Autoethnography
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Text Published:
Walking takes a person to places and to people
A poet said that “no man is an island” (John Donne). Such words fits real life. Human connection is a basic need for a road to a healthy, happy and meaningful life. Life presents many opportunities to anyone exercise human connection. Unfortunately, many modern ways of living might distance people one from another. One example is owning and making use of a car for transportation. Today it is almost impossible to get out of one’s house, get life going on, and have no opportunity do talk and interac with another living soul between beginning and ending the driving. When people walk while taking care of life’s necessitites, there are plenty of opportunities to connect with people, unless someone chooses to do so. That’s why walking takes you to places and to people.
I love to walk but it has not always being like this. I don’t necessarily walk to exercise; most of the time I move around on foot in order to take care of life. First, I had to learn. Without a choice, I had to walk to do things because I didn’t have a car nor money to use public transportation. Latter on in life, I learned by choice, and it has been so far. I was born in a very small village and we seldom had to venture beyong our everyday social and geographical environment. My social and geographical environment has expanded a lot, thanks to walking, too. Today, I move quite a lot and travel a great deal. I came to love walking so much that it became part of my life, part of my identity. Besides doing some exercise, I meet people, talk to them, teach them and learn from them - including strangers – ... and save some Money, the least importante aspect about walking. Let’s see.
A city of aproximately 800 thousand inhabitants is my current place. My work requires me to do some errands every day: go to different kinds of places in the neighborhood, mainly, and visit people. I can go by car – there is one provided by the company– or I can take a taxi – which the company pays for -. Said that, I prefer to walk or even take a bus. The same happens outside the work place, when I need or want to visit people, or to go the bakery, for instance. Although having a car myself, I prefer to do it on foot as much as possible. But why not take advantage of such a facility in life?
Many wonderful opportunities happens when I walk, like talking to people and seeing new things, many of them impossible from inside a car or a taxi. The pleasure is real withou being a novelty for me. Since my “small village days”, I had lived in many different places around the world: small, medium size and big places. In all of them I had given these wonderful opportunities to be open to whatever life presents. The necessity to walk by lack of money is gone; the necessity to walk in order to connect with people remains.
This walking behavior has been a good teacher to me and a great value in my life. Curiosity for living in abundance and search for oneself and the most profound meaning of the very living has been the tools in helping create my identity. I love to start conversation with strangers. There is so much to teach, and a grater deal more to learn. It’s “contagious”. It can start with a simple and fast “good morning”. The good we do to others is replicate beyhond. Well, it is not necessarily like this, but goodness happens, and it is better the good than the bad. The outcome results from meeting and knowing new people, having real connections with them, learn and teach, are real, materially and espiritually speaking.
Persons are more valuable than things. Or should be. Connecting with people is what life is all about. I try to put in practice that atitudes are more importante than beliefs. I do value my behavior and culture identify. Unfortunatelly, such behavior is not well considered among all my peers and in the country where I live – Brazil. There is a huge social pressure on having material things in order to express one’s “good” identity. Like having a car, for example. Owning a car can be a big show off, “proving” status and style. Generally speaking, I am well accepted among the people I work and live with, except when it comes to my conception about the value of a car. I do have one and I am usually critisized about not using it much. They reason that I am not a poor person anymore. They don’t understand that my whole identity is not about “having”.
Simplicity and connectiviness with people marks me as a peson. Walking and thaking public transportation are among the best oportunities life gives me to be with real and new people. The words my group and my community uses to refer to me are: connection, communion, participation, curiosity, passion por people ... and degradation. They still believe that I don’t value myself enough by being "so" simple a person. No mistake here: I do have a good life, I do by expensives things and so on.
I believe my outward appearance reflects well my identity. I am a member of a number of communities, not all completely integrated one with another: work, family, social, church, among the most importante ones. My identity within these communities can add to or be in contrast, depending the subject considered- our religious affiliations may influence our political views; our hobbies might interfere with our work; etc. The identities I privilege or feel are most central to me is to respect the other person, whomever they might be.
