Question 1: What is the gastronomy of squatting in Amsterdam?
____Attendant question: Is squatting a counterculture, or a subculture?
________Attendant question: What is the difference between a counterculture and a subculture?
________Preliminary response: A subculture is "a cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture" (OED). A counterculture is a subculture that has beliefs or interests directly opposed to those of the larger culture. This doesn't address what these two terms might mean in a social research context, but it's a start. For one thing, it makes the distinction seem less consequential for a research question that doesn't address it directly.
Question 8: M. de Certeau writes that "Everyday life invents itself by poaching in countless ways on the property of others. How (a) do squatters (b) use this idea of "poaching"? How is this related (c) to the gastronomy of squatting?
(a) "How do squatters _____?" assumes that the answer to "do squatters _____?" is positive. This will need to be accounted for either by incorporating it into the question, or using earlier research to establish it in the background.
(b) "Squatters" could stand for a movement in general, or it could stand for a particular group of squatters (which has yet to be located).
(c) Either one could influence the other, or both (or neither...).
=====================================================
In general, having a conceptual framework can make observation a lot easier, because it can give a picture of what one would expect to see, so then one knows what to look for, and what to look for the absence of, and can frame one's research in terms of how the image(s) observed are similar to or different from the expected or reference image(s).
For an analytic frame, I've been thinking about M. de Certeau's idea of productive consumption, or "poaching" (i.e., squatting). This, or any theoretical framework, would be useful in framing (by case) observations (of behavior and of physical traces) in terms of how well they fit this model. This frame suggests some questions I could ask about my observations: are they examples of using finished products (especially of the "larger culture") in ways that turn them into something different? In the broadest case this is pretty obvious: squatters use empty buildings and turn them into places to live. What about with respect to gastronomy? Do squatters appropriate other "products" and resources creatively to produce and consume food? Or do they acquire, prepare, and consume most of their food the "conventional" way?
The connection between this framework as applied to squatting, and the concept of gastronomy, still seems tenuous. So I'm in search of another, food-framing theory. Also, I don't know if M. de Certeau's theory is going to be common to the whole group, and it would be a good idea to have at least one overarching theory, within which the focus-specific frames could vary.
In other words, we're not finished with this part yet.
fun with formatting
_____Another thing about M. de Certeau's essay:
_____as he himself says,
_____it's not a complete framework in itself;
_____it's more of an outline for future frameworks to be made from.
_____Its biggest contribution is its emphasis of usage,
_____as opposed to only social relations and behaviors.
_____M.C. develops this usage idea further with his conception of it as a productive consumption,
_____but this is still rather domain-general.
_____This is why I need to find another framework that either gives a more specific account of squatting and/or gastronomy,
_____or else provides a more complete body of theory.
_____M.C.'s framework is really an appendage,
_____or else a meta-framework that can filter my application of other frameworks
_____--or else an inter-framework,
_____mediating between other frameworks and evidence by crossing buses.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Godzilla vs. Mothra
Message:
The video medium and the print medium inherently convey different kinds of messages. There are plenty of ideas that are broad enough or simple enough that they can be communicated through both adequately, but there are many more whose contents are affected. I won't go into what these inherent differences are, mainly because I don't know where to begin. But I might return to this.
Audience:
Another difference is in the audience that either medium is more likely to reach. This is partly a result of the kinds of messages that are usually conveyed through each--so that an "academic" is traditionally more likely to be exposed to a message published in a book or scholarly journal than one posted in a video on YouTube, because the kind of messages that many "academics" would be interested in are usually printed. Of course there are some dramatic exceptions to this (depending on the field, for instance), but in any case the converse is almost certainly true, and a message disseminated via YouTube is more likely to be viewed by a lot of non-academics than is a scholarly article.
Time:
A video is also more likely to reach more people in general, in part because of its relationship with time; videos take less time, but--unlike a book, which can be read at different speeds, and picked up or put down at any time--they also demand a fixed amount of time to watch (it's pretty uncommon, I think, for someone to watch the first 30 seconds of a YouTube video and pause to come back to it later). Hence, for the typical internet flâneur/flâneuse, they relieve him/her of the "responsibility" of surfing/wandering; they demand attention--often forcefully--and for the duration of the video, the viewer is committed to a worthy (read: focused) undertaking.
