undulating research

one leading to another, and reflecting on the process opening up new possibilities, territories to look into.

çay-ince belli

http://trthaber.com/videolar/bu-video-caya-bakisinizi-degistirecek-2731.html#.Ttje7jKwCRN.facebook

bayrağa dönüşmüş coşkun şelaleri falan görmezden gelicek olursak, güzel, poetik bi nesne biyografisi, materyal kültür okuması olmuş.
tabi işin içine para kaçınca azıcık sapıyor, sapkınlaşabiliyor yazar. acendası, bağlamı, sponsoru belli bi okuma.
ali yazar veli bozar
"nation" üzerinden değil de başka şekillerde okumanın bi yolu var mıdır? içine kapanmayan, kapıda bırakmayan bi birliktelik mümkün müdür? adını ne koyarsak koyalım şekli başka bi şeye benzedikçe biraz beyhude burdan kaçmaya çalışmalar.

this entry suppose to be about voice

yet we dont know where the words guided by my mind will take us.
by voice, i try to capture many areas at the same time, I guess. that is probably why i keep postponing to talk about it, clarify it. within it i enclose my hopes for all my solutions.
i mean with voice, a position to speak from, the situatedness of my act, speech, doings.
it brings to mind a political stand, the self as something that stands for something bigger than itself.
the subject as representative of a community.
in terms of postcolonial identity politics, it is a political act, giving voice to the unvoiced stories of the other, suppressed.
yet it can also promote essentialisation of identity. and that trap is the same one orientalist gaze produces, confining it within an image, a stable entity, timeless, cliche, streotypical, that can be produced, reproduced from an earlier, subverted impression. a failed encounter, in the sense that it is failure of seeing the other. whether of too much distance or too much of proximity.
that distance-proximity axis is determined by the belief in knowing. the belief in knowing it all, prohibits the curiosity for the attempt to understand. the antibody of which could be doubt, suspicion.
i want to be able to speak without standing for a homogenised, essentialised identity category.to keep away from streotypical conceptions attributed to that category. as a respect, acknowledgement of its multidimensionality and also its fluidity, unrepresentability, and constructedness.
starting with contextualising, situating oneself has the risk of entrapping oneself I guess. that framework you are drawing can squeze you inside, an inside that is far away from you.

then, as a concern of an author,  voice also  raise the issue of mode of articulation, how you speak.
the uncanny connection of author and authority, cast suspect on the writing act totally.
how do i sound than, in practice? avoiding saying this and that, a whole lot of things kept in silent.
is that because they are denied, neglected, suppressed, avoided? or was not said because it is just irrelevant?
they are not uttered mostly because they are irrelevant, i guess. i use those cultural reference very carefully, in order not to exoticize myself, but I do use them, when i feel there is no way i can imply, give that story without recourse to some condensed images, abbreviations, short cuts. metaphors, substitutes that helps me to communicate.
the way i go through, find my way within this strange lands depends on my limited vocabulary as well. i dont have the elaborate, eloquent language, imagery to go beyond the surfaces. the literal language of the newcomer looks for the substitutes, the exchangebility in things, practices, that builds a shanty town in the foreign, unfamiliar practices. it has the quality of makeshift solutions, that shows the origins, previous histories materials used for the construction. that makes unimaginable pairs, combinations with things at hand.
in that aesthetic the inbetweennes is hidden, not settled down, it makes a suitcase a bookcase, a plastic bottle  a water warmer etc.

messy text to messy reality

the inconsistency of the self, the multi-directionality of it makes it hard to pin it down in a comprehensive text. hence using  such a medium as a research tool, and plus as the object of the research bound to produce anecdotal, dispersed outcomes, `messy texts` as Norman Denzin (1997, Interpretive Ethnography) would call it, where the connections between parts, transitions are somewhat floating.

the practice of art, can imply an experience, rather than claim to know and represent it. It approaches to its trophy , it is always in the approaching, in experimenting.  not claiming to grasp it tightly, so that there is no space for it any more to move.

in a sense, my struggle of understanding this new everyday language, the inability to grasp it, be a fluent speaker of it is echoed in this acceptance of the impossibility of knowing, the problem of representing.


given that i have to use this language, the text, I should consider what it does to doing, to practice.
writing does something else, it can depict, unearth, reveal something else. there will be always gaps between them, bits that cannot be covered. from those gaps, new possibilities will arise.

the more I attempt to grasp the practice with words, keywords, the more i try to find ally, the suspicious I become about my practice, this research methodology, the whole research.



