hello co-learners!

here is what i plan to do this quarter.

i welcome feedback,

thanks for your time,

kellan mackay

P.S. I have also attached it in case you don't want to read it off of the email.

Dear David, Yvonne, and Raul,                                   October 3, 2005

This is my project proposal for Reconciliation Fall 2005:
I am interested in the all-encompassing and the universal. This quarter I plan to study culture through the disciplines of ethnography and cultural anthropology. I want to get a sense of what these disciplines bring to the table of human sciences and how to think in anthropological terms. I will begin to accomplish this by reading books by anthropologists and ethnographers about their philosophies on culture and also books that regard specific experiences in cultural immersion (A.K.A. ethnographies). I am chiefly interested in the working class.

I will seek out an elderly person in my community that is willing to hang out and talk to me about their life through telling stories. I will transcribe these stories and write a human interest piece about this person’s life. At the end of the quarter, I hope to give them my finished piece. Ultimately I would like to get deeper into storytelling to see how oral tradition passes culture from generation to generation.

In addition to this, I will do fieldwork for two hours every week. My fieldwork will be conducted at the same time and place each week. The venue I choose will be public (obviously) and diverse (ideally). I will take rough notes on my observations and then transform them into an interpretation of the cultures at hand. I plan to use How to Write Ethnographic Fieldnotes as a guide.

I also plan to write a response to each of the ten or eleven books I read and at the end of the quarter write a cumulative paper regarding my impressions of cultural anthropology and ethnography today.

I am currently collecting resources for this project. I have spoken with Sam Shrager (TESC faculty and ethnographer) and also a friend who is a cultural anthropology major at Western Washington University. If any of you have additional resources (maybe you are a resource), I would appreciate any names or texts you can recommend me. I would also appreciate feedback on the context of what I am embarking on this quarter. Is this plan too vague? Do you have any tips on how to sharpen or enrich it? I want to study what culture is, its part in society, and how to study it effectively. Next quarter I plan to move into studying a specific culture. I also want to travel to Peru with Raoul. 

Thanks for your time,
Sincerely,
Kellan M
Mackel06@evergreen.edu



Fieldwork/Observation 3 kellan m - 09:12pm Oct 31, 2005 PST

10/27/2005 9:21AM West Olympia Food Co-op

This morning is foggy and cold. I rearrange flyers on the bulletin board to get my 8 x 11” saffron paper to fit. My ad is seeking stories. I want to spend time listening and talking to the elderly in my neighborhood in order to write a human-interest story-- a preservation of a piece of their culture and life (as interpreted through my ears and imagination).
Inside there is a different cashier than the past two Thursday mornings. He is an older man: tall, thin, his hair is shaggy and gray. Is he developing a mullet? His features are pinched to the middle of his face: beady eyes, pointy nose. He talks to each customer he checks out. He asks how they are doing, tries to find out something about their life, and also commences to tell them about himself.
I want to take a different approach this week. I have been reading about writing field notes and am trying not to rely on jottings as much as I have been. My new approach is absorption/osmosis and interaction. I walk into the co-op, say hi to the cashier, and ensue to walk through each aisle even though I don’t need or want to buy anything. I notice who is working and what they are doing and talking about. Kitty and Patrice are here and so is the San Francisco Street Bakery deliveryman. I say hello to him. A young guy that looks like he could be a Greener or Ex-greener is volunteering/working (I don’t know which). He is wearing a red bandana that is folded into a strip and tied around his head. He also wears black pants that are not tight, but fit him snuggly, low-top Converse sneakers (worn out), a thick black belt with keys attached to it, and shaggy hair in disheveled, dirty curls. I am trying to become comfortable here. Comfortable without having the purpose of buying something, but I am still walking around looking at products, sampling, and reading labels. I guess that is a part of this fieldwork—knowing what and where everything is; intimately understanding why people come here and what they buy. Patrice is stocking the freezer. Seems like she has gotten a haircut. I try to make eye contact with her in order to say hello, but it doesn’t happen naturally and I don’t want to force it. I look at the bookshelf carefully and then mosey over to the magazine shelf to half-read and listen to people talking around me. There is a lot of progressive reading to be done at the co-op, with the exception of an Asian New York-style-pop culture magazine. It is very posh seeming, almost elitist. It is interesting how most of the contributors are (or look like) of European descent. I wonder what that is about. Does race matter? One girl I recognize from last week buying natural pads is now here buying natural toilet paper. I pick up a Clamor: The Revolution of Everyday Life magazine and flip through it. I read a section called Things I Wish Someone Would’ve Told Me. The cashier informs me that there is an article about the Olympia Free School in Clamor. I tell him that’s the reason I picked it up. He is friendly and makes me feel welcome to hang around and observe. He chats me up about a web design class he is teaching at the Oly Free School. As long as I talk to him I don’t feel like I am in the way. I like talking to him and observing how he interacts with the people he helps. He gives them individual energy and attention and usually ends up telling them about himself more than having a casual dialogue. But he’s not annoying about it—he’s just involved and likes talking to everyone. Ben comes up behind me with a package of salami, a croissant, and an Amazon juice/smoothie thing. Underneath his eye is bruised in a line…a fight? I don’t ask. I give him my number. He tells me he can get me into any show in Olympia even though I am not twenty-one yet. He can get me into shows because he is on the circuit of local performers. The Essential Bakery deliveryman is here. He puts the old bread into a bag and I am tempted to ask where it goes…the cashier and I keep talking. He tells me about a trip his church is taking to Costa Rica. He is also involved with the Olympia soccer community. He recommends I go hang out on Sundays if I want to practice Spanish with native speakers. He suggests this because I told Ben about Reconciliation. The cashier and I introduce ourselves. His name is Scott. When Scott was a kid, he would listen to a radio show during WWII where the Germans spoke German, the French spoke French, and the Americans spoke English. He absorbed some of the language and thinks it was easier for him to learn French because of it. I buy some ginger chews for mom, talk to Scott about the web page he designed for the Free Store and then walk over to it.

I notice that it is important for me to write about my experiences observing directly after they happen. I also notice that I would like to spend more time becoming aware of the physical aspect of the space I am inhabiting: the co-op’s layout, the smell of it, what the tiles of the floor look like, what plants are present, and describing the mural on the back wall. Just things I need to keep in mind for next time.