This project will give you an opportunity to examine a physical public space that builds on the work you did for project #1 in examining a virtual public space.

Rationale: As with many of the pieces that you are reading in this class, you will focus on how we use public space and on what certain spaces are designed for. As we’ll see, what spaces are designed for may be multiple, and the intended use is not always in accord with the many diverse ways in which people actually use the spaces. Spatial analysis of the kind you will do here involves examining the ways in which physical spaces both influence and are influenced by the social practices and activities that occur there. Such an analysis explores the connections between the physical space and the ways in which people in that space both represent themselves and are represented through language and action. Spatial analysis thus provides a means for understanding how people construct the culture in which they live and the kinds of connections that may exist between a location and social action; that is, it provides an understanding of how physical spaces shape and are shaped by the people who use them.

Assignment: Project 2 is the second in a four-part sequence of projects through which you are exploring the representation of American culture of one location through different lens. For the first project, you analyzed a virtual space that is connected to a local physical space. For this second project, you will study the actual physical site that is connected to that virtual website. You will conduct an ethnographic study of the site through which you will observe the space, the activities, and the people participating in it from a variety of perspectives at different times. That is, in order to find out about how a space is used, you will need to spend time watching to see who goes there and what they do once they are there. You will have to make several visits to the same place to get as much data as possible. As with the first assignment, you will complete a series of invention activities (heuristics) to help you conduct and write up your analysis. These activities are sequenced to help you move through the process of research and writing but you will no doubt find yourself returning to some of them as you write. Writing and research are recursive processes.

Paper: You will write a 3-5 page paper on your observations, analysis and interpretation of the physical space, drawing conclusions about how the space both is constructed by and constructs those who participate in it. The form you choose to write in will depend on what you want to emphasize from your findings, and the rhetorical situation you construct for this project. There are two basic forms the paper might take: an interpretive essay (much like that written by Fiske pp. 283-86) or an ethnographic report (much like that written by Spradley and Mann pp. 407-12). An interpretive essay provides a strong sense of place and reflects on what the place means to those who inhabit it. While first-person impressions are sometimes included in this kind of work, these need to be grounded in information about the ways in which the place is used and designed--information gathered through ethnographic field research. By contrast, an ethnographic report tends to follow a conventional set of sections that include: an introduction where you explain what you are analyzing and why; a method section that explains how you gathered the data; a description of your observations (the key points from and patterns observed in your research); and conclusion section (that outlines the inferences and generalizations from your observations). (See, e.g., p. 168).

Hint: Don’t wait till the last minute to do the research and writing for this project. You cannot do the research all in one go; you need to schedule time to visit the site more than once. The more observational data you collect, the more complex and interesting your analysis is likely to be. The invention activities are sequenced to help you pace your work, so don’t circumvent these. Moreover, as you write you will note gaps that you’ll need to fill either by doing more observational work or by reviewing your notes and doing more invention.

Respond to the following prompts BEFORE you actually visit the public space you intend to analyze. Remember THAT SPACE must be the physical space that is somehow connected to the virtual space you analyzed for Project 1. DON’T SKIP THIS PART; YOU WILL NEED THESE RESPONSES TO WRITE YOU PAPER. (Don’t limit your responses to the small spaces provided below; write as much as you can as quickly as you can.)
 

1. Based on your analysis of the website (virtual space) and/or your past experiences with this or similar sites, what do you already know about the social organization of the space you will study?
 
 

2. Based on your knowledge so far, what do you expect to find in the public space? What kinds of people? What kinds of materials (e.g., furnishings, counters, equipment, space dividers such as walls or moveable dividers, signs, posters, etc.)?
 
 

3. What purpose(s) do you believe the space has been designed for? And what uses do you think people who inhabit the space put it to? Do you think these coincide? Where? And when and how might they not? (you might try a tentative sketch of what you think you’ll see there.)
 
 

4. Who (which group or groups) do you think the space is designed for? Do you consider yourself a member of the primary group for which the space exists? In what ways?

