Ethnographic researchers have a practice--a method, even--which can be called estrangement. In this, the goal is to make "the strange" familiar (so that your audience--who may not be used to the burial practices of an Amazonian tribe, for example--can access and understand your data) and making the familiar (going to eat, buying things, generally living life) "strange" by reflexively noting your own position in the process of observation/participation and meaning-making. Fieldwork--and interpretation of social meanings--are pretty much dependent on this practice.
Why am I going on about this, you ask? Well, it's been my experience (based on a long and varied life spent watching football--alone--at various pubs) that people tend to assume two things about a female who is watching sports at a pub (let me emphasise the alone part again): one, she's on the pull. This is the more common assumption and it doesn't really matter what you look like. This is more about your being there. Two, she's waiting for someone (with the assumption that the "someone" is a bloke). The common assumption to both is, of course, that females wouldn't be watching sports in pubs for the sake of watching sports. However, I'd argue there is one exception to this: if you're foreign (have an accent that's not the "local" accent seems to be the definition of this or are watching a sport which the general public usually doesn't watch), you're excused. The general assumption now seems to be: of course, you crazy foreigner. You'd spend your early Saturday mornings watching a team that's not even in the top four try to get into the Champions League (I actually had someone ask me a few weeks back what the point of watching a "mid-league" team was ).
In terms of geography, I've noticed things are different here in the US where there seem to be more females-at-sporting events (at bars/pubs). There are still not that many though but it's a step up from Denmark (for example) where the ratio was about 20-1 in bars(in favour of men). Indeed, my colleagues there used to tell me that it was only louts/dodgy men who went and watched soccer, not academics/students. This, of course, is a specifically European issue. I've written before about how my cousins--who live within 20 minutes' drive of Anfield in Liverpool--have never been to an actual match there. Issues of class and ethnicity (middle-class Asian lads and lasses didn't go to the footy in England. Still don't really) come into play there.
But, that's not my point for today. Today, I am in a public setting watching American football in the US and that is what I'm going to talk about--watching sports in the US or, specifically, in my part of Washington DC. For watching American football, the obvious point I've realised is that my "foreignness" is not normalizing the practice of female-alone-watching-sports. I would argue (based on participant-observation at these events ) that during soccer/cricket/rugby-watching, ethnicity--the "foreignness"--actually reduces the mystery of why a female would go watch soccer/rugby/cricket. The foreignness is given as an explanation for why that might have otherwise seemed not usual practice within that particular society.*
This, however, is not the case for American football-viewing. Foreigness, in this case, becomes something that makes it non-normal that I am watching (American) football and not in the company of others (Americans?). In the past hour or so, I've had quite a few people ask me why I'm watching an American sport and attempt to explain what is going on. As someone who hates explaining things in the middle of a match, I have sympathy for the folks around these people who seem more keen on watching. Though, really, it's not a sport you can watch all the time, is it? In yesterday's Liverpool-Everton match I couldn't take my eyes away from the match in case I missed something. Here, even the most ardent fans seem to spend quite a lot of time faffing about--talking, drinking, checking out the talent-- instead of paying attention to the match.
So far, I'm having a grand time. As a site of ethnographic "fieldwork", noting how boundaries of self/others (local/foreign; male/female) are constructed, this is proving a far better arena than many others I've been in.
* All this is a highfalutin way of saying I hung out where people were watching the Super Bowl, I had my computer (!) with me (and tweeted/IM-ed) and generally had a grand time. The match is still going on but I'm about to head back home.
This is also a bit relevant because, for one of my research methods practical exercises (during teaching), I make my students conduct participant/observation in a setting in which they are either familiar (riding a bus or the metro, eating at the cafeteria, going to the library) or unfamiliar (singing at church, talking in a different language, etc). One of the points in this type of research is to get at social norms within particular "fields" (or settings) and I tell them the easiest way to do this is to break a social norm. If you talk really loudly at the cinema, for example, someone will shush you/glare at you/tell you to leg it. So, social norm? You don't talk at the cinema. Again, these are things which may seem familiar (or commonsensical) to "us" but the goal is to describe the social rules which make things commonsensical...or "normal".
Right, back to hoping for a New Orleans win (and back home through the piles of snow still remaining around my neighbourhood).
