I chose to go to
a mall in the north-eastern part of Calgary for my independent ethnographic
observation. Being a neophyte in this ethnographic field, I had a little bit of
the jitters going out to watch people unanimously. I specifically chose the
food court within the mall to observe people. It is a large space that seats
over a hundred people at a time. It was well lighted, with transparent glass
ceilings that brought in additional light. Looking above, the translucent ceilings
were covered in snow. It was a cold winter morning. They were flower pots dotted
in the middle and at the edges of the court. The large brown pots had palm-like
potted plants in full bloom. The plants were green and alive with energy. It
was just heartening to come in from cold and see the hue of the leaves that
gave some vibrancy to the setting. The semblance of the tropical feel of the
palm- trees evoked memories of my native country, Ghana. It gave the ambience a
feel of a tropical garden.
The demographics
of that locality within the north-eastern part of city has rich mixture of
people of different colours, cultures and ethnic background. It was that rich
mix of cultures that drew me to go that food court in that part Calgary. The
factor that unites all form of ethnography is its focus on human society and culture
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). I was curious to see humans and cultures at work. The patrons of
the mall represent a microcosm of the populace of that area. I sought to
capture the phenomenon of different cultures and ethnicities intermingling,
this led me to bracket the population I chose to study at the food court at the
mall (Denzin, 2001). My working definition of patrons here refers to people who come in
to buy and eat food at the mall. This observation gave me an opportunity to
observe the behavior of different people of diverse ethnic backgrounds eating
and interacting within a given environment. I undertook the observation through
the lens of an African immigrant to Canada. I carried with me my own
preconceived notions of what is to be a minority and man of colour. I wanted to
observe multiculturalism at work. My observation was more of an etic
perspective where I sought to observe and understand from an outsiders’ view
(Madden, 2010). Since this was just an observation, I did not get the chance to
delve further and ask questions on some observed behavior. As a researcher and
visible minority, myself, the guiding question for my observation was, “How do
patrons from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds interact with other
patrons of dissimilar backgrounds in a social setting?”. This question guided
my observation and it gave me something tangible to look out for. I realized
early in my preparation towards the preparation that without a research
question my purpose will have less focus and certainty (Madison, 2012).
I got to the
food court a few minutes after noon on a Sunday. It was a bitterly cold winter day,
with temperatures hovering around -25 degrees celsius. I decided to go by train
instead of driving to the location. This was all in way to psyche me into
getting into the observation zone in my mind. The first thing I did when I got
to the food court was to pan the setting and find a spot where I will have good
view of almost everybody who was coming in to eat. The food court had thirteen
different food stalls ranging from Asian to Mediterranean cuisine. There smell
of the food was tempting. Hunger beckoned me. I was spoilt for choice. I did
some reconnaissance of all the meals available. The servers behind the
food-stalls called out to me as I passed by, smiling and gesturing if I wanted
anything to eat. I did smile back as well. I found a table. The table I settled
on, still had a tray with food left-over on it. I wondered who must have left
the tray and not bothered to walk to the trash bin to dispose off the remnants
of food. Most people after eating walk to the bin and empty the rest into the
trash and leave the trays on top of the bins. I loitered around casually for a
while until one of the elderly Asian woman cleaners came over and cleaned up
the table. There were two elderly Asian looking women who were in charge of
cleaning the tables and picking up leftovers. They were dressed in black and
white. They will huddle together occasionally near the trash bins and engage in
a conversation. Both cleaners looked very old and looked way beyond the
retiring age of sixty-five. I was wondering why women this old will still be
working. I wished I could know why and what will still make them keep working
at their age. I found it disheartening. I eventually took charge of my “little
corner office” and sat at that table. The aromatic smell of food was wafting
all around reminded me once again that I needed to eat. I could not resist. I
had to eat something. Just as I was setting up my writing pad, an elderly
Caucasian man who appeared to be in his sixties walked up to me. His exact
words were “I got an extra cup of coffee, black, no sugar, no milk. I ordered
more than I needed. Will you want it?” In an instant I was taken aback, I
politely said yes. He walked back to his table and brought me the cup of
coffee. It was warm, black and excitingly bitter. He was at his table with a
middle aged woman of Asian origin. They sat quite a distance from me. This
gesture really struck me as profound. The place was quite packed with many
people. It was lunch time. Why did this man walk to me and offer me a drink?
