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Assignment #2
Ethnographic Essay
Due: Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

For this exercise you will be taking the role of an anthropologist conducting participant observation. Your grade for this assignment will be based on: 1) the quality and detail of your notes from your observation; and 2) a typed, well-organized presentation, of your observation with your own analysis of scene that you observed.

Pick a site to conduct your observation. Such a site should be “active.” Here are some suggestions:

1) The Art Institute Museum;
2) One of the city trains or buses;
3) Outside of the 624 S. Michigan Ave. building, i.e. the library.

You will observe, at a distance, about 30 minutes at your chosen site. Do not intrude on others at this site, just watch and listen. Write down what you have seen and heard during your time observing. In your notes, I would like you to: 1) create a physical description of the place; 2) describe the human interactions at the site; 3) and the participants in the interaction. During your observation, think about if any of the interactions convey any meaning, or serve some social function.

In the first paragraph of your papers I would like you to: 1) tell the reader, generally, what you observed; 2) why your paper is important; 3) what your paper will argue, or what your interpretation of the scene demonstrated to you.

In the remainder of the paper, I would like you to describe the physical description of the place, the human interactions at the site and the participants in the interaction. Organize these in a coherent manor and interpret the behavior at the site.

For instance, if you observe that the space outside of the 624 building is used primarily by smokers, you might argue that this space functions as a space for people to smoke since they are not allowed to smoke inside college buildings. If you notice that smokers outside this building typically interact with each other due to their marginalized status, you might take your analysis a step farther and argue that Columbia students use smoking as a means of creating social networks. You could possibly even read the interaction like an economic anthropology: is there gift exchange between smokers? If so, then what is the significance of the exchange? I encourage you to be creative in your analysis.

REMEMBER: TURN IN YOUR NOTES

Email me if you have questions.