This assignment asks you to collect and interpret information about an event, activity or social space through participant-observation. Do not use any interview techniques to learn about the occasion you have chosen, although supplementary knowledge you have from prior experience may be included in your discussion if you are careful to distinguish between information acquired from your observation and prior knowledge. Please confirm your proposed venue with me via email before you begin! (it may be necessary for you to receive permission from authorities to make your observations). Also, review Spradley on “Doing Participant-Observation” before you begin. Please observe social distancing and Covid-19 safety protocols. If you cannot conduct an in-person observation safely, please let me know and we can discuss some digital options. Here are some suggestions for research sites: A large, complex event that occurs only occasionally — e.g., a political rally or street festival. Or a special-occasion ritual event that takes place regularly such as a religious celebration, a wedding, a graduation, etc. Behavior typical of certain situations — e.g., mornings in a convenience store, performing jury duty, riding public transportation, shopping in a grocery store, visiting a museum, touring typical tourist destinations, attending a theater performance, etc. A Zoom party, meeting, or event – for example, a church service, party, or concert. This assignment is weighted more to your analysis, your “read” of the situation. Show me that you’re acquiring the skills of “seeing” as an ethnographer! To be sure you gather enough data to generate significant opportunity for analysis, here are some things to keep in mind while taking field notes: Describe the scene, paying attention all sensory perception. If it seems useful, draw a map of the setting, indicating the position and movement of persons. Who is present? Who is absent? Look for the structure of the situation: are the participants differentiated from each other, as, e.g., leaders and followers, or those with more or less status? Is status differentiation or equality represented in dress, behavior, symbolic markers, differing prerogatives? How do people interact with each other? Are there any elements of ritual, either formal or informal, in what you observe? How do you interpret the meaning and effect of these ritualized behaviors? What appear to be the unspoken – or spoken -- rules that underlie this event or activity? Is there any mechanism for correcting a distortion or a mistake? Is there any formal authority? To what extent is it respected? Do people seem to follow the rules, explicit or tacit, or do they bend them? Is the event characterized more by order and agreement or conflict and disorder? PLEASE pick an interesting subject — something you’re genuinely curious about — but also one that is not so familiar to you. I strongly recommend that you venture off the FIU campus if it is safe to do so. If you do remain on campus, observe something unfamiliar to yourself. Turn in: your raw field notes as well as your post-hoc typed elaboration of your handwritten notes your summary, descriptive write-up of the observation (scene-setting and highlights) your analysis and interpretation of the scene (using the above questions as a guide) your self-critique — be sure to touch on both epistemological and ethical issues of research e.g., to what extent did you ‘participate’ and to what extent did you ‘observe’? How did the two inform each other? Comment on the effect (hopefully minimal) of your presence and the degree to which you understood the activity without having directly questioned the participants. What do you think you might have misunderstood or missed? 4 or more typewritten pages (double spaced) not including field notes. Due February 6th, 2021. Specific examples from previous years: Concert on South Beach Dance competition Homeless persons and pedestrians’ interactions (and avoidance) Shopping at Walmart Online Fraternity party Online Shabbat services Hotel lobby Blood Drive Public transport during peak and off-peak times Use of public space in a coffee shop/train station other suggestions: food bank or soup kitchen; courthouse; walking around a very wealthy and/or impoverished neighborhood in Miami; a college tour of a virtual school other than FIU Do all participants seem to be deriving the same benefits or satisfactions from participation? Do they have means of communicating positive or negative judgments about the situation? Are there stylized actions or modes of self-presentation that seem characteristic of this event? Do the participants seem aware of them? What purpose do they serve? What shared values or assumptions are reinforced (or contested) through this event?