Chapter One- “The Work”

In Robert Coles book called, Doing Documentary Work a passage that I found interesting in Chapter one was, “I was affirming what takes place all the time in human affairs: our connectedness (in this case as teacher and student), our membership (even if temporary) in whatever “community” we are trying to “study,” and thus our ability, our inclination, our need to accommodate ourselves to one another, and our participation in what we aim to observe— our participation, obviously, as well, in what we thereafter document or give to others as a stimulus for their participation” (Coles 44).

Coles is explaining that within the process of documenting and observing others, documentarians are putting themselves out there in effort to connect with their interviewees or observees. It is important that the information they are taking for the studies is accurately presented in their documents. One strategy that Coles shares that he used while working as a ‘participant observer’ for the SNCC was using a tape recorder. This allowed him to advance his observing technique because it helped him take what he was listening and put it together with what he was observing. Overall, a main message Coles expressed through the chapter was the importance of connecting with their process of “fieldwork,” and the efforts to gain information and present this information to the public.

Evans, Walker. New York, New York. 61st Street between 1st and 3d Avenues. Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress). New York, New York , 23 Aug. 1938.