Context:
Another important and related effect is created by the context or connotations of the chosen medium. To grossly over-generalize, a printed article is typically expected to give a well-researched, sober argument, with a thorough (lengthy) discussion, and should appeal primarily to the intellect. A video, on the other hand, is often informal and entertaining, brief, and emotionally affecting. Of course it's possible (and desirable) to reverse these tendencies. For instance, if we publish our research as a video, we will still need to be just as rigorous in our research as if we had printed it (though we may also put more effort into making our video entertaining).
Goals:
I would like my group's research project to reach a large number of people, and change both they way they think about squatting in particular, and how they apply the associated values to their own lives in general. The most effective way to affect people's values is with an emotional argument; the most effective way to affect people's ideas is with a rational one. To these ends, I think a video would be the most appropriate medium, because it is most capable of a mix of these two types of appeal.
Update:
Exchange:
Before video, the screen was, along with radio, the most linear of communication media. A message that was broadcast--either to theaters via film or to homes via television--was in some sense "injected" into the veins of culture. This still occurs today of course, but, since the emergence of video, the screen has also become a medium capable of multilateral exchange. Or maybe it was just since the rise of video on the internet; it's hard to imagine a lot of people actually communicating by mailing VHS tapes back and forth (unless you've seen Videodrome enough times).
Internet videos have become, like academic publications, media of discussion.
Well, I lost my train of thought. More later...
Update 5/14:
Goals 2: I might have been too hasty in this part. If we're doing social research as it is described by C. C. Ragin, then emotional appeal is not a concern, or at least shouldn't be more than a secondary goal. He does say that social researchers "use traditional text media almost exclusively." I understand that we're not being typical social researchers, but I'm not sure to what extent (beyond medium of presentation) what we're doing differs. Are we being innovative with respect to just form, or form and content, or formal content, or contentious form?
The video medium and the print medium inherently convey different kinds of messages. There are plenty of ideas that are broad enough or simple enough that they can be communicated through both adequately, but there are many more whose contents are affected. I won't go into what these inherent differences are, mainly because I don't know where to begin. But I might return to this.
Audience:
Another difference is in the audience that either medium is more likely to reach. This is partly a result of the kinds of messages that are usually conveyed through each--so that an "academic" is traditionally more likely to be exposed to a message published in a book or scholarly journal than one posted in a video on YouTube, because the kind of messages that many "academics" would be interested in are usually printed. Of course there are some dramatic exceptions to this (depending on the field, for instance), but in any case the converse is almost certainly true, and a message disseminated via YouTube is more likely to be viewed by a lot of non-academics than is a scholarly article.
Time:
A video is also more likely to reach more people in general, in part because of its relationship with time; videos take less time, but--unlike a book, which can be read at different speeds, and picked up or put down at any time--they also demand a fixed amount of time to watch (it's pretty uncommon, I think, for someone to watch the first 30 seconds of a YouTube video and pause to come back to it later). Hence, for the typical internet flâneur/flâneuse, they relieve him/her of the "responsibility" of surfing/wandering; they demand attention--often forcefully--and for the duration of the video, the viewer is committed to a worthy (read: focused) undertaking.
Context:
Another important and related effect is created by the context or connotations of the chosen medium. To grossly over-generalize, a printed article is typically expected to give a well-researched, sober argument, with a thorough (lengthy) discussion, and should appeal primarily to the intellect. A video, on the other hand, is often informal and entertaining, brief, and emotionally affecting. Of course it's possible (and desirable) to reverse these tendencies. For instance, if we publish our research as a video, we will still need to be just as rigorous in our research as if we had printed it (though we may also put more effort into making our video entertaining).
Goals:
I would like my group's research project to reach a large number of people, and change both they way they think about squatting in particular, and how they apply the associated values to their own lives in general. The most effective way to affect people's values is with an emotional argument; the most effective way to affect people's ideas is with a rational one. To these ends, I think a video would be the most appropriate medium, because it is most capable of a mix of these two types of appeal.
Update:
Exchange:
Before video, the screen was, along with radio, the most linear of communication media. A message that was broadcast--either to theaters via film or to homes via television--was in some sense "injected" into the veins of culture. This still occurs today of course, but, since the emergence of video, the screen has also become a medium capable of multilateral exchange. Or maybe it was just since the rise of video on the internet; it's hard to imagine a lot of people actually communicating by mailing VHS tapes back and forth (unless you've seen Videodrome enough times).
