I was able to observe parts of the enumeration directly at ten dwellings (one visit each to nine dwellings, and two to the remaining dwelling). Only three of these visits were complete enumerations, because at every other house visited there were some people off hunting (or away from the dwelling for other reasons) and the enumerators followed the strategy wherever possible of returning to households to catch people rather than filling out the SIPFs in their absence. They also filled in SIPFs for people who they found at someone else's dwelling (if they had not already been enumerated), and later filed them with the correct SIHF.
On the afternoon following the filling in of the SIHFs, I went with E1 and E6, who made their initial visits to three dwellings. They also went briefly to E2 and E3's dwelling and helped them to fill in the SIPFs for their own household. We finished in the early evening. The CFO and CC had stayed on for part of the afternoon, and the CFO dropped in on each of the three pairs of enumerators to check on progress and to field queries. Of the dwellings visited on this day, only one was completely enumerated.
The interviews on the first day took longer than on subsequent days. The enumerators were familiarising themselves with the SIPF as they went, and in the process were trying to work out what some of the questions meant.[3]They also began to devise standard replies to some questions.
The following day (census day itself) I went back with E1 to one of the dwellings we had visited the previous day. E1's aim was to complete the SIPFs for this dwelling, which had 22 people on the SIHF: six residents who were actually there, 10 absent residents, and six visitors from community D. We had missed the visitors and several 'usual residents' on the previous day, because they were out fishing, but we got there early enough to catch them this time. E1 was assisted once more by E6, who lives in that dwelling. E1, E6 and I then went to the last dwelling on their list to conduct the enumeration there. By the time we finished there it was lunchtime.
In the meantime, the other enumerators had made their initial enumerations in all but three of the dwellings designated to them. After lunch everyone except E2 met back at the school 'office', where the envelopes were being deposited as the forms were completed. E1 was already in the role of chief enumerator for the lineage Y side of the community. During this session E4 began to assume the equivalent role for the lineage X side of the community, and they continued in these roles for the rest of the enumeration exercise. Working together, E1 and E4:
checked that the SIHFs and SIPFs were in their correct envelopes (some were not);
checked the SIHFs against their completed SIPFs to determine who had not yet been 'caught';
- 38 -double-checked against the school register to make sure that all preschool and school-age children resident in the community had been covered;
amended the SIHFs in the light of their now up-to-date information about absent and newly present residents and visitors;
assigned SIPFs for people who had been missed so far (including the entire household of the dwelling which had previously been classified as vacant, and one as yet unenumerated dwelling);
apportioned the remaining work.
E1 also began the task of making the responses to certain questions on the SIPFs consistent. For example, all schoolchildren and preschoolers were put down as speaking English 'not well'. E1 commented to me after the enumeration was complete that they had been learning how to fill in the SIPF during the process of enumeration. He was aware that as a result the answers to certain questions were not filled in consistently across the whole enumeration, and he did his best to remedy this after the fact, during this and a later checking session.
Following the checking session I went with E1 and E4 to a dwelling that had been on E4 and E5's original list, but which they had not had time to get to the day before. E1 and E4 managed to complete the enumeration of the dwelling in a single session, and they also persuaded one of the community E visitors (who was on the SIHF of another dwelling, but was sitting with his brother at this dwelling at the time) to fill in his SIPF. It was later added to the appropriate envelope. We then moved to the dwelling that had been listed as vacant on the previous day, and a complete enumeration of its returned occupants was successfully achieved. It was now evening again, so work stopped for the day.
The day began with an announcement over the community megaphone that one of the local candidates in the upcoming Northern Territory election was coming that morning to canvass the community. People were urged to attend, and were keen to do so, and the enumerators were anxious to complete their task beforehand. E1 and E2 were heavily involved in preparations for this visit, and so three of the female enumerators (E4, E5, and E6), with me in tow, went as a group to continue the mopping up of the remaining 'missing persons'.
We proceeded first to a dwelling where some of the occupants had not yet been enumerated. Person 1 and his wife were the parents of the infant who had recently died, and whose funeral was shortly to take place, so the enumerators were reluctant to press anyone who was not feeling like being questioned. In addition, person 1's wife and her sisters are from community C. People from community A and its region characterise women from there as excessively shy and retiring, and this proved to be the case.
While we were at this house we saw the community E visitors departing in their vehicle from the dwelling which was to be our next port of call. We went there nevertheless, and one additional person was enumerated. He had returned from community B on the eve of census day. Our final visit was to a dwelling where the 'person 1' had not been enumerated,- 39 - and there we also found his father, who was an as yet unenumerated 'person 1' for another dwelling. They had their SIPFs filled in rather hastily because the plane bearing the local candidate had just landed, and both men were anxious to get to the meeting.
The enumerators had been continuing to return the finished forms in their envelopes to the school 'office'. Most of the envelopes were there by this time. E4 and I now went there, and E4 began a second cross-checking session. Once the local candidate had departed we were joined by E1. E4 began by checking the SIHFs against the SIPFs once again. She noticed that one of the community D visitors had been enumerated twice at two different dwellings, and eliminated one of the forms. She also noticed that two community C visitors had still evaded enumeration, and marked them down for chasing. We already knew that all but one of the community E visitors had escaped being enumerated, but at least they were on the SIHF for the dwelling where they had been staying.
The envelope for that dwelling had now been returned, and it was discovered at this point that none of the SIPFs for the dwelling had in fact been fully filled in. The envelope for the dwelling was marked 'not complete', and it was subsequently visited again by E4 and E1.
As each SIHF and its attached SIPFs were checked, E1 and E4 filled in missing details on any partially completed forms that they found, including those for the community E visitors. They only filled in information that they were reasonably certain of. They were also checking for incorrectly filled forms (for example if people who were pensioners had also been put down as being in work). As each SIHF and its SIPFs were completed, they were placed in their envelope and it was marked as 'complete'. At this stage they did not fill in the summary on the second page of the SIHF. This was presumably done back at community B, when E1 went through the forms with the CFO.
My systematic observation of the enumeration ceased at this point. I have described the process in some detail in order to convey the context in which the enumerators were operating and their strategies for achieving the best possible result, as they perceived it, in the circumstances.
There is no doubt that the majority of the enumerators had taken on board the training that they had been given, were concerned to do the job well, and applied considerable ingenuity, flexibility and dedication to their task. It could also be said that, as far as enumeration scenarios in Indigenous communities go, this was a good one. This was a discrete small-scale community, and the ratio of enumerators to dwellings was almost 1 to 2. Moreover, the enumerators knew the community (and the comings and goings of its members) extremely well. Most of the people they were interviewing were close kin, and willing to cooperate.
There were, however, possible instances of double counting and of omission. These will be discussed in a later section. It is notable, too, that it took six enumerators over two days to enumerate the inhabitants of 13 dwellings. The reasons for this will become clear in the discussion of the interviews that follows.
- 40 -[3] This process sometimes presented a challenge to my position as a neutral 'observer': it was hard for the enumerators not to cast me as a 'helper'. From the time of the 'training' session onwards I was appealed to intermittently for clarification on particular questions. I resisted giving advice as best I could (by pleading ignorance, and saying they should ask the CFO or the CC), except in the area of the translation of kinship terms. Here I simply followed where they led: they were bent on devising English 'translations' for local kinship terms that have no English equivalents, rather than classifying as non-kin people whom they regard as kin.