Several questions went on in my mind. Was he just a kind soul? It could have
been because I did not have any meal in front of me. In all honesty, I really
did appreciate his gesture. This overture of kindness got me thinking, “Will I
have done this and walked up to a white person and offered him an extra drink
in a similar situation?”. This set the tone for my observation. This innocuous
act of kindness from this white elderly man gave my observation exercise
meaning. It gave me something to look out for.
I eventually
settled for Chinese food. It was fried rice, with some good tasty ginger beef,
chicken and pork to go with. I did enjoy my meal. It tasted good. I had set up
my writing material by my side, which was divided into two parts. It was a
split page format. One part of my sheet, I captured down
my description of the observation on the sheet and the other part of the
page captured my reflections. It felt
very awkward initially just looking at people and scribbling on my sheets. Part
of me felt like a spy and a voyeur. I was quite conscious if anybody took
notice of what I was doing. After about thirty minutes into my observation, I
settled in and went with the flow. It had roughly about thirty odd people at
the food court when I got there.
The first couple
that caught by attention was young white male and a young black woman. They all
looked to be in their mid- twenties. They were having drinks in large A &W
cups, eating burgers and fries. They visibly looked like they were having a
good time. I sat about ten metres away from them. I could not catch a word of
what they were saying, but from their body language I could only fathom these
were two love- birds. It was interesting to see people of different races
together as couple. People seeing beyond skin colour and coming together makes
the world a better and beautiful place.
Apart from the elderly gentlemen who walked up to me and offered me coffee,
there was another couple who I noticed. It was another elderly couple, the man
was white and the partner was asian. They sat relatively far off from me. They
were also quietly enjoying their meal. I observed a total of three mixed race
couple during my observation. This observation of these couples helped my
observation into a theoretical framework of mixed race relationships. As an
observer I was basing my observation primarily on social classification and
identification (Madison, 2012). I did not have the benefit of interviewing my
participants . My field- work limited me to just observing and not going beyond
that. An emergent theme that came to the fore for me was mixed race
relationships.
There was this
large Indian family that caught my attention. They were a family of five. The family comprised of a middle-aged man and
woman, a young daughter of about five years old, a much younger boy of about
three years. There was an older man who might have passed for a grandfather to
the little children. The men all had black Sikh turbans and the woman was
dressed in a gold and red sari. These visual identity markers and their
physical looks passed them off as Indians. They spoke in their local language
as a family. I never heard a word of English from this family. Their children
were raising a ruckus all the time and their mother had a hard time putting
them in check. The father did not seem bothered at all in keeping the children
in check. This family were communicating in their native language and it really
was a revealing experience for me. Looking at this through the lens of an
ethnographer, it was a totally revealing phenomena for me. It got me asking
myself questions, language is a very powerful tool of preserving and upholding
one’s culture as a minority. How often do I speak my native language with my
own daughters? I was suddenly made aware of the importance of language and the
nexus with an individual’s culture. Another theme revealed was here for me was
about language and culture.
A single mother
and her baby came to sit close by to me. She had the baby in a push cart. She was of an Asian origin. She went to one
of the food stalls and ordered her food. She chose
a table that had only two chairs. After setting her food on the table,
she attempted putting her little baby in a baby-chair. The little boy will have
none of that. He was yelling and resisting every attempt to be put in the chair.
The mother will have none of that. Despite the little boy’s resistance, the
mother prevailed with rebuking him and he eventually settled into his chair.