Internet videos have become, like academic publications, media of discussion.
Well, I lost my train of thought. More later...
Update 5/14:
Goals 2: I might have been too hasty in this part. If we're doing social research as it is described by C. C. Ragin, then emotional appeal is not a concern, or at least shouldn't be more than a secondary goal. He does say that social researchers "use traditional text media almost exclusively." I understand that we're not being typical social researchers, but I'm not sure to what extent (beyond medium of presentation) what we're doing differs. Are we being innovative with respect to just form, or form and content, or formal content, or contentious form?
Monday, May 5, 2008
Convoluted Living
Boredom, Eternal Return
How does one recognize boredom? There are at least two types of boredom: reflexive, and reflective. Reflexive boredom is unconscious--it is a restlessness that seeks occupation. In other words, it is a mind that seeks confinement in some external routine--an escape from itself. Reflective boredom requires an opportunity and a capacity to recognize that one is bored, to consider the reasons for this boredom. It is equivocal; in this state, one is never completely sure that one is actually bored (having nothing to do is no longer so easy: just recognizing boredom is an action that might reverse it). Through this ambiguity it severs its connections with external expectation (of an antidote), and the boredom becomes a mirror. Suddenly the environment that one inhabits stops being an other in a dialogue, and instead becomes a projection in a monologue: One turns one's house into one's own.
Squatting arises from this kind of boredom--the boredom that instigates a return to oneself, both of oneself, and of one's environment. In incorporating the environment, the squatter takes responsibility for it. And as one body, the squatter-and-his/her-environment no longer relies on a feeding tube, but generates his/her/its own food. Reflective boredom is a revolving doorway to self-reliance and self-sufficiency.
---
"The readable transforms itself into the memorable [...] the viewer reads the landscape of his childhood in the evening news [...] A different world (the reader's) slips into the author's place." De Certeau, Michel. 'The Practice of Everyday Life.' The Consumption Reader. 259-65.
"Rather than relying on use-by dates to tell them what food is edible and safe, freegans use their innate senses of touch, taste and smell. This attitude marks a conscious shift away from corporate control enabling the diver to reclaim a connection to their senses and to the natural world." Edwards, Ferne and Mercer, David (2007) 'Gleaning from Gluttony: an Australian youth subculture confronts the ethics of waste', Australian Geographer, 38:3, 279 - 96.
Squatting and dumpster diving (related through both ethics and culture) are turning inward, transitively and intransitively. In consuming non-consumable food (food that lacks a sponsor), one 'returns to one's senses.' Likewise, inhabiting an uninhabited, (conventionally) uninhabitable building is 'reinterpreting' it as habitable. All of this involves rereading an article as something more familiar (personal), more present, and more functional.
How does one recognize boredom? There are at least two types of boredom: reflexive, and reflective. Reflexive boredom is unconscious--it is a restlessness that seeks occupation. In other words, it is a mind that seeks confinement in some external routine--an escape from itself. Reflective boredom requires an opportunity and a capacity to recognize that one is bored, to consider the reasons for this boredom. It is equivocal; in this state, one is never completely sure that one is actually bored (having nothing to do is no longer so easy: just recognizing boredom is an action that might reverse it). Through this ambiguity it severs its connections with external expectation (of an antidote), and the boredom becomes a mirror. Suddenly the environment that one inhabits stops being an other in a dialogue, and instead becomes a projection in a monologue: One turns one's house into one's own.
Squatting arises from this kind of boredom--the boredom that instigates a return to oneself, both of oneself, and of one's environment. In incorporating the environment, the squatter takes responsibility for it. And as one body, the squatter-and-his/her-environment no longer relies on a feeding tube, but generates his/her/its own food. Reflective boredom is a revolving doorway to self-reliance and self-sufficiency.
---
"The readable transforms itself into the memorable [...] the viewer reads the landscape of his childhood in the evening news [...] A different world (the reader's) slips into the author's place." De Certeau, Michel. 'The Practice of Everyday Life.' The Consumption Reader. 259-65.
"Rather than relying on use-by dates to tell them what food is edible and safe, freegans use their innate senses of touch, taste and smell. This attitude marks a conscious shift away from corporate control enabling the diver to reclaim a connection to their senses and to the natural world." Edwards, Ferne and Mercer, David (2007) 'Gleaning from Gluttony: an Australian youth subculture confronts the ethics of waste', Australian Geographer, 38:3, 279 - 96.
