After taking this Anthropology course I have learned to look at things holistically. I am able to make the connection between events, objects, ect and culture very quickly. I really enjoyed learning about the meanings and symbols behind culture and how they got there. Most importantly I learned not look at culture from an ethnocentric point view, I need to be more open to understanding the meanings behind people’s actions. I feel that Anthropology needs to be done through fieldwork; I think sitting in a classroom learning about a culture is not as interesting as actually being there. By reading Nest in the Wind by Martha Ward I was able to connect everything we had learned over the semester, I feel we should have read more than one ethnography but I understand the time constraints.
So what do I think about anthropology? I think it is an important field and if more of us looked at cultures the way anthropologists there would be less discrimination and hate. I feel anthropology helps us understand other’s cultures and our own. I never analyzed my own culture until I analyzed some else’s because I was able to compare the two cultures. Overall I think anthropology is an awesome field to work in, I feel much more understanding of other cultures and much more aware of my own after taking this course. Anthropology seems like a lot of fun and the fieldwork seems like an amazing experience. I find Anthropology interesting because I was able to look at my culture holistically and I am now aware of how changes in one area of my life affect the rest. I really enjoyed learning about anthropology.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
VIPs [Delaney chapter 9 pg 422]
LA or New York City
I chose LA or New York City because they have both been places that I have always felt were important. I feel that LA is the center of the entertainment business which I used to want to be a part of. New York City has always been portrayed as this classy city where the best of the best live. I also went through a Sex in the City faze and really wanted to live there. These places represent large cultural trends and meanings. If I look at New York City as a cultural place I think it represents fame and class. It has so many monuments and when the September 11th attack happened everyone was focused on New York. LA has a cultural meaning because it seems as though everyone is focused on what is going on in LA. The fashions and events that go on in LA are important to people that don’t even live in LA. This is all due to media and fame from celebrities, but I know if I go out of town and I say I am from California they ask how close I am to LA or to the beach.
Kobe Bryant
I picked Kobe Bryant because I love basketball and he is one of the biggest basketball stars at the moment. He is important culturally because he uses his basketball fame to endorse products. The products that he endorses are generally the most famous products such as Nike. By looking at Kobe Bryant’s career I am able to see what most Americans consume and the importance of fame on marketing.
Britney Spears
Britney Spears is known as the princess of pop. She is one of the largest celebrities in the music industry of my generation and when I was younger I loved her. Culturally I feel that she shows how much we love to watch people fail. Ever since she had children and had an emotional breakdown everyone has to know exactly what she is doing. This also shows how much we value perfection. The second that someone slips up we have to judge them instantly. Our society views perfection both physically and mentally. When she gained a few pounds everyone criticized her, America views perfection as thin. America also views perfection as someone who is always happy and always doing the right thing. Someone with no emotions or downfalls in their lives. I picked Britney because she is a good example of all of these cultural implications.
Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton is not an important figure in my life, in fact she disgusts me but I feel that she holds a lot of cultural meanings. Most of all she represents our cultural motto “money is power.” This woman does not do anything with her life but go out and party and she has many fans. She has so much money that she can go to jail and get out in 4 days just because she has money. She also shows that in a society based on education and social mobility through education; if you have money brains aren’t important. It’s a horrible cultural analysis but it is true. This woman made money off of making stupid comments. Paris Hilton shows a bad side of our cultural values.
Twin Towers
The twin towers are important because it was an event that changed our culture. It inspired fear into most of the members in society, and being very young at the time I was scared as well. September 11th changed everyone’s lives whether it was directly or indirectly. The twin towers are a constant reminder of terrorism and fear in our culture.
I chose LA or New York City because they have both been places that I have always felt were important. I feel that LA is the center of the entertainment business which I used to want to be a part of. New York City has always been portrayed as this classy city where the best of the best live. I also went through a Sex in the City faze and really wanted to live there. These places represent large cultural trends and meanings. If I look at New York City as a cultural place I think it represents fame and class. It has so many monuments and when the September 11th attack happened everyone was focused on New York. LA has a cultural meaning because it seems as though everyone is focused on what is going on in LA. The fashions and events that go on in LA are important to people that don’t even live in LA. This is all due to media and fame from celebrities, but I know if I go out of town and I say I am from California they ask how close I am to LA or to the beach.
