doing-sociology-field-notes

Your Task

Visit an International market (preferably a large supermarket) in one of the zip codes that contained 30% or more foreign-born.

You should spend approximately 45 minutes to an hour in the store making your observations. Take the opportunity to explore the market and its’ various product offerings. Be sure to make note of those things that are familiar to you as well as those things that are strange.

While in the store you should take some simple jotted notes to remember what you’re observing.

Soon after leaving the store, you should write up your field notes; these notes should contain a narrative description of your observations with as much detail as possible.

Your field notes won’t describe everything you’ve seen in the store; instead, you should focus on a few sections of the store that you find particularly interesting and write up detailed descriptions of those parts of the store.

Considerations

• take this exercise seriously, be sure to take your time and make thorough observations.
• your field-notes should be complete and tell a story about the observational experience. I should feel like I am present with the observer as they walk around the store.
• field-notes should include local-global connections or considerations of the strange and the familiar.

*Write the notes based on past experience of going to a grocery store.

You can use articles if you are having difficulty writing the notes.

*This assignment requires just notes (no need to quote the article or write it as an essay)