I recommend a especific vídeo. In my opinion, it shows what makes sense in life, a subject which is relevant to me and matches my identity, “because kindness keeps the world afloat”, and helping others is what life is all about: The video can be found here, at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePWUeVWy3Sw
Twice I traveled to Europe, thirty three days in the first trip and two months in the second. Two years passed between both trips, when I traveled with belongs that fit in a medium size backpack. It was the first experience of my life as a "backpack traveler". I was over 50 years old and deepened my cultural “thing”: how to let things go, how to intensify meeting new people and making sense of such every bit of life. What was different from my previous vacation is that the majority of people I found in the hostels had the same attitude as mine: to meet people, talk to them, exchange experiences and live a simple life, by choice. And I walked. Boy, how I walked those three months.
Birth is certain (I am alive); death is another sure reality (I will die). So far, no choices, unless we consider what happens between those extremes. Life is a road and every step counts. Today is the day, here is the place, now is the time. As I saw on the movie “The Way”, life is more than exercising a choice; it is living one.
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Draft:
With my autoethnography I want to discuss the importance of not following trends just for the sake of following them. I will write about the freedom of a person following behaviours and attitudes which speaks more to the soul of the person than the "value" society teaches. I hope to share the experience of internal freedom by following the heart instead of a set of imposing way of living.
I know that many people don't even know they can be themselves, if no totally, at least in many ways to express attitudes and behaviours. By experience, they learn a acuter sense of being a protagonist of his/her own existence.
My audience could be anyone. I don't have one specific audience in mind. Said that, I believe my writing will be directed towards young adults living a countries where possessions of material things try to, wrongly, dignify one existence. I believe the subject is so important that people will be interest in having this ownership of their way of living because people are tired of following the cultural aspect that says "be free and yourself by buying our product". The reactions might be mixed (there will be those who will agree and those who will not consider the issue), but this debate is part of the whole reflextion.
I will search for specific info about how people feel traped in a society that preaches freedom by showing a prison where they should put their freedom. Psychological papaers abound with this type of information. I will look for the information on Google Scholar, my own observation and notes I have from helping people, and some notes I have about the issue.
I will focus on walking and using public transportation instead of a car or using taxis. The country where I live value too much the possession of a car as a step to well being, self assetion, high self steam; walking to go to places or taking a bus, the main way to use public transportation, is considered as something wrong because it shows how "poor" one person is, and by rational, how not dignifying one's life is.
This "walkiing attitude", as I call it, which includes walking itself to places and using public transporatation by choise, is meaningful to me because I do it against the odds and others expectations and I feel great about it. It is not something that scratch any person's dignity. It may be compelling to others because my essay can encourage people to find their path to escape this trap disguised in consumerism and too much value in material possesions.
I know that many people don't even know they can be themselves, if no totally, at least in many ways to express attitudes and behaviours. By experience, they learn a acuter sense of being a protagonist of his/her own existence.
My audience could be anyone. I don't have one specific audience in mind. Said that, I believe my writing will be directed towards young adults living a countries where possessions of material things try to, wrongly, dignify one existence. I believe the subject is so important that people will be interest in having this ownership of their way of living because people are tired of following the cultural aspect that says "be free and yourself by buying our product". The reactions might be mixed (there will be those who will agree and those who will not consider the issue), but this debate is part of the whole reflextion.
I will search for specific info about how people feel traped in a society that preaches freedom by showing a prison where they should put their freedom. Psychological papaers abound with this type of information. I will look for the information on Google Scholar, my own observation and notes I have from helping people, and some notes I have about the issue.
I will focus on walking and using public transportation instead of a car or using taxis. The country where I live value too much the possession of a car as a step to well being, self assetion, high self steam; walking to go to places or taking a bus, the main way to use public transportation, is considered as something wrong because it shows how "poor" one person is, and by rational, how not dignifying one's life is.
