Creative Commons.
For my cultural astronomy research, as I stated in my last entry, I study people living today and their relationship to the sky. My data collection methods are taken from anthropology and sociology. I do field work: I travel to my research sites where I talk to people about their sky knowledge. Sometimes I videotape or tape record structured interviews with people, which I later transcribe word for word. The recordings and the transcriptions are then part of the data that I use for analysis. Other data are my daily field notes, which are written records of what I witnessed, the conversations I had, and my thoughts and impressions. My descriptions of the solstice activities that appear in my last entry are condensed from my field notes. Photographs and films of activities are also considered data. The quantitative data that I collect is through survey research. I have a couple of multiyear survey projects currently underway. All these methods of data collection and data are different from astrophysics because the focus is on people...always. My students and I always enjoy the familiar dialogue that we have with the astronomers and astrophysicists that we study:
"What are you studying?"
"You"
"No, really?"
"You"
Now, my reputation as a researcher who studies cultural astronomy is spreading to the point where this summer I was having a casual dinner with an astronomer, and after I asked him a few questions, he looked at me and said " Stop doing field work!"
My current research focuses on Kitt Peak National Observatory. Thus, I have two field sites: the National Optical Astronomical Observatory (NOAO) office in Tucson - pretty much on the University of Arizona campus, and Kitt Peak outside of Tucson. NOAO runs Kitt Peak. All of the interviews that I have recorded thus far have been at NOAO, but this is the first year of the project. I eventually will travel to Kitt Peak to do interviews and observations...of people.
As I was beginning my research on NOAO, my relationship as researcher changed to participant. NOAO is the center of the International Year of Astronomy United States activities and I became the chair of the Cultural Astronomy and Storytelling Group!. I created an excellent team of historians of astronomy, archaeoastronomers, anthropologists, and astronomy outreach specialists and together we proposed a cornerstone project called "Celestial Cinema". The project is to create five films that will be new resources for people interested in the cultural aspects of astronomy. During 2009, we have done several events that involve storytelling, telescope viewing, and outreach into diverse communities. I am particularly concerned about having IYA2009 be more than just getting people already interested in astronomy more involved. I want IYA2009 to reach underserved communities that have little or no access to the traditional astronomy venues: observatories, planetariums, science centers, and science museums. My team is working to make this a reality. Also, we are focusing on showing the diversity of astronomy through our projects. For example, our storytelling events often include stories from all over the world.
The last four years, I have done less field research and more administration. Managing the Cultural Astronomy and Storytelling Group is just one example of this. In 2004, 2005, and 2006, I took multiple trips to Africa to reinvigorate the field of African Cultural Astronomy, which was thriving in the 1970s and 1980s but faded away in the 1990s. My activities culminated in organizing the Ghana Eclipse Conference in 2006. The book came out in 2008. Next, I began fundraising for the African Cultural Astronomy Network with the goal of getting travel funds that would allow the African scholars to travel to Cultural Astronomy conferences outside of Africa. This year, one of the European Cultural Astronomy organizations is having their annual meeting in Alexandria, Egypt. I have written an NSF Workshop grant to bring the African scholars to the meeting to plan writing a big collaborative grant that will support research in Africa over the next five years. Continuing my relations with Ghana, I have created the very first Astronomy Study Abroad in Africa to take place in Ghana this December as part of my groups IYA2009 activities. There are very few observatories in Africa, which has limited the progress of academic astronomy. However, now most of the data from NASA's Great Observatories is archived online for anyone to use. Our study abroad teaches students how to use these archives to do cutting edge astronomy, but also there is a class on African Cultural Astronomy. I have taken an active role in four cultural astronomy societies including the African and European ones that I mentioned. As I mentioned in my last entry, I am building infrastructure for cultural astronomy graduate students through creating both a graduate minor at the University of Arizona and the 2010 Cultural Astronomy Field School in the United Kingdom. Doing field research and publishing is instantly recognizable as scholarly work with a relatively fast turn around of a couple of years. The administration and infrastructure building that I do does not have an immediate payoff, instead, these are very long term investments that will ensure the viability of the field of cultural astronomy for decades to come. These activities will ensure that students who want to study cultural astronomy will have a place to go to, societies to join, and hopefully places to go to teach (jobs!).
This week my film "Hubble's Diverse Universe" is being premiered at the Museum of African American Technology and Science Village in Oakland, CA. The last week has been hectic trying to get the final 45 minute cut ready for Friday, July 10. Hubble's Diverse Universe is a film conceived by me and Romeel Davé that was in the works before I assumed my IYA2009 duties. The idea was to film interviews with ten African American and Hispanic American astrophysicists about their scientific research, their careers, and their experiences being minorities in astronomy. In the end, we filmed nine because Beth Brown, who was a NASA scientist, died before we began filming. Dr. Brown was very dear to the African American astronomy and physics community and we are still trying to recover from her sudden and unexpected death. The film includes interviews with three women and six men, three Hispanic Americans and six African Americans, and they rank from postdoctoral fellow to full professor. Romeel and I are the executive producers, that is, we are the creative force behind the film and we secured the funding for the film. I interviewed the scientists about the cultural aspects of astronomy, while Romeel focused on their scientific research. The production was done by Boags Productions based in Los Angeles. They did all the filming, editing, and the soundtrack.
I personally know most of the astronomers who appear in the film so I was able to get some very candid responses about minority issues in astronomy. However, because of the inspirational nature of the film, i.e. we want to encourage minorities to go into astronomy, much of the statements have been omitted. I remind people when they see the film that what is included is tame compared to what I cut out! The film is one of the five films proposed by the IYA2009USA Cultural Astronomy and Storytelling Group. Thus far, it is the only film that has been funded. However, we are waiting to hear of we will get funding to do another documentary on two African American solar physicists who are traveling to the Marshall Islands for the July 22, 2009, total solar eclipse. Since this is later this month, it does not look positive. Both these films highlight the diversity within the astronomy community.