Ethnography is defined as the study and systematic recording of human cultures, also a descriptive work produced from such research. Professional ethnographers spend years in their specific fields of research. My research was done over a period of only three years, which admittedly confines my work to a case study rather than a full ethnography. More importantly though are my qualifications to do such a case study. I have a background in fine art, not anthropology (ethnography is a branch of anthropology). So I took the task of educating myself to the processes involved in doing such research. I found that one of the most important things I had to learn about was myself, that is, how the information was being filtered through me and how that filtering bias the research results. The following is a set of observations I wrote about the study reflecting my own journey of discovery as well as how those realizations about myself meshed with my interactions with the children in this study.

The potential for art to bring about awareness of pressing social issues is immense. It's easy to ignore a problem you either don't know about or don't consider problematic. This is where I come in. My art has always had an emotional edge to it. It's intent has always been to bring about an emotional intensity lacking in much of modern life. It wants to help the viewer feel a strong emotional connection to the subject by stirring deep feelings in the viewer. I want the viewer to empathize with the subject of the art, whether through compassion, joy, or sorrow. I want my art to stir passion in others. As you can imagine, when I try to bring my art into a social arena, it seems as though a precedent has already been set and many viewers prepare themselves for extreme liberalism. Many artists who tackle social issues do it with a huge bias, often simply ignoring facts that might detract from their personal point of view. I consider this irresponsible and ultimately boring because no real political discourse is even being attempted, only a crass slap-in-the-face meant to shock the viewer.

My idealism and my altruistic nature clash with the reality of the situation. The reality is that these street children are suffering from malnutrition. There is no social welfare system to help them. They are victims of abuse and modern day slavery. Their numbers are growing daily at an alarming rate. The best I can do is use my talents to alert others to the problem in the hope that someone will even care, knowing full well that many of the children will die in the meantime.

I am not an ethnographer, nor will I be when I complete this degree. I need to show that I understand the principals of ethnography. I need to show understanding of ethical considerations, such as the importance of considering the "self" in field research and limitations because of it, or the idea of "objectivity" and the fallacy of complete immersion. The whole reason for having an ethnography component is to ground the work I'm doing, to give it a validity it wouldn't have if it were just the uneducated view of a foreign culture by an artist who hadn't even considered his role in the study. I am first and foremost an artist. I care deeply about these children and believe that I could best serve them by using my knowledge and talent in art to bring about awareness of their situation.

One major dilemma of the researcher is trying to define the research question. Fieldwork can be confusing at best sometimes. I went to Nepal with the idea of doing a study on the effects of tourism. At first my focus was to be on the depletion of natural resources and its effect on the citizens of Kathmandu. That focus quickly changed with the reality of being in Kathmandu. I came across an unforeseen effect of tourism, which was the rise of street children. As more and more tourists flood Kathmandu each year, it gives a false perception to the people of the surrounding villages. The people, and children particularly, think that the city is full of jobs and money. Whereas it IS the center of commerce for the whole country, there are many people struggling to get the few jobs. Children leave their villages in hopes of getting one of those jobs only to enter into a harsh reality. The reality is simple, there aren't any jobs, they've left home, and they have no way back. They end up doing any job they can, legal or not. Often these children are forced to work long hours under difficult circumstances for little or no pay. Their employers get away with treating them this way because they know that if the child leaves, he'll be easy to replace. One of the street children wanted to sell me something. I don't remember exactly what it was but with my current knowledge, it was probably hash. Encountering this ragged street youth was provident because it changed the entire course of my study. Of course, this choice to focus on and help children was an intuitive choice, the only choice given my personal values. My focus had narrowed from Nepal, to the effects of tourism on Nepal, to one effect of tourism on a certain area of Kathmandu, Nepal.

