Is art ethnographic? Art and visual representation cut across the disciplines but is especially suited for sociological and anthropological inquiry. Art tells us a story about our practices and beliefs and we find ourselves in what we and others create. It also reflects us back to ourselves, sometimes we like it but if it’s really good, we feel it and in that brief, aesthetic moment in time we change.
I saw this video by Steve Cutts yesterday, shared by a friend on facebook the day after the mid-term elections in the U.S. (a whole other area of ethnographic inquiry, yes?). I’m one of those cynical types who suggests that we are culturally going to hell in a hand-basket, a society that truly won’t do a thing about its impact until real crisis hits (running out of food, oil, etc…no need to bore you with what you probably already know). But until that day, all we social scientists (the Debbie Downers of the academic set) can do is warn the others and hope that art like this video opens eyes, even if it’s only a single pair.
“Man” by Steve Cutts: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU
Julie Garza-Withers, former award-winning community college Sociology instructor who’s currently using Sociology to organize and research for racial justice in rural northern California. She was a facilitator in the film “If These Halls Could Talk” with Director Lee Mun Wah, and has published at Working Class Studies, and elsewhere.
Julie has a particular interest in class and classism as a form of social stratification, and the role of cussing and anti-intellectualism in stratifying society. A fan of cussing herself, she says she only “Cusses when necessary,” which is often. She considers herself a working class academic because she is a first generation college grad who grew up in rural southern California where her options post-high school included getting married or working at Del Taco and selling tacos to fast food customers until she got married.
Julie has an M.A. from California State University, Chico, where she studied how social class and gender impact work-place conflict between women. She lives in rural northern California with her husband Larry where they enjoy the forest, their dogs, and gardening.
You can follow Julie on twitter where she posts as WorkingClassTeacher, and also check out Julie’s anti-racism work at Rural SURJ of NorCal-Showing Up for Racial Justice. Currently an inactive author, awaiting a poke with a sharp stick.