George Mason University

Objects of Memory Paper

To interview someone (or several people) to learn about one object or an arrangements of objects that are in some way meaningful to them. For examples and more information about objects of memory, please see Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s essay "Objects of Memory: Material Culture as Life Review" and articles on roadside shrines and altars. I also recommend Mary Hufford’s The Grand Generation.

Format of paper. Use conventional essay format. Feel free to use subtitles in the essay to separate one section from another if you’d like. Since you’ll be writing about your fieldwork experiences, you are welcome--and encouraged--to use "I" in this paper.

You’ll be presenting fieldwork findings and analyzing them. You may want to place your analysis in a separate section after you present your ethnographic data. Or, you may choose to interweave your interpretation with your fieldwork. Use whatever organizational pattern works best for you and your material.

You’ll be quoting what people say; be sure to double-check in a writing handbook the conventions for including quotations in a paper.

Current fieldwork practice, however, does experiment with alternatives to block quotations. For example, some people don’t like to put their informants words single-spaced in a block quote; they’d like to have them in the body of the text to make more equal the words of the writer and the words of the informant. You’re welcome to experiment in this way. Comment on these experiments when you write the section on your fieldwork.

You must include information about your fieldwork. Where you place it is up to you. Folklorists often include fieldwork details either at the beginning or the ending of a piece, sometimes in the first footnotes, and sometimes threaded throughout the essay.

Questions to explore in the body of your essay:

*Informant’s source. When/how did your informant get the idea to make or to display materials in the way that s/he has? Where? From whom? Persons present?

*Changes. How have the objects or the display of them changed over time? What things have stayed the same and why? Who may make the changes in the objects; who may not? Ways of doing that are allowed, not allowed; proper and improper.*The assembly. How does your informant make/purchase/assemble the materials? What other people helped? Record anything about the process: tools, materials, place of purchase, etc.

*The assembly. How does your informant make/purchase/assemble the materials? What other people helped? Record anything about the process: tools, materials, place of purchase, etc.

*Present performance context. How are the materials used now? By whom? For whom? Who may see them, who may not? How are people supposed to behave in their presence? How do people behave with the objects?

*Display. How are the objects arranged? Consider elements that help people make something "special": selection, arrangement, repetition, foreground/background, objects taken out of everyday context, place in the home/car/yard.

*Dissassembly. Are the materials put away at some point? Why? By whom? How does this dissassembly proceed? Anything thrown away or placed elsewhere?

*Your appraisal of your informant's folklore repertoire. What other objects of memory does your informant have/display? What other items of folklore does your informant use: family stories, jokes, songs, foods? Other traditional material culture items?

*What stories are associated with this object/display? What stories and other information does this object recall for your informant(s)? Record his/her version of the story or tell your version of the story. Jokes associated with this display? Has the display been used to tease other people? Issues of in-group (esoteric) and out-group (exoteric) behaviors?

*Your informant’s interpretation of the object/display’s meaning and function. If your informant talks about what the object/display and its care means to him or her, record what he or she says.

--If your informant doesn't offer, ask what the object/display means to him or to her. Ask why he or she keeps it. Ask if the food reminds him or her of anything from the past. (See how the squash pies brings back childhood memories of the cellar storage areas for the women of Allen’s Neck in Kathy Neustadt’s study Clambake.)

--What does s/he think of its smell, color, texture: remember the senses in your fieldwork.

*Your interpretation of the object/display’s meanings and functions. In your opinion, why does your informant make and use this object/display in the way s/he does? What does the object/display and its care mean to him or her?

--Use some of the concepts we’ve discussed to interpret your object/display. Although it sometimes feels uncomfortable to us to analyze personal materials such as our family’s memory objects, I am asking you to write such an analysis.

--Consider some of the following: twin laws of variation, communal aesthetics, ritual and festival, rites of passage, folk group, esoteric/exoteric, conspicuous display, symbolism, function, the senses, aesthetics of presentation, invention of tradition, life cycle, ownership and deference, process, the performance of identity, gender, class, race and ethnicity, negotiation, relationship of the individual to the group, traditional and outsider art, feeling responsibility for passing on tradition, "tradition."

--Think also about artistic issues in the appearance and the arrangement of the object/display: repetition, exaggeration, enlargement, sequence, symbols with their economy of expression and condensation of meaning, juxtaposition, emphasis, combination, emotional heightening, communication, objects taken out of everyday contexts, play. See Ellen Dissanayake’s What Is Art For?

*Your comments on the fieldwork process. When and where and with whom did you do your fieldwork: day, time, place, circumstances. How did you do your fieldwork? Describe your fieldwork process: did you use a tape-recorder? Did you take notes, photographs? What challenges did you face doing this assignment? What did you enjoy? What problems did you experience? What did you notice as you tried to fasten into print information that was told orally? Other observations?

*Other ideas you’d like to include.
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Examples of Northern Virginia Folklife Archive holdings related to memory objects:

95-16 Dollhouses & Roomboxes, N VA --L. Mizerak
96-15 Memory Object: Fish Mounts; Life on Holston River; Gate City, VA --C. Coleman
96-16 Memory Object: Family Photo of Immigration to USA from S. Vietnam; VA --T. Lewis
96-17 Memory Object: Grandmother’s Wedding Ring (family); Montvale, NJ --L. Keller
96-35 Depression Quilts (Family); VA --A. Bresnahan
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How I grade this paper: Given your fieldwork situation, I look for ample contextual and performance details that you have been able to observe and record. Those are important because you need them for any analysis you might make. I especially look for the thoughtfulness of your interpretations.
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FORMS: Northern Virginia Folklife Archive

Please deposit your research with the Northern Virginia Folklife Archive. Through the Archives, you can help preserve and teach others about the folklore and folklife of Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic states.

The Release Form. Part of fieldwork collection is discussing with your informant how you--and others--may use his or her oral materials. If you and your informant are willing, I will house your collection of his or her materials in the Northern Virginia Folklife Archive. Most universities with folklore courses have such archives where students and researchers can come and learn about local and out-of state traditions.

Here, at Mason, these archives are in my office. The people who have used them the most are students looking for paper ideas and guidance or students checking for versions of stories they've heard. I've had a few requests from researchers outside the university. And folklorists documenting the folklife of Northern Virginia for our state folklorist have used our collection.

The form you fill out will be for this paper only. Should you place other collected items in the archive, I'll give you additional forms for those papers.

Please come visit the Northern Virginia Folklife Archive (my office, Rob A439) during my office hours or check with me for extra hours. Look at the foodways research your GMU colleagues have done; these papers provide good models for you! See the partial list of Archive holdings at my website: http://mason.gmu.edu/~myocom.

Volunteer in the Archive. If you’d like to volunteer or sign up for an internship (ENGL 498) in the Archives and learn about folklore archiving, please come see me.

The Accession Form: This form gives us information about you and your informant(s) for our searchable data base. It’s important to fill it out with great care.

-- Yocom, February 2001

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