Social Situations and Context

Earlier this semester I was asked to come up with at least 20 social situations. Three or maybe even four weeks ago I was asked to come up with a mini ethnography topic I could study in preparation for going to the field. Then I was asked to do multiple methods practice such as interviewing and participant observations. This culminated with last week’s assignment of simply trying to get in the way. Not just blocking people from walking down the sidewalk, but actively trying to create social situations or speech acts. After all of this our discussion in class was focused on the skills of being able to understand social situations and context.

I spent most of the last month trying to avoid the assignment or at the very least letting it slide to the bottom of my very long to do list. This was to my great detriment. I have been thinking over social situations, context, and even the skills necessary to understand what is going on around me. I have been wondering what social situations I am likely to be placed in while in the field. I am likely to be waiting at a bus stop with members of the community of all ages, sitting on verandas with elderly and young children, eating meals with my host family, participating in interviews, and even participating in religious services to name a few of my predicted situations.

Context, wow, context can be any and everything right? What might be some of the context that I will encounter while in the field? Maybe it will be an informant that no longer wants to participate because they are clearly busy with to many other things, but don’t want to be rude. It could be me being laughed at while trying to buy bread or a bus ticket; it could in fact be almost anything? The best part is I might not know the context until it is over. If I am lucky I will be able to pick-up on it during the situation and mitigate what is happening.

I have been giving a lot of thought to what skills will help me with recognition and mitigating situations. Some skills may include being observant, easy going, out going, willing to make mistakes, willing to ask questions, conscious of others feelings, and teachable to name a few that came to mind. I recognize that there are a lot of skills that I could use development in. One that I think I can use the most work developing is being descriptive with note taking. I can be really descriptive in some things and not acknowledge others. Looking from old notes I am pretty good at describing the weather (physical environment, sounds, smells, and even people. I am not nearly as good at describing an event as a whole. Along with being able to recall things enough to write good notes I need to practice being aware of them in the first place. I will never be able to grasp everything all at once, but I can practice trying to focus on those things that I tend to forget.

Thoughts on Methods

Methods have been on my mind a lot the last couple of weeks. This is partially because I was supposed to be doing an interviewing practice. Mostly, it is because I am trying to decide which methods make the most since for what I am interested in understanding about aging and answering my research question. Where do I want the focus to be? What do I have the capability to accomplish? What are the best methods for learning one’s perception of aging and the aged? In short, what makes the most sense?

At this point I want my focus to be on 3 separate generational groups’ perceptions and experiences of aging and the aged. This seems slightly overwhelming when I think of translating that into domain analysis activities, structured, semi structured, and unstructured interviewing for an appropriate sample size of 3 key age groupings 18-24, 35-50, 65. While trying to accomplish all of this within a 3 month period, in a location I have never been to, and for which I don’t speak the language fluently. When I write this I feel like I am a mixture of overly ambitious, crazy, and a poor researcher. I wonder if there is anyway to accomplish even a fraction of what I am hoping to in my minds perfect version of field work.

As of right now here is an outline of what my methods would look like for each generation.
65yr+ (also referred to as the old old, aged, and elderly)- I want to take a phenomenological approach to their experiences of aging. I would have 5-7 individuals that I am visiting multiple times. These visits would include a free listing activity, and several unstructured or semi-structured interviews. What has been their lived experience of aging?
35yr-50yr- I am thinking that I want to do at least 20 individuals from this age group. (My main concern is that this is not enough to be a significant sample size, and at the same time more than I will be capable of doing when combined with the other two age groups). With these individuals I am thinking that I will do a free listing activity and one semi-structured interview or maybe a 5-10 question structured interview.
18yr-24yr- This age grouping will also have at least 20 individuals. I will do the same free listing or interviewing with them that I do with the middle age group.

This was a first outlining of my methods. I am hoping that as I continue to work on fleshing out these ideas I will be able to make them more manageable and the most effective for gaining a further understanding of the perceptions and experiences of aging in Tamil Nadu, India.