doubt as an anti-body to truth

yurmurtatavuk problemi

burada vaka analizi yaptigimiz yer pratigimiz mi, pratigimizin kendine zemin buldugu, icinden ciktigi yabancilik hissimiz mi.
yani gundelik hayatimizin mi etnografisini yapiyoruz, yoksa pratigimizin mi?
ikisini de yapar gibiyiz, bi taraftan bu karsilasmalarin bilgisini, intibasini not ediyorum iste suraciga. sonra o suracigin tortusu diyelim hadi, sairane olsun, iste ordan kendine kaynak bulan, o hissiyat uzerine kurulmus bi pratikten bahsediyoruz. sonra bu pratikte o gundelik olanin izlerini bulmaya, pratigin kendi dinamiklerini bi duzene sokmaya, onda bi duzen bulmaya calisiyoruz.
belgeselvari isler yapsam, hani kelimenin tam anlamiyla belgesel kategorisine ilistirebilecegim isler yapsam bu etnografi yapma iddiasi daha kolay sindirilirdi tabi. retorik herseyin ilaci. gene bu pratigin bir ara alanin artifactlarini urettigini iddia edebilirim. arada kalanin kurgusal arsivi.

conceptualise and interpret

... [W]here does ethnography begin if not in a disciplined attempt to discover and describe the symbolic resources with which the members of a society conceptualize and interpret their experience?' Keith H. Basso and Henry A. Selby, Meaning In Anthropology (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1976), 3. represents with a claim of reality, truth, explain, builds a story out of the fieldwork data collected. to clarify things, I should also think about what ethnography tries to do, what it aims. especially after the reflexive turn, when the acceptance of the partiality of the researcher brings the truth claims into dispute. in that sense, if ethnography is not claiming to give truth, capture reality any more, what it does? it does not claim to explain, but describe, represent, with the acceptance that representation is not an unproblematic issue, that it cannot capture the complexity, multidimensionality of the field. to contextualise myself do i (really) need to start from my story, the bits that would exoticize my position? like the ethnical background of my family? in this research context, i find it unnecessary if not self-sabotaging. what is relevant is how i am dealing with the encounter of a totally new, alien set of everyday language, habits, that requires me go through a reorientation. and yes, every case, for every individual it will be different, according to their background, upbringing, and their personal accents, defects etc. but the limits of the context needs to be drawn carefully. it needs to be anecdotal, im not saying big sentences in my practice, and i cannot do that in the writing.

i am not claiming that i am doing autoethnography, i am exploring the possibilities of doing it

try to look into the ways, means, tools of autoethnography that can be used, appropriated to what extent they can work together. so, it is an experiment, a process where the tools of fieldwork is applied, the limits of fieldwork is questioned, the excess (bodily) knowledge fieldwork produces is looked at. the juncture where the ethnographer`s work approaches to the everyday routines of the new comer. What makes this project autoethnography, apart from its being derived from my own experiences? A collection of anecdotes, the little pseudo ethnographic stories for the ones who have not been here. A collection of first hand experiences,travel stories the amazements turned into, becomes the moving points, origins developing into visual representations, expressions, into visual language. Those amazements occur at an unexpected encounter, that marks a crack on my perception, my common sense. A breaking point that changes the picture slowly, every time. This also changes my relation with that reality, with every tiny step, addition to that experience, my new experiences is being refashioned. My perception is changed. So does the practice illustrate this, represent this what has it got anything to do with fieldwork? Collection of impressions, notes, stories, observations that help you to perform better in that new reality next time, as a newcomer. Next time you are locked in the flat you would know calling for lockersmith is not an option, if you are not the landlady of the flat. You would know, how you would ask for things. So you inhabit that local knowledge, you grow into that language. and it becomes the field, your data, later to be uttered, interpreted not with the language of ethnographic writing, but with the language of art practice. And the work the work comes from there. The practice is-does ….what is the verb-noun here? What is the function of practice? So far I have uttered some alternatives: illustrate? Made –up artifacts that embodies that experience Witness to the process, or maybe documentation of that process. documentation of some sort From the very outset, how does a work is conceived, developed, and put into full fruition, finished? Practice is the ground where the experience is unfolded-translated into the artistic language And translation relies on the meaning and then the feeling of a text I reckon. Translation of the experience into practice. I use common sense, clichés, sterotypes, images, objects that can be easily associated with, and tear their familiarity down , rely on this abbreviated, symbolic language that is being fed by our basic and sometimes wrong ideas about ourselves, and use that clichés to speak about a personal experience. To give the observer, the audience something she can easily associate, and then strip him-her bare off this knowledge, drag those taken for granted perception, push them further into unfamiliar guises. to kind of undo them.