Innovations on Writing
It was almost decades ago when I used to attend various field trips and study tours sponsored by NGOs, universities, and churches. Being young with full of curiosity, I was always trying to do my best acting like an "anthropologist" who do his field work.
One of such efforts is keeping your field notes all the time. It was a kind of "intensive" version of your diary or journal keeping. For any field works, or even a classic type of 19 century expeditions, the value of such activities have been always depended on the "records" you were able to keep. With this principle in mind, I also tried to keep my journals literally all day long.
For your usual days, the time when you do your journal writing could be only at the end of the day (before sleeping) if not in the beginning. In other words, you can do it only outside of your daily activities. That would be normal for everyone. If you are in the fieldwork and trip, however, the situation is different. You have to make your "conscious effort" to find a time for your journaling. Almost every moment when you are free should be utilized for your journaling, so that you can keep an attitude as if you must "record" every aspect of your experiences on the given day internally and externally -- what you are doing, feeling, thinking, having done, planning, etc. almost everything in your experiences.
In those good old days (when I was a student), I used to use a ballpoint pen and a set of B5 size notebooks. I had no choice (especially for Japanese in general using Japanese letters and characters) but to use such notebooks on which we just wrote sentences in longhand. While you can enjoy writing, it was not easy when you have to write the voluminous contents. This is particularly so for keeping your field notes where you have to write literally all day long.
In this regard, those people who use alphabet letters in their own language (like English) have a certain advantage. For, they can use a typewriter. In fact, a typewriter had been one of the key tools for many anthropologists with the alphabet-based language. Perhaps we can easily recall a story of Bronisław Malinowski (1884–1942).
He was one of the pioneers who started a kind of intensive field researches in staying a remote tribal community as an anthropologist. His effort could be considered as one of the initial attempts of the so-called participatory observation, which has nowadays become one of the basic and yet indispensable approaches for any social sciences.
He stayed in the field site, Trobriand Islands, for several years, and every night at the end of the day, he spent hours to keep his field notes using his manual typewriter. With this approach, then, he was able to produce an extensive ethnography, which is partially compiled as "Argonauts of the Western Pacific", one of the classics in anthropology.
Currently this kind of participatory research has been considered as a sort of initiation to become a professional anthropologist. This means that you cannot be called a professional anthropologist until and unless you go through the years of participatory observations in a specific field site you selected and publish a voluminous ethnography.
When you talk with any of them, almost all of them tell you their own field site memories overloaded. This is a kind of his/her own hometown in a sense that a lot of struggles and sentiments are being associated there -- things like "I can never work in this university as a professor and anthropologist without my experience in this field site" etc.
As a young student (not a student of anthropology, though) who was interested in doing research abroad at that time (good old days), I also tried to mimic this kind of activity; then, produced a number of notebooks where many letters were written in longhand. Unfortunately all these notebooks had been scattered around, though.
Then, there was a moment that instead of such "manual" notebooks, I started using my portable Japanese word-processor. As mentioned before, Japanese people did not experience the phrase of manual typewriter; hence, they could never imagine using a manual typewriter the way Malinoski used.
As mentioned in the previous entry there were a few exceptional folks who tried to use it like Dr. Tanakadate, Dr. Tamaru, and Dr. Umesao, etc. Especially, Dr. Umesao was an exactly one of the anthropologists who used his manual typewriter for his field research. Though I've not encountered any parts he wrote about Malinowski's typewriter, I am sure that Malinowski inspired him one way another.
The first Japanese word processor I purchased was the brand of Sharp called Shoin. It was very helpful for me to keep my journals and create a number of filed notes. It was not as portable as any notebook computers nowadays; yet, small enough for me to bring it wherever I went. The problem was that there was no built-in battery (I cannot believe I was able to manage it!), so I had to look for an outlet available nearby if I had to use it outside. But during that time I thought it was one of the most advanced tools I could use; I had been quite satisfied. It was indeed a huge advancement compared with the days of my B5 size notebooks and manual typewriter (Well, the nostalgic preference of a manual typewriters should be talked in another context).
