Unit 3: Ethnographic Writing

Unit 3: Ethnographic Writing and Photography (scroll down / click "read more" for schedule and key terms)

INTRODUCTION: In this unit, we will explore the philosopher Clifford Geertz (among others) idea of Culture as Symbolic Action that is understood through its Context. Through a variety of research methods, writing processes, and photographic undertakings, students will complete a variety of smaller scale assignments that will culminate in a major project that will combine close reading, analysis, field research, “library” research, and photography. Along the way, we will read, analyze, and discuss other texts authored by writers engaged in similar processes.

GOALS: 1) Further develop student abilities to engage in academic conversations. 2) Use writing, reading, research, and photography as an occasion for finding, analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information. 3) develop responses to other writers’ inquiries 4) advance students’ own analysis and arguments in conversation with that of other writers 5) continue to practice writing, research, and photography as a process in which writers rethink and revise their work 6) Practice ethnographic means of researching and writing 7) consider how photography can play a vital role in ethnographic research

PROCESS: Through a variety of research methods, smaller scale writing and photography assignments (including short analysis papers, photographic essays, and responses to reading), students will design, create, rethink, and revise an Ethnographic Inquiry/ Thick Description of the symbolic actions associated with some aspect of local culture. For instance: The symbolic actions (in this case decorations) of freshmen students living in a dorm, and the context in which these actions have meaning.

AUDIENCE: The scholarly community.

ASSIGNMENTS / GRADING:

1)      Symbolic Action Reflection Papers (2): Describe a symbolic action and document it (or some aspect of it with a photograph). Apply your own analysis, and make reference to other writers’ methods and/or insights. For the second of these papers, you will also suggest some methods of further research you might apply.

* Friday Papers Grade

2)      Project Proposal: An organized and formal write up explaining your project, its importance, the methods you will use to study it, the research and outside sources you will seek and apply to it, etc.

3)      5-7 photo PHOTO-ESSAY with captions. *Friday Paper Grade

4)      7 Source Annotated Bibliography. 10% of Major Project Grade

5)      Response to Outside Sources (aka Review of Literature). 3-4 page response considering what your sources say, and how they interact with each other. 10% of Major Project Grade

6)      Ethnographic Writing Project: A “Thick Description.” 6-7 page paper using observation, interview, close reading and other analysis, and outside research. 60% of Major Project Grade

7)      Photo display: 12 – 20 photos with captions, and Presentation. 20% of Major Project Grade.

SCHEDULE:

M 4/4: Introduce Unit 3. Go over Key Terms and Assignments.

W 4/6: Discuss “A Walk through the Jewish Divorce Ceremony”

            Read Selections for The Truth Needs No Ally

F 4/8: Turn in second “Symbolic Action” paper. This will count as a Friday Paper grade.

4/11: Begin planning Ethnographic Project

4/13: Meet in computer lab to begin research. Project Proposal Due.

4/15: 5-7 photo PhotoEssay due, with captions.

             

4/18: Holiday

4/20: Discuss One Big Self, 7 source annotated bibliography due

4/22: Discuss One Big Self; *Optional Friday Paper due (response to OBS)

4/25: Continue work on Ethnography Projects

4/27: Meet in Computer Lab

4/29: Response to outside sources due. 3-4 pages.

5/2: CONFERENCES (initial draft due at conferences)

5/4: CONFERENCES

5/6: revised draft due

5/9: Final draft of written project due.

EXAM: FRIDAY MAY 13, 10:10 – 12:10: Photo display with captions due. Short presentations

KEY TERMS:

Symbolic Action: Humans may be thought of as “symbol using animals.” In this way, our culture (and even what we think of as our “reality”) reflects the build up of our symbolic systems. We are always, at least subtly, performing symbolic actions that depend on our cultural contexts for meaning. The use of language itself is an example of our reliance on culturally dependent symbols.

Context: the “situation” an action takes place within; its surroundings. For our purposes: what surrounds an action and gives it meaning. (In The Wink Example, the context is what allows the same action to have different meanings, AND also allows another viewer within that context to understand each of the meanings)

Ethnography: (literally: “combining forms of writing.”) A long term investigation of a group (often a culture) that is based on immersion and, optimally, participation in that group. Ethnography provides a detailed exploration of group activity and may include literature about and/or by the group. It is an approach which employs multiple methodologies to arrive at a theoretically comprehensive understanding of a group or culture. The issue for the observer is how the particulars in a given situation are interrelated. In other words, ethnography attempts to explain the Web of interdependence of group behaviors and interactions.

Methodology: A body of practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in a discipline or engage in an inquiry; a set of working methods.

Methodology is essentially, the methods a researcher uses to collect and analyze her/his research.

3 Key questions of Ethnography are:

1) What does the outsider, or participant observer notice and make sense of that insider participants might not?

2) : What meaning does a particular action have to members of a particular group? i.e. How does the meaning of an action exist in a participants’ consciousness?

3) How do answers to the above 2 questions differ? How can they be combined to inform each other?

Ethnographic Methods include:

Narrative Inquiry: the process of gathering information for the purpose of research through storytelling. The researcher then writes a narrative of the experience. Connelly and Clandinin (1990) note that, "Humans are storytelling organisms who, individually and collectively, lead storied lives. Thus, the study of narrative is the study of the ways humans experience the world." In other words, people's lives consist of stories.

Field notes (observations), interviews, journals, letters, autobiographies, and orally told stories are all methods of narrative inquiry. For example, a researcher might do a study on the way in which fourth grade girls define their social roles in school. A researcher might look at such things as notes and journal entries,and might also interview the girls and spend time observing them. After this, the researcher would then construct her own narrative of the study, using such conventions as scene and plot. As Connelly and Clandinin also note,"Research is a collaborative document, a mutually constructed story out of the lives of both researcher and participant."

Short Term Observation: Short term observational studies list or present findings of short term qualitative study based on recorded observation. Observation in the studied group's natural setting is a key aspect of qualitative research. The terms group and culture are used in a loose sense here because for the researcher, a group or culture may include populations such as an individual classroom of students, a set of employees in the workplace, or residents of similar geographical or cultural areas or backgrounds.

Analysis:  the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), though analysis as a formal concept is a relatively recent development.

Ex: William Raspberry offers an analysis of the terms “black” and “white” in his essay, “The Handicap of Definition.”

Close Reading: Close reading is a form of analysis describes the careful, sustained interpretation of a some artifact (a poem, a drama, a building’s design) Such a “reading” places great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual aspects of the artifact that is “read” in order to draw conclusions about the artifact’s meaning.

Ex: In “Life in the Dorms” Rebekah Nathan offers a close reading of student’s dorm doors as well as hallway bulletin boards.

*As you consider these research practices, it is important to remember that Ethnographic Researchers will use Several Approaches in researching and discussing their subjects. A central idea of Ethnography is that no single method of inquiry can paint a full picture of the subject studies. Rather, by combining methods and working between them, the researcher can develop a more full, more sophisticated understanding.

Thick Description: a thick description of a human behavior is one that explains not just the behavior, but its context as well, such that the behavior becomes meaningful to an outsider. Thick descriptions are perhaps better able to accomplish this goal through the use of a variety of research and writing methods.