While I was looking through my old posts and trying to link them to my research topic, I came across Mutnik’s idea of time and place. I think this method plays a prominent role in investigating literacy among international students. The idea of place is a philosophical trait used by the ethnographer to pinpoint the background of the inhabitants of that place. International students who came from all over the map occupy spots that most likely belonged to people from this country. The question we should postulate here is: what role does the place play towards its current inhabitants? In other words, does the international students’ literacy “change” after they live in places that were designed, decorated and filled with American posters, flyers?
I came to an international student’s office and asked him about some (not clearly significant) pictures hanged on the wall. “I don’t know what these pictures indicate” was his answer. In my research, I am not going to tackle the importance of the place in terms of its benefit of telling about its previous inhabitants; rather I’m going to focus on the literacy aspect. For example, Americans commonly hang posters, cartoons and stickers in their living and work spaces: inside the office, including the door from outside, inside the house, including the refrigerator. On the contrary, a number of cultures do not do such things and people from these cultures tend to punish their children if they have done so. Notice, the problem here is not that they punish them but they consider this behavior is childish. So, the question again: what about an international student who came from a culture of these and lived in a place while the house (including the refrigerator!) is filled with posters? A student told me “this is a clever idea because since I moved in here ,I kept posting on the wall some new English words” Does this place help this student improve his literacy? Apparently the answer is yes.
How interesting. Even the walls of our homes and offices are literacy sites that convey messages about cultural norms. The absence or presence of print and visual artifacts in a home say something about a culture's beliefs about the role of print and visual literacy. Customs surrounding how we decorate our surroundings have the potential to cause misunderstandings between members of different cultures. Yet, this student was able to assimilate one aspect of another culture's practices for his benefit.
ReplyDeleteHmoud those are beautiful pictures you have here. That tent looks as if those guys are in Saudi. Wow that is a wonderful decoration. I wonder how long it took them to put everything together. Good job.
ReplyDeleteI also love seeing these images. What a great day that must have been. I saw only a moment of it as I rushed through the halls to a luncheon. By the time the luncheon was over, the festival was as well.
ReplyDeleteWas so glad to see what I saw, however.
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I like very much the notion of place as you describe it here, Hmoud. I'm especially intrigued by this: "The idea of place is a philosophical trait used by the ethnographer to pinpoint the background of the inhabitants of that place. International students who came from all over the map occupy spots that most likely belonged to people from this country. The question we should postulate here is: what role does the place play towards its current inhabitants?"
Fascinating question! I'm having some difficulty understanding how the exploration of posters and other public expression in private spaces might tie in with your surveys thus far. Perhaps more obvious to me is the idea of place as experienced by participants blending home (incense burners, a page from the Qur'an, etc).
Love watching where your study is taking you. Fascinating stuff!