Gang Leader for a Day Blog

Chapter summaries and thoughts on the book after the break.

Ethnography Ideas

One of the ideas that I was considering for my ethnography is the studying of one or more student athlete circles. I would study student athletes in the football, basketball, baseball, or any other team, their relationship between one another, the athletic staff, and how they juggle their academic and athletic endeavors. One of the things that I believe could be beneficial in this ethnography is the studying of several different teams from Texas A&M, although this wouldn't necessarily be feasible given the short two-week span of time we'll have for this assignment. It could be interesting to spot any differences or patterns of similarity in the way different teams behave.

Nonobvious Observations

The articles that we read on non-obvious observation yield a more nuanced view of the initial part of the ethnography project that we have begun. Essentially, to truly differentiate between people walking along different routes we must look into the more subtle details. We will not have access to the audio or any kind of visual that would make it extremely obvious to discern who the person is recording at the time, so the challenge remains in how we can make observations about people without getting any of the clues that we’d naturally look for.

Thoughts on Ethnography Articles

At a glance it might have seemed as if the field of Ethnography presented merely as an observational practice, one in which only a dry set of facts was to be presented. It initially appeared to me that the study on different cultures and the intangibility of particular customs and beliefs weren't going to provide much in the way of controversy or discussion, and thus my belief remained until I read the article on "Coming of Age in Samoa".

Comparison between "Emotional Design" and "Design of Everyday Things"

It's hard to remember that "Emotional Design" was written by Norman, the same author as "Design of Everyday Things" while reading it. Where Everyday was scientific, Emotional is subjective. Where Everyday appealed to the strict functionality of devices, Emotional throws it into a "gut-feel" blender to produce what simply looks nicest. In many ways it even appears as if the ideas between one book contradict with the other.