Before class on Tuesday, I'd like you to spend some time developing a focus for our current assignment. To that end, please use your comment to this post to explain to the rest of class what you would like to focus your mapping project on. What space will you be mapping? What group(s) of people do you think you'll be observing and interviewing (or those that you'd like to)? What do you think might be significant about this space? What do you hope to learn from this project and why do you think this particular space is an important one to study? As you conclude this part of your comment, please describe how you plan to spend the next few weeks completing the research necessary for this study.
Second, given our work with the library databases today, I'd also like to you spend some time searching for possible sources that might help you with your project. Before Tuesday, please identify one promising scholarly article, read it, and present a brief summary (a substantial paragraph will do) that clearly states its main findings and gives a sense of the evidence it uses to support these claims.
As you complete these tasks, if you have any questions or run into any problems, please feel free to share those with us, too. I'll check the blog a few times over the weekend and get back to anyone who has questions. Thanks!
I plan on mapping the following public space: the Columbine Memorial, located in Littleton, Colorado. For me, this space is significant because, a member of the Littleton community at the time of the attacks, the Memorial represents a coming-together-ness of community. It honors those who not only lost their lives, but also those who risked their lives. I hope to gain insight into the alternate views of this memorial. April 20th (Wednesday) is actually the anniversary of the school shootings, so I plan to visit the memorial on that day (and on other occasions as well). I also plan to view a newly-released movie about life after Columbine so that I can learn of the impact of Columbine shootings years after they actually occurred.
ReplyDeleteFor this essay, I will call upon the works of Larry Beresford, featured in the book "Living with Grief :Coping with Public Tragedy." This essay analyzes the public grief reaction to the Columbine shootings. Beresford explores the multitude of memorials that came into being in the weeks immediately following the tragedy. He looks into the Christian-leaning theme of the current memorial (as well as the temporary memorials).He also looks into how the public reacted to such an event. He mentions that "graphic footage... can reopen wounds" of those affected.
I will be mapping a bus stop downtown, Civic Center Station. There are many different kinds of people who use this bus stop because busses that go all over Denver stop here. I will be interviewing white middle class business people as well as minority groups who live in Aurora. I could interview some of the people who work in public transit as well. One of the significant aspects about this space is the norms that people follow when forming lines to get on the bus. There is no rule to do this; people just do it naturally. I hope to learn about the unspoken norms that people follow to be polite, even when they are in a rush to get home after work. This is a significant area to study because bus stops are often overlooked. They are a location that people don’t think about often because they are just one stop on the way home or to work. I plan to visit the bus stop a few times over the next few weeks. I am going to go in the mid day when traffic is slower, around evening rush hour, and late night when people are leaving the club scene in Denver. I may try to go in the morning when people are getting off the busses, but this may be just to observe since most people will be rushed to get to work and not be interested in stopping to talk to me.
ReplyDeleteI am having some trouble finding sources that really cover this topic. Most that I have found deal with the homeless or violence in connection with public transit. However, I have an appointment at the research desk after class tomorrow to get some help finding sources.
I plan to look at the people who gather at Cherry Creek Mall and the space of the south/east end—especially the children’s play area. Although when one thinks of why people go to malls, the immediate assumption is to shop. However, I hypothesis that there are many more underlying reasons for why people decide to go to Cherry Creek Mall on any given day. The children’s area is always swamped and I belief many parents take their children there as an safe indoor play area surrounded by a nice atmosphere, and also to take a respite from caring for their young children throughout the day. Since this area is also in close proximity to the food-court, I will also be able to interview a wider range people, as many people sit in the area after getting their food. I want to specifically investigate why people in particular go to Cherry Creek versus another Denver mall, and what type of day allows do they find themselves at the mall. Also, I want to find out if they have any emotional connection with the mall, or if they come there when they are experiencing any particular emotion—i.e. happy, relaxed, bored, stressed.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I will not ask my subjects about this, I will be observing what socioeconomic class they appear to be from, and how they interact while in the mall. Do they see the mall as a semi-formal place, or completely casual? Have the people done a lot of shopping?