Kobe Bryant
I picked Kobe Bryant because I love basketball and he is one of the biggest basketball stars at the moment. He is important culturally because he uses his basketball fame to endorse products. The products that he endorses are generally the most famous products such as Nike. By looking at Kobe Bryant’s career I am able to see what most Americans consume and the importance of fame on marketing.
Britney Spears
Britney Spears is known as the princess of pop. She is one of the largest celebrities in the music industry of my generation and when I was younger I loved her. Culturally I feel that she shows how much we love to watch people fail. Ever since she had children and had an emotional breakdown everyone has to know exactly what she is doing. This also shows how much we value perfection. The second that someone slips up we have to judge them instantly. Our society views perfection both physically and mentally. When she gained a few pounds everyone criticized her, America views perfection as thin. America also views perfection as someone who is always happy and always doing the right thing. Someone with no emotions or downfalls in their lives. I picked Britney because she is a good example of all of these cultural implications.
Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton is not an important figure in my life, in fact she disgusts me but I feel that she holds a lot of cultural meanings. Most of all she represents our cultural motto “money is power.” This woman does not do anything with her life but go out and party and she has many fans. She has so much money that she can go to jail and get out in 4 days just because she has money. She also shows that in a society based on education and social mobility through education; if you have money brains aren’t important. It’s a horrible cultural analysis but it is true. This woman made money off of making stupid comments. Paris Hilton shows a bad side of our cultural values.
Twin Towers
The twin towers are important because it was an event that changed our culture. It inspired fear into most of the members in society, and being very young at the time I was scared as well. September 11th changed everyone’s lives whether it was directly or indirectly. The twin towers are a constant reminder of terrorism and fear in our culture.
Culture Change in Pohnpeian Society
After finished Nest in the Wind by Martha Ward, I felt very sad about the culture change that occurred in the past 30 years in Pohnpei. When I read the first 8 chapters of the book I thought it was a great example of a different economy and culture that was successful in doing things their own way. I enjoyed reading about their feasting and their sense of community, and I feel with Martha Ward goes back 30 years later the sense of community has decreased. I was able to pull examples from the story and add them to the model of cultural change that we were given in class. The interconnectedness of globalization is the most apparent part of their cultural change. Transportation technology was changed greatly. When Martha went back to the Island she no longer had to walk everywhere, many people thought it was odd she was walking and offered to give her a ride. The communication technology hit Pohnpei which decreased their activity and made them able to communicate much faster. Martha heard a phone go off at her friend Maria’s house and was shocked. I see this technology increase the rate of change. As the media and technology hit the island the family dynamic changed. Children were no longer being adopted as frequently by other parents. It became more expensive to have a large family as they did in the beginning of the ethnographic study. I also saw that the material items changed before the behaviors and social institutions. The food and media changed so therefore the hierarchy changed. Gifts were harder to purchase for the High Chief and the hierarchy started to become more about money than about skill, such as producing the largest yam. The food became much more expensive so therefore it was harder to have larger families because you couldn’t afford to feed them all.
The mechanisms of cultural change that the Pohnpeians experienced were external. Due to governmental policies and investments, the introduction of American and Japenese products were abundant. More members of their society were also being educated in other nations and coming back to Pohnpei. This created an increase in contact with other people and their ideas and values. Martha Ward didn’t focus on how selective this cultural change was. I interpreted this change as more forced than an individual choice but this could have had to do with the way the study was written. We see that both the American and Pohnpeian societies are affected, the American economy becomes larger because they are investing businesses in Pohnpei, Wal mart is especially profiting. Pohnpei is impacted much more than American society; their entire way of living changed and this impacted their moral and cultural values. Most importantly these cultural changes involved a change in form and function of items and implied meanings. The way in which the Pohnpeians valued food changed greatly. It also changed the Pohnpeian’s views on health and hierarchy.
By examining the way that the culture has changed I cannot say that the change is good or bad. It caused greater health problems and reduced the sense of community but it also gave individuals more jobs and greater knowledge of their health. There is no good or bad dichotomy while looking at culture change because some changes may have good and bad aspects. Most importantly when I looked at the culture change I was able to see the interrelatedness that we discussed in class, because culture is holistic the change in one domain changes in another. This is mainly seen through food, because food was so central and symbolic to their culture. I wrote this blog because after I was reading the last the chapters of Nest in the Wind I started seeing all of the things that we have discussed in class about culture change. It was really cool to be able to identify what aspects of culture change related to parts of the study. I could write an entire paper on the topic of culture change in Pohnpeian society but I think I will end it with the broad examples.
