Anthropology

202
Assignment: Ways of Ethnographic Listening
Due Tuesday November 4th, 1 pm (before class begins)

Please note: the assignment will be handed in electronically. Please follow the same
directions for posting that you followed for assignment #1. In addition, please scan
and upload your field notes as a PDF file.

The goal of this assignment is to learn ways to observe and listen ethnographically,
and to find ways to use writing as a means to do this. For this assignment you will
(1) choose a field site, (2) go to the field site and conduct ethnographic observation,
(3) take notes while in the field, come home and transcribe and augment your notes,
(4) write an ethnographic sketch about your field site and your experience there, and
(5) write a rationale.

(1) The Field Site
You must choose a field site, somewhere in Montreal, that makes you
uncomfortable. By this, I do not mean that you should go someplace dangerous.
You should not in any way do anything that would put you or anyone else in physical
or serious psychological danger. You simply need to find a place that is somehow
outside of your known socio-cultural, and perhaps socio-economic, comfort zone,
a place that feels strange to you. For the purposes of this assignment, this site
should be a public or retail space someplace where you can hang out for about an
hour without having to ask permission or establish for anyone why you are there.
Possible field sites might include an indoor or outdoor food market catering to a
particular neighborhood or ethnic group you are unfamiliar with, a caf, or bar, or
metro station in an unfamiliar neighborhood, any sort of public event such as a
parade, an outdoor religious procession, or a local team sport event (such as a high
school football game) that draws spectators; a park or street bench in an unfamiliar
neighborhood; a long ride on a bus or metro filled with other people on an
unfamiliar line through an unfamiliar part of the city.
Some examples of sites that are not allowed: Sites devoid of people; any sites
that are near Montreals universities or that cater to university students;
professional or university sport events; large chain supermarkets (e.g., IGA, Provigo,
etc.), shopping malls, markets commonly frequented by McGill students (e.g.,
Segals, Atwater Market, Jean Talon Market); institutions of religious worship; health
institutions or therapy sessions of any kind; Parc Lafontaine, Parc Mont Royal; a
field site you visited before undertaking this assignment (e.g., a foreign country
you visited over the summer); simply driving or biking through a neighborhood.

A list of possible field sites is included at the end of the assignment.

(2) Conducting Ethnographic Observation
You should plan to spend a minimum of one hour at this site (not including travel to
and from it) observing what is going on around you and observing how you feel in
this site. For this assignment you are not to develop sustained relations with
anyone, or conduct any interviews. That would require ethics clearance and more

training. It is OK to have a brief conversation if this arises naturally, or, to jot down
snippets of conversation you may happen to overhear in public spaces.
Without being too self-indulgent or self-absorbed (remember, ethnography is
about the self but only insofar as your self discoveries are through the detour of the
comprehension of the other) pay attention to your own reactions to the setting you
are observing and to the actions and social interactions of others. What are people
doing? What is the general mood? Is there anything about how people relate to each
other that strikes you (are people silent, loud, very physical or withdrawn?). This is a
micro-ethnography. Focus on carefully describing concrete interactions, details and
objects that you observe. Make sure you take good notes on the physical setting (in,
say a caf, describe what the tables look like, the walls, the view). What do people
look like, how are they dressed, what exactly are they wearing? What are people
drinking at the caf, what do the coffee cups look like? Of course, this is
ethnography, so your main focus is not on objects or empty spaces but on actual
people and how they interact their social and cultural worlds, their everyday lives.
Make sure you also treat your travel to and from the field as part of your field
experience. What is this transitional zone like? What do you feel as you move closer
to the field? When does it begin to feel like you are really in the field? What is
different from the places you are more familiar with, when does it become
different? Make sure that you are equally precise about documenting your own
reactions to your new cultural environment.

(3) Taking Notes
As weve discussed in class, how you see and think about what you see is closely
related to the representational media you use and how you use it. Writing helps you
see things, it helps you listen more attentively. It also may detract you at times from
listening. Keep this in mind in the field. You should definitely have a notebook
handy. Write down as much as you can at the moment you observe it. In some
instances you may need to write things down after the event. Try to do this as soon
as possible, so that you dont forget the little details. Tape recording, filming, and
photography are not permitted for this project. If you are interested in photography
or film you might try to imagine what is like to be seeing things in the field as if
through the cameras lens and to write about this way of seeing. Take a lot of field
notes. Then go home and immediately transcribe them into your computer. Try not
to clean them up too much, you want to preserve your first impressions in all of their
freshness. You should add to your field notes with other reflections or memories or
even dreams! about your field experience. You will use these transcribed notes as
the basis for writing your ethnographic sketch. We will also want to see your original
hand written notes that you took in the field. Include the time, date, and place
where they were written, and hand them in with the rest of your assignment. Your
original field notes should be about 3 pages long.

