The Qualitative Report Volume 16 Number 1 January 2011 10-38 http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR16-1/bordelon.pdf Culture for Sale? An Exploratory Study of the Crow Fair Thomas D. Bordelon, Marie Opatrny, Wendy G. Turner, and Steven D. Williams University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, Indiana, USA This paper describes an ethnographically-oriented participant- observation study conducted during the annual Crow Fair, held in south central Montana. Data collected included audio-recorded interviews with participants, participant observations, photographic and video recordings. Narrative interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the constant comparison method. Multiple data sources improved the veracity of this study through triangulation, and four themes emerged from the data: commercialization, alcohol abuse, spirituality, and community. The researchers discuss these themes and their conclusions regarding the “selling” of Native American culture as a form of cultural transmission. Theme analysis revealed the researchers recognized that the principal researcher had changed his view of the Crow Fair as being frivolous to having a deeper purpose and meaning to participants. Key Words: Native Americans, Crow Tribe, Culture, Commercialization, Qualitative Research, Ethnography, and Grounded Theory Approximately 2.5 million Native Americans reside in the United States. This is a marked increase from the estimated 225,000 of just over a century ago. Over half of all Native Americans live in the western portion of the United States (United States Census Bureau, 2000). Historically, U.S. governmental policy decisions are remarkable for the upheaval of Native Americans from their geographical and social environments, and in many instances their families of origin (Dawes Severalty Act of 1887). Forced relocation of Native Americans to unfamiliar and in many instances arid and unfertile lands in the western part of the United States is blamed in part for contributing to disproportionately high rates of unemployment, poverty, and a host of social ills among Native Americans (Duffy & Stubben, 1998). In addition to the enforced disbanding of longstanding Native American communities, governmental policies (Dawes Severalty Act of 1887; Indian Reorganization Act of 1934) contributed to the disintegration of the family unit and its respective longstanding system of values, customs, and traditions (Duffy & Stubben, 1998). This is the very fabric of society that had for centuries provided a sense of pride and identity for Native Americans. With the goal of assimilation of the Native Americans, programs to ensure the enculturation of dominant American societal values were established. The Carlisle School, established in 1879, became a model for educating and acculturating Native Americans in the cultures of the Euro-American settlers (Anderson, 2000). Native American children were forcibly removed from their families and peers and were placed in boarding homes far from their communities and familiar environment. With threats of corporal punishment, they were prevented from speaking their native tongue, adhering to their customs, and were forbidden to interact with family and members of their tribal society (Anderson, 2000). 11 The Qualitative Report January 2011 Today, Native Americans continue to experience substantially lower incomes and higher rates of poverty and unemployment than Caucasians in the United States (United States Census Bureau, 2000). Additionally, Native Americans experience diminished opportunities for accessing quality education, job training, and healthcare. Economic and social problems such as high infant mortality (Grossman, Baldwin, Casey, Nixon, & Hollow, 2002), low rates of school completion, and a high rate of alcohol abuse (Akins, Mosher, Rotolo, & Griffin, 2003) continue to plague Native Americans throughout the United States. The Crow are a Native American tribe located in south central Montana. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 75% of the Crow People live on reservations and 80% of them are unemployed. Many of the same social and economic issues that are evidenced in the wider Native American population are also apparent among the Crow People. Issues of poverty, unemployment, lack of education and a variety of social ills continue to impact Native Americans and the Crow People. However, despite past attempts to permanently disrupt and extinguish tribal ties, values, and traditions, there remains an ongoing sense of cultural pride, strength, and resiliency demonstrated by members of the Crow Tribe (Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, 2010). This phenomenon may be explained by understanding interactions within their primary groups of family and peers (Longres, 2004). Community and spiritual worship groups provide the transmission of culture (Blumer, 1969; Germain & Bloom, 1999; Mead, 1934) and profoundly influence the development of a “common spirit” and a set of cultural values that emphasize fairness and service to others (Longres). Symbolic interaction may provide an additional perspective for understanding the retention of originally instilled cultural values and practice. Blumer (1969) reported that an individual’s mind or intellect develops in terms of the social situations wherein it receives its expression and import. It is through the interactions with others and the storing of personal experiences that individuals order their experiences and create meaning in their lives (Bruner, 1986; Gergen, 1994; Saari, 1991; White & Epston, 1990). In keeping with this perspective, it has been through the cultural sharing of common and revered symbols, language, customs, and traditions that enduring