Verandah Ethnography

Order Description For this assignment, you will observe the behavior of people in some PUBLIC setting and record your observations. Your goal is to record as much detail about the interactions and behavior of the people in this public setting without getting overloaded (you will find that there is a lot going on). You will then write a up a description of culture in that place. To do this you will have to focus your attention on a few types of behaviors/interactions. Specifically, you must 1) observe people in a public place where there are at least five other people present (e.g., a library, a computer lab, a caf?). There is no talking to them. 2) visit the same place on at least three different occasions 3) spend at least 20 minutes observing on each occasion 4) maintain field notes that will be turned in with the final paper 5) type up a 2-??page report on your findings You can use this assignment to get some experience with the chief methods employed in the ethnographic tradition. These methods always require a period of intense observation, and so I would like your mini-??ethnography to incorporate observation as its starting point. In order to more fully appreciate your observations, you will need to keep a journal of notes taken in the field followed by post-??observation field notes. How to approach this assignment: 1. Context. Find a setting that you are interested in learning more about. You can choose a setting in which you are involved in socially already. It may be a setting to which you already have access to, or which you experience on a regular basis; HOWEVER, you are not to interact with the people you are observing. 2. Ethics. Consider your impact on the environment. Is the setting a public place that does not require you to inform people that they are being observed? How might you inform people that they are part of a research project? Consider how to maintain anonymity. 3. Assumptions. Try not to prove pre-??existing theories you have about the context and activities happening (see how hard this is!). An ethnographer's research questions should arise in the process of observation, as do answers to research questions. For example, do not go in trying to prove that everyone in the computer lab is spending his or her time on Instagram. Guidelines for observing: 1. Observers try to uncover and record aspects of the group that they are studying that may not be obvious to the subjects themselves. For example, how are people who are talking to each other standing? What is their body language? Are they acting bored or interested? 2. Draw. Field notes should be more than writing; drawing maps and sketching activities is often very useful when trying to remember the detai ls of what you have seen. Include notes about body language, environment, and noise. What is going on around this context that may be shaping it? 3. Reflect on your own actions. As Corinne Kondo (an anthropologist) writes: ?[E]thnographers alter themselves in order to fit into their contexts as unobtrusive observers and as participant observers." How much do you have to adapt yourself in order to learn about the context and culture that you are studying? 4. Systematically look for discrepant cases or anomalies. If most people seem to be doing an activity the same way, notice who does it differently. What seems to be going on here? Writing it up As you are observing, you should take notes (handwritten) and keep these to hand in with the assignment. After each period of observation, you should spend at least 15 minutes examining your notes, and then writing at least a paragraph about your observations. In other words, what have you noticed about what you noticed? (wow that was very deep...). Use both the field notes and the paragraph summaries to write your final report. You can choose any subject to focus on for the final paper (after all it is only 2 pages); for example ? you could focus on how people in your area talk to each other, how they try to attract attention to themselves (by talking loudly on their cell phones, for example), or on how people spend time communicating with others through social media (texting, twittering, etc.) while ignoring people around them. Find something that interests you and write about that.In your write up, you should at minimum include these three sections: 1) What are the behaviors that were observed? 2) How did they change between observations? 3) What can you learn about culture through this method that you could not through the armchair project?