6.2.10
Music, Murder & Mayhem in Blackpool
It's been a good 24 hours or so in terms of doing work. It's been less good (not bad, precisely) in terms of random folks around my neighborhood suddenly becoming extremely friendly. It's as if the snow has suddenly turned pretty much everyone I've met since yesterday afternoon into talkers. We've talked about the snow, about school (yesterday), about life in Washington, about kids and pets and about Zimbabwe. I'm not exactly sure this sort of behaviour needs to be encouraged.
Apart from just talking to people walking around in my neighborhood, I've spent the past 24 hours translating some stuff for a paper I'm writing, shovelling snow and re-watching one of my favourite TV series, Blackpool. The BBC describes it as "part musical, part thriller, part love story" and it's pretty much all that and more (it's quite funny, for example and I'd have classified it as a comedy murder musical). Unfortunately it's not available in US version DVD or else I'd be flogging it to all my friends here.
It's got lust, murder, mayhem and good acting, all set in a small town. The town itself--and its role as a seaside/arcade town--plays a major part in the show. The music is excellently integrated into the storyline and it's just damned good fun. Warning: it's rather soap operaish at times but it's just like its setting--garish, bold, with cheesy songs and with a storyline that seems fairly obvious and yet keeps you guessing about how it's going to end. Here are a couple of videos from it:
This is from the first episode. David (Tennant) is a police officer; David (Morrissey) is an owner of an arcade:
This is from the second episode:
I should mention that there was a sequel (called Viva Blackpool, which I definitely do not recommend) and a US version (the Hugh Jackman-supported Viva Laughlin, which was laughably terrible).
Apart from just talking to people walking around in my neighborhood, I've spent the past 24 hours translating some stuff for a paper I'm writing, shovelling snow and re-watching one of my favourite TV series, Blackpool. The BBC describes it as "part musical, part thriller, part love story" and it's pretty much all that and more (it's quite funny, for example and I'd have classified it as a comedy murder musical). Unfortunately it's not available in US version DVD or else I'd be flogging it to all my friends here.
It's got lust, murder, mayhem and good acting, all set in a small town. The town itself--and its role as a seaside/arcade town--plays a major part in the show. The music is excellently integrated into the storyline and it's just damned good fun. Warning: it's rather soap operaish at times but it's just like its setting--garish, bold, with cheesy songs and with a storyline that seems fairly obvious and yet keeps you guessing about how it's going to end. Here are a couple of videos from it:
This is from the first episode. David (Tennant) is a police officer; David (Morrissey) is an owner of an arcade:
This is from the second episode:
I should mention that there was a sequel (called Viva Blackpool, which I definitely do not recommend) and a US version (the Hugh Jackman-supported Viva Laughlin, which was laughably terrible).
5.2.10
Snow and the Super Bowl
Those of yous unfortunate enough not to be in our great city here are missing a weekend of snow. Depending on where you are, yous are also missing another great event on the American social calendar: a Super Bowl party. After 6.5 years here, I'm going to my first-ever actual "Super Bowl party". As you may gather, expectations are high on my end.
In the meantime, here's the Superbowl if it were directed by Tarantino, Lynch, Anderson, Goddard and Herzog (I liked Goddard best though I think the Lynch is the most well-done ). Enjoy
via Slate via Huffington post.
In the meantime, here's the Superbowl if it were directed by Tarantino, Lynch, Anderson, Goddard and Herzog (I liked Goddard best though I think the Lynch is the most well-done ). Enjoy
via Slate via Huffington post.
3.2.10
Reflections on "reality": the terrorism threat assessment procedure
Following from the Jersey Shore post, here's one that talks about how the threat assessments for possible terrorist threats are usually "more ritual than substance".
Obviously these people have not read my dissertation in which I argue pretty much the same thing except I add: this doesn't matter since it is the "ritual" (their word) which constitutes what then becomes reality (loads of money spent on counterterrorism, discussion of how the terrorism risk has "increased", surveillance and detainment, etc).
You can read the full article, titled "Terrorism threat assessments more ritual than substance" here.
Obviously these people have not read my dissertation in which I argue pretty much the same thing except I add: this doesn't matter since it is the "ritual" (their word) which constitutes what then becomes reality (loads of money spent on counterterrorism, discussion of how the terrorism risk has "increased", surveillance and detainment, etc).
You can read the full article, titled "Terrorism threat assessments more ritual than substance" here.