Squatting and dumpster diving (related through both ethics and culture) are turning inward, transitively and intransitively. In consuming non-consumable food (food that lacks a sponsor), one 'returns to one's senses.' Likewise, inhabiting an uninhabited, (conventionally) uninhabitable building is 'reinterpreting' it as habitable. All of this involves rereading an article as something more familiar (personal), more present, and more functional.
Friday, May 2, 2008
noitcelfer (the best kind!)
Here's what I took away from the Wednesday presentations, focusing on research questions:
Media Group - Clint, Dylan, Julia
Notes:
Topic: the convergence of media and technology: New Media.
How do the Dutch interact with their news media sources, and how has this shaped the commercial structures of these sources?
Self-addressed problem: scope too broad. Could focus on specific media or organizations instead.
Also: there could be bias in the medium of survey administration.
Reactions:
This is a great topic, and is highly relevant both to the world and to the "modern spaces" focus of the class, and to the modern spaces where the world and the class overlap.
I agree that it's also too broad, but I don't think focusing on a particular organization or medium is the only solution, although it might make things more manageable in any case.
In particular, you could be more specific about what you mean by "interact" and what you mean by news source. Interact presupposes an interaction, which, depending on your definition of news source, might take place to various degrees.
For instance, say your news source is the radio. Well, if by radio I mean the radio program, then I might just be a passive listener, my only action being to decide when to listen (unless you define the listener purely as one who listens, and then I can't even decide that). If, on the other hand, I'm indicating the radio itself, then I'm much more active, since I can turn it on and off, and change stations, etc.
I think that both of these things--the radio and the radio waves--could be seen as mediating the information that passes through them. But maybe that's what you're getting at.
Tourists & Natives Group - Flannery, Mimi
Notes:
How do natives and tourists differ within the tourism industry, and how do natives and tourists differ among themselves?
With respect to: accents, conceptions of Amsterdam...
Reactions:
This topic also has a lot of potential, and it's cool that you have two sort of "opposite but possibly similar in unexpected ways or maybe entirely different but there's always the possibility of being both here and there" categories that you can divide between the two of you.
As Clifford mentioned, you might want to get specific about what you'll include in the "tourism industry" category, because it could be very huge.
I'm also still unsure about the parameters you're using for differences between tourists and natives (and also, as someone said, you should make sure you define "tourist" and "native," because there are clearly many subcategories of each). Your research question might do well to incorporate this information explicitly.
Architecture Group - Jenny, Kelsey
Notes:
Jenny: How do the content & layout of shopping centers reflect shoppers' personalities, culture, etc.? How are shopping centers "used" by Amsterdam (with respect to culture)?
Kelsey: Interaction between people and spaces. Does the design of a structure influence the individuals who visit it?
Reactions:
Hmm...influence who visits it, or influence the people who are already visiting it in some other way? It's probably just my notes that are ambiguous. Sorry about that. I'm actually really interested in this idea! And when a space influences people, does it influence the way that they create or re-work spaces further, so once a building or district is built, you could say it takes some responsibility for its own future? Maybe that's a stretch...
I think these questions, again, are very broad (I'm sure you know this), and your focuses could benefit from some condensation. Particular terms could be "personalities" and of course "culture," and "influence." You might even approach your questions from the opposite direction: ask something that's too specific, and then draw more general evidence into it, and more general conclusions from it.
Brands & Advertising Group - Eddy, Haylee, Katherine
Notes:
How do aspects of branding in Amsterdam reflect differences in population (w/r/t religion, class, gender; businesses defining their own culture; Amsterdam's history as an economic center)?
Eddy: "Store tourism": How do Amsterdam stores attract their customers (especially novelty stores)? w/r/t atmosphere.
Haylee: "Advertising; portrayal of women": How does this reflect Dutch culture?
Katherine: "Dutch fashion; gender roles": How does Amsterdam couture/fashion communicate, project, and reflect the image w/r/t gender, class, and social group?
Reactions:
Eddy, I think your question is pretty clear, and relatively simple to address. It should be really interesting to find connections between stores and subcultures in Amsterdam, and how these influence each other, but I think you could address this more explicitly in your question, because just reading it, I'm worried that this could become primarily a discussion of marketing techniques.
