How school is making me a creeper...

Hello! It's been a while again. Please excuse the mess of my site, it's an off and on remodel, mostly off.... hmm....
Well last week as I mentioned before we were to conduct an ethnographic field study where we had to go to an unfamiliar part of town and watch the people. Yeah, watch people, I legit felt like a creep. But hey, I had to do it.... We had to take note of surroundings, assume ages of people and make assumptions of their occupation and economic class based on what we saw. Here's my report:

I performed my mini-ethnography on Wednesday May 16, 2012 between the hours of 4:30 and 6:30 pm. I went to a local Safeway grocery store in Duvall, the next town over from where I live. As this store is out of the way of my usual root, this place is relatively unfamiliar to me. The Safeway resides in a small sized business park including two short spurts of strip mall, a bank, a gas station, and a veterinary office.  I am choosing to reveal the name of my location because the amount of people I encountered coupled with the time of day I conducted the research makes the ethnography very generalized instead of about a certain few people, there is really no one who needs to be protected.

 I chose to set up shop parallel parked outside the closer connecting strip to Safeway, directly in front of a nail salon and a smoke shop. At this position, I was able to see not only the foot traffic for Safeway, but for the strip as well. I chose to do research with a partner, my boyfriend, because I knew how busy the location would be at this time of day. Because the weather was estimated to be in the 70’s, I was wearing a dress and sandals while my boyfriend was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and a hat. 

While watching the happenings outside this establishment, I saw many different kinds of people. The majority of them were caucasian, though there were a couple who were of hispanic origin. The male to female ratio was pretty even, though the age ranges were mostly between 30-65 with the younger of the subjects accompanied by small children ages 1- 12. Based on my observations I believe that most of the households in the area consist of families. There were a mix of obvious professionals coming in and out of the store, from a business man who wears a suit and carries his cell phone at his hip, to a man who pulled up in his work truck, which bore company logos, while he wore construction clothing. Judging from my findings, I would say that a mix of professionals work and live in this area.

Because such a mix of professionals work and live in the area, it is hard to pin point an exact socio-economic level for the whole area. Though there may be brand new housing developments full of new families down one road, there are older one bedroom houses and mobile homes down another. There are also other signs I have seen to provide my conclusion to this question. Because I positioned myself in a parking lot, I was able to see what each person was driving. This is a tricky way to come to a certain conclusion as well, because a father and young son who parked in front of us departed from a brand new very expensive vehicle, while the manual labor-type man got out of an old truck behind us. However, I also witnessed a very well put together man get out of an old clunker car, as well as a woman who looked as though she’d been working outside all day out of a brand new car. The variables do not always match, and in this case, my conclusion is that there are a range of socio-economic levels at play in this area.

Though there are definitely clear demarcations between this business park and other parts of town, moving outward into the town there are only a few demarcations to separate it from other towns. On the main road there are signs that say “Welcome to Duvall” on each end. However, in other parts of the town for example where I live, there are no signs to distinguish where Duvall ends and Carnation starts, as well as there are no signs to distinguish where Monroe, and Woodinville too. When you come to this point of meeting another town down a non-main road, there is really no way to tell that you have reached a different town until to come upon a store or gas station which it states the town you are currently in, and most of the time have been in for a while.

It is easier to study a place which you are unfamiliar with because without previous thoughts, memories, experiences, or opinions of an area your mind is clear to completely digest what you are seeing and enable you to make more accurate observations and possible explanations without a clouded predetermined opinion of a person or place.

While conducting this research I felt different feelings at different times. Most of the time I felt excited that I was watching people and trying to figure out who they are and what there life is like. At other times though, I felt as though I was being looked at strangely and was almost embarrassed to being sitting in a parking lot for hours looking suspicious. This conclusion makes me think that fieldwork by other ethnographers must be both exciting and hard because of the knowledge gain and because of the reactions of the people being researched. 

Also in my new tool class we've been working with table saws, Sanders, and routers, really so fun! I'm going to have to start taking pictures.


In other news, I've finally finished 10 items for my shop and posted them for sale. I can't lie procrastination often gets the best of me, but I've finally done it! And ...YAY... I had 3 almost immediate sales. Now THAT is the "WOW FACTOR" (I watch way too much TV). If those sales aren't motivation to keep up with it, I don't know what would be. Now I just can't wait to go to garage sales to find more stuff. (I'm beginning to swear off the thrift stores, who wouldn't when you can get the same stuff for a fraction of the mark ups they put on their stuff.)  I'll try and document my next garage sale day too! :)


Until next time!