Making the Familiar Strange

Making the Familiar Strange 

Paper details Introduction: This project has four purposes: (1) to make you think about your own culture/habits in different ways (2) to give you experience in observation and note-taking (3) to allow you to apply major anthropological concepts to your writing (4) to give you experience writing a formal letter. The Making the Familiar Strange project is worth 200 points, 20% of your grade. Project Summary: Write a 750-1000 word formal letter that makes the familiar strange. You will also submit Field Notes at least 400 words in length. Choose a public place that you are familiar with, that you go to on a regular basis. For example: a coffee shop, a grocery store, the bus. Imagine that you are from a faraway place, like the lost city of Atlantis, or Mars and you have never been to the United States. Your job is to observe aspects the foreign culture that you encounter and report back to your leader. You have to describe a strange place that you encounter and the events that occur there. Then you must provide an analysis. What is the purpose of the place, why are the people acting in certain ways? You can use Horace Miner’s “Body and Ritual Among the Nacerima” as inspiration for this assignment. Selecting a Site: Select a place you go habitually, at least once a week. Here are some examples from previous papers: -A place of worship -A subway station -A grocery store -A Starbucks -A mall/department store -A park -A school -A hair/nail salon If you have questions about whether or not a place is appropriate for the assignment, please contact the instructor. Completing Observations: You should spend at least two hours at your field site observing and taking notes about everything that you see. This should be separate from the time you normally spend there. Pay attention to smells, sounds, how people are moving, what people are doing. Try to look at the place as if you have never seen it before.