Reflections on "reality" TV: The Jersey Shore
During a conversation yesterday (Yes, yesterday was a day full of conversations, compared to my usual uni-teach-hide in office-leave routine ), my friends and I were talking about the phenomenon that is MTV's Jersey Shore. I mentioned that quite a few of my students usually talk about it in the pre-class period and I'm rather intrigued (though I've yet to see an episode and the only people I recognize would be those parodied in Jon Hamm's SNL last weekend ).
Why, yous ask? Well, not because it's a good/great TV show but as a conversation/discussion piece for what the show says about us (or, the US ). Think about it in terms of discourses--what discourses are we perpetuating here? What is allowed/disallowed? A key point would be who/which group is it okay to put in the public spotlight/make fun of/follow around with a TV camera?
Italian-Americans are fair game, it appears. But would African-Americans be? How about the poor/people living in trailers/people who are not of regular size (okay, fat people)/people of low IQs/etc etc? Obviously not. Well, not unless they were doing something to "change" their status: it's okay to have fat people on TV (if they are running about exercising), poor people (trying to get work/working), trailer park people (who follow the Horatio Alger storyline).
This is an obvious issue, of course, but the point remains: shows like Jersey Shore are not inherently interesting in themselves but are interesting in terms of how they constitute our understandings of society/social (ethnic) groups. They are also interesting in that they obviously and without much self-reflection perpetuate stereotypes about these ethnic groups in (our) society.
At the very least, though, the Jersey Shore is (from what I hear) fun. I can't say the same about a TV show called "Hotter than my daughter" (Oh Beeb! ).
ETA: Sorry for the lack of links again. I'm trying to do quite a lot of things today and am spectacularly failing (so far) so need all the extra time I have. Even though I'm well aware I could have found/linked in the time it took me to write these sentences justifying why there are no links.
Why, yous ask? Well, not because it's a good/great TV show but as a conversation/discussion piece for what the show says about us (or, the US ). Think about it in terms of discourses--what discourses are we perpetuating here? What is allowed/disallowed? A key point would be who/which group is it okay to put in the public spotlight/make fun of/follow around with a TV camera?
Italian-Americans are fair game, it appears. But would African-Americans be? How about the poor/people living in trailers/people who are not of regular size (okay, fat people)/people of low IQs/etc etc? Obviously not. Well, not unless they were doing something to "change" their status: it's okay to have fat people on TV (if they are running about exercising), poor people (trying to get work/working), trailer park people (who follow the Horatio Alger storyline).
This is an obvious issue, of course, but the point remains: shows like Jersey Shore are not inherently interesting in themselves but are interesting in terms of how they constitute our understandings of society/social (ethnic) groups. They are also interesting in that they obviously and without much self-reflection perpetuate stereotypes about these ethnic groups in (our) society.
At the very least, though, the Jersey Shore is (from what I hear) fun. I can't say the same about a TV show called "Hotter than my daughter" (Oh Beeb! ).
ETA: Sorry for the lack of links again. I'm trying to do quite a lot of things today and am spectacularly failing (so far) so need all the extra time I have. Even though I'm well aware I could have found/linked in the time it took me to write these sentences justifying why there are no links.
2.2.10
A conversation about clothes
I was talking to a colleague today about work wear. I mentioned that I reckon we (teachers/academics/what have yous) have more leeway with what to wear for “work” than a lot of my friends do. I got a bit of a stare and the response that she doesn’t agree. Indeed, she feels she’s being “looked at” more than females in other fields/jobs do and so feels the pressure (her word) to dress appropriately. She pointed out that in non-uni life (I don’t interact with her outside of uni, which tends to be my default setting for most of my uni-related friends/colleagues), she “dresses in colours” and gave the example of Ms Pillsbury from the TV show Glee as her inspiration. At uni, she claimed black/brown/grey are the colours she wears because she feels they are "more serious".
At a far distant past, when I was straddling the student/teacher barrier, I used to worry about these things. As regular long-term readers of FA (and its predecessor) know, I was advised by a fairly senior faculty to wear a suit when I first started teaching. This was reiterated when I became a full-time lecturer last fall (by someone else). In the beginning, I used to worry—what if I weren’t being taken seriously for what I wear?