The wailing went on a for a while. After the mum handed him a potato fry, he
forgot about the crying almost instantly and calmed down. There also was a woman who arrived in
motorized wheel chair. On the bar handles of the wheelchairs she had about
twelve bags, strung on them. I was amazed to see her get out of her wheelchair
unaided and walked to one of the food-stalls. After buying her food , she sat
back in her wheelchair and zoomed off. I had my assumptions of her being unable
to walk, so I was pleasantly surprised when she got of the chair and walked.
This was a lesson for me , I never have to assume anything as a researcher. It got me smiling and got me
thinking at the same time. I had always assumed anyone in a wheelchair could
not walk. This simple observation had taught me a lesson. Another example of
assumptions came up, when I went to the washroom to urinate. A man of African
descent was buckling up his trousers . He had just come out of the loo. He
started speaking to me in a foreign language.
He quickly switched to English when he realized I did not understand a
word of what he was saying. He asked if I was from Sudan and I smiled back and
said I was from Ghana in West Africa. He had quickly assumed I was of South
Sudanese origin. He said I looked like someone from South Sudan. My rather dark
complexion made him quickly jump to the conclusion that I was from his country.
This draws a similar parallel to the duoethnoghraphy dialogue between Sonia
Aujla-Bhullar and Kari Grain titled Mirror Imaging Diversity Experiences where
they attempted a juxtaposition of identities in cross- cultural initiatives (Norris, Sawyer, & Lund, 2012). A similar situation came up where a white lady started speaking to
Kari in Afrikaans because she assumed Kari could speak Afrikaans.
There was a
native couple who also came for a meal. They visibly looked indigenous. Their
looks and long hairs tied in pony tails were their identity markers.They looked
quite elderly. Half way through their meal, they were joined by a younger girl
in her twenties. After a few pleasantries with her, she sat with them at the
table. Not long after into their conversation, I noticed tears streaming down
the face of the young girl. What triggered the tears , I cannot tell. She was
offered a tissue by the man, she gently raised her glasses and wiped away her
tears. She left not long after. The younger girl also looked visibly native.
After about an
hour, I decided to change my location within the food court. I chose another
spot , that was farthest away from the
food stalls but still within the court. I got the opportunity of sitting yet
close again to another native family. They family comprised of an elderly
couple, a middle aged a daughter who liked to be in her mid-thirties , and two
young boys below the age of ten. They had several drinks and a huge meal of
burgers and fries. They looked happy and kept chatting. I was not too close,
but from their body language you could see they were all happy. After the meal
and when they were about to leave , the middle aged woman crushed the two empty coke cans and gently put them
in her handbag. My immediate thoughts were , she must be sending it for recycling
to make some money. This made me sad. I kept asking myself how much will she
get for those two cans? Issues of poverty and social inequality kept flooding
my mind. Will this canker of poverty ever be eradicated amongst humanity? I
observed and moved on. I kept thinking of this long after my field-work
observation. One of my greatest fears as an individual is poverty. It is
disturbing for me personally when I encounter any semblance of poverty.
Not too far away
from where I sat, was an African family. They were Nigerian. Coming from West
Africa and the language they spoke I could identify them as Yoruba. They looked very well dressed and looked a
little bit overdressed for the setting. The group comprised of a young couple,
possibly a husband and wife, two young children, a young girl of about two
years and a baby in a pram. There was
another much older woman and another middle aged woman. Apart from the elderly
women who was wearing snow boots, the two middle aged women were wearing high
heeled shoes. My only wonder was how they managed to walk in the snow in those
shoes. After their meal, they kept taking photographs and selfies of
themselves, amidst laughter and mirth.
There was
another black family that was seated not too far away from me as well. The man
was dressed in a black suit, a white shirt and a black bowtie and black shoes
to much. He had this permanent scowl on his face. He never seemed to smile. His
partner or wife was dressed in an African attire that covered her from head to
toe. She wore a grey boubou. She looked much younger. She looked to be in her
late twenties and the man looked to be in his late fifties. Their daughter was a little girl of about two
years. She had a very low haircut. The man went to the Italian food stall and
ordered pasta and meatballs. The couple hardly communicated with each other. The
man and woman ate from the same plate and the woman fed the little girl
intermittently with little chunks of meat. They did not stay too long. They
left right after their meal.