meaning systems were woven into the developing self-systems of Native Americans. Additionally, this line of reasoning may have utility for understanding how the Crow, in particular, utilize socialization, such as interaction with family and community members and with members of non-native society, to communicate and transmit their cultural values and traditions. In a number of instances, members of the Crow who had been living on the “outside” have retained the system of their culture. Many have returned to their families of origin, and report that the resumption of participation in family and the community, including the customs and traditions of their culture, has provided them with a profound sense of meaning in their lives (Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council Meeting, 2004). Knowledge of one’s culture can also be a contributing factor in the selection of economic activities, as an individual may select an economic activity that fits within his or her cultural tradition (Cornell, 2000). These cultural attributes underscore the importance of supporting greater attention to cultural identity in economic development of Native Americans (Duffy & Stubben, 1998). Such opportunities to experience one’s Thomas D. Bordelon, Marie Opatrny, Wendy G. Turner, and Steven D. Williams 12 culture are essential to the maintenance of a society, and today, the Crow Fair is an annual event that also provides the Crow People with economic opportunity. Although opportunities for tribal members to make money in the dominant society are difficult on the reservation, some members of the Crow Tribe have creatively utilized earlier developed knowledge and skills and are creating and selling art, crafts, music, and stories symbolizing their shared sense of culture and identity as members of the Crow Tribe. Thus, the Crow Fair may be conceptualized as an event that stands at the intersection of cultural and economic imperatives. While opportunities to experience and appreciate one’s cultural heritage may exist within the reservation, opportunities for economic gain do not. Conversely, while economic opportunities exist within the surrounding society, cultural identity is difficult to maintain. A critical question then presents itself: is commercialism necessary for the Crow Tribe? Is it possible, that is, that such commercialization serves a crucial cultural function in itself, aiding in the maintenance and transmission of cultural traditions for Crow and non-Natives respectively? If so, the easy dichotomy of culture vs. economics begins to blur, and the term "commercialization" must be understood in a different manner. It is in the realm of culture (including religion) that commercialization is often viewed with distaste: the sensory assault of gaudy Christmas decorations in shopping malls in October; the struggling but authentic artist who "sells out" to the demands of the marketplace. In the wider American society of omnivorous capitalism, this might be greeted with resignation. The idea of Native American cultural "displays" or "fairs" also constituting sites of monetary profit should not be surprising. Why, then, should the principal investigator of this study be initially repelled by such a discovery? Certainly the commodification of Native American imagery has a lengthy history from Winnebago motor homes to the "tomahawk chop" of Atlanta Braves baseball fans. Yet among non- Native Americans there is also a strong desire to believe that somewhere "out there" in New Mexico or Montana a pristine Native culture still exists; simple, honorable, exotic, and untainted by the forces of modernity. Thus, while it is easy to accept the selling of tee shirts, souvenir spoons, and refrigerator magnets at Colonial Williamsburg or Mount Rushmore, similar commercial activities at a Native American fair can feel vaguely unsettling. Good field work not only contributes to the social stock of knowledge, but compels the researcher to examine his or her own preconceptions and emotional reactions. In this case the principal researcher was induced to examine the reasons for his initial aversion to one of the most ubiquitous of American pastimes: making a profit. Method This study was conducted during the 2003 Crow Fair, an annual Native American powwow. The research methods included the use of participant observation and interviews with members of the Crow participating in the Fair. The lead author of this study, who served as the principal researcher, collected the data. Two of the other authors assisted in the data analysis and manuscript development. The fourth author was a peer debriefer who also edited the manuscript. The authors are not Native Americans but social workers and a sociologist with desire to understand the meaning of the Crow Fair from the perspective of the tribe’s own members. There are a large number of articles on the subject of culture in the social work abstracts, 1,230 in past 28 years alone. 