I used to work in the lab, so I know the lab members well. I
hadn’t seen them for quite a while, and they just started chatting with me when
I arrived. When I introduced the purpose of my visit, they were very
understanding, and some of them even discussed their understandings of and
experience in conducting ethnographic research with me. Later when I talked to
the PI about doing ethnography in the lab, he was supportive too.
I tried both to talk to the members informally about their
work as well as random things and to make observations of what they were doing.
But I did notice the tricky part of observing. Sometimes it was hard to pretend
that I did not exist so that I could make observations without influencing the dynamics.
There was once when two of the students were sitting there and chatting about
non-research things. I stood besides them listened for a while, and decided to
take some notes on my laptop. But then their conversation came to an end
quickly, which could be because the fact that I wanted to take notes had made
them feel nervous, which I would totally understand.
After the two hours, I began to think about how my fieldwork
could help me figure out the questions that I was interested in - the processes
and values of scientific research. I felt that what I observed was only a
fragment of what happened in the lab. Maybe I need interviews or surveys to get
a better sense of the overall activities in the lab.
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