Cultural Ethnography.
Assignment: To write a 4 page essay where you give and defend your opinion on your experience at your cultural space, using two Unit 4 readings to compare/contrast your experience to and using outside articles and interviews to paint the clearest picture possible of the neighborhood involved, the people involved, and/or the cultural practices involved. ****************************************************************************** An ethnography is a genre of writing used primarily by anthropologists to research a culture or a group of people and their practices within a certain environment. The researcher of an ethnography does fieldwork to collect information about the culture/group he/she is studying. This means the researcher enters the culture/group’s environment and observes the practices, actions, reactions, discussions, beliefs, and traditions that take place within this environment. For this assignment, you will act as an ethnographer in a cultural space of your choice, researching this space through observation, gathering written materials at the space, asking members of the cultural space questions, and doing additional research. Your first step in this assignment is to identify a cultural space. While the word culture means many things to many people, for the purposes of this assignment, think of a culture as any group of people who come together in a physical space and have (at least some) common practices, behaviors, and/or beliefs. ****************************************************************************** One important thing to keep in mind about this assignment: an ethnographer is a researcher who is distanced or removed from what he or she studies. You must pick a cultural space that either: You know very little about and the exploration of the cultural space might be significantly transformative in a positive way Most of us know very little about and the exploration of the cultural space might be significantly transformative in a positive way for the reader You have negative views towards but these are based on preconceived notions and exploration of the cultural space might be significantly transformative in a positive way You must choose a place that you can visit at least twice. ****************************************************************************** Research: Primary and Secondary Research as described below 1. All the research for this project must be based on: your own observation of the place/space (or memories of seeing it); interviews with at least two people about their experience of the space and the activities that take place there; articles (must reference at least two of the Unit 4 articles and use at least three “outside” articles – articles researched and found by you in one of QCC’s electronic databases.) 2. Guidelines for interviews: The purpose of the interview is to find out what the space means to your interviewees, what they get from the space, why they spend time there. You may ask them very direct questions, but part of your job as a researcher is to determine this from your analysis of what they say. Ask them to tell you a story(ies) or memories of their experience(s) in the space. This will provide evidence of what the space means to them more than asking them directly. Record what they say in field notes ******************************************************************************