Author's Biography and Fieldwork Reflection

Reflections on Field Work in Maple Grove, March 2011

Last spring, I conducted fieldwork in Maple Grove that focused on the vandalism of the Hindu temple. At the end of that work, I wrote a reflection. Below I respond to quotes from that reflection in light of my continued experiences with the broader community of Maple Grove.

In May, I wrote:

Conducting field research is the most fulfilling work I’ve done at Carleton. I believe my fulfillment stems from the gravity of the subject of study and interviews themselves.  The case study does not just rehash or regurgitate previous research, but presents original documentation of a transformational event for an entire Temple community and the two young men they forgave. Because the event was so transformative, conversations about the vandalism tend to reveal the deep beliefs of the interviewees. Thus, I have the privilege and the responsibility of encountering my interviewees' principles at a deep level. The transformative nature of the events I investigated and the deep beliefs I encountered made this research fulfilling.

I still feel encountering the deep beliefs and feelings of interviewees is the most meaningful part of fieldwork. But I now think I have better language than "deep beliefs" to describe the meaning and importance of fieldwork. Hearing the beliefs of participants is not what's compelling about fieldwork. Discovering the multi-faceted, multi-layered beliefs and attitudes of participants is. When one conducts a good fieldwork interview, one encounters not only the participant's response to questions about their beliefs, but the layers of reasoning that underlie them. No other research method I have used permits that level of depth. In short, I now believe fieldwork is meaningful, not only because it shows the beliefs of participants, but can show the layers of reasoning that underlie those beliefs.

I also wrote about my fondness for the Hindu Temple and Dr. Sane in particular:

I also became fond of the Temple and its leadership during my research. The temple and its surroundings are beautiful (in an unconventional way) and peaceful. I admire the Temple leadership’s tenacity, positive attitude and passion for teaching both the old and the young. I’ve especially come to admire Dr. Sane, whose belief in everyday events as an opportunity to teach universal values drove him to lead a controversial, forgiving response to the vandals. I like to think my fondness for my subject enhances, not degrades, the quality of my research.

I similarly became fond of several of the churches and pastors I worked with during the process of my research in Maple Grove. One of the pastors I spoke with showed enormous courage in standing with his congregation's decision on a controversial issue, despite much pressure from other pastors in the community. Another pastor is undertaking inter-faith dialogue work unprecedented in a congregation of her size and type. Each of these acts could incur the displeasure of colleagues and neighbors, yet each pastor has stood their ground. I admire their fortitude.

As I did last spring, I still hope that my admiration has come to enhance my work, not degrade it. But I am now more conscious of the effects of admiration on my interviewing process. If I admire them, I find myself less willing to ask questions that could make interviewees (even slightly) uncomfortable. I may also represent them more favorably in my ethnographic descriptions of them or their sites. I do not feel either of these effects is drastic, but they are significant enough to be worth noting.

I concluded my reflection in the spring with a thought that fueled this term's work:

Unfortunately, some of my final interviews made me doubt the existence of the embracing, interfaith brotherhood some describe in Maple Grove. Uncovering pockets of religious bigotry in Maple Grove simultaneously disgusts and intrigues me. I abhor religiosity that regards Hindus, Muslims and other “non-believers” only as worthy of conversion to Christianity. But I also feel compelled to understand why and how bigotry emerges. This feeling may drive me to a future, deeper investigation of the Maple Grove faith community’s response to the vandalism.

I think my work, especially what's reported in "What's Driving Us Apart," shows that there's not an "embracing, interfaith brotherhood in Maple Grove." There are certainly moments where some churches rally around common causes and some churches who have cultivated meaningful, useful relationships with each other. But those relationships and moments are relatively rare. But I think that explaining all of these moments as the result of "bigotry," as I did last spring, is overly simplistic. Simple dislike for other groups is probably a small factor among many that drive groups apart. More important seems to be how they practice and how they interpret their differences. Perhaps learning to negotiate differences in practice and learning to search for similarities in beliefs (instead of emphasizing differences) is a more productive path to inter-church (and inter-faith) cooperation.