Posted On:
Adam Griffin
Eric Scott
Lei Gu
Summary: The mole people is supposed to be an ethnography about the people who live in the tunnels underneath New York City. It was really a collection of stories strung together about the people who lived there. It attempts to show all of the different types of people that live in the tunnels.
Discussion:
From what I had gathered about ethnographies, The point was to have a guess as for what you wanted to learn ahead of time, then study the people, and then see what you learned about the topic that you were hoping to learn. I felt that Jennifer Toth had a purpose to her ethnography, and that was to put out a story that would show the people underneath the tunnels as normal as possible. I am assuming she did this because she was going to write an article for her paper and putting out an article titled, "The Mole People: Yeah they are really weird" would not have sold as well. People love when the little guy wins. Look at sports, people love to cheer for the underdog. I just don't think she would be willing to use all that time out if she couldn't get an article out of it.
On the bright side, I thought her stories were not something you would normally hear. She brought out stories that I would not have heard otherwise. Some of the stories showed people that were down there could be down for different reasons. Some people seemed to like being down there.
As for extending her work, I am not sure of the feasibility. To get a real feel you would have to watch all of the underground people. Many of them would not let you watch them, nor could they be found. Others would be a threat to the person watching them. Since you cannot get information on these people, you cannot get the full picture. The problem is that these people are a very different dimension to the same population that Jennifer Toth studied.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That's an interesting take on how she can't really get the full picture on those mole people because she can't possible have made interactions with all of them. Maybe the mole people should be tagged with chips that track movements and record sound. That would be a way to get a better view of the big picture.
ReplyDeleteI agree. However, despite her original intent, I don't really think it would've made much of a difference. Those who knew of the mole people were already interferring with their lives and the ones that don't would be probably not be swayed to go and do something about it solely because of her book. At least I hope not.
ReplyDelete