Around 1990s, if I remember correctly, there was another breakthrough we encountered, which was the introduction of a notebook computer. I think Toshiba’s Dynabook is one of those that everyone (if you are the generation X and older) envied. It was really an epoch making product. Perhaps we can compare it with the items like Apple’s recent products. My envious stare to this first generation notebook computer at that time would be similar to my current appetite for MacBook Air, perhaps. But then, I never had a chance to purchase Dynabook, but continued to use my well-used (over-used) Shoin, which looked obsolete already at that time even when Apple’s Powerbook was already being recognized as one of the cool products.
And now being surrounded by the generations of digital natives, the situation has been quite different. If you ask me what could be my favorite writing tool, then I can no longer identify one specific; but many in several dimensions. I have to cite several applications, platforms, and devices, etc.
There are several distraction-free writing tools. Not only that, there are operating systems -- mainly Windows, but of course Mac and iOS can never be ignored; perhaps Android, too, and numerous devices like ThinkPad, Macbook, Netbook, iPad, iPhone, and other tablet devices.
When I save what I wrote, it is not longer in my notebooks inside the physical drawers, cabinets, and bookshelves, but the digital domains and cloud services like Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox, and i-Cloud, etc. Also posting the entries in this Blog is also one way of storing what I wrote and of sharing. Who imagined this kind of technical innovation?
If Malinowski could do his filed work now, we could check his writings not only through his ethnography (his physical book), but also through his Blog entries almost real time. I am sure the current anthropologists and any other researchers and scholars have been maximizing these digital technologies; there must be a lot of changes happening.
Perhaps I will be happy again with another innovation to be available 20 or 30 years from now on? What will it be?
One of such efforts is keeping your field notes all the time. It was a kind of "intensive" version of your diary or journal keeping. For any field works, or even a classic type of 19 century expeditions, the value of such activities have been always depended on the "records" you were able to keep. With this principle in mind, I also tried to keep my journals literally all day long.
For your usual days, the time when you do your journal writing could be only at the end of the day (before sleeping) if not in the beginning. In other words, you can do it only outside of your daily activities. That would be normal for everyone. If you are in the fieldwork and trip, however, the situation is different. You have to make your "conscious effort" to find a time for your journaling. Almost every moment when you are free should be utilized for your journaling, so that you can keep an attitude as if you must "record" every aspect of your experiences on the given day internally and externally -- what you are doing, feeling, thinking, having done, planning, etc. almost everything in your experiences.
In those good old days (when I was a student), I used to use a ballpoint pen and a set of B5 size notebooks. I had no choice (especially for Japanese in general using Japanese letters and characters) but to use such notebooks on which we just wrote sentences in longhand. While you can enjoy writing, it was not easy when you have to write the voluminous contents. This is particularly so for keeping your field notes where you have to write literally all day long.
In this regard, those people who use alphabet letters in their own language (like English) have a certain advantage. For, they can use a typewriter. In fact, a typewriter had been one of the key tools for many anthropologists with the alphabet-based language. Perhaps we can easily recall a story of Bronisław Malinowski (1884–1942).
He was one of the pioneers who started a kind of intensive field researches in staying a remote tribal community as an anthropologist. His effort could be considered as one of the initial attempts of the so-called participatory observation, which has nowadays become one of the basic and yet indispensable approaches for any social sciences.
He stayed in the field site, Trobriand Islands, for several years, and every night at the end of the day, he spent hours to keep his field notes using his manual typewriter. With this approach, then, he was able to produce an extensive ethnography, which is partially compiled as "Argonauts of the Western Pacific", one of the classics in anthropology.
Malinowski with natives, Trobriand Islands, 1918
Currently this kind of participatory research has been considered as a sort of initiation to become a professional anthropologist. This means that you cannot be called a professional anthropologist until and unless you go through the years of participatory observations in a specific field site you selected and publish a voluminous ethnography.
