Promise and Pitfalls of field work...2

              I really enjoyed the Promise and Pitfalls of going into the field. I mean how

can you find the realness of anything if you are not in it. It's like the person

who has all the great stories, they just go from encounter to encounter and they

just take it all in.They don't judge they have fun with it and they are fluid,

people want to be around them because they're fun because they feel they can

relate. A good ethnographic has a rounded view of everything and takes in all

information. He or she must get rid of all her preconceived notions and all of

her beliefs, and just delve totally into the situation or the people that there

with.

               Field research I feel is the best, I mean the commitment for it is two, three

years at the minimum. This is only good of course if they don't have a biased

observation interpretation, like maybe a company will give them money if they

favor on the company side. Reliance on selective observation, like you're

interviewing skateboarders and you were just concentrating on white or Asian

skateboarders. Ignoring the thoughts feelings and lives of the other groups

Black, Hispanic, Native American etc. Their stories could be just as powerful or

more.

                I like the idea of provisional knowledge because society is always

changing mutating and becoming something else, people are growing some people

are stunted. Then of course it can also be wrong like with the food pyramid

which is now a plate. All the foods that we thought we needed like milk and

cheese we need less of that because it hurts us. We need more vegetables now more

lean meat, and all this time Our parents are feeding us food that wasn't good for

us. In a couple years it's going to look differently again, and I feel this is mostly

pushed by the fact that we aren't healthy and the government doesn't want to

take care of us.

                Maybe there was a researcher in the 80's and 90's that was trying

to push to have better food plates and portions. Big business was making so much money throwing corn syrup, and soda and bad food down our throats they didn't want to listen to them. Now everybody's dying of diabetes or hypertension, or must staying in the hospital for long periods of time from the food that the government is feeding us and its lack of nutrition. What did they expect with people being able to eat burger king or taco bell with there food stamp card. Now govt realizes we have to take care of them, through

Medicaid and Medicare and so now they gonna start making moves to change the system.