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Monday, February 22, 2010
Observations: The First Step to Field Work
Whether you are observing a group of people or analyzing an object, you should recognize that your unique perspective and prior assumptions will bias what you see. Somehow, you need to try to get beyond what you see initially and dig deeper into what is going on with your field site or with your object of study. Rituals that seem strange to you might be commonplace among the group you are studying; for example, anthropologist Horace Miner describes the strange rituals he observed in "Body Ritual among the Nacirema." Also keep in mind that what seems boring upon first glance might be extremely interesting upon further examination, as graduate student Samuel Scudder learned in "Look at Your Fish."
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Our group decided to observe the students and faculty of Lafollette food court. Some members of the group are thinking about interviewing the workers of the food court. I personally want to see what the students of Ball State are eating. Most of the students who live in Lafollette are freshmen. I want to see if there is a correlation between the place you go to eat and if you have a busy lifestyle while at college. I think that if you are very committed to studying or you are busy all the time then you do not go to a place where is takes a long time to get your food, but rather take the fast food route so that you may have more time to study or get other things done.
ReplyDeleteKeep an open mind about your observations. That is, try not to go in with a predetermined research question. Just simply observe what's going on and let the research question come from what you actually see.
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