[Last modified: October, 28 2024 11:58 AM]
A classic London day: damp, grey, and not quite cold. If you sit outside long enough, the damp eventually seeps into your skin, somehow cooling you from the inside out. Despite that, every bench in Gordon Square was occupied. Mostly by people alone, looking at their phones, or occasionally taking a nap. Unlike everywhere else in the city, there’s almost no noise. It’s hard to tell if everyone is whispering or if the greenery has muffled the sound. There are no dogs in the park, but there is wildlife in the trees and on the pathway. Beside me, three people are quietly feeding a growing pack of birds. Mostly made up of pigeons, they moved like a tide getting progressively closer and then retreating once they had grabbed enough crumbs. A few crows made up the back of the crowd, and a singular squirrel staked out the perimeter from a tree. I was surprised to see anyone feeding birds at all. This is the first time since moving to London that I’ve seen anyone interact with local wildlife, so it felt especially surprising to see three young people midday on Friday feeding birds. More than that, they weren’t just passively feeding the birds while talking or scrolling on their phones. They seemed to be sitting in complete silence other than to sometimes point at the group of birds and say something. If the front of the crowd was taking too much of the rations, the people would deliberately throw food towards the back.
Though I had taken bullet form notes, the words I had jotted down helped set the scene and place me back in the context of the field. I do wish I had taken more detailed physical descriptions of the people around me, especially the people who I focused my narrative on. I think I had been so focused on jotting down “the action” that I neglected to notice some details.
On the other hand, it didn’t detract from my narrative that I didn’t know what colour sweater one of the people was wearing. In this instance, I felt pretty confident on what my narrative would be from this observation so I tailored my notes accordingly. In a larger research undertaking, I might not know what the throughline is between multiple rounds of observation and interviews, so in that case it may be helpful to take notes on things that seem irrelevant at the time.
It was interesting taking notes by hand as I very rarely do that in other parts of my life. I didn’t necessarily feel that taking notes by hand helped my memory when looking back at my notes, but I do feel that taking notes by hand helped observation feel like a more embodied practice. I felt that I noticed more, especially with regard to my own physical experience, when writing by hand.