To title this “heuristic two” is somewhat misleading because you will use the strategies described here over several visits. Ethnographic research cannot be a one-shot deal. You may want to divide up your observations according to the different kinds you will be conducting or you may want to do all of them each time, going deeper and deeper in your observational notes. Through these fieldnotes, you will be observing how different people make sense of the space, how they act and speak in it, how the social structures and networks figure into their meanings, how the built environment (the physical space) both encourages and constrains particular kinds of social actions. As you gather your data, you need to remain open to the unexpected. Write down all of your observations, your impressions, the things that strike you, the things that puzzle you , and those that appear to evoke strong emotions or tensions.

On your first visit, PICK UP any informational brochures, pamphlets, menus, etc. published for and available at the site.

 1. Sketching the Space: As you begin your observation, sketch a map of the space, noting the physical layout, the places in which different people tend to congregate in that layout, and the types of people in the different sections of the space. Each time you return to the space, check your map and add more details that you may have missed on the first time out. Or if the space is inhabited differently at different times of the day and week, then make note of that (perhaps in a different color ink).

 2. Taking Observational Notes: Note the day and time you began and ended your observation. Begin by describing the space. What does it look like? What does it include? Who uses the space? How are they using it? What actions, in other words, take place and by whom? Why are they there? What is their apparent purpose(s) for being there? What seems to be the purpose(s) for which the space is designed? Record in as much detail as possible what is going on, who is doing what, and how and why they seem to be doing what they are doing, and how long they stay.

 3. Taking Notes on People: As part of your observational notes, you will want to focus closely on the people who come into the space. What are their ages, gender, ethnicity, appearance? Are they alone or with others? Write what they say and whom they say it to (try to capture their speech patterns as well as the content).  That is, note the interactions between individuals, the words they use, gestures and postures they take, and the range of social actors who inhabit the space. Make note of how you fit into the social structure/network. Are you an insider? outsider? Is this space meant for you? If so, how? If not, how not? What, in other words, is your role as a participant in the space? And how might that role affect what you see and don’t see?

 4. Interviewing Participants: To help you understand your own observations, and more importantly the social network (the insiders’ view), you will need to ask questions of those who use the space. Ask people how often they come to the space, when and why they come. Ask those who own or work in the space what they think the space is meant for and how many of those who use it actually use it for that purpose. (You’ll want to generate a set of questions to get you going; but stay open and listen for what others tell you. Go with the flow of the conversation. Sometimes we learn more by listening then by asking too many questions.)

After each site visit, you will need to go through your fieldnotes to analyze what you recorded. Below are some prompts to get you started, but undoubtedly you will notice other things as you review your notes and you begin to build an impression about the space and those who use it.

1. Sketch of the space:  How does the space encourage certain kinds of behavior and actions and discourage others? Are there, for example, barriers that separate certain kinds of ways of acting from other ways? Are there any explicit signs that are meant to define what is appropriate from what is not appropriate action (e.g., no loitering signs; order here; quiet etc.)? How does the shape of the space and the materials within the space contribute to what can and cannot be done in the space? Does the space itself appear to uphold particular values (deep-seated beliefs about how people should behave) either implicitly or explicitly? What are some of these? (Refer to Minnick's list as a starting point for identifying values.)

2. Observational notes: Some of the questions above under “Sketch of the space” will be appropriate here. Do you see a range of social actions? Do these shift by types of people? by time of day? or day of week? Do you see a pattern, in other words? To what degree to people use the space in the ways it was intended to be used? To what degrees do they deviate? How and why?  What is the connection between the space and what you see happening in the space?

3. Notes on People: Do you see a pattern to the kinds of people who use the space? Who is missing from the space? What type of people? Why might that be? What do the postures, gestures, actions and speech tell you about how people see the space and see themselves inside the space? How might your own subject position in relation to the space affect the way you see others and the way you see the space itself? How might that position blind you to other ways of seeing the space and its participants?

4. Interview Notes: How do the various responses to your questions match or not match? For instance, how do the purposes people say the come to the space for coincide with the intended purposes that the owners/workers etc. say the site is for? Which responses surprised you? which puzzled you? What do you think is the source of your surprise or puzzlement?

5. Looking for Gaps/Preparing for the Next Visit: As you review all of your notes, look for gaps in information or questions that arise. Use these as a focus for subsequent visit. Fill in gaps in your notes, raise additional questions to those who are in the space, etc.

