protocol and lengthy steps, there was always a power about the process that I feared and did not completely understand. However, when my elder teachers asked me to do it, and for the sake of my adoptive father, such thoughts left as quickly as they came. Right before I started the offering my mind scrolled to one of the lessons my adoptive father taught me: to respect the knowledge my Ekpe/Mgbe teachers taught me and have confidence when it was time to demonstrate it.The moments after I successfully offered and poured the libation, relief came over me as I felt something hard to put into words. Upon finishing, my adoptive mother and bothers embraced me, smiled, and were content. After, we sat in the room beside my adoptive father's resting place chatting and catching up about the things that make one whole. At that moment I was so grateful to the Oqua family for asking me to honor our Papa and the family in their presence, as a member of the family. This was one of the many times I was deeply touched and clearly changed, and although the lasting impact is hard to articulate, the best I can offer is that it made me feel at home.While I was touched and changed, a reciprocal experience was also shared by all present. I was given a great opportunity to honor a beloved mentor through the warm feeling of acceptance by my adopted family. In return, the family had their ancestor honored through libation by someone who would normally be ignorant of and clumsy in this act of religiosity. The success of the libation demonstrated the power and fruition of their ancestor's teachings to a member of the next (and in this case, a foreign) generation; my adopted father's knowledge and good deeds continue to live on.Recent First Words and Dialogues of this journal have explored important issues and the many challenging aspects facing the fields that study African art and visual cultures, forefronting the myriad disciplinary difficulties for our readers. With this piece, I take the opportunity to switch the tone, highlighting a more positive aspect of what our disciplines have the power to do. I, like so many involved in the study of African arts, have been deeply touched and changed by the artistic expressions of Africa and the people who create, use, and ponder them. With this First Word I ask readers to “take a step back” and reflect on and share the ways in which our experiences in and around Africa have opened our eyes and touched and changed us as human beings.With such an exercise, it is my hope that a collective effort to humanize this material, our experiences, and the impact it has had on us can help to foster a “pipeline” or greater “buy in” for those unfamiliar with the galvanizing power that African art embodies. We, like most humanities fields today, must consider ways to—dare I say—maintain a healthy and steady level of interest and recruit students and advocates (most especially those indigenous to the continent and the Diaspora) for the field to flourish well into the future. Based on my research trajectory and experiences, I focus on the ways in which my long-term fieldwork and the people I met along the way in Nigeria have had a significant impact not only on my research, but, more importantly, on my worldview and life in general. I advocate that this is one of the many reasons why fieldwork can be life-changing and attractive to undertake for those venturing into the study of expressive African art and culture.Having the satisfaction of being in this field for a good number of years, I can personally attest to the stories and ways in which those involved in it have been deeply touched by the many individuals encountered in their research experiences, especially those they learned from in their fieldwork. Many of these individuals were directly responsible for our successes and, more often than not, became not only trusted mentors but lifelong friends. My focus here is not to speak only to what a researcher gains from the study of African expressive cultures or from their fieldwork experiences. I am rather interested in how self-reflective we are as scholars and how we ought to be more transparent with our fieldwork and the relationships that develop from such experiences.With the growing awareness of the importance of being transparent, ethical, and self-reflexive in scholarship and reporting of research in all areas of the academy (from translation studies to the sciences), I argue that the study of African expression is well equipped to be a leading voice and example. Self-reflexivity has long been part of fieldwork in Africa. While personal reflection is indeed important, it alone is not enough. And perhaps this is another contribution the study of African expressive cultures could offer broader interests with personal reflection and transparency in academia: We ought to also strive to be mindful of how we should forge reciprocal, mutually beneficial relationships that not only touch and change us, but also, and specifically in the case of fieldwork, positively impact the individuals from which we benefit. And if we are successful in exposing the next generation of students to the fruits of fieldwork, we, at the same time, provide guidance for how to be mindful of the ethics and reciprocity involved.If I think back to my years of training in undergraduate and graduate school, I fondly recall stories Fred Smith, Robin Poynor, and others shared with me—mostly during informal discussions outside of class, stories which imparted a palpable level of humanity to their research and personal field experience that excited me to study African expressive cultures. So many stories and life lessons that teachers, mentors, and colleagues have shared over the years come to mind. However, a question