Haylee, this looks like a fun topic to pursue. You can do a lot with images of course. I think, as has been suggested to numerous people and groups, that a comparison to advertising to another group, or advertising to women somewhere else, could be very useful. Also, I might be careful about the generality of your question; are you really looking to draw conclusions about Dutch culture in its entirety?
Katherine, I'm very interested in how you'll go about connecting fashion to these societal concepts. Again, a comparison could be helpful. Other than that, it seems like a pretty sound research question. Though I'm interested in what you mean by "project" in this context--project onto what?
Media Group - Clint, Dylan, Julia
Notes:
Topic: the convergence of media and technology: New Media.
How do the Dutch interact with their news media sources, and how has this shaped the commercial structures of these sources?
Self-addressed problem: scope too broad. Could focus on specific media or organizations instead.
Also: there could be bias in the medium of survey administration.
Reactions:
This is a great topic, and is highly relevant both to the world and to the "modern spaces" focus of the class, and to the modern spaces where the world and the class overlap.
I agree that it's also too broad, but I don't think focusing on a particular organization or medium is the only solution, although it might make things more manageable in any case.
In particular, you could be more specific about what you mean by "interact" and what you mean by news source. Interact presupposes an interaction, which, depending on your definition of news source, might take place to various degrees.
For instance, say your news source is the radio. Well, if by radio I mean the radio program, then I might just be a passive listener, my only action being to decide when to listen (unless you define the listener purely as one who listens, and then I can't even decide that). If, on the other hand, I'm indicating the radio itself, then I'm much more active, since I can turn it on and off, and change stations, etc.
I think that both of these things--the radio and the radio waves--could be seen as mediating the information that passes through them. But maybe that's what you're getting at.
Tourists & Natives Group - Flannery, Mimi
Notes:
How do natives and tourists differ within the tourism industry, and how do natives and tourists differ among themselves?
With respect to: accents, conceptions of Amsterdam...
Reactions:
This topic also has a lot of potential, and it's cool that you have two sort of "opposite but possibly similar in unexpected ways or maybe entirely different but there's always the possibility of being both here and there" categories that you can divide between the two of you.
As Clifford mentioned, you might want to get specific about what you'll include in the "tourism industry" category, because it could be very huge.
I'm also still unsure about the parameters you're using for differences between tourists and natives (and also, as someone said, you should make sure you define "tourist" and "native," because there are clearly many subcategories of each). Your research question might do well to incorporate this information explicitly.
Architecture Group - Jenny, Kelsey
Notes:
Jenny: How do the content & layout of shopping centers reflect shoppers' personalities, culture, etc.? How are shopping centers "used" by Amsterdam (with respect to culture)?
Kelsey: Interaction between people and spaces. Does the design of a structure influence the individuals who visit it?
Reactions:
Hmm...influence who visits it, or influence the people who are already visiting it in some other way? It's probably just my notes that are ambiguous. Sorry about that. I'm actually really interested in this idea! And when a space influences people, does it influence the way that they create or re-work spaces further, so once a building or district is built, you could say it takes some responsibility for its own future? Maybe that's a stretch...
I think these questions, again, are very broad (I'm sure you know this), and your focuses could benefit from some condensation. Particular terms could be "personalities" and of course "culture," and "influence." You might even approach your questions from the opposite direction: ask something that's too specific, and then draw more general evidence into it, and more general conclusions from it.
Brands & Advertising Group - Eddy, Haylee, Katherine
Notes:
How do aspects of branding in Amsterdam reflect differences in population (w/r/t religion, class, gender; businesses defining their own culture; Amsterdam's history as an economic center)?
Eddy: "Store tourism": How do Amsterdam stores attract their customers (especially novelty stores)? w/r/t atmosphere.
Haylee: "Advertising; portrayal of women": How does this reflect Dutch culture?
Katherine: "Dutch fashion; gender roles": How does Amsterdam couture/fashion communicate, project, and reflect the image w/r/t gender, class, and social group?
Reactions:
Eddy, I think your question is pretty clear, and relatively simple to address. It should be really interesting to find connections between stores and subcultures in Amsterdam, and how these influence each other, but I think you could address this more explicitly in your question, because just reading it, I'm worried that this could become primarily a discussion of marketing techniques.
Haylee, this looks like a fun topic to pursue. You can do a lot with images of course. I think, as has been suggested to numerous people and groups, that a comparison to advertising to another group, or advertising to women somewhere else, could be very useful. Also, I might be careful about the generality of your question; are you really looking to draw conclusions about Dutch culture in its entirety?
