My first 'ethnographic' assignment is in a clinic in Friesland (Freezing Land), north of Amsterdam by about 40 minutes on the slow train. Situated on the Ijselmeer, the ocean inlet of Northern Holland. The clinic serves the northern Holland community in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD and Autistic Spectrum Disorders. I am invited to observe their 3 week group diagnosis process- 6 kids, 6 hypotheses.
Let me say something about ethnographic research. You spend most of your time questioning yourself: what am I doing here? Because you are busily re-writing questions you originally came in with. By the end I had two pages of questions in a smattering of Dutch and English, and absolutely no answers. Welcome to anthropological research.
I left a bit frustrated. First thing: gotta stop noticing the kids. I am just geared this way- I spent the first 45 minutes writing about THEM... then realized, oh yes, I am here to watch a PROCESS.... that means, paying attention to the adults. Oh dear. Reorientation project begins.
What are they looking for? What do they notice? How do they feel with me sitting in my corner, trying to dissolve my little tape recorder and note pad into the surroundings. I am now entering the 'system'- not that of creative outlets for these kids, my preferred domain, but that of the adult determinations of "here is this funny-shaped block we are going to try to fit in a variety of holes". Ah- yes, this is also my struggle.
Sigh.
The beautiful part about research is that there is no set given. Anything can come out of it. On the train ride back, I notice the neat hedges around small uniform country houses. Perfect landscaping, straight rows of trees breaking the slicing wind, I can imagine if one does not fit into the proper lines and measurements here, it must be hard to place them.
The Bolivian ethnography in my lap reminds me of what I may be delving into- that by examining the process of a diagnosis rampant in today's Western society, I may not be asking any questions about the children themselves, or even the clinicians; but rather, the contexts they find themselves in:
"Medical decisions (i.e. diagnoses) are made in political, economic, and social contexts that form and inform the behavior of not only patient and healer, but the community at large."
- Libbet Crandon-Malamud 1991
In diving into a process of diagnosis for our Western children, those of the United States and Holland, my questions may remain unanswered or unpredictable, or even un-applicable. Are we looking at our kids, or are we describing what in our society isn't, or is?
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