The mechanisms of cultural change that the Pohnpeians experienced were external. Due to governmental policies and investments, the introduction of American and Japenese products were abundant. More members of their society were also being educated in other nations and coming back to Pohnpei. This created an increase in contact with other people and their ideas and values. Martha Ward didn’t focus on how selective this cultural change was. I interpreted this change as more forced than an individual choice but this could have had to do with the way the study was written. We see that both the American and Pohnpeian societies are affected, the American economy becomes larger because they are investing businesses in Pohnpei, Wal mart is especially profiting. Pohnpei is impacted much more than American society; their entire way of living changed and this impacted their moral and cultural values. Most importantly these cultural changes involved a change in form and function of items and implied meanings. The way in which the Pohnpeians valued food changed greatly. It also changed the Pohnpeian’s views on health and hierarchy.
By examining the way that the culture has changed I cannot say that the change is good or bad. It caused greater health problems and reduced the sense of community but it also gave individuals more jobs and greater knowledge of their health. There is no good or bad dichotomy while looking at culture change because some changes may have good and bad aspects. Most importantly when I looked at the culture change I was able to see the interrelatedness that we discussed in class, because culture is holistic the change in one domain changes in another. This is mainly seen through food, because food was so central and symbolic to their culture. I wrote this blog because after I was reading the last the chapters of Nest in the Wind I started seeing all of the things that we have discussed in class about culture change. It was really cool to be able to identify what aspects of culture change related to parts of the study. I could write an entire paper on the topic of culture change in Pohnpeian society but I think I will end it with the broad examples.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Ethnographic Fieldnotes on Food
Last week I went to the University of Redlands Commons alone 3 times to eat dinner. I went three times and all three times were very awkward. I felt very out of place eating alone because everyone else was eating with someone else. The only people who weren’t eating with someone else were doing homework. I noticed that if people were doing homework they went to the section on the commons that served sandwiches and to-go food rather than in the more formal dining area. The more formal dining area had larger groups of people in it. The longer I sat there by myself the more out of place I felt. I knew I was doing homework, but didn’t feel like it or look like it to others.
This experience was already strange for me because I live off campus. I don’t tend to eat on campus, and if I do it is between classes when not many people are there. One of the things was I was expecting to observe before going into the common was a gender divide; I thought that genders would sit together more often than not. I made this assumption based on what I observed in my classes and living arrangements. I thought that many people would go to lunch with their roommates. My assumption was false. I saw many groups of people with both many female and male members. The only time I really saw the gender divide was if it was a group of two. Those groups were mainly same sex, I concluded that this was because the action of eating dinner with someone of the opposite sex may be considered a date. There wasn’t a gender divide in food choice either. I thought that mainly women would go to the salad bar but from what observed both genders went to the salad bar pretty equally.
I also notice a temperal change when it comes to the choice and formality of food. Om my third time of going to the commons I went at around 7:30 because one of my classes was dismissed early. While I was sitting at the commons I noticed that more people were going to the café area than to the other. More students were getting food to go and some came to eat in their pajamas. This was different from the earlier times because they seemed to be much more informal when coming to eat. It was also more common to see the genders come in same sex groups later at night. But, the act of eating was still a very social action.
The social aspect of food is what became most apparent to me while doing this ethnographic exercise. Even when I heard about the exercise I thought it was going to be very strange eating by myself. I always tend to eat with someone else, and if someone else is eating I tend to get something to. I felt very lonely eating by myself, and people thought it was strange that I was doing so. I even put off doing this assignment because I knew I was going to feel uncomfortable. Our society uses food to celebrate, to be used a lot of time on dates, and a common get together with friends. Eating alone outside of my home felt very strange.
This experience was already strange for me because I live off campus. I don’t tend to eat on campus, and if I do it is between classes when not many people are there. One of the things was I was expecting to observe before going into the common was a gender divide; I thought that genders would sit together more often than not. I made this assumption based on what I observed in my classes and living arrangements. I thought that many people would go to lunch with their roommates. My assumption was false. I saw many groups of people with both many female and male members. The only time I really saw the gender divide was if it was a group of two. Those groups were mainly same sex, I concluded that this was because the action of eating dinner with someone of the opposite sex may be considered a date. There wasn’t a gender divide in food choice either. I thought that mainly women would go to the salad bar but from what observed both genders went to the salad bar pretty equally.
