Ethnographic Writing

Khan's paper on ethnographic writing was an important reminder on how word choice is crucial when writing about others because they can really affect a person psychologically, and in his case, ruin a friendship with a previous professor. In this type of writing, feedback is necessary, and you will write and revise constantly until it is written in a way that the message will come across clear and hopefully unoffensive. Unfortunately, in my opinion at least, you will likely offend someone along the way, and it can take away from the reality and feel of a situation if you reword it too safely. I thought the most imprtant part was to understand how the participants understand the events, and how they relate or differ from your understanding of the events.

For Kawulich, the importance of taking qualitative data, to observe then collect data strategially reminded me of Applied Behavior Analysis in the sense of recording data and looking for something narrow to focus on. Kawulich's observation notes tis and strategies were also somewhat similar, but one major difference is that in ethnographic writing and observation, you want to blend in, and in ABA you don't blend in.


I keep travel journals, but my mind completely spaced on that during the first few weeks of this quarter. My mind tends to forget things no matter how obvious they are. Last night was a good example of that; I had passed a friend on my way to dinner, and then texted her thinking that she was still on the boat. She just came over and laughed at how quickly I forgot. That usually happens when I have a lot on my mind and am stressed out about the things I need to get done. Btw, I've been spending the past week or so on a boat sailing in French Polynesia, where you would think there is wifi... but very few places have it unless you're at one of the fancy hotels.There's supposed to be wifi onboard, but for some reason the connection is nonexistant out here. First world problems? I've personally enjoyed the lack of devices and internet, except for today, where I'm sitting alone in the yacht club on a computer connected to wifi. Not that I'm complaining of where I'm at, because I'm very lucky to be here, but it's just a cut-off feeling from life out here. I would rather be in a town picking out fresh caught tuna hanging from branches, playing soccer with friends and locals, hiking or being in the water. Side note: there is a huge difference between local housing and tourist hotels like many other tropical islands. For some reason, I pictured one of the top honeymoon destinations, Bora Bora, to have better living conditions for the locals. What surprised me more was that some, not all, locals didn't care for what I consider better living conditions.

This definitely isn't ethnographic writing because I'm not taking time to revise anything or get feedback. I'm just writing down some thoughts.