I raise here is, beyond sharing these wonderful experiences with each other in informal ways, how well do we forefront the ways in which we have been touched and changed by the study of African expressive cultures and people who grant us access to their experiences in more formal ways?In terms of the more formal outcomes of what we do, many of us first think of the publications resulting from fieldwork. I am not advocating, of course, that all articles, essays, catalogues, chapters in volumes, and books consist of merely of self-reflexive anecdotes. What I am suggesting here may not be entirely appropriate for every publishing venue. However, to support my point, especially for those who have done fieldwork, what I am encouraging already exists, albeit much more subtly: in the front matter of books by way of acknowledgments and/or buried in footnotes. The question can be raised: Are there more direct and tangible ways for us to weave into our scholarly writing what we have personally learned and gained in our attempts to explore and understand African expression? Such lessons may be discipline-specific; however, I suspect, even more of what we gained are the broader life lessons and the more nuanced ways in which we begin to understand and view this world and our place within it.Personal anecdotes are shared in publications in several ways. Artists reflect on their own experience and researchers write their own fieldwork into their studies. Self-reflective artists often put their ideas, approaches, and expressive trajectories into print. Among these are Oche Okeke, Sokari Douglas Camp, and Ibrahim El-Salahi—just three among many powerful examples of artists that this continent and its Diaspora have to offer. Artists who work in more self-reflexive ways and choose to write or participate in interviews are examples that align with what I am suggesting in this First Word. Okeke (2002) reflected on working with and learning from his mother and her uli practice; Camp spoke to how her art blurred the gendered boundaries of Ijo masquerade (Belcher and Camp 1988); El-Salahi (2012) recounted his training and artistic trajectory.While artists can easily explain personal points of view in interviews, artist statements, or essays, scholars, curators, and researchers for the most part operate within a different set of rules when publishing their findings. Despite the “rules” of scholarly publishing, Africanist scholars investigating visual and expressive culture on occasion have included self-reflexive tones to their writing—albeit, in my opinion, too briefly. Such mentions of personal engagements are often found in the front matter of books or PhD dissertations. Some examples that inspired me in my early journey into this field include, but are not limited to Barbara Blackmun, David Binkley, Daniel Biebuyck, Robin Horton, Babatunde Lawal, Amanda Carlson, Simon Ottenberg, Henry John Drewal, and Patrick McNaughton.Like artists navigating issues within their own communities, academics who investigate the art of their home regions understand already many of the issues they deal with—the nuance of language, the logics of the community, the protocols required for approaching dignitaries and elders, etc. In this way, Lawal offered readers of his book the understanding that his framework for investigating Gelede developed in part due to his being a cultural insider who grew up participating in ceremonies long before pursuing an academic career (Lawal 1996: xv).While outsiders would not know the intimate nuances of communicating within a new cultural environment, some have gained access through negotiating initiation into guilds, organizations, social, or even those religious. Some examples in the form of brief mentions or anecdotes include being initiated into aspects of the cultures studied during fieldwork (Blackmun 1984; Binkley 1987; Biebuyck 1973; Thorburn, Camp, and Horton 1995). Speaking on the impact his own publications had on the culture he studied, Ottenberg returned to the field some years after publishing Masked Rituals of Afikpo (1975) only to learn that his scholarly works had a profound impact on the market and demand for local production of Afikpo arts (Ottenberg 1989). Even further, years later, Ottenberg authored enlightening essays that took on a deep, self-reflexive tone as he rethought his own ethnography and reflected on the benefits and challenges of long-term field work (Ottenberg 2006 [1994]).Drewal, in a different but equally self-reflexive way, recounted and reflected on the lasting influence on him of his apprenticeship to a Yoruba sculptor during his Peace Corps experiences in Nigeria. Such an experience was transformative for Drewal, as it paved his way for developing his lifelong interests in pursuing a career in African art history. These life-changing field experiences led him to later framing his exploration on Yoruba style and aesthetics around his intimate apprenticeship in an exhibition and accompanying catalogue, African Artistry (Drewal 1980). Perhaps a more poignant publication of what I am suggesting in this First Word is the way in which McNaughton spoke throughout A Bird Dance Near Saturday City about the how much he learned and took away from his friendship with renowned Mande masquerader Sidi Ballo. He went as far to state in his conclusion that those he closely worked with in the field have forever touched him; in his words, “I can't live my own life—working, traveling, playing with my children—without their being [Sedu Traore and Seydou Camara] with me. The same is true of Sidi Ballo” (McNaughton 2008: 261).While any outsider must tread lightly in gaining admission into inner sanctums in which art is commissioned, created, and used, some scholars discover that