Several people
were seated in seats, neither eating or drinking. I noticed about three people
sitting all alone, either typing away on their phone or engaged in
conversations over the phone. I noticed this middle-aged man of African
descent, who with shaggy hair, wearing a hat at one the tables. He was on his
phone flipping through metro newspapers. I could not tell if he was waiting for
somebody or he was just there to pass time. He looked my ways several times and
that made me a little uneasy. I avoided eye contact with him and just continued
with my observation. Two elderly men , one with a walking stick came in
together. They looked to be in their sixties. They sat at a table very close to
me and were engaged in a very animated conversation. They did not order food.
They just sat and talked, one giving off a throaty laugh occasionally. I got a
number of people acknowledging my presence, a white man and two young boys came
and sat a table away from me. The man politely said hi before he pulled his seat
and sat down. He looked a bit scruffy, with clothes slightly dirty and wearing
brown steel toed boots. He had the semblance of someone into manual labour. His
boys were engaged in conversation talking about their favourite tv shows. I
tried to listen in , but I had no clue of what tv show they were talking about.
I spent a total
of about two hours doing the observation. I watched people come in to eat,
drink or just to sit down to have a conversation. I listened to conversations
and I had the chance to interact with a couple people, even if it was just a
casual hi or nod of the head. All this was done within the food- court that
served as my field of observation. This observation opened my eyes to
completely new ways of taking in information just by observing people in a
natural setting. In an attempt to theorize my experience in the field, I saw my
whole being as part of a recording instrument. It was an embodied experience,
according to Madden 2010, participant observation is a whole-of-body experience
that has us observing with our eyes as we participate, but we also ‘observe’
with all our senses.
From my observation and in a bid to answer my earlier
question of how people or patrons of the food court socialize with others from
different ethnic backgrounds, I noticed that people generally stayed in their
own spaces. There was very little or no social interaction with each other.
Indian looking families stayed within their own spaces, same was for Chinese
looking families. Same could be said for other visible minority families.
Native languages, other than English was spoken by almost all the visible
minority patrons in the food court. As a researcher, one thing that I couldn’t
confidently lay claim to was the relationships between people who came in groups.
The fact that people may visibly look like a family may not always hold true
since I never had the chance to ask to interview and interact with people for a
longer period of time. My fervent wish would have been to get to know the
patrons more, ask them questions about themselves and have the chance to get to
know them well. I would have wanted to understand the rationale and reason why
people do not relate much more freely with each other. One thing I found intriguing was why alcoholic
beverages were not sold at eateries. I am contrasting this with food joints
from where I come from in West Africa. Beer and other alcoholic beverages are a
constant wherever there is food. Nothing beats having a good meal with a
chilled bottle of beer.
If had the
chance to do another study, I will probably have chosen another day, other than
a Sunday. The food court was not really full. I am sure there will have been
much more human traffic on a Saturday afternoon and I will have had the chance
to observe much more people and increased my sample size of the patrons at the
food court. I would have loved to have spent more time. Two hours was a little
bit too short to capture a lot in terms of observation. I would have wanted to
immerse myself more into the setting over a couple more days to get a more
balanced and fair observation over a number of days. On hindsight, I will
employ the use of digital media in the form of a recorder to capture the sounds
of the environment. The idea is not to capture peoples conversations, but just
the essence of the sounds of the ambience. This I believe will aid me in
evoking sharper memories of my fieldnotes as I write them down at the end of
the day. It will not be ethical to record patrons without their permission, but
just the mix of the sounds will of the place will help me to give a richer
description of what I observed in the field.
I am not too
sure if I will have done anything much remarkedly different from what I did
when I went to the mall to do my observation. The offer of coffee from the
middle aged white man got me thinking. Would I have accepted it on any other
day, if I was not scouting for data for my field observation? I am not too sure
if I would have accepted it going to the mall without any agenda.
