Last year I began conducting research at a table tennis club. In hindsight, developing and carrying out this research was one of the best decisions I’ve made in quite a while. Okay, admittedly, my children would likely note that competition within the category “Daddy’s Good Decisions” is rather thin. Regardless, the plan to pursue this project had been brewing for a long time, but like so many ideas, it stayed in the backroom of my mind. Even the cobwebs that held it there were collecting dust. No, Shelob does not reside in the recesses of my mind; I evidently spin my own webs and lock my own handcuffs. Why was I hesitant to pursue research at a table tennis club? That’s a fair question.
Well, the first thing I should note is that I have an uncanny ability to avoid what is good for me. Someday a therapist will explain my self-destructive inclinations, but one of those inclinations is to avoid much-needed therapy. Hence, I continue to march through life, often in the wrong direction, well aware that I am lamentably lost.
My second excuse is that one of the few things I’ve learned over the course of my career is that studying your own community is a mistake. Of course, I only learned that nugget of wisdom by eagerly diving right into this mistake. More than once. Yes, I’m a slow learner, which is possibly one reason why I habitually avoid what is good for me. In any event, during one of these mistakes I was living in Israel. I was conducting research on religious beliefs and practices and in the back of my mind—trapped under cobwebs and collecting dust—I had always hoped to pursue ethnographic research at a synagogue. Much of my work concerns how people cooperate and build community, so a synagogue seemed like a natural place to explore these topics. I had enjoyed reading Samuel Heilman’s synagogue ethnographies, Synagogue Life and The People of the Book, and I envisioned developing a similar project. And Jack Kugelmass’s ethnographic narrative of a dying Bronx synagogue, The Miracle on Intervale Avenue, had genuinely captivated me. I had no delusions that I could write something as compelling as Kugelmass’s classic, but I thought I might be able to contribute something interesting to the anthropological literature.
Anyway, as I mentioned, I was living in Israel, conducting research in the town of Tzfat, home of Jewish mysticism. There is a shul (synagogue) on every corner in Tzfat, although describing Tzfat’s residential geography as possessing corners is a bit misleading. This historic city is a meandering maze of cobblestone streets, its pathways more akin to a plate of spaghetti than a residential area. I spent many days wandering those pathways, sampling the diverse smorgasbord of shuls, ultimately gravitating toward one where I felt comfortable. Why was I comfortable? Because I was ignored and anonymous, which is exactly how I want to be treated at a synagogue. I know others turn to their houses of worship for fellowship and social stimulation, but a friendly smile is all I need in such settings. As any introvert will tell you, conversation is an effort and, on most days, a communicative conspecific is not required for my happiness or comfort. So, once I found this holy space that afforded moments of anonymity and spiritual serenity, I did what I often do when things are going well: I think up the dumbest idea imaginable and pursue it with enthusiasm. I decided my spiritual refuge would be a wonderful place to conduct research. Now, however, every time I attended shul I no longer found myself in a place of peace. I had traded cherished moments of inner tranquility for a mind racing with thoughts of research plans and hypotheses. After about a month I realized what I had done—destroyed my sanctuary—and the damage could not be undone. Even when I decided to give up my research plans, I couldn’t tame my monkey brain and, like one of Pavlov’s dogs, whenever I entered this shul my mind flooded with research ideas.
I should have learned this lesson much earlier in my career—in fact, right at its inception. Anthropology graduate students are pushed out of the nest in their first summer of graduate school. Specifically, they are encouraged to explore a potential field site for their dissertation research. Given my interest in cooperation and the fact that I had spent a year of my life living on a kibbutz after a rocky first year of college—a story for another day—the kibbutz seemed like the obvious place to develop my research. Kibbutzniks are no strangers to research—they are one of the most intensively studied communities on the planet—so it seemed like a perfect opportunity. But, it turns out, the type of systematic quantitative data I intended to collect was outside the experience of most kibbutzniks. I wanted to measure the time and energy they were expending on various cooperative activities, but when they were working collectively it was inappropriate for me to be collecting data. Understandably, they wanted my help. If they needed an extra set of hands to lay irrigation pipes in the avocado fields, they didn’t care if those hands were attached to an anthropologist attempting to record data. After a summer of such encounters I realized that working as the proverbial anthropological fly on a kibbutz wall would not be possible. Incidentally, I had no such difficulty in Micronesia, where I eventually pursued my dissertation research. On the atoll where I lived, I wasn’t even considered a male since I had never fished a day in my life. Because of my piscatory ignorance I was discouraged from doing any physical labor—who knew what I would do to myself? Mind you, this is a place where three-year-old children regularly wield machetes. This meant that since I was discouraged from touching such tools, on occasion I had to turn to these toddlers for help when I wanted a coconut to drink. Needless to say, everyone was much happier when I was collecting my data than trying to assist them in their various collective labor activities.
Back to table tennis. I was particularly hesitant to pursue research at a table tennis club because if it did not go well, not only would I be ruining the enjoyment I get from playing at the club, but I could potentially ruin the club experience for Eliel as well. I will be the first to admit that my parenting prowess is questionable, but I had enough sense not to make this wrong move.
Admittedly, I had another deterrent preventing me from committing this mistake: I didn’t think anyone would take my work seriously. I have no thoughts of—or desires for—grandeur and fame; I’m an anthropologist after all. But research is arduous and while I know my academic contributions have not had much, if any, impact on the world, I appreciate that some of my publications on religion are read by students and a handful of scholars. But the study of sport is not an important topic within anthropology and the little work that has been done in this area is generally ignored. More practically: why would a funding agency support research on sport? And even if I could find an appropriate funding agency, why would they take me seriously?