13 The Qualitative Report January 2011 This is because social workers are concerned about culture as it identifies shared attributes of groups of people such as language, history, socioeconomic conditions, and politics (Singh, McKay, & Singh, 1998). To understand culture is to understand the context and meaning of human experiences from the perspective of individual members of the culture. The principal researcher approached the Crow Fair from an epistemological perspective that knowledge and meaning are socially constructed through verbal interactions and direct experiences that one has with others. While the lead author had extensive interaction with many members of the Crow tribe in the past, and at least some (admittedly less than enthusiastic) experience with fairs in general, he nonetheless made a sincere attempt to enter the study from a perspective of functional naiveté regarding the subjective meaning of the Crow Fair for the individuals involved. After all, the crucial question of empathic understanding, of verstehen, is not "what did the individual do," but rather "what meaning did the action have for the individual?" (Weber, 1949). Thus, a position of "not knowing" in this particular sense also acknowledges the importance of being open to research methods that would allow him to develop an in-depth understanding of multiple aspects of the Crow culture as told by individual members of the Crow. His decision to use a qualitative design that included exploratory methods of direct observation and unstructured in-depth interviewing was in keeping with Strauss and Corbin (1998) and Crotty (1998) who stress the importance of selecting a methodology and specific methods based upon the purpose(s) of the study and the nature of the research questions. In the nine years he had worked with Crow Tribal members as a clinical social worker, the principal researcher had never attended the Crow Fair. As a non-Native American, the principal researcher developed the close relationships with members of the Crow Tribe that inevitably result from providing individual, group, and family therapy as an employee for a local regional health center. The principal researcher was able to use knowledge of the Crow culture to develop relationships that were based on mutual trust and a sincere desire to learn more about one another. An example of this engagement and trust building process is illustrated in the following example: I was apprehensive about working with Native Americans when our regional health center set up a clinic at the Crow Indian Reservation. Did I know enough about Native American customs to be helpful to them? Was language going to be a barrier to understanding my clients’ needs? How would my clients see me? I wanted to participate in the community as much as possible. I wanted to become competent in the way in which the Crow People understand themselves and their environment. I, too, wanted them to understand and to accept me. I started my education by sitting in the waiting room of our clinic and talking to the clients and their family and friends as they came in for their medical appointments. Naturally, when clients appeared to talk to me, we went into my private office. Yet I found that family and friends Thomas D. Bordelon, Marie Opatrny, Wendy G. Turner, and Steven D. Williams 14 accompanied my client to our sessions. I quickly recognized the interconnectedness of the individual to his or her community. To my delight, my clients and their family and friends happily shared their community with me. They invited me to, and I attended, a buffalo feast, ceremonial dances, and rituals such as smudging (using the smoke of burning sage and grasses to cleanse and purify objects, the body, or a place). I have fond memories of talking to the elders in particular. I spent many hours talking to a small group of elderly women who taught me to say Crow words and phrases. They always giggled at the way I would stumble and mispronounce words, but they were also very kind and patient when teaching me their language. They told me about how they sew elk teeth to dresses, learned to dance, and how they raised their children to care for one another and to be proud of their family. From both the male and female elders, I learned about how to ride horses, to have courage and to face adversity with dignity, which is especially challenging when living on a reservation where there is such poverty. From the wise elders I also learned the importance of keeping the Crow Heritage. If the culture is not transmitted from one generation to the next, it withers and at worst, it is lost forever. I also spent many hours learning from the medicine man not to become a medicine man myself, but to understand his learning and techniques. I was impressed not only with the thoroughness of his education and his years of training to become a medicine man, but also with his broad fund of knowledge. He had a sophisticated understanding of natural and supernatural aspects of healing, but also the history and beliefs of his people. We sometimes worked together. More accurately, I asked him to join me in sessions where clients wanted to examine treatment choices to determine if they were congruent with the cultural beliefs of the Crow People. For example, the medicine man was exceptionally helpful in offering therapies that worked in conjunction with clinical social work treatment methods. If we were helping a client to stop drinking alcohol and I suggested attendance to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, for instance, the medicine man would explain the Medicine Wheel and discuss how sobriety restores balance to the client’s life. Alcohol treatment, then, is physically, emotionally, and spiritually restorative, and Alcoholic Anonymous meetings can help the client achieve this balance. The principal researcher believed that working with the Crow People at this level of intimacy provided a sufficient experience to come away with an in-depth understanding of what is held important to the culture. Previous opportunities to attend the Crow Fair had been refused, based on the erroneous assumption that its social 15 The Qualitative Report January 2011 function and general content were parallel to the fairs found in the wider non-Native culture. As a youth, the principal researcher spent one summer working at a county fair as a musician. The fair seemed to be noisy and crowded with people who, aside from what appeared to be small groups of friends, were strangers seeking frivolity. Interspersed between fast food vendors