8.27 Plan for fall and overview of Friday's meeting

Meetings
Perhaps the most important outcome of Friday's meeting was to decide that we would meet Fridays, in CAS 308 at 1:00, with pizza from Goombas.  Our first meeting will be September 6.  The agenda will be:

1. Continued discussion of readings/research relevant to individual projects (if you have a reading you would like to discuss - you might give the group a heads up so we can do some reading before we come to the group).

2. Discussion of ethnographic methods, with particular attention to the approach described by Bourdieu.

Discussion associated with points on the proposed agenda for meeting

1. Updates on where you are, what you plan to do during the fall, and how TeamEbook can have your back.  If you have done nothing - don't feel bad since that is what I did => we will use this as planning time.

 

Sally:  I indicated that I will need some data samples by the beginning of October, and we talked about what kinds of data you will have.  I would like to have samples of different kinds of data that will both:

• illustrate what multimodal data can do in ethnographic representations,
• and introduce each of your projects

Robyn:  Robyn said that she has been posting and is looking for some feedback.  She documented her draft for her FFootball league Friday night and we noted that data collection should be as "natural" as possible - with participant observation -but no interviewing or drawing attention to the data collection process. 

 

Mark: asked for feedback on his blog to keep him focused on ethnographic methods (if/when he lapses into straight-up textual analysis).

 

Joe, Nikki, Luis, Maria: (summed up) collecting data.  The four of you talked about different kinds of data you could collect, patterns you were noticing, + problems with your individual data sets.  In terms of what would help, the consensus was that comments on blogs or in meetings and sharing what we are finding/thinking about as we work on our different projects would help.  As individuals + a group, you indicated you were not yet ready to "commit" to a specific data collection method or focus = were still looking around inside your groups, figuring out how to "be there" and how to name/focus/conceptualize what you were "seeing" / doing. 

 

My comment: YAY - that is an excellent place to be at this stage of the project.  And hopefully we can start reading each other's blogs and commenting and that way we can dig in deeper + get the real benefits of collaboration.  We will especially need help in stepping outside our own biases/assumptions as researchers (see Mark's request!)

 

  

2. Discussions of any baffling readings you may have encounters - especially readings you feel would make more sense if you talked about them a little.

 

Maria requested readings on writing groups (Mark suggested the bibliography in Irene Clark's text - the one we are using for 5030) + how to interpret data (our readings on ethnographic method will help with this and I will look around for some others); 

 

Luis requested readings on tumblr + related social networking (as you develop a focus we may be able to be more helpful with this).

 

  

3. Collaborative development of a fall calendar.  The calendar I posted is mostly about deadlines for me and Robyn and Sergio - you all can fit in where you see things as working for you.  If we want to do some quality-time work on ethnographic methods and theory - we could do that (in parallel to data collection) - or whatever.  We will talk this through.

We had a sort of general discussion on this that breaks down as follows:

• begin with some more theoretical reading/discussing (with a focus on Bourdieu, but also some broader reading on ethnographic methods)
• by the beginning of October, have some data samples to discuss, so I can pull together the methods/introductory chapter on what multimodal ethnographic data looks like/can do
• throughout the fall =>work out a template with Sergio

Summary:
 I felt a kind of intention to make better use of the blogs.  So OK!  I'm up for that.
A review of Bourdieu (again) + ethnographic methods to be the focus of fall meetings, along with on-going presentations on data.
Sally needs data samples be beginning of Octoer.
Robyn wants some comments on her blog (as does everyone else).

I will be working on the proposal and will keep you posted.

Next meeting: Friday, September 6, at 1:00 in CAS 308.