There were several random factors that helped define the research question. Meeting Ramesh, the young man who introduced me to everyone, was an entirely random event. I didn't set out to meet him, or any of the children, for that matter. The hotel I chose to stay in happened to be close to where the group of boys I eventually worked with were sleeping. The fact that the boys spoke English so well was random but extremely important. It was important because the boys were able to express how they felt in a concise manner. The boys who couldn't speak much English referred to most things as either "good" or "bad". The focus was further narrowed by the level of participation of the boys themselves. Ramesh clearly wanted me to see a full picture of who he was and how his life had unfolded. He did this by talking with me quite a lot, giving me photos of himself and his mother, and by showing me the remnants of his family and where they lived. Kishor also participated more than others. He gave me precise information about his background so that I was better able to understand his current situation. Other boys inadvertently took themselves away from the study. Raju, for example, spent increasingly more time either drunk or high. I wasn't capable of learning much about him other than what I observed and heard through the other children. I couldn't even talk with him when he was inebriated because he would get threatening and violent. Through these factors, the research question was defined. The question no longer focused on tourism as a starting point but rather these few street boys and the many different factors within their culture that has perpetuated the rise in number of street children as a whole.

Every researcher who goes into the field knows that he's going to have to make decisions based on ethical considerations. Some of those decisions are based on his own personal code of ethics. For example, some of the children I was studying were selling drugs to make their day-to-day money. Almost 100% of their customers were Americans or Europeans. Whereas I find it morally wrong to sell illegal drugs, the context in which I grew up gave me different opportunities to make money. I had the opportunity to sell drugs at one point during my undergraduate education but decided against it because there were other legal opportunities to make money. In the case of these children I certainly can't offer up a moral judgment based on my background and westernized point of view. This is, however, a case where I didn't participate with the children based on my own moral compass. This is a case where I can understand why they do what they do in the context of their culture without being a part of it.

Some ethical decisions are set forth by the culture the researcher is in. The culture may bring to him a set of values and norms different from his own and in doing so, a new code of ethics. For example, I come from a relatively open country as far as sexual attitudes go. The issue of sex didn't come up much in my discussions with the children. These were boys who were going through adolescence, at the end of puberty. They obviously showed interest in girls but the subject is still too taboo to talk about. Not only were they embarrassed by the topic but it also raised a few eyebrows where I was concerned. If I had been doing this same study in America, then discussions about sex would be rather normal. In Nepal however, a young man in his late twenties, me, walking around with a group of boys, video camera in hand, and talking about sex could get me deported considering the rising number of pedophiles coming to the country. In this case, the values and norms of the culture made me make different ethical choices based on these taboos I learned of and how my own personal safety could be affected if I pursued that particular subject. I made it a point to say goodnight to someone at the hotel each night so that no matter how late I came in, someone would be able to say, "Yes, he slept here tonight". I did this because Nepal is having a problem with pedophiles, and American ones at that. Currently, Americans are not allowed to adopt Nepali children. I'd known the police had asked the children questions about me and my intentions before, so this was a precaution. Although I would've liked to have spent more time with the kids at night observing their activities, this would've aroused unneeded suspicion.

After some consideration I thought I might have gone about the study all wrong. Buying the boys lunch each day for an initial opportunity to talk to them might be confused with paying them to say certain things. It might have been confused with trying to buy my way into their group. I didn't want to disturb the group dynamic by being a strange presence in their midst. This wasn't the case, because these children had met many a tourist and many of those people would buy the children food or hire them as guides. At first I was simply seen as another tourist to them, a possible income. Having lunch with the boys was my initial entry point into the group. Although having the money to buy 5 to 10 children lunch set me apart from them, it was hardly the only thing that did. My age, my skin color, my physical size, my inability to speak much of their language were also factors that influenced the study. The study was never intended to be one of complete immersion. Even if I'd intended it to be, there were ethical considerations that I personally wouldn't have been able to rationalize or overcome. For example, I wasn't going to smoke hash to understand that aspect of some of their lives. The effects of smoking hash are well documented and unnecessary for me to experience with a first hand account. Besides being well documented, it is also illegal. Any illegal activity could have ended my study prematurely by getting me deported. I didn't buy their trust and respect. I earned it mainly on my second trip to Nepal. The fact that I said I would be back in a year and did just that, earned me that trust. The children were more forthcoming and honest with their answers to my questions the second time around.

