Ethnography

in different ways. To select my articles, I went to a folder I created for a project I am working on with my research advisor involving ethnicity and race talk in classrooms. After reviewing the abstracts, I selected three articles that used ethnography and discussed ethnicity or race in some way. Three Examples of Ethnographic Research Methodology Themes of race, culture, and ethnicity are prominent in each of the articles discussed in this paper; however, the researchers…

Ethnography is a study used by sociologists to emerge within a group and observe how they operate. Within Sidewalk Gotta Go and Sidewalk Sleeping, Duneier is able to see what is unseen by the average tourist in New York City. Although he had submerged himself with this a group of street vendors on Sixth Avenue, there are advantages and disadvantages to an ethnographical study. Mitchell Duneier was able to work with the street vendors and learn why they had chosen to sleep outside, or why they…

Visiting a museum has always been a top priority, since it not only house the ancient cultural history but also communicates in a symbolic manner to all age groups. Today the very concept of the museum has undergone a drastic transformation. Museums in contemporary times are not restricted to ancient people and history, but museum today comprise histories and impart stories of human beings. As a result there are different types of museums focusing on diverse issues such as eco-museums focus on…

Clifford Geertz became the face of the discipline of anthropology during the 1970s. With his new approach to synthesizing fieldwork and his conceptualization of the connection between biological evolution and cultural evolution, his work transcended the boundaries of discipline by altering perspectives and frameworks in fields such as philosophy and biology. During the same decade, playwright and writer Alice Walker influenced a resurgence of Zora Neale Hurston’s publications on the Black…

This paper will present an ethnographic research of the Blue Ash Business Association. The main object that this research will focus on is how business associations contribute to the community? The ethnography research will be observing and understanding the meeting of the Business Association and conducting interviews with some members in the association. This research also will identify some lexis and language that members use during their meetings. The point of this observation is to answer…

The Churchill Room A mini-ethnographic essay Introduction There is no doubt that ethnographic studies can vary in terms of scope, details presented, audience targeted, researching skills of the writer, objectives aimed at and several other associated motives. Primarily aiming at acquiring the benefits of developing what Clifford Geertz calls as “thick description” in his book The Interpretation of Cultures (1993), this essay will examine the daily activities in a public space…

Hortense Powdermaker, a world-renowned cultural anthropologist, spent her life studying the lives of others. She wanted to gain insight into cultures and societies different than hers. Throughout her lifetime, Powdermaker strived to give those who can’t always speak for themselves, a voice of their own. Powdermaker’s book, Stranger and Friend: The Way of an Anthropologist, highlights four different cultural contexts in which she did fieldwork over the course of her life as an anthropologist.…

WesBurlesque; "How to Find Comfortability in the Uncomfortable" (just some ideas here…) My Thesis: At Wesleyan I will be interpreting how Performers in WesBurlesque believe that the performance/ process is “liberating” and “inclusive” but at the same time pushes members outside their “comfort zone” and excludes some individuals in the process. By interviewing seven of the sixty current performers, I was able to obtain ethnographic evidence that presents a paradox of individuals gaining…

Ethnographic fieldwork in anthropology is seen as the most important source of new knowledge about society and culture. There is no simple recipe for fieldwork. The overall main aim of fieldwork is to develop as intimate an understanding as possible of the society or culture being studied. Traditionally the aim of fieldwork was to account for the workings of a particular society but not to explain how it emerged. Anthropologists such as Kroeber and Evans-Pritchard have since stressed the…

In Politics of Piety, Saba Mahmood does an amazing job at portraying the women’s mosque movement in Egypt in a new, less reductionistic light as opposed to the conventional approaches used by many scholars of feminism and theorists of agency. While Mahmood’s book revolves around these popular piety movements of the 90s, this book is much more than just an ethnographic inquiry; it is a scathing critique of secular liberal feminism, which has at times been exploited to serve imperial projects and…