Knowledge of cultural anthropology

For this activity, students will select a public space on or off campus (the public space chosen is Target). Observe how people behave in this environment, and take thorough field notes, writing down any and all observations about how many people are in the space, what they are wearing, how they behave, gendered behavior, norms, breeches of social norms, rules of the space, young couples/older couples, who was browsing where ( for instance, the sections of the Target store: what age groups/racial groups are where?), who was drinking star bucks while shopping for their items, are there families present (if so what are the kids doing)? etc. What makes Target a popular place for people to go to?

After conducting participant observation in your field site, students should type up their field notes, and write up their findings in the paper.  Students should incorporate at least two class concepts (e.g., cultural relativism, ethnocentrism, participant observation, white privilege, thick description, etc.) to make sense of their findings.

The response should draw on your knowledge of cultural anthropology gained throughout the course, specifically in the week on Fieldwork methods (think, for instance, about Phillippe Bourgois’ study of homeless heroin addicts in California, even if your topic looks entirely different). Remember that he observed social behavior (illicit heroin use and needle-sharing practices) and contextualized it amidst wider conditions of poverty, social marginalization, and criminalization, rather than judging his participants. Other fieldwork method resources:

– What about Female Genital Mutilation? And understanding why culture matters in the first place. Richard Schweder

– Imposing Rights: A Study of Child Prostitution in Thailand, Heather Montgomery

– Thich Description: Toward an interpretive Theory of Culture, Clifford Geertz

This is not a thesis paper. In other words, you do not need an argument in the paper. But you do need to reflect critically on the behavior of those you observed in the public place of your choice and analyze it anthropologically drawing on course concepts and readings.