One Hour Observation

            Lama, 1

Divina

SCA

Vincent Giannotti

21^st September 2014

                                    Observing Glenary’s Bakery for an hour.

For my hour-long observation I decided to observe The Glenary’s Bakery, which is also known by the name, Glenary’s Cake shop is situated in Darjeeling India. Located in “Nehru” road the ground floor of a white two-storied building, Glenary’s has a huge wooden framed glass door entrance. As you walk in through the door the first thing you see is a counter showcasing the various bakery items. On the left is a lounge and an Internet café on the right.

As you cross the counter serving the various bakery items, there is a wonderful seating area. The huge glass windows give the view of the mountains and the valley; the tables and chairs are laid out, a single table consisting of 2 to 3 chairs. There are 11 tables laid out all together. I sat on the left corner so as to get a clear view of my observants I started my observation from 3:30 pm and ended it at 4:30 on 21^st September. The sky was slowly clearing out since it had been raining continuously for the past 3 to 4 days. When I started my observation the people mostly occupied the tables.  Soft Nepali music played softly throughout my time there.  I ordered a cup of coffee and started jotting on my note pad and observing.

I observed that the two tables in front were vacant but the rest were occupied. A mother and a daughter were seated although they were not audible from where I sat it was noticeable that they were speaking in Nepali. The mother ordered some items and was busy checking her cell phone whilst her daughter sat down with a cup of iced coffee trying to get her mothers attention, hovering in front of her, they left after 10 minutes. Next to their table sat a middle aged Indian pair. Both of them were busy eating and checking their cell phones but were making conversation, shaking their heads and mumbling as they swallowed their meal. A single fellow who must’ve been a tourist was seated beside them who was busy drinking a hot beverage whilst going through papers that must’ve been his receipts. There was another tourist and he on the other hand was reading a book. Two tourists seated beside them looked like they were having a serious conversation. One of them had his feet curled in his chair. Another tourist seated in the next table was talking to one of the waiters, a cup of coffee placed in front of him and was later seen gazing through the window with his cellphone in his right hand. The woman glanced towards me, stood up and took a few pictures of the man who accompanied her. The waiters who were dressed in white shirts and black pants walked in and out of the room, taking and bringing in orders. The Indian pair left the room leaving their tables vacant just to be occupied by 2 men, who were huge, went through the menu and gave their orders. Towards my left sat two teens. Since they were close to me, they were audible and I could make out that they were conversing in Hindi. As I was glancing towards the room observing my last table the waiter who came to take his orders glanced at my note pad. I gave him a quick smile and he smiled back. The last table had two ladies, foreigners of course, both of them were eating but one had a cellphone and was looking at it, giving me glances as well. Everyone was dressed up in warm attire since it was a bit chilly outside due to the rain.

  The two teens besides me finished their meals and took pictures. A family walked in gave in their orders occupied the table in front of mine and they quickly left. The foreigners who were reading and going through their receipts were now fiddling through their food and gazing through the windows. Since it seemed like the sun was setting most of the people there stood up to take pictures of the scenery.

Reading the Qur’ān.

Qur’ān is central religious text of Islam, which is believed by the Muslims to be a revelation from Allah. The literal meaning of it being,  “The recitation”. The Qur’ān consists of Surah (chapters) and Ayah (verses).

Surah At-Takwir consists of Twenty-nine Ayahs and it is the 81^st surah of the Qur’ān.  Surah At-Takwir, which means “The Overthrowing”, talks about the signs of the coming of the Day of Judgment. The signs include: “when the sun is shrouded in darkness” “when the stars loose their light” “when the mountains are maid to vanish” “when the seas boil over” “when the she camel about to give birth is left untended” .

The verses which stood out for me was Ayah 8 and 9 where the condemnation of female infanticide was revealed and is a strong topic which was mentioned and till date we have discussion related to this topic. The talk about female infanticide can be related to even in the world we live in right now.  The dowry system, the shame bought into the family if a girl is born can all be related to what I read whilst reading Indian History. Even now, Female Infanticide is practiced in rural areas in India. So what the Surah is trying to say according to me is that on the day of Judgment Allah will listen to all the victims and will not turn to the killers.

                                                                                                                    

“Small Places, Large Issues”

An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology.

-Thomas Hylland Eriksen.

Questions:

1) What is the common “common concern” that all anthropologists share?

~Anthropologists have their wide range of interests, but the “common concern” they share is that when they understand different societies or a cultures they tend to see the similarities and connections.

2) What do you think Eriksen means when he says:

“ As an ethnical principle, however, it is probably impossible in practice, since it seems to indicate that everything is as good as everything else, provided it makes sense in a particular society. It may ultimately lead to nihilism”

~ Since cultural relativism states that we should view all cultures equally, Eriksen is trying to say that cultural relativism is important to follow but it may be ethnically and morally impossible. Although if a person’s belief is what they want, they may not see what comes and react which hence cause nihilism, which is a belief that life, is meaningless.

3) Paragraph response: Eriksen says anthropologists “warn against the application of a shared, universal scale to be used in the evaluation of every society”. (pg. 6) Why is this the case? To what extend do you agree or disagree with the approach? Why?