At one point I decided to bend the guidelines I'd set for myself by going to see where the boys slept at night. Kishor wanted to show me a sword he'd had made with money he'd earned from selling hash. This showed an interest in making money legally, which I was happy to learn about. He, Ramsaran, and I walked for about an hour until we came upon a stone wall next to a main street. We made our way through a small field, up a hill, and under a large bush. As we came out from under the bush I saw ten pairs of eyes staring at me and heard some heated discussion as to who I was. One of the young men brought out the sword. Kishor handed it to me for my inspection then asked me to sit down. he assured me everything was okay and that he'd told everyone that I was a good man. The place they slept was just on the other side of the stone wall we'd came in by. Trees bent from the field over the wall to provide a small canopy under which the boys slept on broken down cardboard boxes. Lying in front of me were two boys huddled together for warmth, trying to sleep. The others formed a semi-circle around them, facing me. I was nervous because I'd broken one of my rules. It was extremely informative and helpful to see on a first hand basis but after twenty minutes I was ready to leave. Kishor could see how nervous I was but tried to assure me that everything was all right. Just then from under the bush we had to duck under to get there, two heads with caps that looked just like the police's berets came towards us. My heart stopped for what seemed like a full minute. Here were twelve young men, some of whom most assuredly had illegal drugs on them, and me with my video camera in my backpack. A quick scenario ran through my head of me being deported and trying to explain why I had to come home so early and without my video camera. In the night light, the caps of two more street boys reminded me of why I set those guidelines for myself in the first place. I'd made the decision to bend the guidelines because I saw how much it could help the whole study but it also inadvertently could have put the study at unneeded risk.

I decided to give Ramesh a camera to give me a glimpse into what he saw and thought important to take photos of, but did this small piece of technology, one that he usually didn't have access to, affect what he shot? Or did it at all? I didn't know the answer until I had his photos developed. They were wonderful. He obviously knew how to use a camera and his compositions were excellent, better than some of my own. I believe he viewed it as just another opportunity to explore an interest he had. Although by not knowing in the first place, I could have been affecting the study in an unforeseen manner by injecting new variables. The video camera was an entirely different matter. From the few times I let the boys take video, it was obvious that this tool was something they weren't used to. They'd seen thousands of them but were unable to touch and use one until I let them. Sometimes when one of the children was using the video camera, he wasn't cognizant of the fact that his voice was also being recorded. Some of those moments on the audio track were just as revealing as what they were trying to record.

I first came upon the concept of the "self" in Susan Krieger's piece entitled "Beyond 'Subjectivity': The Use of the Self in Social Science". It's a concept I'd known about but didn't fully understand. The simple notion that you had to know your "self" to understand its impact on your research seemed simple at first. As my own introspection started, it dawned on me how complex this concept was. My "self" is so buried within me that I had to dig to see all the pieces clearly. The self in research cannot be denied or overlooked. Just as you can't fully understand your subject due to the fact that you haven't lived their life or had their childhood, they can't fully understand the way you perceive them for exactly the same reason. I must be aware of who I am and what I represent. How can I clearly present this information I'm gathering if I don't understand how it's being filtered through me? This is what the "self" represents.

How was I to understand what I saw within the context of a culture that was foreign to me if I didn't understand HOW I saw in the first place? I see with the eyes of a young white straight protestant male from America. These and many other factors, including life experiences, all shape the way I saw the Nepali culture. For example, when I first went into Kathmandu I saw many men holding hands and hanging on to each other. The only frame of reference I'd had for the same behavior was the gay community in Ohio. I didn't understand how my experience had shaped the way I saw and processed the behavior of this new culture. Holding hands, leaning on one another, and hanging on to each other are simply the way Nepali men treat their best friends. Having a full understanding of the "self" will help the researcher be able to see when that "self" is affecting the research or the data being gathered. It helps to understand where and why we lose our objectivity and start judging other cultures by our own deep-seated perceptions.

