Välitöökogemuse kehaliste ja emotsionaalsete aspektide peegeldustest soome-ugri ekspeditsioonipäevikutes

Abstract

This article focuses on fieldwork as a personal, emotional and corporeal experience. My aim is to give an overview of how this kind of subjective dimension is present in the fieldwork diaries of Estonian ethnographers kept in the archives of the ENM. Ideas about the role of scholar’s individuality in knowledge production have transformed in the course of disciplinary history. In the early days of ethnology, it was understood that using appropriate methodology would provide objective descriptions of how things really are. Postcolonial and feminist theories and the discussions leading to and stemming from the reflexive turn made it clear that scholar’s personal background and characteristics inevitably influences both the dynamics and results of research. This article also stems from the understanding that ethnographical knowledge and the formation of museum collections always to some extent reflect the individuality of the people who created them, their subjective choices and motivations in collecting process, and their relationship with the research subjects. Various sensory experiences and emotions shape the researcher’s impressions and attitudes in the field, but they also influence the interpretation of fieldwork materials and the subsequent analysis. Analysing the subjective bodily and sensory experiences reflected in ethnographic fieldwork diaries can thus broaden our knowledge about the context of collecting and contribute to the understanding of the process of creating sources and museum collections.