So, what changed? The first change was that Eliel was no longer living at home. Although parenting is a lifetime commitment, I interpreted his departure for college as a license for me to be a little less responsible as a parent. Second, I realized I didn’t need to conduct research at my own table tennis club; I could pursue research at another club. That way, if the club members ultimately wound up chasing me away with pitchforks and cursing seven generations of my future descendants, at least I would not have destroyed my table tennis refuge. Lastly, a funding opportunity crossed my desk. I decided to give it a shot and submit a proposal. And good fortune shined on me.
Some other time I will describe the details and findings of this research, but for the moment I simply want to reflect on the fact that this research, unexpectedly, turned out to be one of the most moving experiences of my life. It was genuinely transformative. Although my study was aimed at gaining a greater understanding of how some people derive meaning from playing table tennis, I ultimately learned much more about myself than anyone else. And oddly, these were mostly things I had previously learned during earlier ethnographic research, but had forgotten. As I said, I have an uncanny ability to avoid what is good for me, and despite always loving ethnographic research, in recent years I had turned my attention to other research methods.
What did I learn, or maybe more accurately, relearn?
I relearned that although I am often uncomfortable conversing with people, never knowing what to say, I love hearing people’s stories. I realized that one of the reasons I am drawn to anthropology is that I love stories, and anthropologists, if nothing else, are story collectors. Anthropology offers me an excuse to listen to people’s stories and provides me with a much-needed script (my interview questions) for eliciting these precious tales.
I relearned, as Zborowski and Herzog underscored in their idealized account of shtetl life, “life is with people.” And that is good. I spend most of my days alone with minimal human interaction, and I am content in such a life. But while conducting ethnographic interviews I was often engaged in conversation for 12 straight hours, and shockingly, I enjoyed myself. It was mentally and emotionally exhausting, but it was also life-affirming. I was undeniably happy. While I was engaged in my research I felt I was part of this table tennis community. I felt included, and, again to my surprise, I liked that feeling. The hermit’s life suits my introverted disposition well, but like everyone, I evidently had yearnings for community that I had not fully appreciated.
I learned—no relearning in this case—that I love being around table tennis. Don’t ask me why. I honestly have no idea. There is nothing inherent in the game that could explain why it should capture my, or anyone’s, devoted attention. Or at least no objective reason why this sport should seize my life rather than some other sport. But fieldwork was making me realize that I simply enjoyed being around table tennis—playing, watching others play, talking about playing, and so forth. I’m at home in the table tennis world and the truth is, there are not many places I’ve found where I feel at home.
Although I had forgotten how transformative ethnography is, anthropologists who reflect on their fieldwork regularly discuss similar experiences. Remarkably, even non-anthropologists are aware of the transformative power of ethnographic research. As Barbara Myerhoff relates, while conducting research at the Israel Levin Senior Center for her pioneering ethnography, Number Our Days, one of the Center’s members refused to be interviewed, explaining: “If I would tell you my life and you would really listen, it would change you, and what right have I to do that?”
Aside from learning about myself, I realized my interviews were also affording an opportunity for those I was conversing with to better understand themselves. We express—to ourselves and others—what is meaningful through narratives. Indeed, people, places, things, and activities remain meaningful in our lives through the stories we tell about them. My interviews were providing a space for people to tell their table tennis tales, and consequently, realize how much the sport meant to them. Indeed, as the interviews were unfolding I began to appreciate that I was not objectively documenting players’ table tennis lives, as I had anticipated: my interviewees were creating their lives in front of me. And I was complicit. We—interviewer and interviewee—were collaboratively creating another person, what in the anthropological literature is known as an ethno-person. Barbara Myerhoff captures the notion well:
When one takes a very long, careful life history of another person, complex exchanges occur between subject and object. Inventions and distortions emerge; neither party remains the same. A new creation is constituted when two points of view are engaged in examining one life. The new creation has its own integrity but should not be mistaken for the spontaneous, unframed life-as-lived person who existed before the interview began. This could be called an “ethno-person,” the third person who is born by virtue of the collusion between the interlocutor and subject.
I was initially uncomfortable with the realization that I was involved in creating rather than documenting. As I confided to various colleagues: “What on earth am I doing? I fear my work has left the world of research.” Despite my confusion and discomfort, anthropologists have long been aware that their writings and lectures are not simply representing the cultures they study. They can’t help but co-create the cultures they study, and this act of invention is intimately tied to the transformation that I and other ethnographers experience while pursuing our craft. Indeed, it is inherent in the ethnographic research process. As Roy Wagner writes in The Invention of Culture:
The relation that the anthropologist builds between two cultures—which, in turn, objectifies and hence “creates” those cultures for him—arises precisely from his act of “invention,” his use of meanings known to him in constructing an understandable representation of his subject matter. The result is an analogy, or a set of analogies, that “translates” one group of basic meanings into the other, and can be said to participate in both meaning systems at the same time in the same way that their creator does. This is the simplest, most basic, and most important consideration of all; the anthropologist cannot simply “learn” the new culture and place it beside the one he already knows, but must rather “take it on” so as to experience a transformation of his own world.
Recognizing that my experience was common, and almost inevitable, has certainly lessened my concerns about what I was doing. I was continuing work in anthropology’s challenging ethnographic tradition; a tradition, in my mind, that is unrivaled in its ability to understand others’ lives. But when I had been deeply concerned, I joked with the colleagues I was confiding in that I feared my interviews were more akin to therapy than research. In truth though, my ethnographic interviews were not therapy for my interviewees—they were therapy for me. Among my many revelations from this so-called therapy was a grateful discovery that I don’t necessarily avoid what is good for me. I just need to dust off those cobwebs of my mind a little more often and release the ideas, plans, and dreams I keep buried there. And playing a little more table tennis doesn’t hurt either.
Richard Sosis 