(4) Write an Ethnographic Sketch
Your sketch should be 3 double-spaced pages long and it should have a title, which
attempts to capture in some way or another something of the ethnographic essence
of your field site, the events there, or your experiences there. In your sketch, make
clear where your field site is. Give us a sense of the physical setting, so we

understand what kind of a place it is you are writing about. Set the scene for the
events and interactions you will describe, reflect on your own sensations about
being there. Your sketch should be well written and carefully edited. It should be
organized in paragraphs that link logically to one another. You do not need to make
an argument, but you do need to give some thought to how you are going to
organize your material. Your sketch should have a beginning and an end. For the
purposes of this assignment try to model your writing on one or more of the
ethnographic writings we have read so far in class (especially Agees but also
Rabinow and Geertz in their ethnographic descriptions, not their theoretical
analysis). Alternatively, you may try to paint an ethnographic sketch as if it were a
scene from one of the descriptively rich ethnographic films weve seen in class (e.g.,
Robert Gardners Forest of Bliss, or Lucien Taylors Sweetgrass). For this assignment
you should try to explicitly copy the writing and/or observational styles of these
anthropologists. This is not plagiarism. Think of yourself as an apprentice and think
of these as the master craftspeople under which you are apprenticing. What can
you learn from the ways they see and the ways they depict what they see? Your
sketch should be closely based on your field notes, and you might even lift a few
sentences directly out of your field notes, but the sketch is not simply the field notes.
It is a reworking, a polishing, mixed with your reflections after the field, of this
material.

(5) Rationale
In half a page to one page your rationale should: a) briefly justify why your field site
is appropriate. You need to explain to us why this site is strange to you, or in some
way makes you feel uncomfortable; b) briefly explain what youve learned about
ways of anthropological listening through this assignment; c) explain which of the
ethnographers whose works weve read or seen in class you used as an influence in
your ethnographic sketch, give us a sense of what it is about your chosen mentor(s)
that you found inspiring or helpful.

Grading Criteria (out of 35 points)

Title: 1 point
Does your title capture something of the ethnographic essence of your field site, the
events there, or your experiences there?

Ethnographic Sketch: (20 points total)
Setting: Have you established the setting (physical, geographical, social) for the
ethnographic scene you are depicting? (4 points)
Listening: How well do you demonstrate your ability to listen ethnographically in a
way that has allowed you to capture subtle details about socio-cultural reality? How
well have you reflected on yourself as an observing and listening subject? (10 points)
Clarity: Have you organized your description in some sort of a meaningful and clear
way? (3 points)
Creativity: Have you managed to convey interesting insights about the lives of the
people you have observed and/or about the ethnographic process and your
experience of it? (3points)


Rationale: (8 points total)
Strangeness: How well have you justified why your field site made you
uncomfortable? (3 points)
Learning: Have you adequately explained what youve learned from this exercise in
ethnographic listening? (3 points)
Influences: Have you adequately explained how you were influenced by one of your
mentor ethnographers? (2 points)

Overall Writing: (3 points)
Is your paper well organized with paragraphs that flow well and clear sentences?
Did you fulfill all the instructions outlined here and on the syllabus? (i.e., you should
use standard margins and 12 point font, etc., etc.).
Did you carefully edit your paper? Is it free of typos?

Field Notes and Their Relation to the Sketch: (3 points)
Please note, you cannot get credit for this assignment if you do not include the hand
written notes you took in the field (which you should scan, convert to a pdf, and
turn in with your assignment). Have you taken enough field notes (about 3 pages)?
Do they indicate that you were carefully listening to the events around you? Are they
rich in detail? Think of your field notes as your data. Your ethnographic sketch
should grow out of your field notes and be closely tied to them, but it is not just your
cleaned up field notes. You will be adding other memories of, and reflections on, the
events you saw, things that didnt make it into your field notes. In the sketch you
will also be imposing on these some sort of organizational, or narrative, logic.

Have Fun!!!



Some Potential Field Sites
Here are some ideas for potential field sites from our TAs. We do not believe that
these places pose any particular dangers, but please use your judgment. This is the
real world.

-The Goth club on St. Laurent and St. Catherine
-Foufounes Electriques on St Catherine between St Laurent and St. Denis
-Dunkin Donuts on St. Laurent and St. Catherine
-Anywhere on St. Catherine or Ontario east of Frontenac
-Donut shops and McDonalds at night.
-Laval (the suburb)
-Strip clubs ( Solid Gold on St. Laurent and a place on Parc and Fairmount, TAs feel
that these are less skuzzy than others).
-Hochelaga (anywhere on Ontario street going west from Frontenac metro station,
until at least Pie IX, A good place here would be the restaurant Chez Clo:
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/67/722501/restaurant/Montreal/Hochelaga-
Maisonneuve/Restaurant-Chez-Clo-Montreal)

-Jean Talon mtro station.

-Latin American neighborhood on St-Hubert between Jean Talon and Jarry
-Henri-Bourassa