Analyzing the space of a mall can initially seem like a very superficial project, however I feel that with asking appropriate questions, I will be able to draw some interesting insights. The concept of the American shopping mall has evolved along with our society, and over the last 20 years perceptions of malls have rapidly changed. I would like to cultural map the space of the Denver Cherry Creek Mall.
For my urban space mapping project, I would like to research and investigate Confluence Park, and look at the emergence of performance arts and a sense of place in what would otherwise be a bleak section of storm drainage surrounded by railroad tracks, and abandoned factories. The park itself is part of a larger Denver park system, and is the meeting point for two city bike paths, one along the Platte River, and the other along Cherry Creek. I plan on looking for public performances that sometimes occur along the water front (fire spinning) and speaking with the company that operates a venetian gondola service along Cherry Creek. I aim to investigate how this space is used to make it become more than the concrete walls and structures that make up the physical space. I plan on spending several hours there over the course of a couple days and nights, speaking with the various groups of people who use the space either for recreation, performance, or work.
ReplyDeleteAs for sources, I haven’t had much luck finding anything much on a scholarly level, only some NYT articles about identity in a public space. I would love to continue our conversation about finding articles that help our study.
For this essay I plan to map and observe Stella's. This coffee shop is both a place where people can grab drinks and snacks and also a meeting place for hanging out. I plan to watch people's interactions. I am interested in finding out, for most people, Stella's isn't a place to just grab a cup of coffee and leave, but for many, it's a place for people to sit down, hang out, do work, and enjoy the atmosphere. I hope to gain some insight as to why this is the case. Is it because of the home-y feeling of Stella's? Stella's personality as a coffee shop? Or merely the reputation it has developed thanks to its loyal customers?
ReplyDeleteI plan to gain this insight by analyzing the space, watching how people interact with the space and others in it, and interviewing a wide array of people that use Stella's. Additionally, I plan to go to Stella's at different times of the day to see if the clientele is different depending on the hour of the day or day of the week. I am curious to see if the majority of people who spend time at Stella's are students studying, people meeting others, or individuals who just enjoy spending time at Stella's and go there to read the paper. I hope that through my insight I will be able to see into the "coffee shop" culture a bit in order to figure out why some coffee shops are more commuter based and others have many people hanging around.
For my sources, I have had trouble finding a solid one so far. I am hoping to find an article on coffee shop culture, why coffee shops have become gathering places, and what different cultures have on purpose or accidentally integrated themselves with coffee shops, for example live music or live poetry readings. I am still continuing to look for sources.
I plan to map and make observations in the Joy Burns Plaza of the Newman Center on DU's campus, specifically focusing on the people that pass time there before, during, and after performances. Within this group, I hope to have the opportunity to interview music students, family and friends of the performers, and any members of the general public who have come to attend the show but are unaffiliated with the school. After learning what external factors motivate people to attend performances of classical music, I hope to be able to make some insights into how that affects their use of the lobby space.
ReplyDeleteThis space strikes me as significant because classical music is commonly thought to be a thing of the past, or at least is not considered "popular" among the masses of today. This assumption will hopefully be able to serve as a starting point for some of the deeper conclusions I might draw from my observations.
There are three upcoming concerts that would be good times to conduct interviews and make observations: "Jazz Night" (this Wednesday), the "Lamont Symphony Orchestra" (next Tuesday), and a Fundraiser concert (next Friday). I might try to supplement these observations with those made during a student recital and those made during one of the "Newman Center Presents" subscription series performances.
Surprisingly a wealth of ethnographic studies have been done analyzing audiences of classical music. None of them specifically connect their conclusions to the space in which their observations were being made, but they have provided me with ideas on what sort of questions to ask people that I interview. For example, in Melissa Dobson's article, "New Audiences for Classical Music," in the Journal of New Music Research, she analyzes the reactions of first-time attendees of classical concerts, in hopes to increase her understanding of why people attend such concerts in the first place. With this information, I plan on asking people an interview question that addresses how regularly they attend such performances.
For this project, I plan to explore the bookstore, Tattered Cover (specifically the one on 16th Street). Bookstores, especially locally-owned ones, have been increasingly going out of business because people can buy books online so easily and use download e-books. Less and less people are reading books at all because there are so many other forms of entertainment now. I want to determine the kind of people that still go to locally owned bookstores--why they go there and what about the actual store they like.
