Response to "House for the Homeless"

Positioning in Ivana’s essay is clearer and more straightforward than that in Citron’s (Chapter 4 only) or Cushman’s ethnographies. There are three aspects in positioning: fixed position, subjective position and textual position. In the article, Ivana does not mention her social identity (for example, a graduate student or a social worker) or the exigency of writing (i.e., a class project or personal interest). Nonetheless, the other two aspects are conspicuous throughout the entire essay. She states her refugee experience and the devastating effect of that to her family, which arouse her sympathy towards the marginalized group but also her low tolerance to certain behaviors. This prejudice contradicts some of her interaction with the homeless; she discussed it unambiguously in the analysis. Her writing is mostly objective yet bears a sympathetic tone. There is a similarity between her positioning and that of Citron’s. The two authors tend to reflect on themselves after observing.

Question: Ivana seems more emotionally involve in the community she is observing, especially when she writes about Hope. What do you think about that? Do you like or dislike her style? Does that would make the writing less objective? How would you reconcile "objectivity" and "intersubjectivity" in your project?

"House for the Homeless" Response

In Ivana Nikolic’s ethnography, “House for the Homeless: A place to Hang Your Hat”, fixed positioning can be observed within the first paragraph. She explains that her and her family left Bosnia during the war and had lived as refugees for eight years. She explains that her family was once well respected and successful but was now struggling to earn an income. Her subjective positions are also often observed in this ethnography. A great example is seen on the top of page 46, when she writes “I knew how insecure, lost, scared, and lonely some of them must feel, since in a way I have been there too”. Here she is drawing on her personal experiences and assuming that they must feel the same as she did. Another example is seen on page 53 in her conclusion when she writes: “I tried to compare my own experiences to the experiences of the homeless. I shared similar experiences with some of them, and maybe that enabled me to sympathize with them.” We can also view her textual positioning in paragraphs where she describes the people that she interviewed. The language she uses suggests that she shows sympathy toward them. “I was overwhelmed by Hope’s story. My mind was burdened with one question: “How can all this happen to one innocent young human being (52)?” She is not looking down on the interviewers or degrading them for their lower social standing. For example, she doesn’t always refer to them as homeless people, but instead, treats them as equals. She uses words and phrases such as: “these people, or an innocent human being” when referring to them. One observation I’ve made throughout the ethnography was that sympathy was a major theme. Also, in every interview, when the topic of family comes up, there was always an emotional response from each of the interviewees; whether it was that “his eyes got teary (Alejandro)”, or “she got very emotional talking about her future without him (Hope’s dad)”, etc. From Cintron’s background information, we know that he grew up in a family of higher social class compared to Ivana. He seems to focus less on sympathy toward the family that he writes about than Ivana did.

Question: I mentioned that Cintron seems to focus less on sympathy toward the ones he’s observing than Ivana does. What are your opinions? Do you think this is because she is able to better relate to them, given the situation she had growing up, or do you think that her personal experiences play no such role in her style of writing?

11/1 Response

Noticing that it is indeed Halloween on Monday evening when I asked you to post to the blog, I decided to cut down your post a bit. Write a 100-word response talking about how position works in "House for the Homeless" compared to how it works in Cintron's writing or in Cushman's "Struggle and the Tools."

Then post one discussion question about positionality or other elements of ethnography as you find them in Cushman, Cintron, and Ilana's "House for the Homeless." ***Please also print or write down that question and bring it to class on Tuesday for discussion.***

Finally, post a brief, 25-50 word response, to someone else's post by 9:00 AM on Tuesday, 11/1.

Thanks--and have a good weekend and Halloween. 

positions positions..

In fieldworking, positioning describes the personal responses of the researcher to the data. This is important in ethnographic writing because such themes help to provide connections for the reader and writer of the study, and provides a credibility to the researcher as he/she recognizes their presence and influence in the ehtnography. Through observations and data collection the researcher may interpret and collect data in a seeminly subjective manner, although positioning essentially promotes "objectivity through intersubjectivity, the method of connecting as many different perspectives on the same data as possible" (131).

