“If you just do research without thinking, you’re wasting your time.” Rachel Laudan, food historian
How and why we gather, where, around what kinds of food, our rituals, our shared language, and how we share says a lot about how a group sees itself and the world, and how it establishes a sense of belonging, how it defines itself. Your job in this essay will be to do a mini-ethnography, that is you will be focused on a particular community and how the gathering place and the food help facilitate a sense of belonging and what that tells us about how this community defines itself and what it means to belong to it.
Some things to consider along the way:
This is question centered. That question should contain an ethnographic focus (i.e. How do people in a culture see themselves and their world [as embodied in their rituals around food)?
You must choose a location that seems to have some kind of cultural significance to a community, that location should ideally be a place where food is served (either as a part of the place’s function–a restaurant, cafeteria, dining hall, food bank, etc.) or a place that allows food to be brought and served (a park, a banquet hall, a house, etc.)
You must have access to the community you choose. If you cannot observe them in person this essay is impossible to execute (for those living on campus, this most likely will be a group/sub-group on campus (this might include D&D groups, non-academic clubs, informal group [e.g. the Jedi masters of Tooker, the skate groups that hang out near MU or Armstrong, etc.], larger groups could also work like the various different residential dining halls around campus [although these tend to be very open spaces that make a “community” determination difficult]). Fraternities and sororities are usually not good groups for this project, because the next most important part of this is that you cannot be a part of this groupat the start of this project! and fraternities and sororities tend to be secretive and closed to outsiders.
This essay will contain both secondary research (i.e. background information on the group and its history, analysis of writings from other historians/anthropologists/ethnographers, analysis of pictures, videos, and past interviews with people connected with group, etc.) as well as primary research (conducting your own interviews, observations, and field notes).
Keep in mind that place is at the center of your inquiry. Place is the context through which every other activity that surrounds the community or is ancillary to the community is examined.
This essay will contain elements of all three writing techniques we have practiced this semester: i.e. profiles, lush descriptions, stories; interpretations of cultural phenomena and analysis of observations; as well as provide research-backed evidence for an argument (thesis) that answers the question you pose.
What I will be looking for when I grade:
An arc to the essay that moves from a place of inquiry to a place of understanding.
Evidence that research was conducted (I will require at least one primary research method to be used: observation, interview, or experiment).
A purposeful use of the information you discovered while researching. The essay should not be just a data dump, rather the information you reveal in your essay should help you answer the question you are working through. This also includes context building, evidence-backed claims, properly introducing your sources as well as citing your sources with in-text citations and a works cited page.
A purposeful selection of how you talk about your subject (see: number three under things to consider) that matches your question, your methods of inquiry, and the information you have discovered.