were displays of calves and goats. Not far from the concession stands was the bustle of horses and riders being prepared to run in the horse races. Fast food, carnival rides, racehorses, 4-H tents, and farm animals comprised the county fair. The principal researcher suspected the Crow Fair was little different from the county fair with the exception that the type of merchandise sold by vendors would be Native American products. This assumption highlights an important theme of this study, that of community. Inherent in the term "county" fair is the assumption of shared space, both physical and social. The prospect of interaction with friends and neighbors is part of the traditional appeal of this institution. In the 21st century, however, the majority of these events have become standardized and homogenized; the same rides, the same foods, the same games erode the distinctiveness of place. This, combined with the growing general anonymity of American society, have rendered the contemporary county fair simply another example of gesellschaft. The Crow Fair, however, as the principal researcher eventually discovered, maintains a greater sense of social cohesion for its participants and thus might be legitimately considered an example of gemeinschaft (Toennies, 1957). Seven years and several hundred miles removed from the Crow Tribe, the researcher questioned his decision to avoid the Crow Fair. While teaching primary school children about Native American pictographs at an archeological site, the researcher became aware of how he was “selling” Native American culture. The principal researcher was trying to convince children of the importance of understanding Native American culture using their symbols, the pictographs, as selling devices. It then occurred to the principal researcher that previous invitations to attend the Crow Fair may have represented a desire on the part of the Crow People for the researcher to better understand their culture. The experiences of the researcher of providing counseling services, while certainly important and a means of gaining social insight, could hardly provide the immediate visceral experience of cultural observation and participation. The researcher uses his knowledge of this culture within the social work classroom. Since he was using Native American symbols and artifacts to persuade, to educate, in essence to “sell” cultural knowledge to students, perhaps the various forms of more literal selling that occur at a fair might serve a similar purpose. The link between teaching and selling needed to be explored. Thus, the researcher began to consider the fair as an opportunity to see another dimension of the Crow Tribal members, a side of them that interacts with the communities outside of their own. An interplay and perhaps an enhanced mutual understanding between Native American and other cultures may be facilitated by the Crow Fair functioning as both a cultural and commercial event. The principal researcher approached the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the university where he is employed with a plan to attend this cultural-commercial event. The researcher was granted permission to conduct individual interviews with the Crow and to record the events and conversations, analyze the data, and report the findings. In meetings with the IRB prior to the trip, the researcher discussed (in panel and in written Thomas D. Bordelon, Marie Opatrny, Wendy G. Turner, and Steven D. Williams 16 form) the composition of the semi-structured open-ended interview questions and received written approval to proceed with the qualitative interviews. Specifically the written application submitted to and approved by the IRB included the following statement, Qualitative analysis will be conducted with the use of semi-structured interviews with all consenting Crow Nation members. The responses to each question will be voice recorded and later transcribed Since the Crow Fair is a public event, the IRB decided no additional permission was necessary to openly make audio and video recordings of its public proceedings nor did the IRB preclude the publication of any such results obtained from the analysis of data collected at the Crow Fair. The researcher sought and obtained written permission from all of the individuals who participated in personal interviews (each of whom signed a written informed consent form prior to being interviewed). The IRB made no suggestions that the approval of the Crow Fair organizers should be sought and the researcher did not consider obtaining permission to attend the Crow Fair to be essential to the research design. The Crow Fair The Crow Fair is the annual event of the Crow Native American Tribe of south central Montana. For the past 85 years, Crow Tribal Members have begun the event with a parade and highlighted such events as powwows, tests of equine skills, rodeo, and costume pageants. Although most participants belong to the Crow Tribe, some are participants from nearby tribes and a few travel from one Native American Fair to another, entering its competitions and selling their wares. The Crow Fair is a five-day event held in mid-August. Procedures Tom, the principal researcher, collected the data from five days of fieldwork. These included audio-recorded interviews with Native American participants as well as participant observation. Data included photographic and video recordings, which were used by Wendy and Marie as a form of visual notes that supplemented the principal researcher’s notes. All of the still images and video recordings were carefully studied, catalogued, and coded. Tom’s notes were read, and coded into meaning units (as discussed later in this section). The careful study of these visual and written documents allowed the