Readings that will be used

Scupin, R. 2000. Introduction to Social Anthropology. Cultural Anthropology: A Global Perspective 4th Edition N.J.: Prentice Hall pp. 1-9.
Commonsense knowledge is rooted in experience and folk traditions maintained by members of a society
“everyone is suppose to know”
we are not born with commonsense knowledge
scientific method, is a, logical system used to evaluate data derived from systematic observation
Inductive method, the scientist first makes the observations and collects data
Durrenberger, P.& S.Erem. 2010. Chapter One: Science Basics. In their Anthropology Unbound: A field guide to the 21st Century (2nd edition). London: Paradigm Publishers. pp. 5-9.

Holism means seeing things as connected. Instead of looking at religion, literature, economics, or history as separate spheres of life, anthropologists see them as connected.
Comparative means noticing and explaining similarities and differences among many different systems
Ethnographic means that we base our ideas of how any given system works on detailed local description.
Descriptive relatism means suspending your natural ethnocentrism so that you can describe another culture from the point of view of the people in it.
Ethicla relativism is the idea that there are no absolute values of good and bad.
Epistemology means how we know things. Different cultures define different ways of knowing things.
Relaibility means that everybody else who checks the same thing will get the same result.

Gay y Blasco, P. and H. Wardle 2007. Introduction: The concerns and distinctiveness of ethnography. How to Read Ethnography. OX.: Routledge pp. 1-12.
The writers of ethnography must compare.

Wolcott, H.F. 1995. Fieldwork: The basic arts. The Art Of Fieldwork. CA.: AltaMira Press pp. 86-121.

“participant observation,” the very kind of distraction that dedicated participant observers try desperately to avoid

tolerance for ambuiguity
Which is “more important” and which logically should preceed the other when initiating a new inquiry. Again, the best answer seems to be “It depends”

One needs to develop a “six sense” about which data may ultimately prove most useful.

Aspect of interviewing:
- Casual or conversational interviewing
- Life history
- Semistruactured interview
- Structured interview
- Projective technique
- Standardize test

Hage, G. 2003. Border Dis/order: The Imagining of Paranoid Nationalism. Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for Hope in a Shrinking Society. NSW: Pluto Press pp. 31-43.

A nation is formed by a group of people who have a collective uncommon knowledge.

Significance of the research

As we will be exploring the segregation between the international and domestic student, it is useful to gauge how much interaction are there between international and domestic students. From the habits exhibited by the subject in question, we can see the extent of which the international student’s integration into the local society. Due to the fact that meal time encourages people who do not normally come out of their rooms interact with the rest of the student populace. In the case of both John’s and Ursula hall, the difference in the student population is compared and contrasted as both colleges boast different ratio of domestic and international students as well as being catered halls. This forces the students in the college to interact with each other and thus we will be able to identify the extent of segregation between the groups.
The information will be useful in terms of combating homesickness and adjustment to new environment, which are common challenges faced by the internationals student when they first arrive here. We will be using field notes and interview in this research so that we can find out the exact reason of why and how the students are segregating themselves. Other than identifying the problems that the students are facing, we will be also interviewing the domestic students regarding their opinions on the international student. As the discourse can be seen from both sides, the data can be used to get a perspective of what is going in the university particularly in the university international student community. Although the 2 colleges could not represent the while of the ANU population, the different ratio of students can be use to serve as a rough gauge of the general situation in the university.
Thus, the primary use of data can be applied to the University International Student Office where it can be use to plan events and talks to allow the students to feel more accustomed to the local environment, easing their transition to Canberra.

Anthropology Portfolio

John 23’s college can be seen as the “jock” college in ANU. Its reputation has proceeded itself as a conglomerate of sports man and Alpha males. With its independent status from the other colleges, it can be seen as a unique culture whereby a sense of identity is foster among the residents. The culture is specific until the term “john’s kids” are used to describe a certain stereotype within the school. It seems that they are always associate themselves as wild party goers and heavy drinkers. With rumors of outrageous party and people getting wasted happening on a weekly basis, it is no wonder that there seems to be a negative connotation when one is compared to be like a “john’s kid”.
As a catered residential hall, our interest has gone into the dining habits of the residential college as a whole. Due to the fact that the majority of the college being domestic students or of Caucasian descent, we can see a form of segregation between the local students and international students. Even though such problems are not officially acknowledge, the problem exist and can be best seen during meal times as students from different countries will not mix. Due to the fact that the sense of national identity is amplified as foreign students are away from their country. Due to the fact that they are relatively unfamiliar with the culture in Australia and that there is a language barrier, they more often than not will keep to their own group as they will be speaking in the language that they are comfortable with and not being awkward trying to fit in into another culture.

