Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

The Evergreen State College smoking tent is a physical place where human students, faculty and visitors go to inhale smoke from cylinder consisting of a dried plant called tobacco rolled in paper. This object is called a cigarette. These people are labeled “smokers” and they are isolated to “designated smoking areas” as signs clearly state around the Evergreen education facilities. My fellow anthropologists and I chose to study the smoking tent located outside of the COM building.

            This area is called the smoking tent because there is a “tent,” or shelter, in this location. The tent consists of metal bars that form an exposed square base and these bars support a blue tarp that begins about six feet from the base of the support bars.  The blue tarp is formed in the shape of a pyramid by metal bars. This served the purpose of sheltering smokers from rain. The tarp does not prevent wind and extreme temperatures from affecting the smokers. This was obvious when we arrived at the tent and no people were standing under it. Ten smokers were, however, standing 10-25 feet away from the tent in patches of sunlight that penetrated through the dense trees. These people were obviously breaking the “designated smoking area” boundaries, as specified by the signs. However, no authority figures corrected the smokers on their breach of regulated campus rules.

 It is also important to note that the tent can only comfortably fit 10-12 people in the event of rain. This could be a problem, especially when we observed 39 smokers using the facility during a 23 minute period.  There is also a bench in the smoking tent which is the only designated place for smokers to sit. The bench can fit 4 people and we failed observed more than two people sitting on the bench at one time. Some smokers who needed to sit placed themselves on the cement ground or on the stairs located near the tent.  

            The smokers are very social. Most stood in groups of two or more, talking about school, their personal lives, and popular culture. We spoke to three smokers while we were observing the smoking tent, and they said they felt judged when they have smoked alone in this area. Smokers seem to enjoy sharing as much as socializing. Some smokers asked each other for “a light,” meaning controlled fire to ignite their cigarette. A few ask fellow smokers to “bum” or borrow a cigarette, and some offer to pay other smokers for a cigarette. The only smokers who did not socialized in this area were faculty members who chose to stand apart from the student smokers. Faculty smokers only spoke to other faculty members who were also enjoying a cigarette.  

            Even though there is something taboo about smoking outside of the tent, smokers appeared to be courteous and friendly people. They all placed the unfinished ends of their cigarettes in the ashtrays labeled “Smoker’s Oasis.” They also did not blow smoke at other people, and they threw away their unneeded garbage, such as coffee cups or food packaging, into labeled trash cans.

            The key observations about the smoking tent are:

1)      Smokers are required to stand in a designated area

2)      The designated area does not comfortable accommodate the amount of smokers that visit the tent within the set boundaries

3)      Smokers are social people

4)      The observed Smokers where environmentally conscious and respectfully dispose of their trash   

5)      There is a large smoking population at the Evergreen state college

6)      Those who appear to have influential power (in this observation, the faculty) did not socialize with those who did not (the students)