Anthropology by the Wire

My name's Leon. I'm a rising sophomore currently working on a research project at Towson University called Anthropology by the Wire. My colleagues and I are working to transform the public image of Baltimore by looking at common issues such as deindustrialization, gentrification, and HIV through the lens of those people who are impacted by them. We are attempting to do this by harnessing the power of social media and visual anthropology. Check out the project at anthropologybythewire.com

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Video reflections

Watching my video up on the big screen today, flaws and all, without the power to pause it and make some quick edits, was actually really rewarding. I was immensely proud of what my partner and I were able to come up with from these past six weeks despite, like every group had, some setbacks which at the time seemed pretty major. I know there's still a lot of things to do to fix my videos, and I still don't feel like I'm at the point where I can say they're done. But to be able to see a tangible product that can be publicly shown and disseminated helped reinforce and validate what we did over the course of this program. I really enjoyed watching/listening to everybody's pieces and I'm excited to see what further changes will be made and what future projects come out of this. 

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we’re so special we got our own post 

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My chosen materials

Tumblr posts:

My Introduction to Charm City

Word On The Street

Sparrows Point Steel Mill Interviews

Photos:

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Amusing HIV testing advertisement spotted outside Johns Hopkins 

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Visiting Ebenezer AME Church

I'm not going to lie, I've always been pretty skeptical about church and organized religion, despite never having had any bad experiences with it (my rabbi is this old hippie who loves to sing prayers in Hebrew to the tune of Beatles songs on his guitar.) So when I found out we would be attending services at Ebenezer AME, I was not too thrilled. I was mostly looking forward to seeing what the 170+ year old building looked like and how a congregation with such a long history acted. So when we were one of the first people in the church and were sat front and center, I didn't know what to expect.

But, I was really surprised at what I encountered. The churchgoers were incredibly outgoing and welcoming, and didn't seem to mind the fact that none of us knew how to act or when to stand or what to sing. The pastor was lively and passionate. I was amazed at how modern and relatable her sermon was, and didn't live up to any of my fears of being, for lack of a better word, too preachy. 

The interviews Kaila and I conducted were not hugely successful and did not really amount to much, but as Dr. Durington told us, that's really the least important aspect of today. It's all about allowing people to tell their stories, and letting them know that their stories are worthy of being told. After years of being ignored by politicians and city planners, the citizens of Sharp Leadenhall and the members of the church community got a chance to let their voices be heard. On top of that, the fact that we are all young and have very little to do with the church or the community not only bridges the gap between "us" and "them" but also hopefully strengthens their understanding that their stories are valuable. In that sense, I think, I hope, today was somewhat of a success. 

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I just found a note I wrote to myself after City Uprising

Stigmas- how can we get rid of them if they still exist? We need to seek out the people who are empowered enough to be willing to represent the opposite side of what we're trying combat. As visual ethnographers, the issue lies in the question of: do we perpetuate the stigmas with our actions?

Before we went to City Uprising, we were reminded about not filming anybody from whom we did not receive consent. It's better to spend time framing your shot precisely than to blur out faces in post-production, as this can be perceived as if there were a stigma to living with HIV. Which there obviously still is. But it is our role in the program to attempt to decrease these stigmas. 

At City Uprising, Kaila and I made a blanket decision to not ask people who had just gotten tested for interviews, no matter how happy and outgoing they looked or acted. We would only ask volunteers for interviews. With the pre-event lecture we had been given still on my mind, I was wondering if our actions were perpetuating the stigmas surrounding HIV. If we were to act as if there were no stigmas, we would have gone up to anybody and asked for an interview. But by making the decision we did, we recognized the existence of stigmas. Does our recognition constitute preservation of the stigmas? Do we spare people the possible invasion of privacy or do we risk it in the name of social justice and our mission? 

I am still happy with the decision we made, particularly as Kaila and I are both amateurs. I just wonder what the consensus of the anthropology community is on this matter, or if there even is one. And given what I have learned over the past 4 weeks, I'm assuming there isn't...

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Staying flexible in the field

Today was an all-around exhausting day. Too many technical complications and miscommunications with our JACQUES ambassador. Kaila and I were stressing out over how little we've done so far, and how much more we have to do. When you can't spend as much time with your key informant as you'd like, and you don't have as much information as you thought you would have by now, you have to stay flexible. You have to revisit your initial idea and work with what you do have, and not what you would have liked to have gotten. Most importantly, though, you have to stay positive and remain confident in your own abilities and remind yourself why you're doing this project in the first place.