Research topic and the methods

My partner and I are interested in understanding university as a particular kind of culture that students from different backgrounds and cultures create. Each student has their own cultural background but in university they interact and mingle with each other and form another culture within the university. However it is true that the students, especially those who are from eastern countries and those from western countries, do not make a completely combined culture; they rather make different groups of people within those who have some aspects of their culture that they can all understand. This characteristic was well shown in our research which was done by making field notes and social mapping at one of the residential colleges of ANU.

Field notes is one of the methods anthropologists use in order to record and study their observation of a specific phenomenon or group of people they are interested in. It is used among those people who are trying to understand the true perspective of the subject being studied. Another method of ethnography used in this research is social mapping, which can be used to present information about a social network. Social mapping has been utilised by anthropologists historically for mapping out the connections in populations they are researching about or interested in. For these reasons, we chose to use these methods with our research, since we both agreed that field notes and social map would be the best way to present what we research and try to narrate

We did our research specifically at the dining hall of Ursula hall which is one of the residential colleges, and we have a reason for choosing the dining hall; among the places where students mingle, the dining hall is believed to be the most common and popular place that people come and go. In addition the dining hall is set out with a number of separate tables which means it is easier to analyse human behaviour, for example who sits with whom and where. Throughout the day, dinner time is when the dining hall gets most crowded and this is why we went to visit at around six in the evening. Dinner starts at five-thirty, so six was believed to be the time when the dining hall would be properly filled with residents having dinner. As soon as we arrived at the hall, we started off by drawing a social map which leads to something like this;

As presented, there are some rules that my partner and I applied in drawing this social map. To explain them, first of all, features such as the entrance, the salad bar and the kitchen are simply drawn because they do not have significant characteristics that tell human behaviours, since those are spots that everyone goes and not necessarily form groups. Other than those, tables were coloured into different colours in accordance with people sitting on the table. To start with those that are coloured in blue, they were occupied by the local students throughout the dinner time. On the other hand those that are coloured in red were where Asian students sat throughout the time. There were couple of tables that were occupied both local and Asian students as shown on the map. However, there were some tables that were almost empty during the meal time but occupied by a few outcasts and those are coloured in orange. Furthermore not all the tables at the hall were used on the meal time; couple of tables that are coloured in black were never used. However those that are coloured in green are the tables that were sometimes occupied the local students and sometimes by Asian students. The reason why we did not colour them in either blue or red is because those tables were never used by the two groups at the same time; a certain group of people kept on coming and leaving.

In addition to social mapping, we also made some field notes observing residents coming into the hall for dinner, including how they choose what table to sit at, and whom they sit with. Starting at the point when my partner and I arrived at the dining hall, which was around six, half of the hall was filled. Then around quarter passed six, two thirds of the tables were filled. By this time some tables in the corner were not being used but as the hall got more crowded those tables that are coloured in red in the corner started to get filled up. As it can be presumed according to the map, local students tend to sit at the tables near the kitchen and the salad bar, whereas Asian students sit in the corner further from those. However on those tables that both local and Asian students groups sat together, it was mostly Indians who sat with the locals. Also on the other hand the locals who sat with Asian students came into the hall together, unlike the way other groups are formed; they usually came in separately but then formed a group at the site.

From these observations it can be concluded that university can be said to be another new ‘culture’ where people from variety of cultures and backgrounds form. However this does not necessarily mean that they all mingle with each other, as told in the previous field notes. If considering only within the university itself, it can be seen as a locale where widely diverse cultures are present. It is not only those who are westerners or easterners; these two can again be divided into numerous cultures. Hence in conclusion, university can be seen as a culture where people within the site have opportunities to come across with other cultures that they have not yet experienced.