Claim and Questions

As I was reading Wayne Booth's, The Craft of Research, I applied his methodology to my topic and here's what I came up with. These are rough, very rough, blueprints but I feel as if I've made some progress. One change I've made regards who I will be interviewing. Since I'm dealing largely with percetion, I think it would be advantageous not to only interview an athlete on our campus but also an avid observer. I want to nail down the relationship between sport and society by examing the relationship between participant and observer. Southwestern is the perfect place for me to do this because students have acess to demographic information. I'm not sure what terminology to use so right now I''m going to call Southwestern a "society." The questions sections helped me the most. Here's what I have...

claim: Societal values and demographics contribute to the development and conception of social boundaries in team sports.

topic: the effect of societal makeup on the conception of the social atmosphere of sports

three questions:

1)How has American society shaped sports and why is it of national significance?
2)Have societal changes been paralleled by changes in sport and if so are there instance where changes took place in sports before they became formalized?
3)Can societal hierarchies be seen in sports and if so what factors are observers and participants divided by (race, class, religion)?

topic for research

So after looking more into border studies I have decided that I want to do my research this semester on perceptions of border crime, especially when moving farther away from the border.  After growing up in a border city and moving here I really feel like the border crime is something that often goes unnoticed and Im really interested in digging more into the topic.

- I really want to do more than 2 interviews I was thinking 3 or 4 in order to get a better idea, maybe interview several people from border cities and then several people much farther away from the border.

-Age-wise i was hoping between 20-40 years of age, because the border crime has really flared up in the past 20 years.

-I also really want to use a UT professor as well as the soon to be professor that is looking at Southwestern for a position as resources (he is coming to lunch on wednesday).

Readings

This isn't going to be very indepth, but I really enjoyed the connection the writer in our first article made with the audience. The conversation type writing made it more interesting to read and made me want to continue and I am really looing forward to our project. I realy want to be able to write in the form of a documentary for my project like "Introduction: The Subject, Method and Scope of Inquiry" if not actually make a mini documentary because being able to picture te surroundings, people and interactions is good and admirable in writings, but actually being able to see them is much more impacting. Short I know, but I enjoyed the readings.

musings

I just recently read the articles about Haiti and mental illnesses that were posted earlier on the blog, Thank you for posting them Dr. Campeanu -I found them both to be intriguing reads.

The recent discussion about Haiti has been particularly interesting to me. It has been unsettling to realize how little I actually knew about this country before the earthquake. I was not aware of the social and political history of Haiti beyond the bullet points concerning its poverty and how the country is home to the first successful slave revolt in the history of the world. With news of the earthquake, the news frequently repeated that the Haitian government was ill-equipped to handle this crisis. However, as Ashley Smith wrote in her article, "this is true. But they left out why." However, as Angela Davis mentioned in her talk last week, how was that instability and poverty created - how did the earthquake cause such a magnitude of destruction? Even if the devastation was powerfully exacerbated by a natural disaster, the particular situation in Haiti didn't just "happen."

In another one of my classes, we are discussing how different viewpoints approach issues such as poverty. The comparison and contrast of the Ashley Smith and David Brooks articles definitely illustrated that discussion between social structures and individual behavior. I thought Brooks argument for " intrusive paternalism" was kind of unsettling. It definitely raises questions about global aid and responsibility - how can countries such as the United States help without creating more problems than we solve? I liked what Angela Davis said during her talk - rather than seeing people as "victims" that we need to "save," it is important to stand with Haiti and recognize our positive/negative role and influence on this country - both past and present.

"Solidarity - not charity."

I found this particular paragraph from Brooks to be thought-provoking: "Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences...There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10."

It's interesting, because I would suggest that you could say such things about the United States as well- these issues are not unique to impoverished or developing countries. It also raises questions about how we define "progress."

So that's my mish-mash of thoughts - I'm still mulling this all over. Hope you all have a good week!

Some initial ideas

After reading a couple of posts by Alexis I became interested in learning more about women's health and accessibility. I'm thinking about narrowing down my focus on sexual health and sexuality. However, I don't really know where to go from here. Maybe I can focus on how socio-economic status and race has an effect on accessibility. Anyways, here are some ideas:

-I'm not quite sure about which age group I could focus on: teenagers (13-18) or young women (28-25).
-Maybe observing at Planned Parenthood locations and/or talking to doctors who work there.
-Positivie/Negative stigmas of Planned Parenthood facilities.
-I also want to look into court cases and current legislation concerning women's health and accessibility of information and services. For example, taking a look at Roe v. Wade and Texas laws (vs other states, maybe?).
-The effects of legislation: pregnancy rates, school attendance, socio-economic factors, sex as a taboo.
-Maybe I can talk to different people about their own experiences and their accessibility to sex education.
-Any suggestions?