This "walkiing attitude", as I call it, which includes walking itself to places and using public transporatation by choise, is meaningful to me because I do it against the odds and others expectations and I feel great about it. It is not something that scratch any person's dignity. It may be compelling to others because my essay can encourage people to find their path to escape this trap disguised in consumerism and too much value in material possesions.
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Instructions:
WRITING PROJECT #1: AUTOETHNOGRAPHY
BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW
So far in our course, you have started to see that you belong to a set of communities, and these communities—their rituals, practices, and various phenomena—are closely tied to your identity. This relationship naturally raises various questions: How do you experience your community? What communal rituals, practices, traditions, behaviors, and/or objects have influenced your understanding of your identity? What does it mean to define your identity through your relationship to these phenomena?
To explore these questions and others related to them, you will compose your first major writing assignment—an autoethnography. To write this autoethnography, you will select a specific habit, ritual, or behavior (what we are calling a “cultural phenomenon”) you practice and investigate it. Doing so will help you discover what this activity says about you, your personal experiences, and the ways those personal experiences connect to the experiences of others.
The autoethnography is both an easy and a difficult form of writing. It is easy because, we are writing about what we know: ourselves. It is difficult because we must communicate the significance of our experience to our audience, making a connection between our own experiences and those of our readers. We must confront the hard truth that an event is not significant just because “it happened to me.” The event must offer some take-away value, and the writer who writes about the event must be able to answer the question “so what?” The answer to this question is the primary insight of the autoethnography, or the ultimate point that you are trying to make. Autoethnographies are not just chronological narrations of events; they communicate the event’s meaning and leave readers with a dominant impression of what it might have been like to experience it themselves.
For example, you might explore
- your methods of transportation. Do you walk, ride a bike, drive, or take a train to work/school? Why? What might your routine say about your identity or culture?
- your preferences for certain types of food. What do your choices say about your beliefs?
- your reading habits. Do you read the newspaper over coffee? Do you read before bed? What do you read? Why? What might these habits convey about your age, class, or social group?
REQUIREMENTS AND DELIVERABLES
1. In your essay, you should select one habit, ritual, practice, or behavior and reflect upon this “phenomenon,” articulating why and how it has been significant for you. How have you been shaped as a person within your larger community by this activity?
2. Whatever your topic habit, ritual, practice, or behavior, your essay should be informed by close observation and provide a level of detail through example, anecdote, and explanation, which enables a reader to relate to your understanding of the action and its significance. It should provide significant insight into what has made/makes you who you are by including detailed descriptions of places and events while explaining the significance of these events to the formation of your own beliefs and behaviors.
3. Your essay should be written with an audience in mind: it should be organized in such a way that a reader can follow your thinking and reasoning from paragraph to paragraph and within each paragraph. This organization should lead your reader to your primary insight or ultimate point in a clear manner; in other words, your primary insight should help structure your paper.
4. Your essay needs to include and integrate at least one multimodal element. You could include pictures, sounds, or even hyperlinks to other resources, but you must make sure that your reader understands why you are including these elements and why including them enriches your piece of writing. Consider what media beyond text might reinforce your main idea to readers, convey in another way the significance of your autoethnography, and/or appeal to your readers from a different register.
5. Your completed essay should have a title, be at least 1200-1500 words in length, and be formatted to adhere to the APA or MLA style guides.
PROJECT SUBMISSION
Rough Draft: Your rough draft will be submitted for peer review and to your e-portfolio.
Revised Draft: Your revised draft should be uploaded to your e-portfolio.
TIPS:
1. Get started early.
2. Review this week’s materials and discussions.
3. Set a writing/research schedule and stick to it.
Reflection (1) and Sketch (2)
1- Reflection Prompt: Writing Project #1 Sketch
What ritual or practice are you going to write about in Writing Project #1? Share why this ritual or practice is meaningful to you or your potential audience.
