My three initial volunteers withdrew from the study. I was despondent. Without informants I was stalled. I began to deeply question what I was about, the nature of the project, my academic future, even who I was. But research was a part of the job.
Ethnographic research requires fieldwork.
And fieldwork in modern urban settings requires more than just selecting a site, beaching the canoe, and establishing one's place in a remote village as in the bygone days of anthropology. I needed people. I knew I could teach. I could read and write. These were my thoughts as I emerged from the winter of my first year, and into the spring.