Assignment 2: Ethnography

Ethnography means data you collect yourself, through interviews, observation or documents in the case. We are looking at construction of supermarkets/malls and public space, through the case of Puuvilla. I will give each team a different angle:

1.     Interview decision-makers/ the constructing firm/ urban planners.

Decide why you want to interview few chosen key informants/ and who the informants would be.

Decide how you interview them (by phone is ok).

Make notes about the choices; and about the whole process of getting to interview the informants.

Make a list of questions or topics you want to cover.

You do not need to record the interviews, but consider how you would document them, and make notes about how you did.

What did you find out? Write a short report – include your notes about the process!

Ps: please, to save us time: ask for official images of the plans, proposals,  brochures etc. This will be for the next assignment.

2.     Interview people working or studying in Puuvilla.

Decide who and why those (students/ teaching staff/ etc…)

Where will you interview them? How will you choose the persons? (even random is ok, just make notes why and think how it affects the results…)

Make notes about the choices and about the process of interviewing people.

Make a list of questions or topics you want to cover.

You do not need to record the interviews, but consider how you would document them, and makes notes about how you did.

What did you find out? Write a short report – include your notes about the process!

Ps: you too, to save time, could ask also if people have been documenting, photographing the construction and ask if you could use those, for the next assignment. For that I have however also a few suggestions.

3.     Observations: observe what happens to the space and the people moving in the space.

The snag here is of course that we do not have the time-span to see what there was before, what there is now and what there will be when the construction is finished. Thus, your first task is to decide what precisely do you want to focus on. People, traffic, usage of space – inner yard, street, construction itself etc.

Then decide how to document your observations.

Where will you be? Do you want to be visible?

You can also include interviews if you think it is necessary.

Besides documentation, also note the decisions, and the process.

What did you find out? Write a short report – include your notes about the process!