Katherine, I'm very interested in how you'll go about connecting fashion to these societal concepts. Again, a comparison could be helpful. Other than that, it seems like a pretty sound research question. Though I'm interested in what you mean by "project" in this context--project onto what?
Monday, April 28, 2008
[Presentation[Summary[and[other(things)]]]]
So just to summarize my ideas (feedback would be more than welcome!),
My overarching question would be "In what ways does squatting make Amsterdam more habitable?" And of course habitable could mean a lot of things in a lot of contexts. My particular context is gastronomy, especially looking at it through the lens of Michel de Certeau's concept of consumption as a form of production, in the same way that reading is a form of writing (this idea comes from my reading of the essay "The Practice of Everyday Life" in the anthology The Consumption Reader).
Whereas the conventional conception of a consumer is as one who simply "consumes" what is made available by the "established order"--a role devoid of power--de Certeau's consumer practices production by consuming things in particular ways, and thereby turning things into other things. And whereas one conventional view of squatting culture is that it is "anti-consumerist," by this other concept of the consumer, squatters are actually empowered by their consumption.
That is not to confuse this kind of consumption with the act of eating, although they're related. The empowering consumption of the squatting movement is in how it consumes vacant buildings, and turns them into habitable places. What I want to look at are the ways in which practices around food (growing, buying, scavenging, cooking, dining, etc.) serve this "habitable-ization."
This is all subject to drastic change. I'm thinking now that I might need to either make gastronomy more central to my question (rather than being just one focus, or one example), or else change my topic to be more inclusive of other forms of habitable-ization.
My overarching question would be "In what ways does squatting make Amsterdam more habitable?" And of course habitable could mean a lot of things in a lot of contexts. My particular context is gastronomy, especially looking at it through the lens of Michel de Certeau's concept of consumption as a form of production, in the same way that reading is a form of writing (this idea comes from my reading of the essay "The Practice of Everyday Life" in the anthology The Consumption Reader).
Whereas the conventional conception of a consumer is as one who simply "consumes" what is made available by the "established order"--a role devoid of power--de Certeau's consumer practices production by consuming things in particular ways, and thereby turning things into other things. And whereas one conventional view of squatting culture is that it is "anti-consumerist," by this other concept of the consumer, squatters are actually empowered by their consumption.
That is not to confuse this kind of consumption with the act of eating, although they're related. The empowering consumption of the squatting movement is in how it consumes vacant buildings, and turns them into habitable places. What I want to look at are the ways in which practices around food (growing, buying, scavenging, cooking, dining, etc.) serve this "habitable-ization."
This is all subject to drastic change. I'm thinking now that I might need to either make gastronomy more central to my question (rather than being just one focus, or one example), or else change my topic to be more inclusive of other forms of habitable-ization.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Respect, Beneficence, and Justice for Persons
From that Belmont Report:
"The Hippocratic maxim 'do no harm' has long been a fundamental principle of medical ethics. Claude Bernard extended it to the realm of research, saying that one should not injure one person regardless of the benefits that might come to others."
The particulars are left to the physicians' (or researchers') "best judgments." But I think this outlines a pretty big dilemma: utilitarianism vs. "tyranny of the majority" (or, in a related problem, tyranny of the lab scientists (has anyone reading this seen Muppets From Space?)) would be one way of characterizing it. The question that it leads to for me is this: can suffering be quantified?
I don't know if this is going to be relevant for my research (I hope not).
The main issue is probably going to be one of privacy.
There seems to be a correlation between vegetarianism (let's classify veganism as a type of vegetarianism), organic food, and squatting. One source here, another here. I would speculate that this has something to do with squatting emphasizing the values of self-reliance and sustainability. Obviously, this is inconclusive, but as Jessica pointed out in response to my post Wednesday last week, the process of formulating a research question isn't simply linear: sometimes it goes quote backwards end quote. So, from this "intended result," I'll ask (VERY preliminarily):
Is there a correlation between vegetarianism, organic agriculture, and urban agriculture, [...] and squatting culture (which has been pretty well established (see paper) as existing), and if so, why? That is, is it more a manifestation of values or ideals, or is it mainly pragmatic?
