Ethnography in The EverydaySimone Belli1

Kathleen A. Steeves2

Patrick G. Watson2

1Yachay Tech, Ecuador2McMaster University, Canada

Assignment

Go south of the conference site and conduct a ‘spot ethnography’ in a multicultural

supermarket

Spend (about) two hours in the field, in an effort to ‘demystify’ ethnography

Background

Belli - Social Psychology of Emotions; Human-Computer Interaction; Innovation;

Multimodal Analysis of Socio-Tech

Steeves - Sociology of Religions; Interactionism; Deities; Women in Clergyhood

Watson - Sociology of Knowledge; Science, Technology and Society; Evidence in

Socio-Legal Studies; Ethnomethodology & Ethnography

Starting Points…?

Interest in video and ethnography - could we record some aspects of

supermarket interaction that avail themselves to analysis?

Could we examine the multi-modality of supermarket interaction through cross-

cultural exchanges?

Could we examine mobilizations/manifestations of culture in an institution

claiming unique multicultural status?

Everyday

Culture

Language as a Cultural Marker

Linguistic Landscapes

(Shohamy, 2010)

Everyday Culture

Assumptions (or lack thereof) of

mundane cultural competences

such as identifying points of

payment

Everyday Culture

Complexities of culture like

assumptions about

understandings of trade and

commerce

Everyday Culture

Different cultures, different orientations to space and

objects

Advisors for different use of the same place.

Everyday Culture

English and Mandarin together to

sell the same product.

This linguistic landscape only

appears in selected points, not

everywhere.

Commerce and

conventions

Everyday Culture

Everyday Culture

Step by step directions for consumption

Pay, then eat.

Shopping

Culture

Specific Practices In Food

Selection

Tasting, smelling, etc.

The customer's expertise

But where does the

camera go when the

shopper raises his

head from the

melons?

Ethnographic Culture?

Ethnography as the ‘view from mars’, ‘finding the strange in the everyday’, ‘the

world in a grain of sand’, etc…

Ethnographic culture as an abdication of ‘local’ or ‘domestic’ culture - partaking

in a series of ‘culturally strange’ activities such as awkwardly observing,

videoing, note-taking, occupying shopping space while not conducting shopping

activities, etc…

Abdication of conventional Ethnographic culture – no no recourse to

gatekeepers, no interaction with respondents, no IRB, etc...

Overt / Covert Video

Noticing a customer having an

awkward (i.e. ethnographically

interesting) interaction with a

shop worker

“Whoa! Did you see that look of

disgust?”

Overt / Covert Video

Unawkwardly observing the next

interaction: The quest to recover

some aspect of the next

interaction discreetly...

Overt / Covert Video

Interacting as a shopper

“When we do our science we think and speak scientifically.

When we move around the mundane world, we speak and

think commonsensically. Such classification systems are

normative, regulative, and hence pre-structure the world for

us, but in ways which enable us to make it our own.”

(Anderson & Sharrock, 1993, p. 147, emphasis original)

Conclusions

Everyday markers of culture, but also markers that indicate areas where an

assumed shared culture has (evidently) gone missing

But Ethnographer-in-Culture is a distinctly non-everyday experience - even this

ethnography is a departure from conventional ethnographic norms/culture

A-Welcomed Ethnography (not welcomed, not unwelcomed)

Is ‘demystifying’ ethnography even a desirable outcome, or should ethnography

always feel strange, even for experienced ethnographers?

Thanks!

sbelli@yachaytech.edu.ec

steeveka@mcmaster.ca

watsonp@mcmaster.ca

@pgwphd