When you talk with any of them, almost all of them tell you their own field site memories overloaded. This is a kind of his/her own hometown in a sense that a lot of struggles and sentiments are being associated there -- things like "I can never work in this university as a professor and anthropologist without my experience in this field site" etc.
As a young student (not a student of anthropology, though) who was interested in doing research abroad at that time (good old days), I also tried to mimic this kind of activity; then, produced a number of notebooks where many letters were written in longhand. Unfortunately all these notebooks had been scattered around, though.
Then, there was a moment that instead of such "manual" notebooks, I started using my portable Japanese word-processor. As mentioned before, Japanese people did not experience the phrase of manual typewriter; hence, they could never imagine using a manual typewriter the way Malinoski used.
As mentioned in the previous entry there were a few exceptional folks who tried to use it like Dr. Tanakadate, Dr. Tamaru, and Dr. Umesao, etc. Especially, Dr. Umesao was an exactly one of the anthropologists who used his manual typewriter for his field research. Though I've not encountered any parts he wrote about Malinowski's typewriter, I am sure that Malinowski inspired him one way another.
The first Japanese word processor I purchased was the brand of Sharp called Shoin. It was very helpful for me to keep my journals and create a number of filed notes. It was not as portable as any notebook computers nowadays; yet, small enough for me to bring it wherever I went. The problem was that there was no built-in battery (I cannot believe I was able to manage it!), so I had to look for an outlet available nearby if I had to use it outside. But during that time I thought it was one of the most advanced tools I could use; I had been quite satisfied. It was indeed a huge advancement compared with the days of my B5 size notebooks and manual typewriter (Well, the nostalgic preference of a manual typewriters should be talked in another context).
Sharp, Shoin WD-Y550
Around 1990s, if I remember correctly, there was another breakthrough we encountered, which was the introduction of a notebook computer. I think Toshiba’s Dynabook is one of those that everyone (if you are the generation X and older) envied. It was really an epoch making product. Perhaps we can compare it with the items like Apple’s recent products. My envious stare to this first generation notebook computer at that time would be similar to my current appetite for MacBook Air, perhaps. But then, I never had a chance to purchase Dynabook, but continued to use my well-used (over-used) Shoin, which looked obsolete already at that time even when Apple’s Powerbook was already being recognized as one of the cool products.
DynaBook FV475 501TW, 1994
The PowerBook 150
And now being surrounded by the generations of digital natives, the situation has been quite different. If you ask me what could be my favorite writing tool, then I can no longer identify one specific; but many in several dimensions. I have to cite several applications, platforms, and devices, etc.
There are several distraction-free writing tools. Not only that, there are operating systems -- mainly Windows, but of course Mac and iOS can never be ignored; perhaps Android, too, and numerous devices like ThinkPad, Macbook, Netbook, iPad, iPhone, and other tablet devices.
Steve Jobs with a MacBook Air at the 2008 keynote
When I save what I wrote, it is not longer in my notebooks inside the physical drawers, cabinets, and bookshelves, but the digital domains and cloud services like Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox, and i-Cloud, etc. Also posting the entries in this Blog is also one way of storing what I wrote and of sharing. Who imagined this kind of technical innovation?
If Malinowski could do his filed work now, we could check his writings not only through his ethnography (his physical book), but also through his Blog entries almost real time. I am sure the current anthropologists and any other researchers and scholars have been maximizing these digital technologies; there must be a lot of changes happening.
The English edition of Wikipedia has grown to 4,855,254 articles, equivalent to over 2,000 print volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Including all language editions, Wikipedia has over 34 million articles, equivalent to over 15,000 print volumes.Knowledge is no longer limited within the libraries with their limited access. If you are interested, you can learn almost anything via Internet as far as its knowledge is concerned. I was very happy with the innovation that invented Japanese word processors in 1980s. I am now very happy with the current innovation -- the new type of accessibility with knowledge through the digital domains.
Perhaps I will be happy again with another innovation to be available 20 or 30 years from now on? What will it be?
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