My discussion question for the class is: Now that we have been exposed to some examples of author's that have varying degrees of involvement with their fieldwork site (i.e. from Rick Zollo as an outsider interested in the truck driving community to Ivana Nikolic as a volunteer at the Ramsey House homeless shelter, and Cushman as a graduate student at a nearby university of inner city Quayville), do you see any advantages or disadvantages to their central arguments that correlate with their degree of involvement at the sites?
Monday, October 31, 2011
Positioning in "House for the Homeless"
Positioning in Ivana Nikolic's House for the Homeless is much easier to identify than positioning in Cintron's A Boy and His Wall. Nikolic tells the reader immediately about her background as a Bosnian refugee and the struggles her family faced when coming to America as immigrants, whereas Cintron leaves the reader somewhat in the dark regarding his fixed positioning. On the other hand, Nikolic's and Cintron's subjective positioning are similar in that they both are significantly influenced by the respective roles they play in their fieldworking sites: Nikolic as a volunteer at the homeless shelter, and Cintron as a keen observer acting almost as an additional family member of the Martinez'.
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I like how you pointed out that Cintron was basically an additional family member. I never really thought of it that way and it makes sense in the way that he kind of skews his arguments about the LD children.
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