gender is a determining factor that gains or hinders admission. Scholars reflecting on how their gender posed restrictions to field research and conducting interviews when investigating more gendered-based topics is yet another case (Carlson 2003). More recently, Susan Gagliardi's article “Seeing the Unseeing Audience: Women and West African Power Association Masquerades, ” addresses how women locked behind closed doors during male night performances (Gagliardi herself being among the women prohibited from seeing) become a crucial part of the participation and broader performative dialogue (Gagliardi 2018).All of these examples have fascinated me, but as a student reading these instrumental works, I often found that I wanted to know more about such experiences. Two sources that have inspired me speak in different ways of how scholars may delve more deeply into self-reflexivity: the renowned classic by Kwame A. Appiah, In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (1992), a work by an African scholar about exploring the complexities of African identity, and an article by Suzanne P. Blier (2001), “Autobiography and Art History: The Imperative of Peripheral Vision, ” which address how our own histories and experience prior to fieldwork shapes what we understand there. Appiah presents a galvanizing self-reflexive dialectic on considering the state of African identity in the waning years of the twentieth century. In his preface, after delineating the global and multicultural character of his family and speaking to how their “affinity” shaped the way he sees the world, he states, “in thinking about culture… one is bound to be formed—morally, aesthetically, politically, religiously—by the range of lives one has known” (Appiah 1992: viii, ix). Such a keen observation is valuable for us, especially those of us who encounter people of another culture and engage with them during our research, and who, in turn, shape us—both directly and indirectly.In “Autobiography and Art History, ” Blier contemplates the ways in which her own life stories, or “self-histories” (to use her phrasing), alter how she sees and views the world. This happens, of course, to all of us, particularly during our fieldwork and the theoretical perspectives we choose to employ (Blier 2001: 39). In reflecting on her personal narrative, Blier astutely specifies, “Clearly, who I am (and was) impacted on how I have undertaken research” (2001: 29). Indeed, few can argue her point that who we are is essential for understanding our fieldwork, which in turn shapes our interests and the ways in which we engage and frame our research. If we follow Blier and merge her ideas to fit here, then, who we are (and who we become) during and after we leave the field is equally important. This is even more so for those who return and leave, and return again and again.If we take Appiah and Blier together, fieldwork and the people we work with, whether in our lives “back home” or in the field, have a profound influence on our self-histories. Their “affinities” provide the much-needed filters for how we process and make sense of the world around us. A point McNaughton made in A Bird Dance emphasizes the ways we interact in field research: “We are indeed, intensely social creatures, mutually malleable through our interactions with others. Interaction constantly challenges and changes us” (2008: 108). Such encounters and interactions experienced in the field presents new crosscurrents and crossroads or new “affinities” that foster and shape new and old “self-histories. ” I argue that such transformative moments ought to be shared, disseminated not only through personal encounters with students and colleagues but also in our scholarly writing. After all, as academics and curators, much of our job is concerned with the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge.Acquired knowledge is not merely our scholarly arguments, outcomes, and findings; I am suggesting that the ways in which our teachers and friends in Africa have shaped us, touched us, and changed us is a primary part of that. Shouldn't the broad swath of the very “affinities” that ultimately author our “self-histories” also be told? Wouldn't such life lessons learned help to challenge and deconstruct the very misconceptions we often seek to dispel? In this case of fieldwork, as a humanities field, we ought to endeavor to show “how the soup is made” or, at the very least, how knowledge and the relationships that make fieldwork possible are produced, which in my estimation asks us to be more transparent and ethical and thus fundamentally humanistic. Publications are of course not the only means to achieve this goal nor should they be. There are many outlets available for self-reflexively, ways to humanize what we do (and how we do it), and how that self-reflex- ivity makes an impacts on us, on the people with whom we work, and, dare I say, effect, influence, or shape another. An additional task, which is further elaborated on in the following paragraphs, is in most of this literature, save for Ottenberg, the reciprocal effect and nature that punctuate the experiences and relationships that form the basis for our scholarship are often left out.Public talks and teaching perhaps provide even better forums than publishing in which to reflect on how we are touched and changed by African expressive cultures and by those who have tutored us in understanding them. Talks and teaching often facilitate a more personal and more informal type of delivery and engagement. For example, as a college professor, at the start of every semester, I look into the faces of (mostly) unsuspecting students who have—for the most part—never been given the opportunity to explore and understand the importance