I also notice a temperal change when it comes to the choice and formality of food. Om my third time of going to the commons I went at around 7:30 because one of my classes was dismissed early. While I was sitting at the commons I noticed that more people were going to the café area than to the other. More students were getting food to go and some came to eat in their pajamas. This was different from the earlier times because they seemed to be much more informal when coming to eat. It was also more common to see the genders come in same sex groups later at night. But, the act of eating was still a very social action.
The social aspect of food is what became most apparent to me while doing this ethnographic exercise. Even when I heard about the exercise I thought it was going to be very strange eating by myself. I always tend to eat with someone else, and if someone else is eating I tend to get something to. I felt very lonely eating by myself, and people thought it was strange that I was doing so. I even put off doing this assignment because I knew I was going to feel uncomfortable. Our society uses food to celebrate, to be used a lot of time on dates, and a common get together with friends. Eating alone outside of my home felt very strange.
House vs. Home
What is the difference between where you live and your home? I started reading this book called Kindred by Octavia Butler. The story is about an African American woman who goes back in time to a slave plantation. She begins to have a connection with the plantation and as she travels through time she begins to question where she calls home, the plantation or her home in 1979. This story made me think about how our society defines home and how I define home. Society defines home by where you live. Your current address, or when someone is a minor the place in which their parents or legal guardian lives. I find home to be very different than this.
I define home as somewhere where I feel safe, where there are people that care about me, and where I have spent a lot of time. I have many different homes, I have the home where I lie with my parents and I have my close friends homes through over the years have turned into a feeling of home for me as well. Although whenever someone asks me where I live I always reply the house that I reside in because there is a cultural understanding that is what they are asking. Some of my peers feel that you can only have one true home because home is where your family is. While this is a matter of opinion, I feel that my kinship chart in an earlier blog shows that I consider friends as family as well. From an etic point of view someone may say that in our society home is where someone sleeps and goes back to everyday when they have completed their tasks for the day. An emic point of view would be much different. I believe that language plays into the meaning of home as well.
When talking about home you have to separate the meaning of home from the physical space of house. “House” can represent many other cultural meaning such as class and social status while home can represent family and meaningful places. Many people can live in a house but not feel as though they live in a home. There is some cultural variability in this concept of one home versus many homes. I feel that this relates to the process of assimilation for immigrants as well. Some of them may feel that they live in America but their home is where they were born. This can be conflicting in situations like this. The choice of words and context of questions has a to do with where we may consider home to be.
I define home as somewhere where I feel safe, where there are people that care about me, and where I have spent a lot of time. I have many different homes, I have the home where I lie with my parents and I have my close friends homes through over the years have turned into a feeling of home for me as well. Although whenever someone asks me where I live I always reply the house that I reside in because there is a cultural understanding that is what they are asking. Some of my peers feel that you can only have one true home because home is where your family is. While this is a matter of opinion, I feel that my kinship chart in an earlier blog shows that I consider friends as family as well. From an etic point of view someone may say that in our society home is where someone sleeps and goes back to everyday when they have completed their tasks for the day. An emic point of view would be much different. I believe that language plays into the meaning of home as well.
When talking about home you have to separate the meaning of home from the physical space of house. “House” can represent many other cultural meaning such as class and social status while home can represent family and meaningful places. Many people can live in a house but not feel as though they live in a home. There is some cultural variability in this concept of one home versus many homes. I feel that this relates to the process of assimilation for immigrants as well. Some of them may feel that they live in America but their home is where they were born. This can be conflicting in situations like this. The choice of words and context of questions has a to do with where we may consider home to be.
The Impact of Clothing
After reading Chapter 8 in the textbook by Delaney I began to think about my own experiences with clothing. I have gone through many changes in my life and they can all be seen through my clothing. I could tell you who my friends were by an outfit I might have worn in a picture, I could tell you who I was dating, and what occasion it was. Clothing represents a lot in my life, it at one point represented how I was feeling emotionally; my clothing changed through different transitions in my life, and it was also influenced by my peers.
