I thought last Thursday's presentations went really well. I thought the ethnography at the Dav was really interesting because I never would have thought to look at it as its own culture or community, but the group who presented did a great job explaining why it
was its own bounded culture. I couldn't help but think during that whole presentation that most coffee shops are their own bounded culture. Think about Starbucks. Starbucks in itself is a culture; it has its own language, rituals, rule, etc. You can't go into Starbucks and say, "I'll have a small coffee with some cream and sugar". No, it has to be "I'll have a venti skinny vanilla latte." Then look at Dunkin Donuts. Dunkin Donuts, like the Davenport, is the anti-Starbucks. They use normal words such as "small", "medium", and "large", and there is not much thinking involved in ordering a drink. You don't have to be a regular to know what you are getting and the coffee is cheaper. Critics of Dunkin Donuts would say that the coffee doesn't taste as strong or is as good quality as Starbucks. As you can see, different places to get coffee can become their own bounded cultures and people can become quite defensive about where they get their coffee.
Then there was the Howard ethnography. I felt badly because the group seemed to stay as honest as possible, yet got a bit of criticism during the question portion. I thought their ethnography was interesting and they were daring to bring up certain topics, especially their preconceived assumptions about the university. A question that popped into my head after the presentation was, would this group have observed this same culture and presented their findings in the same way if there were an African American student in the class? I wonder if they would phrase their findings in different ways or be more cautious as to not offend anyone. I texted my friend from Howard after the presentation and told him that the kids doing a project on Howard thought the university as a whole was extremely friendly and welcoming. He didn't seem to know what I was talking about and laughed. I think the ethnography would have looked a bit different if the group had gone to Howard more times, but because of time constraints they weren't able to do so.
Our presentation is tomorrow and I hope we can present just as well as the other groups. Good job everyone!
I think you bring up good points about defining bounded cultures. A lot of definitions for culture seem to explain it broadly so that anything can be a culture. I think a lot of people found it hard in their ethnographies to really be able to define whether their subject was a culture or not. I think that in order to be part of a culture you need to be continually involved in it. The coffee shop example you bring up is a good illustration of that. I do occasionally go to Starbucks, however, not very often. So I have to admit I still don’t really know the language. Like you mentioned the group that went to Howard University only went once so it's hard to really understand the Howard culture and to notice all the rituals and rules. Therefore, I think any specific group can be a culture. However, outsiders may not necessarily be part of it if their not as involved in that atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of what you said about defining culture. I know in my experience with the ethnography, my group had a very difficult time with how exactly to define the boundaries of our culture, since DC tourists are not a specific group of people at all times, rather they all have things in common only when they are taking part in touring the DC area. However, during our observations we were able to conclude that there was definitely similar behaviors common to the majority of tourists. I dont know if that qualifies as a true culture, but it is interesting to debate when exactly a group changes from just people with similar traits to an actual culture.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I think for sure that the group who did the DC tourists had the hardest task, since their subjects were by far the largest and least defined. Regardless, however, they did a great job of connecting the dots and making similarities out of differences. I am a firm believer that culture is something shared with others, and for this reason I was completely convinced by their presentation's legitimacy. DC tourists have as much of a culture as any of the other subjects do.
ReplyDelete-Dylan Parker