These children have lived lives so far that I can't fully understand. Lives filled, from my perspective, with hardship. I'm still struggling to comprehend that life, which I have to try to do if I'm even to understand their thought processes. This deals with the "self" as well, because it applies my perspective of what childhood should be, based on my own experience, as opposed to what their reality of childhood is. I sometimes afford these children a sympathy they don't get in their own country because of our disparate views of childhood. To deny the self in research is to "pretend" that we are invisible and that our past experiences don't affect our current views.

There are certain truths about this study, which I have to include and cannot be denied or downplayed, but knowing that this will first be judged by western standards of morality disheartens me. These children will be judged by a different standard of morality than they grew up with. When I mention that some of them sell drugs and most of them steal on a daily basis, this will be judged by the reader, even though most theft is of food, in order to simply survive. Some grew up without a moral compass to guide them because they had no parental guidance. This says something about me as well. I don't think what they're doing is wrong because I can't even begin to imagine what its like for them to survive day to day, and for me to say its wrong and ask them to stop without giving them an alternative is naive indignation. If this was happening in the United States, I would think it was wrong because I know what it's like to grow up in America, and even though that's a broad statement, I also know that there are many ways to get off the streets and to get legal employment. I knew I would be viewing Nepali culture through western eyes and tried to maintain a level of objectivity about the entire situation but still found myself at times using my old measures of judgment on this other culture (for example, selling drugs is bad, hash is bad, etc. These things aren't viewed the same way in this other culture).

Eating where they eat, sleeping where they sleep, walking with them, talking with them, allows me to experience some of what they see and feel (at this point in time, without the benefit of living their past, and without the benefit of knowing the culture so inherently) but the fact remains that somewhere in the back of my mind, I KNEW I was going home and whether I want to acknowledge it or not, those thoughts were a kind of security blanket. Why was that a security blanket? Because I know that I won't go through the rest of my life eating two plates of rice and curried vegetables each day as my only meals as some of these kids will have to do. Why is that important? I COULD survive on the same diet, but the fact remains that I grew up in a different culture and the desire for that security is a reflection of the concerns my "self" has about me.

A researcher usually chooses a study because it is an issue of personal interest or disturbance, and by using those criteria to choose, already loses some objectivity by beginning with a bias in hand. My objectivity was lost when I decided to intervene in the children's lives and help them. In some ways I think I was trying to come to terms with their reality by making it more like my own. It was easier to deal with what I believed to be a terrible situation by making it a little bit better while I was a part of it. In trying to come to terms with certain images I saw there, I am unable to be objective in the face of such poverty. Case in point, I met a young drummer boy with empty eye sockets. This child was not only blind but he had no eyes at all. This was something I'd never come across before. It was heartbreaking and made me cry which only deepened the sadness surrounding the situation for me because I knew that this child was probably not even physically capable of crying. There was no way I could achieve any kind of analytic "distance" in a scenario like this.

Throughout my readings in anthropology books I've come across this idea of complete immersion several times. It's an idea I'd thought about for quite some time because I thought it would be useful to my research. After a while, the problems of complete or total immersion started to pile up. Once you'd gained access to the group you wanted to study and negotiated entry into that group, you ran into the first problem. The problem of being an outsider. It's hard enough to gain people's trust but when they know you have an agenda (your research), it's even harder. If the subject knows they're being studied, that usually affects behavior and therefore shapes the data in an unforeseen way. This could easily be overcome in some situations by simply not telling your subjects that you're studying them. Ethical considerations aside, this brings up the next point which deals with the subject's thought processes. When studying a culture we need to know the "why" of many actions. We need to understand how the subject combined thoughts and experiences to form outward actions. As researchers we can postulate the "why" of many actions based on that culture's values, norms, religious beliefs, and history; but we're not inside the subject's head when we do that. We're not thinking as they would, we're making assumptions based on behavior after the fact. We don't have the benefit of having lived their life and having their past. A researcher would have to live inside a culture for many years to understand it completely and to think as instinctively as the subjects themselves. That researcher would have to lock portions of their past up inside themselves and begin to re-learn certain basic social interactions based on the new culture they're in. As for me, the only real study I could present with my past intact would have to be about straight white Christian males growing up in a small town in Ohio with the values and norms of a middle class two parent family. As you can imagine, this would severely limit much research.