~Eriksen said this as every society has their own beliefs that they may consider to be accepted and important. Hence I agree to what Eriksen says since we should not judge or comment on a culture just because the culture we have been accompanied with doesn’t have the same ideals and beliefs.

Anthropological Terms

EMIC: This term means that the way in which a group of people in a culture may view things around them . What is meaningful , appropriate and how they explain and imagine things. The best way to understand this is to take it in the terms of 'Shakespeare in the Bush' , how the people in the culture explained, imagines, related and gave meaning to what the writer told them.

ETIC: This means that it is a scientific based approach in which anthropologists keeps in mind how the people of the culture are interpreting the world around them and thinks that they too have their biases when understanding the world , hence the anthropologist looks at what is more important on the whole.

AGENCY: In anthropological terms agency means that an individual has their own will to make choices. Although the cultural facts around them govern their daily lives. They still determine and choose their decisions.

STRUCTURE: In a culture there is influence of what has been going on hence the choices and opportunities of the people are limited.

HOLISM: It is the idea that while studying a culture we must not look at the parts of it as individuals but should look at it from a broader aspect, relating it with each other. Taking everything as one whole and then viewing it.

ten Minutes Observation

For my ten minutes observation, I decided to observe my father watching television. After being assigned to do this assignment I requested if he would like to be the subject for my ten minutes observation. At first he didn’t believe as to what I had just said and denied my request. After explaining what it is about my father finally agreed to be my subject. Then he filled out the consent form, which was to be given to my teacher the next day.

I observed my father for exactly ten minutes starting from 12:40 and ending at12: 50.  When I got started with the observation, my father was seated in the most comfortable way possible; he was watching a show called “Counting cars” on History Tv.  Since he was staring blankly at the television and I was staring at him he gave me a quick glance and laughed. For about 2 to 3 minutes he watched it then as soon as the advertisement came up he started switching channels and weirdly shaking his foot .He switched from Star sports to Espn still shaking his foot. After a few minutes of fiddling trough channels he settled for Man of Steel. I could see his interest level rising and he stopped shaking his foot. What is weird and interesting is that after a few more minutes into the observation I realized that he starts shaking his foot every time he has to change channels or when his concentration is low and then stops it once he finds a channel interesting. Then our helper comes up and offers if she should heat the lunch for us, my father with no movement of his body and eyes; still staring at the television responds by saying “Yes sure”. He switches channels for the last time and ends up watching “The Devil’s Double”, he then adds a comment whilst watching it saying “This movie is interesting, its about Saddam Hussein’s son.”

Now that I am done with my ten minutes observation I can say that it felt like a bit of a challenge the first time I heard of it. Also since I had never done this before. But after discussing about it with my peers and getting a clear understanding of what I had to do this challenge got more interesting. It was a new experience for my subject and myself. I chose to write down the minute detail of what was going on because I was simple observing a person staring at a box. If I had to observe a person again I would definitely choose the person doing a different activity and I think I would try to discover more information.

I asked my father how he felt being observed and he said, “creepy”. That reaction was definitely because this is an activity he does almost every day and now all of a sudden I am sitting besides him and observing him. I shared my data with him and he was rather surprised by the movements of his foot. He laughed at it when I told him and then was eager to know more minutes details about himself.

CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban    

“Understanding the diverse cultural contexts where harm or violence may take place is valuable and important, but suspending or withholding judgment because of cultural relativism is intellectually and morally irresponsible. Anthropologists cannot be bystanders when they witness harm being practiced upon any people they study.”(Page5)

In my opinion, the quotation given above, from the article “Cultural Relativism & Universal Human Rights” helps us understand what the writer and article wants us to know because in this quotation the main factors around which the entire article is written is introduced, in the end the writer also comes up with this statement to resolve (in a way) the clash between cultural relativism and human rights.

The basic argument of the article from my point of view is that the writer shows us the clash between the ideals of cultural relativism and human rights. She also writes, “This article is an attempt to lay out some of the basic issues and considerations in this arena, looking at the intersection of cultural relativism and the human rights issues that have gained more public awareness than ever before.” Telling us that anthropologists should keep in mind that any cultural belief that harms the individual due to the practises should be brought up and should not be left by saying that cultural relativism comes under play and we should respect all cultures.

While reading through the article another point I realised was that the writer had spent most of the working days as an anthropologist in Sudan, she has also come across female circumcision in the community and she speaks of it mostly. But from what I recall (anthropology class, discussion about female AND male circumcision) and after doing a small research on the net I realised that she does not at any point bring up male circumcision which is also prevalent. Yes, she does speak about this in the context of "Conventions for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women" (1979) and the "Rights of the Child" (1989).” I generally feel she should have mentioned that as for me, the way in which I interpreted female circumcision wasn’t fitting right. As for any experiential connection, I haven’t have had any.

On the whole, yes for me this article is right and it has given me a new perspective of the clash between the human rights and cultural relativism. That we should keep in mind if that the sentiments are not harmed by its practise. It makes a huge difference for me as the examples and different methods in which the writer has written has opened a new door for me in viewing the culture where these harmful practises take place.

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