“We have four young ladies with us today. They are from UBC…[and] will be here ‘till June.”

For my fellow classmates/volunteers and I, this marked the commencement of our IVEFS placement. At the same time, it introduced three “strangers” into the neighborhood house.

The “stranger” is a social position coined by Georg Simmel (1908). The term alludes to an individual fixed within a social circle, who is not perceived as entirely among the “in-group” due to his/her “origin” from outside that group.

Negotiating between the “participant” and “facilitator” labels, our position within the immigrant integration program in which we are placed, epitomizes that of the “stranger.” On the one hand, we have not the responsibility of facilitating the discussion groups, but simply that of preparation duties. Yet, as student ethnographers, we do not “fit in” with the participants either.

In a way, this “stranger” position in the neighborhood house facilitates my ability to hold both an emic and etic perspective (Sunstein & Chiseri-Strater, 2007). It allows me to make the strange familiar by immersing into the culture of the group, all the while trying to keep an “outsider” perspective on the issues arising during the course of my placement, by problematizing that which has been made familiar.

I had not questioned my exact responsibilities of having the privilege to see both sides of the story until my second week at the fieldsite. During that placement session, the topic of the Chinese head tax arose in the midst of an activity. In response to inquiring participants, a native English-speaker, who we shall refer to here as ‘X.’, took it upon himself to enlighten the group:

X.: “The UK had [the head tax] too…they called it the ‘poll tax’: P-O-L-L tax.”

Wrong.¹

X.: “[It was] necessary at that time…to stop the 50,000 Chinese that wanted to come into Canada.”

Wrong again.

X.: “It’s even worse than today – you wouldn’t believe it.”

And strike three.

The facilitator rolled his eyes and hurried the group to “move on to the next activity,” but the damage was done.

It is understandable why the facilitator reacted to the situation the way he did, and overlooked it as “just another [controversial] thing X. said,” for he has said many of those throughout his time there. To put things into perspective, however, in no way was what X. said acceptable. Letting an anti-immigrant sentiment slide in a supposed “safe space” for immigrants is simply outrageous!

At the end of the day, an unsettling feeling remains as I leave my fieldsite. Should I have intercepted and problematized what X. had said? Do I have an obligation, as someone who has studied the topic at hand, to speak out for those victimized in the ordeal? What exactly is my position within the group? Is it worth abandoning my own moral stance and not “raise hell”, in order for things to play out as they would normally? It dawns on me then, that ethical dilemmas are prevalent in the process of ethnographic research. As (student-) ethnographers, we can only take action according to what seems the “most right” when an issue occurs, and the by-product of our choice – whether we like it or not – is something we simply have to live with.

—

Notes
1. The UK poll tax was levied on all British residents, whereas the Canadian head tax was only incurred on the Chinese.

References
Simmel, Georg. (1908/2010) “The Stranger.” In Scott Appelrouth and Laura Desfor Edles, Sociological Theory in the Classical Era (2^nd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Pine Forge Press, pp. 302-305.

Sunstein, Bonnie Stone & Chiseri-Strater, Elizabeth. (2007) FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research (4^th edition). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.