There are several methods in which a researcher may position themselves in relationship to the enthnography. Fixed positions include relatively invariable factors like age, class, gender, race of the researcher. These are usually not examined or considered during a study, according to the article. Subjective positions include the researchers life experiences that may influence the study, especially on an emotional level. Lastly, textual positions consist of the language choices implemented throughout the study to interpret and present the data.

Such positions in ethnographic writing can be observed in Ralph Cintron's "A Boy and His Wall". An example of a fixed position may be the authors background as an American male - his middle class caucasian background is shown as he is studying the Latino community. This is especially evident when he first describes Valerio's home and family. Furthermore, subjective positioning elements of Cintron can be seen as well. His childhood and life growing up in the United States would influence this writing. Any especially obvious example would include that provided on page 100, where he describes Valerio's feelings towards the word chero, and how he can relate to the experience, suggesting that he had also had a similar personal experience in the past. Additionally, the author recognizes that spending time with Valerio and the family influences the way he began to think and interact - experiences from the study itself prove to have also promoted subject positioning elements in his ethnography. His writing as a whole is certainly influences by his background and and personal experiences in relation to the Latino community, from which the textual positioning elements are derived. His word choices and descriptions of different situations reveal his underlying feelings towards the community, which in a sense re-iterate his background an socioeconomic class (he alludes to this on several occasions).

Question: if you have already completed your first fieldworking session, do you find any of these elements already present, or have a sense of these elements may be present next time or in your writing? Do you perhaps notice any obvious subjective/fixed positioning (like these had influenced Citron's writing and feelings( already occurring in your research?

Positioning Response

Positioning includes anything that yields a response from a researcher when doing fieldwork. This includes fixed positions (age, gender, race), subjective positions (life history), and textual positions. All of these positions should not be avoided in one's work, in fact the author includes a statement from Horace Miner's study on Nacrimena claiming that complete objectivity is not possible. From the readings, I've gathered that is important to first realize how you are responding to something and why you are responding to something and to then make sure that you include this information in your ethnography.

I believe that Ralph Citron positions himself in the "A Boy and His Wall" chapter just by explaining himself. He doesn't jump to conclusions, but really takes the time to let the reader in on why he has assumed something. For example, he talks about the cars on the wall and about Valerio's dream of being strong. Citron goes on to make connections other images (military and police careers) that create a feeling of strength for other young men Citron knows.

Response to "Positioning"

Positioning is an interpretation approach allowing the fieldworker to address all subjective responses affecting his or her study of culture. This method engenders a relative objectivity, which is termed intersubjectivity: the interpretation of a phenomenon from as many perspectives as possible. It deals with the “objectivity” controversy in anthropological research; it is important because it generates a different and better description of culture compared to the obsolete methodologies. Previous studies avoided the use of “mundane” word, which is part of one’s culture; and the application of “objective” description ridiculed the reality and only to reveal one’s effort to detached from one’s involvement in culture. On the other hand, if one can admit his or her familiarity with a certain culture and to describe it fully in his or her ethnography, the reader would know the fieldworker’s position, which would enable a second analysis on the author upon reading the work. In return, this may give out a more objective image. Positioning allows the fieldworker to place himself or herself in three categories: fix position, views related to one’s personal factors, i.e. age, gender, class, nationality etc.; subjective position, views based on one’s personal history and experience; and textual position, views emanated form one’s specific usage of language.

In Angelstown, Ralph Cintron positions himself through two aspects: subjective position and textual position. He comments on the language therapist’s diagnosis on Valerio’s learning disability. He brings up the question of “not knowing” and “not knowing well” a second language, “might ‘word retrieval’ and ‘latency time’ have been official but obfuscating description of being half-out and half-in a language?” (103). Such questions attacks the credibility of the test but also, it reveals Cintron’s background of having an experience of either learning or teaching a second language. On the other hand, the vocabulary he uses in the article exemplifies his sympathy towards the Latino youth and his questioning of the current system. For instance, when he describes the immigrants tried to construct their culture: “nostalgic,” “separate […] his family […] from the source of power,” “circumscribed by expert knowledge” and others, he shows his own attachment to the “subject” and that is indeed quite powerful and emotional.

Question: which of the three positions do you think you would use the most in your project? Which one do you think you would take for granted most easily?

questions

Question: even though we are allow to be subjective. I am still wonder whether we are allow to use strong language in our essay?