~ a group blog on a variety of topics related to anthropology, sociology, and ordinary people ~
In a recent response to Tony’s piece describing the “three gifts of tenure” that I posted on LinkedIn (in my Sociology of Education group) a commenter said this: “The treatment of adjuncts is a national crime perpetrated on our education system and the unsuspecting public. Adjuncts receive about a third of the salary/benefits for the same course taught by a full-time faculty member. Unless we want to redress this injustice, talking about the plight of adjuncts is useless.”…
It’s the holidays and I’m feeling nostalgic, thinking about this time 14 years ago when I was just finishing up my first semester at CSU, Chico. I was a 34-year old college junior and a first generation college student. Today I was looking for a beef stew recipe in the Joy of Cooking and I came across a relic of some old school notes for a final exam that first semester I was back in school.…
Another unarmed Black man died at the hands of law enforcement on Thursday night. The NYC Police Commissioner was quick in calling the incident an “unfortunate tragedy” at the same time that the mainstream press has included that the officer was a “rookie” in most of their headlines. Akai Gurley, the 28-year old Brooklyn victim and his girlfriend were leaving her apartment via the stairwell when they ran into two officer’s who were in the midst of conducting a vertical patrol and had just entered the stairwell on the floor above.…
We are updating our links and resources here on ethnography.com. Give this link a click, and check out what’s new. I’ve added some sociology into the mix but we’d love to hear from you, our readers. What kind of resources are you looking for on our website? Please give us your feedback and your links! Many thanks, Julie
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.
In spring 2010 director Lee Mun Wah asked me to co-facilitate a documentary he was shooting that summer titled, If These Halls Could Talk. I remember the day well, it was spring break and I was at home, a tired teacher sitting in the sun outside when the phone rang. I was a fan of Mun Wah’s work, I showed his film The Color of Fear in my sociology classes each semester.…
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.…
Happy Halloween from ethnography.com! Nothing says Halloween like this series of photos featuring post-apocalyptic dioramas by photographer Lori Nix. My favorites are the library (of course) and the laundromat at night.
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.
Originally published at classism.org in October 2011
Expectations are a pain in the ass. There’s an old saying, “plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.” Yep I did it, planted and am now disappointed. I teach Sociology at a rural community college; I love teaching, but I don’t love that adjunct teachers like me are temporary, at-will employees.
Who knew that the working conditions at a community college would be the same as they were when I was a bookseller, housekeeper, caregiver, fast food worker, and waitress?…
“I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it, and I was alive.” –W.W.
I had to wait until the finale of Breaking Bad but at last, Walter White admitted that he was in to the meth cooking for the money. I’ve been frustrated since season 3, by that time the whole, “I’m doing it for the family” thing seemed like a bunch of baloney, the manipulative excuse of a mediocre middle class guy in the throes of power grabbing; a chance to feel “alive” after a lifetime of playing it safe for fear of what “might happen, might not happen.”…
Grama says I’m Indian.
Mama says my dad was “A Mexican” and that if he really loved me like
“Mexican daddies do,”
he woulda found me by now.
Grama says we’re Indian, mama says ‘no.’
Sis calls me a “wetback” and a “beaner” (“mom said it all the time”)
brother teases me about getting pregnant and dropping out of high school.
Grama and mama don’t speak to each other for a year
because of the Indian/Mexican fiasco.…