Going Native (SumBlog11)

The only way to truly understand a culture is to get immersed in it. It is easy to make outside judgements on a group based off of what we simply observe, but that's not necessarily fair. To truly understand what is happening in a group, we need to get on the inside and get involved. Dorothy Smith stood behind this idea completely. Through her standpoint theory, she argued that it is impossible for a person to be completely objective and think that they are not connected in any way to the people they're studying. We will always have an innate human bond with people, and it's important that we recognize that and take advantage of that. We are able to discover society from within, and rediscover it from within time and again. This type of sociology is in-depth and intensive. However, it is possible that someone gets too involved in their research, to the point where they become part of the group. This is called "going native". 

For six years, Patti Adler immersed herself into a community of Southern California wholesale illicit drug dealers. She got into the community and got to know several of the dealers on a personal level. Through her work, she was able to get a better understanding of the drug world and how it worked. She then wrote the book "Wheeling and Dealing" about her experiences and the people that she met. It can be a hard kind of research to do, because falling into "going native"  is easier than one would think. But Patti Adler was able to do this research and report on it, and not get lost in the community.It's a fascinating look into a world unknown to most of us. Without getting immersed into that community, her research wouldn't have been as in depth or complete.

Symbols (SumBlog10)

The New Pointer Mascot

Signs and symbols surround us. Each person identifies with certain groups in society. People outside of that group might not necessarily understand the meaning behind it, but for the people in the group, the symbol can be unifying and bring pride to the community. For example, the UW-Stevens Point Campus shares pride in the Pointer Dog mascot. Seeing the Pointer all over campus unites the buildings and the students, as we all identify with what it means to the campus. Though he has gone through an image change within the past few years, Stevie Pointer still represents the community of the student body at UWSP. 

The Old Stevie Pointer Mascot

A student who has graduated from Stevens Point, even many years ago, will still identify the image of Stevie Pointer with his or her time in college. It is a unifying concept, combining the college education experience and outside social activities. There have been Facebook pages created from various schools, of memes (a picture with a funny caption). Though these are funny and relatable to students who go to UWSP, students from other schools may not find them as comical because they don't understand the community or campus. The same is true with mascots. Students from other schools don't have the same strong feelings (either positive or negative) upon seeing the Pointer as UWSP students do. The same is true of the opposite. These symbols are unifying for each specific group and bring about certain emotions.

It's interesting to consider how a symbol unites a group, because some, like the image of a Pointer are not necessarily tangible. It's the idea of a group, time, or place that is uniting, and a single picture can bring back so much meaning for a person. The UWSP culture is shared among thousands of people, and seeing that picture in itself is unifying.

All the World's a Stage (SumBlog9)

William Shakespeare penned the famous phrase "all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players..." Sociologist Erving Goffman would agree with to an extent, but he would expand it. We're always performing. Each new situation brings on a new performance. Goffman believed that everyone has numerous statuses that they fulfill, or different positions in society. Each status has an accompanying role, or expected set of behavior. These statuses and roles are socially constructed, meaning that people are creating them and imposing them on one another. We all have a self-label, or an identity that we wish to present to others around us. We desire others to see the way that we present ourselves as positive, and not the negatives. However, sometimes what we present and what is reality are not the same. Statuses and roles do not necessarily always match up. Since we all have so many, sometimes they conflict and we're not sure how to act.

 If a status and a role do not match up, we often feel conflicted about it. It feels uncomfortable, awkward, or strange. We expect certain things from people, and when they step outside of that, something feels amiss. Often, when we see someone in a context that we don't expect them to be, you might not even recognize them. I remember when I was a kid, I thought that my teachers lived at school. I could only visualize them as a teacher, and not in any other role. It was a bizarre experience to see a teacher in another role besides teacher. 

This video clip from Mean Girls displays this. The three kids in the video aren't sure how to react when they see their teacher outside of school. The role that they see her in as teacher is breached and they're not sure how to react. They are visibly uncomfortable and aren't sure what to say to her. It is easy to see Goffman's work in everyday life, even to something as simple as Mean Girls. 

Strangers (SumBlog8)

Humans love to categorize, organize, and make sense of chaos. This plays out into our interactions with other people. Georg Simmel constructed the idea of "the stranger". This concept is fascinating, and is based off of two different variables: the distance and origin of the person. This stranger is close to a group in proximity, as a part of the group. However, they are not close in a relational sense with the rest of the group. Secondly, the origin describes where the person is from. The stranger is not originally a part of the group they are currently a part of. Since the stranger can be considered an outsider, they are able to be objective and free, not biased or tied-down.
In his work, Simmel is assuming that the stranger is accepted into the new group. Though they are different and not close to everyone in the group, they are accepted as a unique facet in an already established group. This isn't necessarily always the case. What happens when the stranger is not accepted? A case I thought of during this discussion were Chinese immigrants to America.  Immigrants from China were forced and exploited into doing hard labor. They were close in proximity to other American workers, but not relationally. Their origin was obviously different, as they had just entered the United States. However, unlike Simmel's theory of the stranger, these Chinese immigrants were not accepted into the group. In the 1800s, several Chinese Exclusion Acts were passed, ceasing Chinese immigration into the States and placing limitations on Chinese immigrants who were already working in the country. These immigrants were prejudiced against and were worked to the bone. Though they could possibly be objective to others in the US, they certainly were not free.

Several Chinese Immigrant students.

Simmel had a fascinating idea when he theorized the stranger. However, I feel like he did not look at all sides of the situation when he assumed that all strangers would be accepted into the group, despite their differences.