other researchers to visualize the Crow Fair. For example, through the photos and videos the researchers who did not attend were able to see the scenery, the environment, the costumes, and some of the events, such as the parade. The most frequently used measurement instrument in qualitative research is the human researcher (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The principal researcher was the instrument of data collection, and it is through his interviews, notes, photographs, and videos that the other researchers, whose involvement was limited to data analysis and writing, were able to experience his perspective of the Crow Fair. Although Wendy and Marie are not 17 The Qualitative Report January 2011 Native Americans, they expressed to Tom their desire to learn more about Native American culture. Both Wendy and Marie are social workers, and they brought to this study their professional interests in learning about culture as well as their social work skills. Stephen was later added as a peer debriefer in order to strengthen the trustworthiness of the study. Both Wendy and Marie are colleagues at the same university as Tom, and the collaboration on this project was facilitated by a proximally convenient and professionally amicable working arrangement. Wendy and Marie were invited to participate by Tom because they each brought a different set of strengths and expertise to the research project. For example, Wendy has a background in understanding the link between humans and animals. Tom felt this scholarly interest would be useful in exploring the relationships between Native American events, as many of them feature horses. Marie has the experience of having attended a Crow Fair, which gives her an “eye” for seeing the significance in the conversations and events Tom shared with the Crow Tribal members when he attended the Crow Fair. As the instrument for data collection, Tom made decisions on which events to photograph and who to interview based on his estimation of what data could be mined. For example, when a rodeo was the primary event, Tom made the assumption that attending this event would provide the greatest source of data at that time. Tom used his field notes to record his thoughts and feelings during events and interviews, and returned to them in the evening to consider what might be a productive approach to take the next day. In the following field note, for example, the researcher decided to interview an elderly male member of the Crow Tribe. There is a curious referencing to others in the tribe, even though I get the feeling that the person I’m talking to has the answers. I don’t know if it is humility, but there does seem to be respect shown for the elders in the Crow Tribe—especially towards the men. Today, I asked a young man about the history of the tribe. He seemed eager to tell me such things as important events and beliefs, but when I asked him if I could jot down some things I didn’t want to forget, he stopped me. “No, you better not, I’m not sure about things. You’d better talk to him (moving his head in the direction of an elderly man sitting in the shade across the road). He knows a lot more than I do.” [This movement seemed indicative of showing respect for a knowledgeable tribal leader, an interpretation supported by observations of the general deference paid to elders at the fair.] A simple but effective technique in judging where to gather data at the Fair was to simply follow the crowds. Where more people gathered, more opportunities existed to speak with people and record their interpretations of events. Tom judged it important to gather not only a visual record of the fair through photographs, but to capture the event’s sounds as well. The sound of the Crow language, although not understood by the researcher, gave the events the “feel” of being special to the Crow participants. The sound of drumbeats at a distance while people were participating in dancing competitions Thomas D. Bordelon, Marie Opatrny, Wendy G. Turner, and Steven D. Williams 18 attracted the ear of the researcher. Naturally, there is a limit to how much any researcher can capture, and the principal researcher had a technological limit of capturing three hours of sound and video, and 500 still photographs. Therefore, the researcher’s handwritten notes were also essential in the data collection. In qualitative research, in-depth interviews are considered as purposive conversations that aim to develop detailed descriptions, integrate multiple perspectives, describe a process, and learn how events are interpreted (Weiss, 1994). Although these interviews are frequently unstructured, they contain a greater degree of purpose than that of a casual conversation. The interviews in this research were unstructured and audiotape recorded. The researcher used availability sampling in order to select participants for the interviews since a random sample is not necessary or even useful in qualitative research. Availability sampling is a non-probability sampling method in which the researcher collects information from persons to whom he or she has access. Tom approached potential participants who appeared receptive to him and interviewed those who agreed to participate. Seven individuals permitted the audio recording of interviews lasting from about ten minutes to two hours. At the conclusion of those seven interviews, the researcher stopped approaching individuals as he believed he had reached a point of saturation. Saturation is the point at which the data collected is redundant and the researcher is not uncovering new information. The second method of data collection came from participant observation through ethnographic-oriented fieldwork. If ethnography indicates a long-term immersion in the