that Africa can have for anyone, no matter where they were born. Even before discussing the syllabus, the first order of business is to demonstrate why this course and material are indeed valuable, important, and necessary for their educational experience.Thus, on the first day of my courses, I am also quick to tackle the glaring question on the minds of most students in the classroom. I state: “You might be asking yourself, why is a White boy (from the Midwest, nonetheless) standing in front of you teaching you about African art? ” My answer to this question sets up an honest, self-reflexive response (complete with a slew of images, of course). I share how this field, its art, long-term commitment to fieldwork, and most importantly, the kindness and generosity of the people I have worked with and befriended in Nigeria and those who have benefited from me have truly made an impact on my life and have changed me into a better, more informed person. While I stress this on the very first day of class, I also return to these “affinities” and “self-histories” when course material allows appropriate connections.Since I have embraced this type of openness and transparency with my classes, I have noticed something special has happened—they not only “buy into the class, ” but most do their work, pore over the readings, are (seemingly) excited to be in class, and even contribute to the discussion (other than those few who always seem to be in agony, no matter what I do). As a result, I have witnessed many students enrolling and reenrolling in other classes of mine, and I am not just talking about art or art history majors but those who major in business, kinesiology, zoology, biology, supply chain, and other disciplines beyond the College of Creative Arts division.2One of the best and most fulfilling comments I have received from students is that my classes and my approach to teaching African art is, to use their words, “honest. ” In fact, the idea to be more open and self-reflective with the students on the first day of class was not my own idea but that of a student. I came to learn that my students were genuinely curious about my experiences in Nigeria and many openly informed me that they wanted to know more.For the last few years, my modified introduction to courses stresses my commitment to returning to Calabar, Nigeria, for ongoing research (2008, 2009, 2009-2010, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2022). I then discuss how elders and members of masquerade societies initiated me into Ekpe/Mgbe, Akata, Obon, Ukwa, Nnabo (Fig. 1), Agaba, and more recently, in summer of 2022, the herbalist and former execution society known as Nsibidi. I further explain how Ekpe/Mgbe elders and members apprenticed me into nsibidi, the visual and performed esoteric body of knowledge of the society. And finally, I stress the importance of my adoptive father and Qua-Ejagham elders who further initiated (Fig. 1) me to the rank of chief of the Ekpe/Mgbe society (for more see Fenton 2022: 5-10).I hope readers, especially those who do not personally know me, do not misunderstand my purpose in sharing what I outlined in the preceding paragraphs: I in no way want these experiences to come across as self-congratulatory or be read as “look at what I have done. ” In all honesty, I share this with great hesitation simply because it is not about me. It is about the elders and members who took me under their tutelage to teach me their culture on their terms, as an initiated-outsider. The point is that, from the perspective of the elders and fellow members with whom I work in Nigeria, initiation is best understood as a way to forge honesty and trust. In the context of initiation, one must be honest with oneself and initiated members as to the merits of one's invitation and thus initiation. That honesty fosters trust between members. As elders and the initiation process taught me, if the process is about trust and honesty, my work should also thus be presented transparently as the set of shared experiences and voices that shaped my effort to tell a story about contemporary masquerade in my book Masquerade and Money (Fenton 2022).Influenced by the aforementioned scholars, in Masquerade and Money I spend quite a bit of time detailing and addressing my initiations into the various cultural intuitions explored, providing details of the process that I was permitted to share. A major reason for my transparency is that elders and cultural custodians asked me, even demanded, that I be open and honest. I came to understand that it was not my journey alone. In the case of my initiations, the representation of my teachers, elders, and fellow members is crucial for understanding my own fieldwork and the overall framework of my study which forefronts how my teachers wanted to represent their culture to me, and in turn, how they wanted to be represented through my work (Fenton 2022: 8). In this way my initiated-outsider approach was not my own. It was facilitated through exchanges among the elders, members, and me. They helped reorient me and opened my eyes to those aspects that mattered most to them and thus to a more holistic understanding of contemporary masquerade on my part. It was through their guidance, teachings, and initiations that I could then attempt what they were training me to do: impart to others the knowledge and lessons they bestowed on to me. After all, one of the most baseline duties of a knowledgeable agent of societies like Ekpe/Mgbe is to teach and pass on what one has learned to those interested.In my classes, I spend time stressing that none of what I experienced and learned was possible without Clan Head Ntoe Dr. (Barr.) Patrick Inok Oquagbor V and Ntunkae Lady Patience-Lilian Edet Oquagbor Jp., my