Paper short abstract:

During and after artistic and ethno-/musicological field research all role players involved select, provide and use data which reflects their personal realities and is subject to their sovereignty of opinion. This purposely made selection has an impact on the creation of art, fiction and science.

Paper long abstract:

Field work, including ethnomusicological fieldwork, is widely defined as an activity aiming at the collection of data which is subsequently analysed and interpreted. But when entering the field one also enters a political arena in which all participating role players hold specific positions and are subject to power relations which may impact the selection of data to be collected during the research. Depending on the status (e.g. age group, political status) or role they play in a community cultural consultants, as will be shown, may be in possession of a certain sovereignty of opinion which allows them to select and pre-interpret (but also comment) data. Researchers may therefore be confronted with individual opinion or even manipulating fiction where they expect “facts”. On the other side of the field, researchers themselves possess a status which provides them with a certain sovereignty of interpretation which, after a rigid analysis of data, may lead to scientific results, but also to new (science-)fiction – both contributing to and being part of a mystification of the researched and the researchers which occasionally takes place at universities. On the basis of examples from Southern Africa and the academic world I will explain some of the ideas outlined above and offer some suggestions for a better practice.