Not everything is data

By Santiago Camara –

Anthropologists are frequently told that “everything is data”, even the lack of data can be used to create an argument or come to conclusions. Blockages in fieldwork can unblock certain lines of thought, or lead to new ones. No part of fieldwork does not reveal something. While I agree, for the most part, I think it is also okay to have fieldwork sessions from which Anthropologists do not gather useful data. It is natural to make mistakes and follow the wrong line of thought. We can do this without a need to justify them into a grander narrative structure. As an example, I will use two brief vignettes from my research on chemsex (drugs and sex) among transgender people in Amsterdam.

I had been told by May, a porn director and performer, that I should attend this specific event. So there I am, sitting in a small and stuffy theater watching pornography with a group of strangers. The films are to porn what independent cinema is to Hollywood: made on a budget, and more socially impactful. They are also brutally honest and aggressive representations of the messages the performers wanted to share. One gender-fluid performer talks about how the film where they played a rapist police officer, was their way of taking back power from their experience of being raped by a police officer. Other films crescendo with blasts of electronic music and penetration with non-human objects. Another performer who molests statues of colonizers thinks of graphic sex as a decolonial and political tool. In their film, they spit blood and ejaculate onto false concrete idols. The audience is at home in this space, whereas I am not. I am sitting through two hours of intense pornography and I know it will be without a shred of usable data.

A great difficulty of mine during fieldwork was finding participants who identified both as transgender and with the practice of chemsex. This was challenging because approaching potential participants and locations where they might frequent required many assumptions. Fieldwork was a practice of following leads, which at times would bring me to places like the pornography theater I had found myself in. At no point during my time there did I have any certainty that I was amongst potential interlocutors, nor was there any indication that the pornstars used substances. All I knew was that one of my participants had been involved in a film that was shown in this theater. The point of the film screening had nothing to do with chemsex, but more with using pornography as a means of dealing with trauma. It was a very novel experience, but it did not fit within the parameters of my study.

I am way too nervous about going to a nightclub Linda, another informant, has recommended I visit if I would like to get to know the chemsex scene. I’ve known about this club for a while, but have not made the effort to go personally and as part of my research. Clubbing alone is just not something I am used to. I’m not sure I’m up to the task of being alone in an extremely social atmosphere. Still, I know that I will feel much worse if I do not force myself to go, than if I do.

Like many clubs or club-like bars, there is a pinkish/purple hue of light. I feel it is a big space and I will spend the night just discovering it. After wandering the length of the club, up and down several flights of stairs I decide to go to what I think is another bar, only to walk into a mirror. A man standing by the mirror looks at me and I shuffle away, trying to brush off the mistake. I realize then that the club is quite small. I get a drink from the real bar and head up another staircase to observe the dance floor. A few people have the same idea – sipping drinks, half-dancing, and half-leaning on the balcony rails. I stay up here most of the time that I am there. Naked men, barely clothed women, and people dressed ecstatically in drag are all enjoying themselves. There is much respect here, more than spaces like this I’ve seen elsewhere. Men will inch closer to me when they’re attracted, but with no response whatsoever from me they keep their distance. A person in drag sits alone on the couch. I’m trying to muster up the courage to sit next to them and have a chat. I take too long to do this and they get up and go downstairs. Later, as I sit on the couch two naked men walk past and give each other blowjobs in the corner.

I think my senses from being in a new space alone have been heightened. My guard is a bit up and I’m unable to approach people. I’ve just resigned myself to being proud I’ve even gone in the first place. Exposure therapy for my anxiety, I suppose. Every week it will be easier, and I intend to try to go every week.

In the initial stages of research design, I had conceptualized that visiting nightlife spaces where people who have chemsex frequently would be one of the most valuable parts of fieldwork. This may have been the case for another researcher, but I had overestimated my ability to cope with social anxiety surrounding certain aspects of fieldwork. I had been alone going to these venues, to find participants which felt dishonest to the safe spaces I was going to. As a generally anxious person, this concern was over-bloated in my mind. In this example, the field site was perfect but not suited for me as a researcher. I never ended up going every week. I gave events like this several other chances, but they never manifested into much more than anecdotal stories. Granted, I formed thoughts on my research sometimes related but mostly unrelated to what I observed during these excursions. I was uncomfortable throughout every one of them.

These stories also did not make it into the final thesis. They remain my personal experience accepting that I did not have to force these experiences into a narrative of “everything is data, including no data”. I believe it is already difficult enough to separate fieldwork from personal experience, and one way to make this distinction is to not strictly adhere to everything being data. Knowing when to call it a day and accepting that an intentional fieldwork excursion happens to be an interesting experience is not only fine but also healthy.

Santiago Camara recently graduated with a Master’s in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He has participated in peer-to-peer harm reduction efforts through Mainline Foundation. He is passionate about pursuing a career in drug ethnography and harm reduction.