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City Uprising- Initial Reflections

Kaila and I just returned from City Uprising and realized how much we forgot to do and how little we met our goals. A lot of unanticipated things happened and as we were about to leave, which was a lot earlier than originally intended, I had this nagging feeling that we were forgetting something. We had eight interviews (which I still feel like may not be enough) and probably 30 minutes of b-roll, and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that we hand't done enough. Only once we got in the car did we realize what we had forgotten to do: interview our ambassador (i.e. one of the main reasons we went to City Uprising)

The height of our action was probably took place within the span of less than an hour (out of the five that we were down at Payne Memorial AME Church. After arriving at 11, we wandered around, taking b-roll and trying to come up with a game plan. We knew our ambassador wouldn't arrive until 2. Once the event got started around noon, we started conducting interviews with other volunteers. 2:00 arrived and our ambassador still hadn't shown up. We (or another group of ABTW students) had already interviewed all the volunteers around the church and we didn't want to leave to look for others lest our ambassador arrive while we were out. At 2:30, he finally showed up, only to have to run out again for about twenty minutes. Once he returned around three, only then did we finally start going out and handing out flyers. But he was so involved in scouting out people and telling us about his experiences with City Uprising in the past that we completely forgot to formally interview him on camera. He unexpectedly said he had to leave at 4, and at 4:15 we decided that we had done all we could and left. 

I can only speak for myself, and maybe Kaila felt similar, but I did have a couple moments of panic in the car when I thought today was a failure and I had ruined our project. I know we can always meet up with our ambassador again and conduct a formal interview and edit his answers into the video we shot today (this may not be as potent, but it still gets the message across). We can always go down to the site again and get more b-roll if necessary. But I think this is one of the significant facets of doing fieldwork. Humans are fickle and unpredictable; it is difficult to plan your actions around those of others. The only thing you can do is take advantage of every possible moment in the field and then, at the end of the day, assess what you have and take it from there. 

[Read Kaila's reflection here]

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Sparrows Point Steel Mill Interviews

To be completely honest, I was incredibly apprehensive about today's events. I had a lack of confidence in my own social/interviewing skills and the fear that the collaborators would dismiss us as amateurs who were just taking up their time. Whereas I was pretty comfortable meeting my JACQUES ambassador because he has made it a mission to educate and raise awareness about his situation, I was worried that a person who has lost his/her job won't really feel that same empowerment, and thus, won't be as motivated to really open up to an 18 year old college student who has his whole life in front of him. I guess I was focusing on the dichotomy between us and them, and not really the collaborative aspects of this project. Even if they weren't as empowered and excited to tell their stories as my JACQUES ambassador, all the collaborators from Sparrow's Point chose to be there today. 

A sense of collaboration really set in once the interview was over. I was paired up with a man who was clearly as nervous as I was, a machinist who was laid off at 63 and decided to take early retirement. During the interview, I was worried that  wasn't asking the right questions and that they weren't strong enough to get him to open up. However, once I turned the camera off, he told me that he was generally an introvert and even during his time in the mill he kept to himself. We continued talking for another 15-20 minutes and every time one of us thought we had covered everything, we would find something else to bring up. He even came in 10 minutes after he had left, while I was packing up, and told me that he was at the post office when he remembered there were things he forgot to tell me that he wanted me to know. And the things he told me in that short period of time were some of the most personal things I heard from him in the 75 minutes or so that I was with him.

I don't really think it was anything in particular that I did that got him to open up like that, I just think that is the nature of any form of collaborative work. Long-term collaboration is not only courteous and, in many cases, more ethical, it is also often necessary. I did ask a number of unnecessary and incoherent questions during the interview, out of nervousness and fear of silence. But once the recording had stopped, and I stopped worrying about getting good soundbites, and he probably stopped worrying about the eloquence of his answers, I think that's when the connection was really forged. In that sense, today really exceeded my expectations. I learned just as much about the personal effects of deindustrialization as I did about certain skills needed to be an effective anthropologist. 

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Five Senses Ethnography: The seating area outside the JACQUES Initiative building

I feel the sun’s heavy presence on my back, not yet oppressive, but still strong enough to remind me of its power. I watch the intricate dance on the ground, as performed by the lace of shadows created by the leaves and branches of the adolescent trees, which futilely cover me with shade. The sporadic chirp of a bird and the faintly noticeable sweet notes of cigarette smoke make this a surprisingly serene environment.

This haven is just barely protected by the brick walls behind and to the right of me. In front of me stands a stout building which, with a muted metallic clang of one of the four doors, produces the occasional visitor. To the left of me, though, is the reminder of the city’s pervasiveness, a constant low guttural growl of two lanes of traffic underlying my observations. Every so often, a truck produces a flatulence of exhaust or a dissonant thunderous rattle, which jerks me out of the calmness. The frequent rhythmic thump of music cascades in and out of earshot. When a particularly massive truck passes by, a transient breeze tickles at the exposed skin on my arms and legs.

I watch the people, many of whom are in long white lab coats or stiff confining attire, walk purposefully by, not paying any attention to the tiny patch of greenery in a city of cement and steel and concrete and glass. All the while, my stomach playfully churns with anticipation, as the hands on my wristwatch march with an omnipresent yet barely audible tick towards the prescheduled moment of my meeting with a stranger. 

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A really great campaign of which our JACQUES ambassador made us aware. 

