Sequence I Ethnography

1. Sequence I Ethnography

2. The term “ethnography” comes from the field of cultural anthropology: South Omo Research Center: Forum for Scientific Debate and Transcultural Understanding in Southern Ethiopia • The study and systematic recording of human cultures or the descriptive work produced from such research. • 2. A writer’s ongoing participation in a particular culture. • 3. The ethnographic researcher strives to avoid any preconceptions about the place/culture and instead bases the final product on what is observed firsthand and from what specific members of the culture say.

3. Ethnography  4. Richard Robbins in Cultural Anthropology: A Problem-Based Approach defines the ethnographic method as “the immersion of researchers in the lives and cultures of the peoples they are trying to understand in order to comprehend the meanings these people ascribe to their existence” (276). 5. Wendy Bishop in Ethnographic Writing Research explains that “an ethnography becomes a representation of the lived experience of a convened culture” (4-5). 6. She also lists definitions of ethnographic research given by various disciplines: “Anthropology-based Research: An ethnography is a written representation of a culture (or selected aspects of a culture). (Van Maanan 1988, 1)” “Education-based Research: Ethnographers attempt to record, in an orderly manner, how natives behave and how they explain their behavior. And ethnography, strictly speaking, is an orderly report of this recording. Natives are people in situations anywhere—including children and youth in schools—not just people who live in remote jungles or cozy peasant villages. (Spindler & Spindler 1987, 17)” “Psychology-based Research: The self as we experience it, understand it, and act it out is a function of the dynamic interaction between individual and social groups, so to describe the self usefully we must investigate these interactions. (Brooke 1991, 16-17)”

4. Due to the ambiguity of the ethnographer’s role as observer and/or participant—yet not a “true” member—ethnography can vary in its communication of meaning. Is it objective, impartial inquiry or subjective, biased inquiry or both or something else?

5. Thick Description • Anthropologist Clifford Geertz calls the process of carefully documenting the significant features of a culture “thick description,” and he argues that the features of a culture can be understood as stories that cultures tell about themselves. • 2. Full, detailed description to the point of analysis intended to give a mental image of something experienced. • 3. Significantthick description provides details that would be meaningful to an outsider or someone unfamiliar with the group, place, or thing being described. It not only describes, but also provides an interpretation of the meaning or significance of what is observed.

6. Rite/Ritual • A regular event that is marked by a culture as custom or ceremony. • 2. Clifford Geertz in The Interpretation of Cultures lists: “consecrated behavior,” “cultural performances,” and the “symbolic fusion of ethos and world view” (112-3). • 3. Dictionary.com: “a prescribed code of behavior regulating social conduct, as that exemplified by the raising of one's hat or the shaking of hands in greeting.” • 4. Peter Magolda in “The Campus Tour: Ritual and Community in Higher Education” defines ritual as “a formalized, symbolic performance” (33) • Example: the campus tour • Freshmen Convocation • off-campus party

7. Artifact • Any object produced or crafted by human beings, as opposed to something intrinsic to the environment. • 2. One definition of artifact Dictionary.com lists: “any mass-produced, usually inexpensive object reflecting contemporary society or popular culture.” • Example: promotional brochure • posters on wall

8. Culture • Any group that shares common language, values, habits, mores, activities, and beliefs. • 2. Spradley and McCurdy in Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology define culture as “the categories, plans, and rules people use to interpret their world and act purposefully within it” (2). • 3. Kenneth Johnson in “The vocabulary of race” says the term refers to “a shared way of life.” • 4. Clifford Geertz in The Interpretation of Cultures defines culture as “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” (89). • Example: Miami University of Ohio students • student organizations and athletic teams

9. Community Peter Magolda’s “The Campus Tour: Ritual and Community in Higher Education”: “Heller (1989) identifies three distinct word uses for the term community: locality (i.e., a territorial or geographic notion of community such as a neighborhood), relational (i.e., qualities of human interaction and social ties/networks that attract people to one another), and collective political power (i.e., the act of organizing for social action).” (35) Example of each : literal campus land rapport between tour guide and visitors what is “normal” and expected at Miami

10. Symbol • Clifford Geertz in The Interpretation of Cultures defines symbol as “any object, act, event, quality, or relation which serves as a vehicle for a conception—the conception is the symbol’s ‘meaning’” (91). • 2. Dictionary.com: “something used for or regarded as representing something else; a material object representing something, often something immaterial.” • Example: red plastic cup on lawn (symbolizes partying) • the hub (symbolizes center/core of campus)

11. Identification/Identity • A psychological orientation of the self regarding something or someone (like a person or a group) with a resulting feeling of close emotional association. • 2. The unconscious act of associating with a group and matching behavior with that group. • 3. Common characteristics and ideas may be clear markers of a shared cultural identity, but essentially, identity is determined by difference: we feel we belong to a group, and a group defines itself as a group, by noticing and highlighting differences with other groups and cultures. • Role • one’s function in a particular context • 2. “the rights, obligations, and expected behavior patterns associated with a particular social status” (dictionary.com) • Identity is not a single, fixed entity since it changes with each role an individual performs. • Example: tour guide role, guest role, prospective student role

12. Memory • The deliberative or unconscious processing, storing, retaining, and recalling of what has been experienced or imagined. • 2. Memory is often theorized as a place or internal geographic location. • 3. Dictionary.com: “the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences” and “the length of time over which recollection extends.” • Example: tour guide explaining Miami’s history