You will also carry out an ethnographic project where you engage in first-hand ethnographic research and an anthropological analysis of some topic. You may conduct data collection and analysis as a group (consult your TA if you decide to do this), if you would like to have access to a broader base of observations and work with others in your lab section on a similar topic. However, the field note and interview summaries and the final paper will all be written and graded individually. This project will be broken down into the following constituent parts, and the total project will account for 20% of your final grade.

 

Topic: Choose and customize one of the following topics, or select your own with the TA's approval.

 

Body modification. Find some community of people that undertake some form of body modification, such as tattoos, piercings, spacers, implantations, body modification surgery, etc. Try to understand the myriad meanings behind the mode of body modification that you choose to study. What are the moral and aesthetic reasons for which people in this community undertake body modifications? How does it make sense to do so within this community? What does body modification say about their concept of personhood, and how they relate to the broader society? Dig behind explicit reasoning to understand the whole range of meanings and understandings that pervade the practice within the community.

 

Preparing for the apocalypse. Investigate the apocalyptic or millenarian views and experiences of some group of people. Imagining the end of the world as we know it is common, not just in American society, but around the world. Visions of the apocalypse range from imaginations of the "U.S. constitution hanging by a thread," humanity's existence being challenged by a rising generation of robot overlords, the extinction of the human race by cataclysmic climate change, an impending utopia to be ushered in by UFOs who will deliver our world from suffering, etc. etc. Some communities are more concerned with these issues than others, and each community develops ways of "reading the signs of the times" that are changing. Find some intentional community that shares a vision of end times, or some common apocalyptic vision, and study their worldview. What are the signs that provide evidence of their apocalyptic worldview? How are they preparing for the end? What are the utopian and/or dystopian fantasies that drive the worldview? What does 'preparing' for the apocalypse look like? Is the apocalypse experienced as something that is practically very far off and not calling for regular daily attention to it, or is it experienced as imminent? Try to get a sense of how people in this group experience the impending (or far off) apocalypse and precisely how they imagine it.

 

Religious Community. Find a religious community in which you were not raised,, do not participate in yourself, nor with which you are very familiar. Attend religious services or events in that community, and try to get to know some members of the community. Try to understand the relationships between their fundamental values and their daily practices (rituals, training, teaching, etc.). What is the role of religion in their understanding of the world? What assumptions do they make about the nature of reality, cosmology, theology, and experience that are distinct from your own? How does their religious framework help them make sense of human experience? How is this understanding made manifest in their daily practices and life?

 

If you would rather propose another topic as the focus of your ethnographic project, write a proposal of 300-400 words and submit it to your TA for consideration. This proposal is the prospectus assignment that is detailed below. These topics have to be approved by the TA before you begin conducting research on your topic. We strongly recommend that you talk to your TA in person before you submit a proposal for a different topic, as this will help you shape that topic in a way that fits with the expectations of this assignment.

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Points of clarification:

 

What do I mean by "a group of people?" In the early section of this course we will discuss what culture is, and talk about what 'cultural models' are. Cultural models are shared by a group of people that have some common bases of experience in the world that provides them at least some common understanding of that world. The 'group of people' that you choose to study for this project must have some common base of experience that relates to the thing that you are studying. For example, biology majors are all being socialized into a discipline together (despite their varying backgrounds), which likely gives them at least some common view of what science is.

 

Try to stay focused on a tight group of questions. It is very easy to get so diffused with the questions that you ask that you don't end up with a coherent set of observations for your analysis. Focus on a particular group of people to address your questions (so that you can document common experiences among them), but also focus your questions and observations so that they cohere around a particular topic rather than being scattered all over the place.

 

Keep a journal about your observations. Record your interviews so that you can go back to the important things that your participants said or did. You will use the Field Note and Interview templates provided below to submit your observations for grading and to share them with the rest of your group (assuming that you share data on a similar project with a group as described above).

 

Use academic literature that you find to think about how you will research your topic. What did the author of the articles or chapters that you read do to study their topic? What evidence did they collect and use to make their argument about the cultural group or phenomenon that they were studying? Use these as a model for your own project. **If you do not know how to search for relevant academic literature, please visit the Anthropology Subject Guide on the library website for resources or consider contacting a librarian to learn how to do so.

 

What will I actually turn in?

 

1. Research prospectus. This will be worth 2% out of the total 20% of the Ethnographic Project. You need to decide on one of the topics to be studied. You will find three scholarly articles, books, or book chapters on the topic. You will turn in a 300-400 word summary of the topic to be studied, along with a list of the Chicago (Author-Date)formatted citations for all of the sources that you found on the topic.

 

2. Field journal and interview summaries (turned in individually, but shared with group if you so choose). This will be worth 8% of the total 20% of the Ethnographic Project. It is recommended that you consult with your TA as you begin to collect data and decide what you will interview and observe, what you will talk about/observe, etc. You will keep a journal and record your interviews. The expectation is that you will spend at least 5 hours conducting interviews or participant observation for your project (at least two hours of each), in addition to writing up the summary of your data. Use this document to log the time you spent conducting participant observation and interviews, which you will upload to Learning Suite when you turn in the results of your analysis. You will turn in a copy of your journal and any interview materials to the TA for grading. These will be uploaded to the Gradebook in Learning Suite for the TA. Use this template for reporting your participant observation and interview results. This format is required for both interviews and field observations. In addition to providing raw data (observations, transcript from interviews) you do need to provide some evidence that you have begun to think anthropologically about your data. An example of what this might look like can be found here. If you decide to coordinate with others in your lab section, each member of the group may share these materials with the rest of your group via Digital Dialog on Learning Suite, which your TA will have to help you coordinate.

 

3. Final write-up (or video) (turned in and graded individually). This paper should be a minimum of 1,500 words and no longer than 2,000 words. This will be worth 10% of the total 20% of the Ethnographic Project. This is where you demonstrate your capacity to 'think anthropologically' about the topic that you have been studying empirically. This write-up should entail your analysis of the cultural dimensions of the topic that you researched with the people that you interviewed or observed. It should draw from concepts in the course readings, lectures, and the literature that you collected as well as the observations and interviews that you collected. The point is to dig down to the cultural models and assumptions inherent in the things that people said and did as you were studying them. Please consult the grading rubric as you write up your analysis. If you go over a rough draft of your analysis with your TA at least 10 days prior to the deadline, a full 1% will be added to your final grade for the ethnographic project (essentially adding 1% to your final grade for the course).

 

If you choose, you may produce an ethnographic film based on your research instead of a final paper. The criteria for the project will be the same as a written analysis, but you may choose to use audiovisual presentation to convey what you learned in your ethnographic project. If you choose to produce a short film, it must be accompanied by a short summary (no more than 500 words) of the film and the significance of your findings. The film itself must be shorter than 15 minutes, and it must include observational footage from your ethnographic research (a modified rubric will be provided if you choose to submit a film instead of a final write-up). If you choose to produce a short film, the style and creativity of the film, as well as the ethnographic and analytic content, will both be considered in grading your final project. You may work in groups of two people (and no more) to produce the film, with prior approval of your TA(s). However, if you choose to do this, then your grade for the final product will be the same for both students.

 

Elements to include in the individual analysis paper:

 

Start with an introduction summarizing the conclusions or what you will do or argue in the paper.
Provide some description of the observations or other data that you made.

Describe the cultural models or mythical reality that you believe to be at work in the lives of the people you did research with. In other words, what has to be true about the world for these data to make sense in the lives of the people you researched?

Draw some summary conclusions about what you learned on your topic. This should demonstrate your capacity to 'think anthropologically' about the participant observation and interviews that you did.