Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Ethnography

   Ethnography: The Coffee Bean, Valencia, CA
       It is Monday, July 25 and I am sitting in the Valencia Town Center Coffee Bean kiosk. I arrived at 1pm, ordered a drink and a doughnut, and had a seat by the entrance. When I walked in, there were two young associates working, there was a young woman on a laptop, there was a man listening to music on an ipod, another woman appeared to waiting for someone and there were two men conversing in French. I gazed outside from time to time and I would notice the many people that walked by. They were on their cell phones, they would glance at their reflections in the shop’s windows, they were mothers with children, they were elderly couples, they were families, they were purchasing things, they were wearing flip-flops and sunglasses, they were all doing the same thing.
     The Coffee Bean is set up like most modern coffee kiosk. It has a soft urban setting and played soft Indie music. The smell of coffee is not as accurate as Starbucks but there is the slight aroma. Every now and then blender would be the only thing you could hear besides the men conversing in French. There was a television over the area that has the items like napkins and coffee stirs. On the television were zodiac analogies, movie trailers, health tips and music. The traffic began slowly at first, and then it would get very busy. Most people did not have a seat except two women that were at least fifty. By the time I left there were six associates working. The same woman with her laptop remained in her seat. The woman that appeared to be waiting for someone was waiting to be interviewed by a nearby employer. The man listening to the ipod was joined by two acquaintances and the two men speaking French were also greeted with another acquaintance.
     It began to be amusing noticing all the similarities in the sixty to seventy people I observed inside and outside the Coffee Bean. The sandals, the sunglasses, the cell phones, the laptop, the ipod, the prepared coffee drinks, the entire shopping experience are all part of the norms within this setting. According to Chris Barker, “Meanings are generated not by individuals alone but by collectives. Thus, the idea of culture refers to shared meanings” According to Carl Marx "the first priority of human beings is the production of their means of subsistence through labour. As humans produce food, cloths and all manner of tools with which to shape their environment, so they also create themselves" (Barker).
     The television I mentioned earlier presented the normal type of cultural signs that relate to this popular culture. The type of popular culture who shops at high fashion retailers and purchase fancy prepared coffee drinks. Zodiac analogies were on display, which is something that people can access on ipods, in magazines, and on the web. Movie trailers are previewed promoting the film industry. One of the biggest cultural ideals in America is movie-going as well as music listening. Health tips are also displayed, one being that America has a high population of overweight individuals and two being that America has been referred to as the fast food capital of the world. Again, zodiacs, film, music, health etc., these are the same topics brought up in The Insider, US Weekly, Cosmopolitan, daily news broadcasting, AOL welcome screen etc. Barker refers to text by Raymond Williams and cultural materialism. Williams mentions that there are three different levels of culture. The first one he states is “the lived culture of a particular time and place, only fully accessible to those living in that time and place”(Barker 45). This “lived culture” and “culture materialism” is what I observed and analyzed within my seat at the Coffee Bean.
     Another analogy is from a feministic approach. Of the six associates that were working at the kiosk, only one was a male. Besides the three men that were inside the kiosk the entire time, only two men walked in within the hour. The number of women who walked into the kiosk was almost twenty.  Women were often with women when shopping outside; whereas, the men that walked outside were alone and walked at a fast pace. The mothers with their children were not with their husbands, or children’s fathers. What does this mean in popular culture? According to Barker, "gender is historically and culturally specific, subject to radical discontinuties over time and across space. This does not mean that one can simply pick and choose genders, or that gender is a matter of random chance. Rather, we are gendered through the power of regulated and regulatory discourses." The women I observed were doing the same thing women were doing ten, twenty and even fifty years ago. According to de Beauvoir, And yet we are told feminity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. Women make up one half of humainty. Although men do work in coffee shops and go shopping, women as constructed by gender are usually assoiciated with these ideals. De Beauvoir's The Second Sex was written over sixty years ago, it is relevant today as much as it was sixty years ago.
     Whether the children’s father is at work, at home, or not around at all; whether men do not gossip, shop and drink fancy prepared coffee or; whether men do not want to be employed at a coffee kiosk; these analogies all play into de Beauvoir’s women as Other. Was I engaging myself in a feminine activity, or do men avoid what I was doing because it is feminine? I did not mention that the stores that surround this kiosk are Macy’s, Sephora, Roman Holiday and Diane’s Swimwear to name a few. These people, out of the sixty or seventy, were ninety-five percent female. They were shopping, pampering and indulging themselves while there are hardly any men around. These are the "merits" of being "truly feminine" as described by de Beauvoir’s in her text. “[Truly feminine] women are frivolous, infantile, irresponsible and the submissive women.” Although the feministic view is not the best analogy to be observed, one can point out the obvious women being treated as ‘the Other’ and as the weaker sex. However, there are women that will prove otherwise.     

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies Theory and Practice, Chapter2: Questions of Culture and Ideology. Sage, 2008.

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies Theory and Practice, Chapter2: Questions of Culture and Ideology. Sage, 2008.

De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex, Introduction Woman as Other, (1949). Accessed online: moodle.csun.edu

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