total “way of life” of those being observed, this study cannot be strictly defined as such. However, the line between participant-observation and ethnography is not a qualitatively distinct one; the former constitutes a tool by which the latter may be reached. Participant-observational studies may be relatively brief and oriented towards specific, narrow goals. Participant observation is an interpretive approach in which the researcher records his or her observations while engaging in various degrees of participation (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1998). In this case, Tom was at times strictly an observer who carefully watched the events at the Crow Fair. At other times, the researcher was a participant-observer engaging in activities with Crow participants. An example of the latter role occurred when the researcher took part in setting up a teepee with some Crow men. He was not actually a member of the Crow tribe; however, he was permitted to engage in a Crow activity with other tribe members in order to observe with more depth. As he participated with these men setting up their teepee, the Crow men seemed to enjoy the interest Tom was showing towards them and their customs. He did not live with a Crow family, did not work communally toward long term goals, and did not intimately share a way of life. He was, however, immersed in an intensive five-day cultural event that was geographically and, to only a slightly lesser extent, socially isolated from the surrounding culture. Thus, if the current study does not constitute a “true” ethnography in an anthropologically orthodox sense, it does represent a level of participant-observation research that is oriented strongly to a spirit of ethnography. In the initial categorization of photographs, a student worker independently named images and wrote brief descriptions of each photograph. Downloading and naming the images was a technical task performed by the student worker to enable the researchers to work with the images. However, the theme of commercialism was one that 19 The Qualitative Report January 2011 the principal researcher had something of a predisposition to recognize, as indicated in the introduction to this study. Nevertheless, whether described as commercialism, entrepreneurship, or the influence of the surrounding culture of capitalism, the evidence of “selling” at the Crow Fair is strongly evident. Independent of one’s judgments regarding such activities, the principal researcher believes that any observer would be hard-pressed not to see economic activity in abundance at the fair, and thus feels justified in counting commercialism among the themes evident in his data. Interviews were unstructured and many Fair participants volunteered comments regarding selling in its various forms as well as the importance - to some - of economic gain. Lincoln and Guba (1985) discuss the elements that encompass the essential features of qualitative research, including the important task of establishing trustworthiness. Qualitative research does not assume, nor desire, the objectivity that quantitative research requires for validity and reliability. However, qualitative researchers emphasize trustworthiness to enhance the readers’ confidence in the researcher’s findings. Trustworthiness includes the following four objectives: truth- value, applicability, consistency, and neutrality. These are also sometimes referred to as credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (Lincoln & Guba). One of the techniques used for improving credibility is triangulation. This technique involves gaining and utilizing information from a variety of sources (Rubin & Babbie, 2008). At the Crow Fair, Tom used three methods for data collection: interviews, participant observation, and visual (photographic and video) recordings. He began to notice certain themes, such as commercialization, during the participant observation portion of the study. He was then able to further investigate those themes during the individual interviews. For example, he could ask the participants questions regarding the financial opportunities at the Crow Fair. In addition, he was able to use his camera to record physical evidence of events that were later recognized as themes, such as photos of some of the vendors’ booths. A second technique for improving trustworthiness is the reflexive journal. A reflexive journal is a place for the researcher to record all information about “self and method” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 327). A reflexive journal should contain a log of the researcher’s activities, logistics of the study, the researcher’s insights and reflections, and a methodological log. The principal researcher in this study, Tom, maintained a reflexive journal throughout the process of data collection. In this journal, he kept details of the events of the day, the activities he observed and in which he participated, and insights into those events. He also recorded information about people with whom he spoke and his personal reactions to those conversations. This record of his daily experience enabled Tom to recall pertinent information from his experiences. For example, in just reading the transcripts of the interviews the researcher did not detect the level of emotion that one participant had expressed. In reviewing his journal, he saw that he had noted how that participant had become tearful in discussing some issues in the interview. In addition, the journal provided an affective context for the other two researchers when reviewing data gained from the transcripts. Thus, the reflexive journal was an important means of interpreting the day’s events and conversations. The following is an excerpt demonstrating how an event was interpreted.