6. Establishing patterns: What categories of people and actions emerge from all of your notes? What central metaphor(s) might be used to describe the space and its relation to those who use it? As you did for the first project, generate a metaphor or analogy that captures the overall meaning of the space. Then make a list of similarities and another of dissimilarities between the space(the tenor) and the thing (vehicle) you are comparing it to. What does this activity of analyzing the metaphor or analogy suggest to you about the meaning of the space? What surprised you in doing this activity? What other data do you need to collect from the space based on the line of thought prompted by this activity? Does this metaphor or analogy generate a focus for your paper? If so, what is that focus? How might this focus help you sift through your notes and decide which to use? (The metaphor may or may not show up in your paper; use it as a heuristic. If you find it useful for writing your paper, then by all means include it.)

7. Looking for Values and Myths: What values and/or myths appear implicitly or explicitly in the site? in what people say in the site? in the promotional material (brochures, etc) for the site?

8. Comparing the Virtual and the Physical Space: After you have had a chance to do at least two or more observational visits, compare/contrast what you observed and concluded on the virtual space (website) with what you are learning about the physical space. In what ways are they similar? In what ways are they not? Are the same groups of people served in and by the virtual space as in the physical and vice versa? In short, how does the meaning(s) of the physical site relate to that of the website? And how does the physical site meet and not meet your own expectations?

As you’ll soon see, ethnographic research generates lots of observational/interview notes and lots of analysis notes on the field notes. The tricky part is figuring out how much of the various kinds of notes to include BECAUSE YOU CANNOT INCLUDE EVERYTHING. You will want to make decisions about when to include exact quotes to capture the flavor of what people say and when to paraphrase. You’ll also want to determine how much of the physical description to include. There is no easy formula for this; what you select is contingent on the focus and the major point(s) you want to make in this analysis. Here are some strategies for making those tricky decisions.

1. Developing the Rhetorical Situation
 

 A. List the possible audiences you to whom you might address your paper
 B. List the possible purposes for writing it (and in turn reasons audiences would read it)
 C. List possible contexts where readers might read this (e.g., publishing outlets--magazine, newspaper, report, scholarly journal, etc.)

Remember that audiences, purposes and contexts work in tandem with each other. Writing is always written for someone, for some purpose and for a particular outlet. You may have a strong sense why you would write this piece, to whom and where it would show up. If not, review the list and find a fit that works with the site you are analyzing the kind of writing you wish to do.

Use the rhetorical situation you have constructed to critically examine and judge the appropriateness and relevancy of the material you have generated through your ethnographic research and through the responses you have generated from the prompts in the various heuristics.

2. Deciding on a Form for the Paper

As the assignment notes, the two most common forms ethnographic research take are interpretive essays or ethnographic reports. Your rhetorical situation will guide you more specifically but no doubt your piece will fall into one of these broad categories.

Interpretive essays, like those we have been reading, are wide ranging depending on the context in which they appear. Review some of these (e.g., Fiske; Meredith; Liu) for ideas. The interpretative essay, as the name suggests, offers an interpretation of the place for any one of a number of potential purposes (e.g., to raise awareness, to challenge worn-out assumptions, to make readers rethink a space, to advocate for the space, etc.).

 Ethnographic reports tend to follow a more conventional pattern: Introduction: tells where the physical space is and why you studied it which provides a focus for reading it and sometimes it opens with an anecdote from the space you observed that captures the focus you want to set; Methods: explains how you conducted your research (the observations, the interviews, the pamphlets read, etc. anything you did to do the research); Observations: describes the site and what you saw there (the place, the people, etc.), and what the interviews revealed about the place and its people; Conclusions: what you learned about the place, its participants and the relationship between the physical space and the social actors who use the space, including the social structure and social network. (The conclusion section may be as brief as on paragraph as in Spradley and Mann’s piece (see pp. 407-412, esp. p. 412) or it may run a couple of pages.) The ethnographic report typically aims at creating an understanding of a space (though in the process it too may challenge outdated assumptions, or cause readers to rethink, raise awareness etc.).

The above suggestions for the form your paper may take are just that--suggestions. You will want to write up your study in ways that accomplish the purposes you have established for yourself and your readers and for the situation in which you envision this kind of paper would appear.