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ANTH203 FOOD ACROSS CULTURES
Assessment Task: Eating Experience Research
Weighting: 30% (in total)
Due dates:
• In-class presentations in Weeks 8 and 9. These group presentations are worth 10 per
cent of your overall mark in this unit. All group members will receive the same
mark for the presentation.
• A report of 1,000 words is due on Friday May 10 at 11:59pm. Submit this
report via
the Turnitin link in your iLearn site.
• Your individual report is worth 20 per cent of your overall mark in this unit. Reports
are marked individually, according to the marking ru
ic available through
Turnitin and on iLearn.
• Late Submission Penalty: unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted
and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply – two (2) marks out of 100 will
e deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date – and (b) no
assignment will be accepted more than seven (7) days (incl. weekends) after the
original submission deadline.
Description:
For this assignment you will work in groups of three. You will choose a particular eating
experience, whether it is dinner at home with a family, a holiday or religious festival
meal event, eating at the local cafeteria, a backyard BBQ, or dining in a cafe or
estaurant. You will then produce an ethnographic account and analysis of this eating
experience. The lectures, readings and class discussions in this course should direct you
to consider issues such as: the physical layout of the chosen space; the social dynamics
of the place: who sits where, who serves whom, and what and how they eat; the
symbolic meaning of food; the role of gender, identity and/or class in this eating
experience.
The task is to closely observe an eating experience, and to provide some
analysis of your observations based on the course material.
Presentation (10 per cent
of overall grade in this subject)
You have 8-10 minutes to share your research project
and findings with your classmates. You need to be concise and well organized. Hint:
ehearse your presentation ahead of time so you don’t get cut off halfway
through.
Creativity in style and media of presentation is encouraged for the in-class
presentations! We strongly encourage you to make use of some kind of visual aide in
your presentation. Your presentation will be marked on the basis of the following
criteria:
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1. Clarity of presentation: how clearly do you communicate to your classmates what it is
you have been looking at, and what it is you have found out?
2. Creativity in presentation style: did you find interesting, innovative ways to
communicate your ideas, and to engage your classmates’ interest?
3. Depth of analysis: you need to succinctly explain the analysis and interpretation of
your data.
Written report (20 per cent of your overall grade in this subject)
Although this is a group project your written report must be your own work. Submit an
individual report: there will be different interpretations of the same project. Your report
should use subheadings. Please follow the guide below when setting out your report:
• Project Title
• Project description and findings (be specific): First, explain clearly what you set out
to do and how you went about it. Provide details of location, participants, times etc. In
this section you are explaining the research method you used. Then, summarise your
observations in a clear and concise way. Include ‘ethnographic description’ of your
esearch site. What did you observe? Provide details of the setting, the social
elationships and the cultural practices you observed. Did your observations meet your
expectations? You may like to include maps, diagrams, sketches and photographs in
this section.
• Analysis: Discuss your findings and try and theorise them in some way. What key
theme or themes emerged. Draw on material, ideas and theories we have covered in
this course to identify those themes. You should cite at least one academic reference
in this section.
• Reference list (not included in word count). Throughout the report you should use in-
text referencing.
Your report will be marked according to the marking ru
ic available in iLearn. Please
take the time to consult the ru
ic.
Suggested topics
The eating experience you choose to describe and analyse is up to you, but below are a
few ideas. You can choose from one of these ideas, or you can come up with your own
topic.
• Think about the physical and social structure of an everyday meal at home with your
family
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• Present a typical Christmas (or other holiday) meal in a group member’s family. Who
comes to dinner? Who prepares the food? Who sits where? How are the places
set at the table? Where is the food a
anged and how does that co
espond with
who sits at the table? (For example: one food sociologist did a fantastic analysis
of how placement of the salt shaker at a table signalled social hierarchies within
the family: who has to ask for the salt to be passed to them, and who passes the
salt, shows who controls the meal.) You may want to interview family members
to gain insight into the meaning of the meal.
• Analyse the social space of a restaurant. Who drinks? Who eats? When? How much?
How do people move through the physical space of the restaurant? How do
patrons of the restaurant interact in the space with their friends, with restaurant
employees, etc?
• Analyse a ba
eque, a picnic that you attended, the experience of eating at a public
sporting event or festival, eating at local markets etc...
Human Ethics Approval: As this is a study involving human subjects, however
innocuous it may seem, it is important to follow the university’s approved procedures
for human research ethics. Here is a summary of what you need to do, but we will
discuss this in greater detail in class.
1) Consent of research participants: If you are interviewing people to understand their
perceptions of that eating experience, you need to obtain the consent of participants.
This means everyone you talk to, including family members! No covert research: we are
not investigative journalists! Download the relevant ‘Information and Consent form’
2) Obtaining separate consent for photographing and recording the interviews: If
you want to take photographs of the event or use existing photographs from, say, a
family holiday meal from years past, then you’ll need to get permission for that, too.
Sample consent forms will be made available for you to use, and you will tailor the form
according to the parameters of your chosen research project (i.e. based on whether you
want to just interview people or also take pictures), and then you will add your name
and contact information to the form.
3) Observing in public: If you are observing public behaviour in public spaces (including
the public spaces on the Macquarie University campus, but this could also include a
public park, botanic gardens, etc.) but not actually talking to people, then you do not
need to ask each person for permission to observe him or her, but it is essential that you
observe in a non- obtrusive way and use no recording devices. In other words, no
filming or photographing in a way that would make an individual recognizable. Also,
you should try to blend into the background. Don’t go around peering over people’s
shoulders to see what they’re eating, or otherwise violating the norms of regular social
ehaviour in that public space.
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4) Photographing without consent: The one exception to the rule about obtaining
individual consent for photographing is if you are using a wide-angle lens to
photograph the general context of an eating space. IF the focus of the picture is the
space as a whole and IF you don’t think that individuals in the scene will be identifiable,
then you probably do not need to get their consent. But you should take photographs
with tact and under no circumstances should you position yourselves, when
photographing, within 3 metres of any individual within the picture frame.
Even with these precautions in place, keep in mind that some people might be sensitive
to the possibility of being photographed. If anyone does come up and ask, “What are
you doing?” while taking a picture, you should respond: “I’m taking a wide-angle picture
of the campus eating space as part of a project for my anthropology class, Food Across
Cultures. Would you like to see the picture I’m taking?” You should then offer to let the
individual review the digital photos that you have already taken. If the individual feels
that s/he is recognizable in the picture and objects, then you should delete the photo in
front of the individual and proceed to take your pictures without that person in the
picture frame.
5) Research in a privately-owned space: If you decide to do your observational study in
a restaurant off of the Macquarie campus, you will need to obtain permission from the
owner or manager of that restaurant. There is a specific information and consent form
designed for this, which you will personalize with your own details and contact info.
Under no circumstances should you conduct research in a privately owned venue
without obtaining the consent of the manager or owner. You will have to submit the
signed consent form the unit convenor, Eve Vincent, before you can begin your
esearch. In other words, you’ll need to make at least two trips to the restaurant: one to
get the owner’s consent, and another to actually conduct your research project once
that consent has been obtained. Download the relevant ‘Information and Consent
form’.
Possible exception: if you are describing a special family meal in the restaurant and all
you are describing are the family dynamics of sitting at that table and eating, and you
are NOT describing the restaurant more generally or interviewing the restaurant
employees or patrons, then you do not need to obtain the consent of the restaurant.
Task:
· Assess the physical layout of the chosen space: Bhavish
· The social dynamics of