Responding to two ethnographic essays

-- What kinds of evidence or data did the authors use?

-- What kinds of research did the authors do?

-- Why is each group a subculture? Does the author convince you that they are each subcultures?

-- After reading the essay, do you understand what it would be like to be a member of this subculture?

-- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the essays?

-- After reading both examples, what ideas or questions do you have about completing your own ethnographic research project?

Beginning Paper 1

My subculture has a lot of different and fun rituals/daily things we do.

• We try and get as many girls from the floor to go eat dinner together at the same time.
• We all keep our doors open and flow through the halls to chit chat with each other.
• Sometimes we play games in the study lounge if we are bored on a random Wednesday night.
• On the bulletin board on our floor we write embarrassing secrets,stories, or some goals and ambitions about ourselves and each other.

Some insider phrases are:

• "Not that hole."
• "Unatractiphobia"
• "There's a recall on what?!"

I think a few key informants would be my roommate Kesha, and my neighbors Amy,Leah, and Beka. My roommate Kesha would be a great source because she lives with me first off, and secondly she thinks about things in a completely different way than I do. My neighbors would also be good because they get a different look at the "hall life" than my roommate and I do.

Subculture of Choice

I have chosen to write about dorm life on the fifth floor of Knotts Hall. There's no special or sentimental reason for choosing it. If I have to be able to go and visit my topic frequently then I just think it would be easy for me to step right outside my door and be in the heart of my topic. I love my fifth floor girls most at Ball State so I guess it does make sense to write about them. We always have our doors open and are always just walking into each others's rooms to talk about our days or complain about a ridiculous homework assignment. From the start we all clicked immediately. I guess what I would like to discover is why we all basically get along and try and see it from an outsiders point of view.