Ethnographic paper
Goal: The goal of this assignment is to explain cultural relativism by interpreting your own everyday life and everyday spaces as products of culture.
Topic: Anthropologists pay special attention to surroundings, architectural layout, organization of space as well the behavior individuals display in different spaces. Most often such things are taken for granted as we experience them. For this paper, you will mimic Horace Miner and take an ethnographic approach to your own everyday reality. Please select a site that you regularly spend time in and have not thought twice about; then attempt to look at it from afar as a stranger. For those of you who live on campus, this might be a location. For others, an off-campus spot such as the grocery store might be an option. In your paper, discuss the specifics of the site, such as rules of access, proper conduct etc. This requires a detailed description of the space, an explanation of what goes on in this space as well as the interactions that seem to take place seamlessly among individuals. In other words, you are expected to take this site that you take for granted (the familiar) and demonstrate how ‘strange’ it might be for an outsider. If you want, you can also discuss how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the culture of the location you are writing about, from how individuals access it to what they do in it. Your analysis should demonstrate that you understand cultural relativism.
Style: You can use various styles of writing for this reflection. You can write it as a typical short paper, in which you adopt an analytic tone. If you want to be more playful, you can use a style similar to Horace Miner’s in the Nacirema article . This would mean a descriptive style that doesn’t have the analytic tone of a regular academic paper. A third option is to write in the form of a story or even a poem if you choose to do so. As long as you use the concept of cultural relativism to show how a space you take for granted is itself “cultural” the style of writing is yours to choose.