ReplyDeleteI have found three sources so far which I think will work for this project. One talks about "the bookstore" as being a vital community institution. The other two discuss the role of bookstores in capitalism and in our technologically advanced world.
I plan on mapping the SAME (So All May Eat) cafe on Colfax paying specific attention to the type of people who most frequent that space. I would like to interview at least one of the owners who started the SAME café and see if their mission for the café has succeeded and developed. I would also like to interview a few ‘regulars’ who utilize the café often. Within this group of people I’d like to interview at least one person who works for his or her food and at least one person who pays for his or her food. I think this space is significant because it offers an idea of ‘Pay What You Want’ (PWYW) that is not very often found. I hope to learn whether the PWYW method of running a business is beneficial for both the owner and the customer. I also want to see if the SAME café has been successful over the years using this method and whether they want to expand in cafes like that in the future. I plan on visiting the SAME for three consecutive weekends spending an hour or so observing and talking to people.
ReplyDeleteI found one article titled, “Pay What You Want: A New Participative Pricing Mechanism,” from the Journal of Marketing. This is a scholarly article analyzing the effects of PWYW on different businesses. I will analyze the SAME café and see if this article describes its business methods. I will also see if the results of PWYW in this article are echoed in the SAME café. This article analyzes the factors that influence what prices people pay for their products in PWYW businesses. I will see if these factors match up to those of people I interview at the SAME café. The article looks at three different studies of PWYW methods in comparison to regular methods. Only one of the studies shows that PWYW was more profitable than regular price methods. I will see how that compares to the success of the SAME café.
Arguably, one of the most influential public spaces—one that is often forgotten—in modern society, is the transportation network. One of the major drivers of today’s ethnographic and cultural geographic reality was, in fact, the announcement in the 1950’s of the National Defense Highway System, now known as the “Interstate.” The rhetoric of the interstate highway system very closely parallels the rhetoric propagated by the dominant idealized liberal and individualistic narrative of the United States. Upon its construction, the rhetoric was primarily a call to go farther, faster and to move to the suburbs—to attain the proverbial white picket fence and the 2.5 (white) children.
ReplyDeleteThus, the dominant rhetoric of our transportation networks has historically (a) privileged individual identity over community and (b) privileged the desires of middle class Caucasians over the needs of minorities and lower income persons. Common “knowledge” suggests that increasing focus on public transportation may counteract this rhetoric by emphasizing community and equity. So, the question becomes, to what extent does Denver’s newest (and quickly expanding) transportation network—Light Rail Train (LRT)—challenge the traditional rhetoric of transportation?
Here is the summary for one of the sources the research desk help me find:
ReplyDeleteIn Bus Riding: Community on Wheels, Jeff Nash discusses the communities that form when people ride the bus. The author found that, “Regulars ‘know the ropes’; they can ‘time’ the bus, find stops, make transfers, and engage in ‘bus conversation’. Newcomers flounder in a world of ‘not knowing’ what comes next.” This article discusses the timing and norms of public transit. It explains a rule that people are not allowed to take food on the bus, even though riders often do. The author comments that busses are less crowded during non-rush hours, while during rush hour, many people use the express bus as an alternative to car pooling or single-car commuting. These people form tight communities because their ride is so long. Therefore, when I am observing the lines in Civic Center Station, I expect to see people in each line treat each other amicably.
I am conducting a study on my floor's lounge in Centennial Halls. This space/place has been very important in my transition to college and I am curious as to the impact it has had on the other inhabitants of my floor. We have "visitors" on my floor that spend more time in our lounge than they do in their own rooms, so I'd like to interview these people in particular to get a feel for what's so different about 2N. I think this study will be successful because the lounge is very busy. The hardest part of this project will be to separate myself from my emotional connection to the lounge and the people who interact within it.
ReplyDeleteToday I found 4 sources that I think I can use for this paper. The most valid one is a study done on the transition students go through in their first year of college. The study focuses on gender and place of residence as factors for how well students transition. The study concludes that gender is the only factor that changes a student's ability to adjust. My immediate reaction, together with the evidence from my first observation, is to disagree strongly with this conclusion.