Write a sketch of Writing Project 1. In your sketch please explore the following questions in an attempt to define the parameters of your project:
Click the button below to post your sketch.
BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW
So far in our course, you have started to see that you belong to a set of communities, and these communities—their rituals, practices, and various phenomena—are closely tied to your identity. This relationship naturally raises various questions: How do you experience your community? What communal rituals, practices, traditions, behaviors, and/or objects have influenced your understanding of your identity? What does it mean to define your identity through your relationship to these phenomena?
To explore these questions and others related to them, you will compose your first major writing assignment—an autoethnography. To write this autoethnography, you will select a specific habit, ritual, or behavior (what we are calling a “cultural phenomenon”) you practice and investigate it. Doing so will help you discover what this activity says about you, your personal experiences, and the ways those personal experiences connect to the experiences of others.
The autoethnography is both an easy and a difficult form of writing. It is easy because, we are writing about what we know: ourselves. It is difficult because we must communicate the significance of our experience to our audience, making a connection between our own experiences and those of our readers. We must confront the hard truth that an event is not significant just because “it happened to me.” The event must offer some take-away value, and the writer who writes about the event must be able to answer the question “so what?” The answer to this question is the primary insight of the autoethnography, or the ultimate point that you are trying to make. Autoethnographies are not just chronological narrations of events; they communicate the event’s meaning and leave readers with a dominant impression of what it might have been like to experience it themselves.
For example, you might explore
- your methods of transportation. Do you walk, ride a bike, drive, or take a train to work/school? Why? What might your routine say about your identity or culture?
- your preferences for certain types of food. What do your choices say about your beliefs?
- your reading habits. Do you read the newspaper over coffee? Do you read before bed? What do you read? Why? What might these habits convey about your age, class, or social group?
REQUIREMENTS AND DELIVERABLES
1. In your essay, you should select one habit, ritual, practice, or behavior and reflect upon this “phenomenon,” articulating why and how it has been significant for you. How have you been shaped as a person within your larger community by this activity?
2. Whatever your topic habit, ritual, practice, or behavior, your essay should be informed by close observation and provide a level of detail through example, anecdote, and explanation, which enables a reader to relate to your understanding of the action and its significance. It should provide significant insight into what has made/makes you who you are by including detailed descriptions of places and events while explaining the significance of these events to the formation of your own beliefs and behaviors.
3. Your essay should be written with an audience in mind: it should be organized in such a way that a reader can follow your thinking and reasoning from paragraph to paragraph and within each paragraph. This organization should lead your reader to your primary insight or ultimate point in a clear manner; in other words, your primary insight should help structure your paper.
4. Your essay needs to include and integrate at least one multimodal element. You could include pictures, sounds, or even hyperlinks to other resources, but you must make sure that your reader understands why you are including these elements and why including them enriches your piece of writing. Consider what media beyond text might reinforce your main idea to readers, convey in another way the significance of your autoethnography, and/or appeal to your readers from a different register.
5. Your completed essay should have a title, be at least 1200-1500 words in length, and be formatted to adhere to the APA or MLA style guides.
PROJECT SUBMISSION
Rough Draft: Your rough draft will be submitted for peer review and to your e-portfolio.
Revised Draft: Your revised draft should be uploaded to your e-portfolio.
TIPS:
1. Get started early.
2. Review this week’s materials and discussions.
3. Set a writing/research schedule and stick to it.
Reflection (1) and Sketch (2)
1- Reflection Prompt: Writing Project #1 Sketch
What ritual or practice are you going to write about in Writing Project #1? Share why this ritual or practice is meaningful to you or your potential audience.
Write a sketch of Writing Project 1. In your sketch please explore the following questions in an attempt to define the parameters of your project:
Click the button below to post your sketch.
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Done!
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