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First JACQUES Ambassador Meeting

Kaila and I met our ambassador from the JACQUES Initiative for the first time today. I can't speak for her, but I was really blown away by what an incredible guy he was. (I'm always surprised when people have such a positive outlook on life, regardless of HIV status). Open, warm, funny, playful, but still with an incredible determination and work ethic, he does not let HIV define him. Yes, it does define him, but he does not let it rule him. It is the impetus behind many of the things he does, but it is not his defining quality. Perhaps he would not be so outgoing and giving and friendly were it not for the HIV, perhaps learning his status gave him a different outlook on life. But not once during our meeting did i see him as an HIV victim, or HIV patient, or HIV sufferer. He is one of the nicest and most genuine people I have ever met; he just happens to have fewer T-cells than the average human. I can't wait for our future meetings with him, and I hope that we can accurately capture and relay his warmth in our video. 

(He also got me to take my first HIV test, and I know feel ready to tell people how quick and easy it is on City Uprising next Tuesday.) 

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My idea for one portion of the gallery: 

Everybody's picture is printed out (possibly their icon from their ABTW Tumblr) and then writes whatever identifiers they feel are important to themselves (either relating to this project or just in general). I was toying with the idea of using hashtags to show how we utilized social media to connect with other people (although that might feel a bit hokey and annoying, so it's not really an integral part of my idea). 

Some of my inspiration:

"When scholars theorize reflexivity, they are making a case for how the social slots into which researchers can be placed shed light on the kinds of presuppositions and biases they bring with them to the ethnographic moment. In this context, one’s social identities are grocery-listed as a technique for exposing one’s ideological cards. If one is writing or filming about race, class, gender, and/or sexuality, it becomes imperative that one reveal one’s own particular inhabiting of such categories, especially since such habitation can determine what one will and will not see. However, that is just the beginning (not the end) of the reflexive impulse, of what’s important about such self-revelatory maneuvers, of why reflexivity has theoretical and heuristic purchase." (John Jackson, "An Ethnographic Filmflam: Giving Gifts, Doing Research, and Videotaping the Native Subject/Object"). This does present the problem of do these buzzwords pigeonhole the researchers too much (i.e. too much of a grocery-list)? I tried to fix this concern by adding as much and especially things that don't directly correlate to the research, but it might still seem like a list that doesn't provide any context. 

The idea of process pieces that Kelly presented today. Who we are is our "process"

This relates back to Jean Rouch's recognition of the process and reflexivity.

Kelly's list of "ingredients" for her video "The Culinary Ethnographer" ("Ingredients: Pasta shells, Culinary school, Onion, Towson University, Tomato sauce, Anthropology, Butter, Blogger, Olive Oil, South Africa, Salt, Parents, Pepper, Squarespace, Egg")

The way the JACQUES Initiative and Star Track talk about certain identifiers as "risk factors" not social categories. (In my mind I'm calling this idea #whatareyourriskfactors? but I don't think that really fits with the deindustrialization or gentrification aspects of the project) 

In today's talk, Kelly said something about how she wanted to show not just the people, but their environments as well, which is why she photographed the entire kitchen through a time-lapse. This reminded me of a mental or personal environment that surround us constantly no matter in what physical environment we are. 

Obviously, the way Kelly wrote on her projects. Again, I think this reminds the viewer of the constant presence of the creator (in a Rouch-esqe way) 

Kelly also included a slide of David Hockney which we could also try to emulate if we took the picture of the entire group and gave it a similar collage/puzzle effect

Thoughts?

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Deindustrialization: a social malady with individual effects

One thing in particular stuck in my mind after Mike and Chris's visit today. During the discussion of how the closing of the steel mill at Sparrow's Point caused the laid-off workers to have to reinvent themselves, Mike made the comment that individual circumstances had a lot to do with the success of "reinvention." With this mindset, though, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that if only the workers had saved up enough of their earnings, they wouldn't be in such dire situations after the mill's closing. But Mike pointed out that we're only human, and that many of the workers liked to splurge on vacations or their kids during exceptionally prosperous periods. And with many of the workers being 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th generation steel mill workers, there was a sense of stability. 

This idea that it's easier to blame problems on the individual rather than on the social context keeps reoccurring in Anthropology By The Wire. Just because a person didn't use a condom or lives in an area with a high crime rate or didn't think to save up any money in the event of joblessness does not make them less worthy of support. One of the things that I really enjoy about anthropology is the attempt to humanize these large-scale social upheavals. In a perfect world, the effects of a steel mill closing would be reduced because everybody would have an exit strategy. But basic human nature does not enable us to plan for all possible outcomes, and thus we have to constantly make compromises and take risks. I'm looking forward to sitting down with some individuals who used to work at Sparrows Point and hearing what decisions they ended up making. 

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Oh the irony...

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Dundalk Neighborhood Walkthrough

Some of the pictures I took while walking through Dundalk 

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Dundalk, MD