That is all for now. I'm interested on what you all have to say!

Melissa

More detail, but still not quite set in stone...

In response to comments on my previous post, I've decided I might need to scale back my project (effect of modern religious movements on the Church of Christ) a little. I would absolutely love to research this over a broad area, and maybe contrast the recent and projected changes against other types of churches... but for the sake of this class I don't know if that would work.

So what I've decided is to focus solely on 3 of the churches in Georgetown: Gabriel Oaks CoC, Georgetown CoC, and Midtown CoC. The reason I don't want to focus on just one of these is that they all represent different places on the spectrum of liberal v. conservative, and if I were to exclude any one of these I might not be able to get an accurate view of what I'm looking for.

In response to my topic

I'm glad that a few people didn't think it was too cliche, and if it's alright I'm going to work thru some of the questions posed about it.

When I mention the "Go Greek or Go Home" mentality I'm referring more to larger state schools than I am to SU since the Greek system is so small here and I'm sure everyone has friends both in and out of our Greek organizations. I feel like this was more sparked from all of the movies we see with the stereotypical sorority or fraternity that only allows the "cool" kids to come to parties and how when you become Greek your status is boosted. Again, obviously that's not the case here, but I'm curious to see if there is any basis for what these movies are showing us, or if they are just part of Hollywood's fantasized America. I kind of want to get opinions from both the Greek and non-Greek sides about the idea of being Greek, focused primarily on attendance at parties and why certain people are allowed while others aren't, if it is the case that these parties are exclusive. I agree with the comment on my previous post about it not being necessary to be in a Greek system to lead a full social life (I didn't join a sorority until this year and I have friends who are and aren't Greek) but I'd like to see what relationship people from both categories have with Greek hosted parties. Does that make sense? I have a feeling that the more I write the more confused I become with what exactly it is I want to do, any ideas?

Second Post of the Day

I am under the impression that we should do two posts for each week, so I will bombard y'all with another post. I hope I am using the posting space appropriately when I discuss the readings....

In the readings for this week, I found myself drawn to the writing and research style of Michael Agar. Though he recognizes the need for theory and structure, he does not delude himself about the reality of ethnography. I trust him given his disparate experiences (from India to the streets of New York). His treatment of "academic purity" was interesting. I agree that the investigator sometimes needs to be shown wrong or faulty in his/her thinking. The diversity of informal interviews also intrigued. However, I still would like some more guidance on field notes. When is the best time to take them? During the experience? Right after? Whenever possible? Also, can we incorporate both "experience near" and "experience distant" observations, no? In addition to watching people during participant observation, we can also ask them questions, too, I would conjecture.

His writings are influencing me to study the non-profit clinic because I would be able to participate unobtrusively while also gathering my initial set of information. After a few weeks, I would be able to pick out who to ask what questions.

I hope that was not too discombobulated.

Picking Sites and Topics

After thinking hard about what I would like to do and what is available to me, I have largely changed gears. I have two possible sites on the table, and my final selection may come down to logistics.

I have begun volunteering with a local community health clinic affiliated with a non-profit that has established a network of clinics across central Texas . While this is a non-profit clinic, people are asked to pay what they can, and some of the office staff have to deal with the bureaucracy of healthcare financial aid. hope to volunteer there about once a week for 2 hours. I have spoken with the site manager, and she seemed quite all right with the notion of my studying health professionals for my anthropology class. While I still need to contact her again, especially as details arise, I think it is logistically promising to work with this site as I have contacts elsewhere in the organization. What I am lacking is some focus on the question(s) I might be able to ask and problem I might be able to address. I would like to center my topic on how healthcare workers of all stripes (from doctors- both MD and DO- to secretaries) view health and healthcare.

For example: Does a doctor take care of his/her health differently than a secretary? Is this due to socioeconomic differences or due to their varying interactions with patients?

There is also potential for asking so many more questions based on gender, cultural, and socioeconomic differences. I will try to keep my ears and eyes wide open as I volunteer to try to link to what I am reading.

The other option I might be able to cultivate is working with a mother's group in Austin called Mamas of Color Rising. A friend of the family works in this non-hierarchal grassroots group to promote several different issues concerning maternal and child health as well as general well-being. Currently, they are working on a multimedia presentation of mother's stories. They have worked with anthropology students before and may feel comfortable letting me in to volunteer as well as to interview them. They would be harder for me to study simply for logistical purposes (relatively long drive, inconvenient meeting times), but I would be fascinated to learn about a grassroots organization so unlike the middle-class ones that I have encountered before (e.g. school advocacy groups, Sierra Club, etc).

I suppose I should start reading and researching. But any other thoughts or advice?