My clothing didn’t reflect my own personal style till I was in Middle School. Up to that point my parents dressed me, or I put together my own outfits based on what my parents bought me. In Middle School I began to look at what my peers were wearing, and started to care about what other thought of me. Clothing was my way of fitting in, I always noticed that if someone is wearing the right outfit they will generally fit in during a social situation, and in Middle School it is a very huge “social situation.” I was happy in Middle School, I wore a lot of bright colors, a pass time for my friends and I was to go shopping for popular clothes, or critique what are favorite stars are wearing, and I listened to whatever music was popular at the time. Then I hit High School. I started listening to different music and having harder times in my life. I began to wear darker clothes, and didn’t care what pop culture said I should wear. I made friends based on my clothing choices because the punk kids that used to make fun of me for being preppy now saw me as one of them. I acted differently when I started to wear different clothing, I spoke differently (I stopped using the word “whatever”).
As I got older I got a boyfriend that had a different style than me. I changed my choice of clothing, yet again, and again made different friends and listened to different music. This point in my life was not as emotional as my “teen angst” years, and you could see this from the clothing I chose, the colors were dark, but not gothic. I always seemed to feel a little out of place wearing that clothing because I didn’t choose this style I chose it for someone else. Now I have a style that is purely mine. It changed after high school; I started to wear more “sophisticated” clothing in the sense that my shirts don’t have stupid sayings on them or strange designs. I realized that I am going to be in an adult world, so I need to start dressing respectively.
Through analyzing my own experience with clothing I am able to see how my clothing choices affected my peer group, it changed my music tastes, it changed my language, and it made me play a role that the clothing represented in society consciously and subconsciously. Ever since I was a little girl I have always known clothing had a significant meaning, I could distinguish between adults and children and I could always tell what I was going to do for the day depending on the clothing I was going to wear. If I wore something fancy I knew it was a holiday, if I wore something old I knew it was a play day, and if I wore my everyday clothing I was generally going to school. I got older I was able to categorize people by the clothing that they wore. I could tell if someone was rich by the name brand they were wearing, I could tell what music they listened to due to their specific style, and I was able to see employment based on the clothing the person was wearing. I used clothing to decide where I was going to be accepted, I wasn’t going to go up to a gothic person bright pink shirt, and I used clothing to express my emotions. Clothing is an important part of my life because when examined holistically it represents many aspects of my life and how clothing affects the social situations we face every day.
My clothing didn’t reflect my own personal style till I was in Middle School. Up to that point my parents dressed me, or I put together my own outfits based on what my parents bought me. In Middle School I began to look at what my peers were wearing, and started to care about what other thought of me. Clothing was my way of fitting in, I always noticed that if someone is wearing the right outfit they will generally fit in during a social situation, and in Middle School it is a very huge “social situation.” I was happy in Middle School, I wore a lot of bright colors, a pass time for my friends and I was to go shopping for popular clothes, or critique what are favorite stars are wearing, and I listened to whatever music was popular at the time. Then I hit High School. I started listening to different music and having harder times in my life. I began to wear darker clothes, and didn’t care what pop culture said I should wear. I made friends based on my clothing choices because the punk kids that used to make fun of me for being preppy now saw me as one of them. I acted differently when I started to wear different clothing, I spoke differently (I stopped using the word “whatever”).
As I got older I got a boyfriend that had a different style than me. I changed my choice of clothing, yet again, and again made different friends and listened to different music. This point in my life was not as emotional as my “teen angst” years, and you could see this from the clothing I chose, the colors were dark, but not gothic. I always seemed to feel a little out of place wearing that clothing because I didn’t choose this style I chose it for someone else. Now I have a style that is purely mine. It changed after high school; I started to wear more “sophisticated” clothing in the sense that my shirts don’t have stupid sayings on them or strange designs. I realized that I am going to be in an adult world, so I need to start dressing respectively.
Through analyzing my own experience with clothing I am able to see how my clothing choices affected my peer group, it changed my music tastes, it changed my language, and it made me play a role that the clothing represented in society consciously and subconsciously. Ever since I was a little girl I have always known clothing had a significant meaning, I could distinguish between adults and children and I could always tell what I was going to do for the day depending on the clothing I was going to wear. If I wore something fancy I knew it was a holiday, if I wore something old I knew it was a play day, and if I wore my everyday clothing I was generally going to school. I got older I was able to categorize people by the clothing that they wore. I could tell if someone was rich by the name brand they were wearing, I could tell what music they listened to due to their specific style, and I was able to see employment based on the clothing the person was wearing. I used clothing to decide where I was going to be accepted, I wasn’t going to go up to a gothic person bright pink shirt, and I used clothing to express my emotions. Clothing is an important part of my life because when examined holistically it represents many aspects of my life and how clothing affects the social situations we face every day.
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