Complete immersion assumes that you can come to understand a people just by being with them. This might work if many years were spent in complete isolation with your subjects. Wear the clothes, eat the food, speak the language, live by the customs, and completely live the life, this includes adhering to social values and norms. But then if you were to take time to take notes and collect data, you set yourself aside from the people to take up the role of researcher and at that point are not immersed. Complete immersion also assumes that your subjects will accept you and that their behavior will not be affected by your presence, which is a risky thing to assume. You would also have to have physical similarity to your subjects in order to blend in.

Even when a researcher is immersed in the culture being studied, the "self" plays a role. It could be said that the "self" keeps one from being completely immersed as well. For example, my personal comfort is not always a concern, but my safety is. My perceptions of safe and not safe have been gathered all my life, not just when I enter into a new culture. This is part of the nature of the "self".

Two advantages I had, as an American, is our strong economy and access to technology. The strong economy has given me the opportunities to pursue work and education that would allow me to do the study in the first place. The access to technology, such as digital cameras and high-speed computers, is one I could get many places but not as quickly and easily as I can in America. My digital camera alone costs several times more than the average Nepali makes in a year ($210 USD). Once I was in Nepal, my status as an American also hindered me. I wasn't always able to simply sit back and watch the behavior and interactions of the children because there was always someone coming up to me and asking for money. Some of these people were very insistent and the children themselves would come and stop the person who was asking for money.

How did my involvement in their lives affect the study? As much as I'd like to be viewed as a researcher, everyone there still saw me in some way as a tourist. My physical size set me apart from my subjects. Their age played a role; they were open to me because of it. Their youth could also limit my research simply because I got tired before they did, after a full day of running around, they were still ready for the night and I was ready to sleep.

One of the reasons field researchers are hesitant to describe their actual methods is because many of the methods are highly unusual, would only work in a certain situation, and are not easy to replicate. During my times with Rajesh's uncle, he shed a lot of light on my study by helping me to understand the social structure of Nepali society. One of these meetings was over coke, whisky, and fried eggs; another was over coke, whisky, and dal bhaat takari. He wasn't a drunk. Both instances were late at night and he viewed it as proper for men to have a drink when talking together in a formal social situation. I guess in academic terms that would fall under conforming to cultural traditions and assimilating behavior to gain cultural knowledge (or something like that). His opinion mattered to me because: 1. He worked in Thamel, he'd seen waves of street kids come and go, he'd seen the best and worst of them over the years. 2. He has children of his own; he understands parenting and the need for parental guidance in children's lives. He helped me realize that many of these street children were developing "bad habits", as he put it (such as drinking, smoking, and doing drugs at ages as early as 8 to 10), early on because there was no parent there to say "No". This showed me that some of the values I was brought up with were also prevalent here.

My first trip to Nepal was necessary because it allowed me to define the research question by gaining access to my subjects, which allowed me to negotiate entry into their group. This initial time spent with the boys allowed us to lay the foundation of trust that was needed. My second trip was more fruitful in the area of ethnography because I better understood my role in the research and how I affected it. The trust between the boys and I had solidified which made the exchange of information easier. The combination of experiences from both trips has allowed me to produce art that examines the lives of these children from an educated point of view. In doing this, the final art pieces will be able to stand on their own without my defense as the maker of the art.