Then I realized there are many many reasons not to take me seriously. These include my tendency towards sarcasm, my continued emphasis on picking on students (by name) to make them talk, my characteristic of waving my hands/playing with whatever I’m holding in them (pen? Blackboard duster? Nothing is safe!) and then drawing students’ attention to what I’m doing, my continued state of awkwardness—social awkwardness doesn’t necessarily go away just because you’re in front of a group of young people. Indeed, that makes it worse. The moment at which you (me) are aware that you're stood alone in front of 25-35 students, talking about a topic is the moment when you start to panic. This is a fairly common occurrence for me.
There are also plenty of reasons to take me seriously. I emphasize in my first class for all my courses that students can miss classes if they like, they don’t have to read if they don't want to(I’m not giving them “pop quizzes” or “spot tests”) but that they should keep in mind that I grade their papers assuming they keeping up/have attended all classes AND that there is a significant proportion of the class’ grade set aside for participation. I also tell them I hate people sleeping in my class or talking when I am talking. They can play on their computer/update facebook/make plans for the future as long as they do it silently. I also tell them I’m pretty much available at all hours—online, in person (I’m at work easily over 50 hours each week) and am more than happy to talk and help them with their research.
With all that being said, I hardly feel my clothes are the main reason students won’t take me seriously. One of my earliest teaching (at uni) memories is of worrying about what I was wearing (I believe there had been an open button on my shirt that day. Or something) and having LilSis tell me: they’ll comment/discuss whatever you do anyway so why worry about this? Indeed. I was trying to tell my colleague this: if she usually wears Miss Pillsbury-style clothes (which I think are completely academic-oriented. I mean, the character is a school counsellor!) and feels comfortable in them, then go for it, eh?
Her final words: well, you’d say that! (with a laugh). I must admit she had a point since this morning, I woke up, pulled in jeans (nearest piece of clothing) and then chucked a dress on top (all tights are waiting to be washed) and topped this off with (fake) Converse sneakers. Colour combo: blue, green and red. I suppose I wasn’t really one to talk--at least not today--but I stick by my point.
At a far distant past, when I was straddling the student/teacher barrier, I used to worry about these things. As regular long-term readers of FA (and its predecessor) know, I was advised by a fairly senior faculty to wear a suit when I first started teaching. This was reiterated when I became a full-time lecturer last fall (by someone else). In the beginning, I used to worry—what if I weren’t being taken seriously for what I wear?
Then I realized there are many many reasons not to take me seriously. These include my tendency towards sarcasm, my continued emphasis on picking on students (by name) to make them talk, my characteristic of waving my hands/playing with whatever I’m holding in them (pen? Blackboard duster? Nothing is safe!) and then drawing students’ attention to what I’m doing, my continued state of awkwardness—social awkwardness doesn’t necessarily go away just because you’re in front of a group of young people. Indeed, that makes it worse. The moment at which you (me) are aware that you're stood alone in front of 25-35 students, talking about a topic is the moment when you start to panic. This is a fairly common occurrence for me.
There are also plenty of reasons to take me seriously. I emphasize in my first class for all my courses that students can miss classes if they like, they don’t have to read if they don't want to(I’m not giving them “pop quizzes” or “spot tests”) but that they should keep in mind that I grade their papers assuming they keeping up/have attended all classes AND that there is a significant proportion of the class’ grade set aside for participation. I also tell them I hate people sleeping in my class or talking when I am talking. They can play on their computer/update facebook/make plans for the future as long as they do it silently. I also tell them I’m pretty much available at all hours—online, in person (I’m at work easily over 50 hours each week) and am more than happy to talk and help them with their research.
With all that being said, I hardly feel my clothes are the main reason students won’t take me seriously. One of my earliest teaching (at uni) memories is of worrying about what I was wearing (I believe there had been an open button on my shirt that day. Or something) and having LilSis tell me: they’ll comment/discuss whatever you do anyway so why worry about this? Indeed. I was trying to tell my colleague this: if she usually wears Miss Pillsbury-style clothes (which I think are completely academic-oriented. I mean, the character is a school counsellor!) and feels comfortable in them, then go for it, eh?
Her final words: well, you’d say that! (with a laugh). I must admit she had a point since this morning, I woke up, pulled in jeans (nearest piece of clothing) and then chucked a dress on top (all tights are waiting to be washed) and topped this off with (fake) Converse sneakers. Colour combo: blue, green and red. I suppose I wasn’t really one to talk--at least not today--but I stick by my point.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