I'm waiting for a bunch of books to arrive at the library which should help me clarify what I mean by culture. The definition of organic can really vary from place to place, but in this case I really mean food production that bypasses all industrial processes (now define industrial...). My definition of urban agriculture would be food that is grown within the city on a small scale (so what is "small"?).
My research methods will probably include a lot of participation and informal observation of squats and their food chains; especially how food is integrated into everyday life.
Privacy could become an issue if I want to refer to people I observe or quote them. In this case I'll have to ensure their anonymity, which may involve a cumbersome amount of regulation. We'll see...more thoughts on this to come.
"The Hippocratic maxim 'do no harm' has long been a fundamental principle of medical ethics. Claude Bernard extended it to the realm of research, saying that one should not injure one person regardless of the benefits that might come to others."
The particulars are left to the physicians' (or researchers') "best judgments." But I think this outlines a pretty big dilemma: utilitarianism vs. "tyranny of the majority" (or, in a related problem, tyranny of the lab scientists (has anyone reading this seen Muppets From Space?)) would be one way of characterizing it. The question that it leads to for me is this: can suffering be quantified?
I don't know if this is going to be relevant for my research (I hope not).
The main issue is probably going to be one of privacy.
There seems to be a correlation between vegetarianism (let's classify veganism as a type of vegetarianism), organic food, and squatting. One source here, another here. I would speculate that this has something to do with squatting emphasizing the values of self-reliance and sustainability. Obviously, this is inconclusive, but as Jessica pointed out in response to my post Wednesday last week, the process of formulating a research question isn't simply linear: sometimes it goes quote backwards end quote. So, from this "intended result," I'll ask (VERY preliminarily):
Is there a correlation between vegetarianism, organic agriculture, and urban agriculture, [...] and squatting culture (which has been pretty well established (see paper) as existing), and if so, why? That is, is it more a manifestation of values or ideals, or is it mainly pragmatic?
I'm waiting for a bunch of books to arrive at the library which should help me clarify what I mean by culture. The definition of organic can really vary from place to place, but in this case I really mean food production that bypasses all industrial processes (now define industrial...). My definition of urban agriculture would be food that is grown within the city on a small scale (so what is "small"?).
My research methods will probably include a lot of participation and informal observation of squats and their food chains; especially how food is integrated into everyday life.
Privacy could become an issue if I want to refer to people I observe or quote them. In this case I'll have to ensure their anonymity, which may involve a cumbersome amount of regulation. We'll see...more thoughts on this to come.
Monday, April 21, 2008
...containers
The general topic that Cassie, Fiona, and I are working with at present is something like "how is anti-consumerism (we still have to define this) a cultural (we could probably afford to clarify this as well) movement (why the hell not...)?" We're each planning to pursue different foci within this broad shape. My focus will probably have something to do with food.
This picture (credit to Joel Heller) was taken at a table at De Peper, an organic, vegan restaurant at overtoom 301, "a legalised squat with a large performance/rehearsal space, cinema, and gallery with an inspired programme of [sub]cultural activities," according to the De Peper website. What makes this squat a gathering point for all of these cultural (and culinary) activities? I'm going to go out on a limb (following a prudent period of fasting, of course) and try to connect this to de Certeau, by suggesting that this squatting/DIY culture is related to an attempt to restore "habitable" spaces and create new "narratives." That is, it tries to resist enumeration (or regular arrangement) and, you know, to make places more "believable."
<- images credit to Annie Wu
Our synecdoche is the building housing De Peper and this cinema/performance space/gallery; since it collects all of these things, it is a synecdoche for whatever movement might be characterized by them.
This picture (credit to Joel Heller) was taken at a table at De Peper, an organic, vegan restaurant at overtoom 301, "a legalised squat with a large performance/rehearsal space, cinema, and gallery with an inspired programme of [sub]cultural activities," according to the De Peper website. What makes this squat a gathering point for all of these cultural (and culinary) activities? I'm going to go out on a limb (following a prudent period of fasting, of course) and try to connect this to de Certeau, by suggesting that this squatting/DIY culture is related to an attempt to restore "habitable" spaces and create new "narratives." That is, it tries to resist enumeration (or regular arrangement) and, you know, to make places more "believable."
<- images credit to Annie Wu
Our synecdoche is the building housing De Peper and this cinema/performance space/gallery; since it collects all of these things, it is a synecdoche for whatever movement might be characterized by them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)