From my
observation, what left me disillusioned was the palpable segregation amongst
different ethnic groups and cultures. The glue that seems to bond groups of
different ethnicities is non-existent.
The idea of Canada as multicultural society looks beautiful on the outside, but
when one starts to unpack the layers, it tells a different story. Visible
minority groups that came in as patrons stuck to themselves, hardly did I see
like a Indian family having a conversation with say a Chinese family. It was
more a case of different nations linked by language, traditions and mores
living together as one country. Groups stayed in their own spaces and circles. Notwithstanding,
from this general observation, there were few examples of mixed race couples. I
believe a lot more needs to be done to get people to tear down the invisible
walls of our differences. As a country, Canada will need to look beyond just
being multicultural and move to the next step of being transcultural.
I cannot complete this ethnographic observation without a self- critique
of myself as researcher in the field. As a visible minority man, my choice of
location for observation was influenced by the demographics of that
location in the north eastern part of
Calgary. I live in the north west, but I rather chose the place because I was
influenced by the number of people of colour who lived in that particular area.
Anytime I took the train to that part of town, that particular C- train
location always had an interesting mixture of people of all races. It was a
melting pot of different races and cultures. I wanted to see how people who
looked like me and other minorities interacted with other groups of people. I
came into this observation with my own ethnographic baggage of presumption and
prejudice that was informed by my own upbringing, education and history (Madden,
2010). To be aware of my own
subjectivities is key to try to give an honest picture as much as possible
during my observation.
In concluding the writing of my field notes, this observation has opened
up a new whole vista as a new ethnographer. A number of concepts and ideas
discussed in class about being an ethnographer (Madden, 2010), the importance
of formulating a research question early in my observation served as an
articulation of what I wanted to observe and why ( Madison, 2012) served as an
important standpoint to theorize my experience in the field. Without the
question of why different ethnic groups segregate from others, by observation
and reflections will have lacked depth. Some element of learning took place for
me, never have I deliberately looked at a group of people critically and looked
out for patterns of behaviours and responses. Admittedly, though the
observation was short, my personal values, knowledge and beliefs about cultures
other than mine, took a shift, not of a seismic nature anyway, but l learnt
something new about myself. My own socio- cultural context and upbringing as an
individual affects the way I see the world around me. I could identify and
harness the concept of subjectivity as a researcher and the importance of
admitting my biases as I go into the field as an observer. One interesting
outcome even after several days after my observation, anytime I get on a bus or
train I find myself looking out for patterns of behaviour and interactions
among people which I will not have necessarily thought of prior to my
observation.
Through this
ethnographic observation and given the limits of the length of this paper, I
touched on some salient points, with regards to what I saw and heard, what I
did, theorized my experience, drew out few issues of what I still wondered
about at the food court, what I did I not know enough about my brief
observation, what I will like to know more about, what I might do differently
next time, what I wished I had done and why and how I would address what left
me unsatisfied. Very importantly I did preserve the anonymity of my
participants and the observation site undertaking this fieldwork.
Apart from
synthesizing all the above points in my writing, the structure of my writing as
useful research record began with an overview of culture, touched on
reflexivity, followed by a guiding question, interspersed with theorizing my
experience by drawing out some themes I observed, alongside with discussions
that run throughout the writing of the observation and finally ended with a
conclusion.
References
Denzin, N. K. (2001). Interpretive
interactionism (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Madden, R. (2010). Being
ethnographic: A guide to the theory and practice of ethnography. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN: 9781412946971
Madison, D. S. (2012). Critical
ethnography: Method, ethics, and performance (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage. ISBN: 9781412980241
Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2015). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation: John
Wiley & Sons.
Norris, J., Sawyer, R. D., & Lund, D. E. (Eds.). (2012). Duoethnography: Dialogic methods for social,
health, and educational research. New York: Routledge. ISBN: 9781598746846
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