adoptive father and mother (Figs. 2-4), who took me into their family as their foster son (in 2008).3 A year later, when Sara, my life partner and wife, lived in Nigeria with me during a year of research, my adoptive father and mother initiated her into Ekpe/Mgbe (Fig. 3) and also welcome her into the family as their daughter (and in a lighthearted way, I never to fail to bring up how my wife is also my sister, which, with our adopted family we also jest about…).4 The way in which a family takes in and thus assumes responsibility for foreigners, in the case of Sara and me, was such a generously kind and empathetic act that we sincerely cherish. Such grace is an ultimate gesture of meaningful hospitality shown to a foreigner, one that American society should heed.The relationships that developed from our adoptive family were life changing, and our bond still continues today (Fig. 5). Needless to say, Sara and I grew very close to our Nigerian family. As an expression of our heartfelt thanks, when our own family was starting to grow, we extended the rightful honor to our adoptive Papa to name our firstborn, which he happily did—Alexander Ansa Fenton. Ansa was selected by our adoptive father since it was the name of a founder of the Nkonib (Ikot Ansa) clan. This is the Qua-Ejagham community and clan of which our adoptive father was head, and the specific clan that took Sara and me in. Sara and I are fortunate to have the Oqua family in our lives, and our adoptive father (when he was alive). Our adoptive mother told me that the feeling is mutual. Sara, our two children, and I were even further touched that Mommy and the Oqua family listed us as surviving members of the family in Papa's funeral program. The family also invited me to contribute a tribute for Papa's funeral program, which I wrote with great care, honor, and love.I grew close to many individuals during my time in Nigeria, and we continue our relationships via phone calls and platforms like WhatsApp. Our relationships based on reciprocity are maintained and rekindled upon every return visit. Two individuals immediately come to mind: late Chief Emmanuel Bassey Edim (Bozo) and Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa. Both of their names are cited and found throughout Masquerade and Money. I hope that readers can understand just how important their friendships are to me. Late Chief Emmanuel (Fig. 3) was one of my closest teachers, with whom I spent quite a bit of time—sometimes during my nsibidi lessons with him or at other times when we just enjoyed each other's company while sipping on whisky. He was my elder teacher, with whom I shared so much and from whom I learned so much. Chief Emmanuel was the type of teacher that reoriented me and the questions I had about his culture. He was, among others, one of the major people who went out of his way to open my eyes to the economics of masking (Fenton 2022: 356). I miss him deeply and often think about his patient and enduring spirit. I was honored that his family asked me to share photos of him (some posed with Sara and me) and to write a letter of remembrance on behalf of my family for his funeral program.One of my very best friends in this world is Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa (Fig. 4). More appropriately, we are “brothers, ” as they say in Nigeria. I hope that readers of my book realize quite palpably how much he taught me, not just about masquerade, about being an artist in Calabar, or about Efik culture, but about life in general and the responsibilities that come with it. In the chapter where I focus on Ekpenyong as a master Efik artist, I clearly state how close we are, mentioning how both of our younger children bear the names of the other's wife: Sara Ekpenyong Bassey and Taylor Eme Fenton, respectively (Fenton 2022: 206). As a young, naïve field researcher, I was guided by Ekpenyong, who helped me the most in truly grappling with and grasping the postcolonial predicament and understanding those who are positioned on the margins of the Western-dominated art world. Of course, I was well aware and cognizant of these things before fieldwork, but Ekpenyong, more than anybody else, opened my eyes to see things more profoundly and from different and nuanced perspectives. It was not that he addressed this directly; it was more modelled in the way he understands the world in the context of our deep discussions, how he carries himself, how he shows empathy, in his honesty, and in his thankfulness to his late father for what he has. All of this gives me pause and provides clarity of thought.It was our mutual relationship and trust for each other that led to our developing an ethical approach based on reciprocity in working with artists who make a living from their art and who work in formerly colonized spaces through commissioning him to create new works for museum collections. The model ensures he sets his own prices and is thus properly paid by these museums (Fenton 2017). As he has stated to me a number of times over the years, it is only because of our earnest relationship that we are able to do this in the fair, ethical way that we do.I have certainly been touched and changed by the mutual beneficial relationships with those from the field such as Ekpenyong (and others). That common benefitting is where notions of reciprocity (as well as how we carry ourselves in the field) becomes crucial. Fieldwork and the rewards of it should never be a one-way road. As wonderful and as life-changing as fieldwork can be, I have learned over my longterm commitment to it that great responsibility comes with it. One might summarize fieldwork as a type of “give and take, ” but in reality, it is more about ethically working with people than just “giving” and “