In the context of documentary storytelling, writer Robert Coles defines location as “…how a particular writer or researcher decides to commit himself or herself with respect to those others being studied, watched, heard, made the subject of a writing initiative.”(p. 32) Thus, the issue of location is not one of physical space, but rather of a documentary storyteller’s intentional proximity to the story that they are telling. The more that a storyteller decides to place or involve themselves within the narrative, the more they rely on the subjective rather than the objective. Furthermore, the closer the proximity or “location,” greater impact, or even harm, can be caused to the storyteller themself.
The idea of location as described by Coles, and its significance as an idea within documentary storytelling, is illustrated well within the opening pages of the introductory chapter of his book “Doing Documentary Work.” In this passage, Coles recounts the work of James Agee, specifically in the creation of his work Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Coles discusses the introduction to Agee’s text, in which the author describes the great distress that he underwent as a result of engrossing himself within the lives of such underprivileged and damaged families. Though Agee was able to physically place himself alongside the Alabaman tenant-farmer families that he sought to share the stories of, simply observing their lives brought unto him a great sense of helplessness and futility, as he could not directly correct the inequities and struggles that he was tasked with merely documenting.
The previous recounting of Agee’s work embodies Coles’ ideas regarding location in that it shows an example of a documentarian intensely immersing themselves within the subject of their work. In this case, it was done by living alongside tenant-farmer families in attempts to accurately communicate the struggles they faced. Arguably, this could be described as “intense” location, as the proximity is so close between storyteller and subject. In this case, Agee creates a great example of the harm that can be brought about by great proximity. Furthermore, the fact that the opening portions of Agee’s text go into such great detail regarding his own experience and personal impact of how he told this story shows the extent to which he uses subjectivity. Thus, this is a secondary use of the idea of location, as Agee leans into a subjective narrative.
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