Ethnography Essay: My Senior Year Of High School

Manitoba is divided by three of Canada’s seven physiographic regions; Canadian Shield, interior plains, and Hudson Bay Lowland. The Division No. 18 located in the Interior plains. The physical features of the Interior plains are vast areas of low-lying lands with permafrost, vast size treeless tundra and spruce forests. The interior Plains are mainly flat, but the landscape composed of some rolling hills, and deep, wide river valleys. The land slopes in Manitoba gently downward from west to east. In addition, the Plains consist of large sand deposits, freshwater rivers that support tremendously in the biological environment; animals and plants. The surface of the Plains’ landscape is covered with meandering channels of rivers and shallow lakes.

My original topic I chose was intended to be the study of the shopping differences between men and women, with other factors being taken into consideration. I had picked this topic because I know in today’s society, women are pictured as over-emotional and over-spending who can’t control themselves. I wanted to somehow prove this wrong. During my four hours researching, I found that no one was buying anything. I decided to switch my question into something that was more applicable: Are people still buying things at the mall? I would watch as groups of people walk past carrying nothing. If no one was buying, why are malls still being built?

Working on the laptop. Reading navigating on the mobile phone. Listening to music. Watching video on the PC.

James P. Spradley (1979) described the insider approach to understanding culture as "a quiet revolution" among the social sciences (p. iii). Cultural anthropologists, however, have long emphasized the importance of the ethnographic method, an approach to understanding a different culture through participation, observation, the use of key informants, and interviews. Cultural anthropologists have employed the ethnographic method in an attempt to surmount several formidable cultural questions: How can one understand another's culture? How can culture be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed? What aspects of a culture make it unique and which connect it to other cultures? If

The problem of gaining access can provide important insights into the nature and organization of the social setting under study. In what ways can issues influence the outcome of ethnographic research? What strategies can researchers adopt to overcome obstacles to access?

Beginning with the early stages of savagery to the complex civilizations in the 21st century, the need to compete remains an important aspect in the continual evolution of mankind. Competition took various forms throughout history from the bloody attempts to kill a mammoth in order to provide nourishment, to the violent battles between two opposing sides taking place on college football fields every Saturday afternoon. Another form of competition involving severe contact on a scale par with football is the sport of rugby. My personal history with the sport began in a medium sized island in Polynesia. I lived and worked in New Zealand during the summer of 1999, between my sophomore and junior year. This little

Make art, make a difference! I anticipate to learn more skills and become more experienced by going to college. Art Academy of Cincinnati, home of the Stinkers, is a private non-profit college, and offers the majors I am most interested in pursuing; photography and digital design.

Recording to “Sometimes it is the other way around. A white person is set down in our midst, but the contrast is just as sharp for me” which relates to my own experience regarding the psychology class. Never before have I been exposed to how it feels to be a “minority” in society. In the class, I was one of few yellow students and had the opportunity to take in how it feels to be outnumbered racially. The phrase about how someone does not know how it feels until you are put in that position is true. This class has been an eye-opening experience for me to see how African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and all other minority races in the United States must feel. Though I was in the minority, I did not feel any less proud or ashamed of whom I am.

The true photographer knows many worlds other than this one. The true photographer is more than just an individual trained to capture images. They, like those creating with clay, ink, paint, or celluloid, are artists of a unique craft.

I set out to find a place to begin my observations, not knowing what to fully expect, what I may find. So I decided to look around at what is close to my home that isn’t a place I frequent or have even visited at all. Then it came to me, the Starbucks that is only about a mile away is a perfect place for me to observe subjects that I would consider different from myself, seeing as how I consider such obscene prices for coffee ridiculous. Starbucks is a very popular chain of coffee vendors that describe their product as more about quality than what Americans are used to in typical coffee joints.

In AP Language, Junior year, an ethnography paper was assigned. After significant deliberation on which subculture I was going to study, I landed on the Mormon seminary class at my school. Despite having many friends who have been taking seminary since ninth grade, I did not know much about it. Furthermore, not being raised in a religious family, means I do not hold many values associated with religion. I remember being scared that, when I arrived, I would catch on fire or be painfully awkward in some other way.

The first table given below shows the results of a survey conducted on a cross-section of 100,000 people asking if they traveled overseas and why they traveled for the period 1994-98. The other bar graph depicts their destinations over the same period.

While others claim that photography captures the inner soul of a person, or deliberately defines it as painting or writing with light, but in my case, it is just simply a newfound love hobby. I undeniably adore and look up to expert photographers I encounter down the road may it face-to-face or the other way around. In my heart, I silently desire that someday, with hard work, determination, and perseverance, I will become professional and famous as they are. Since my husband bought a Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DSLR) as an anniversary gift, my penchant for photography commenced and ignited. Let me detail the essential truths behind my passion over photography.

Anthropology is field where research plays the biggest part in dissecting and understanding a topic. Surveys and questionnaires, are not as effective in this field as it would have been in engineering is because, anthropology deals with people. According to me people would not be slight bit interested divulging the details of their life with a stranger, whom they just met on a piece of flimsy paper. Even if they are willing to do that, they may only give a vague sketch of their life or the worst case scenario, where the participants are illiterate. Thus Field work regardless how excruciatingly long and hard it is, it is very important because it gives the holistic view on a topic as an outsider as well as an insider.

Ethnographic research is the scientific description of specific human cultures, foreign to the ethnographer. Each ethnographer has his or her own way of conducting research and all of these different ideas can be transmitted and understood in a number of different ways. Because there is no one set idea of how an ethnographer should go about his or her research, conflicts arise. In Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco, Paul Rabinow uses a story like process to discuss his experiences during his research in Morocco. This makes it easier for the reader to understand his ideas then just having a technical book about the many different aspects of Moroccan life that he may have discovered. In Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of