Anthropology 33: Culture and Communication

Assignment # 2: Write an Encyclopedia Entry on the Notion of Participation

Anthropology 33:Culture and Communication

[Updated Feb. 25, 2007]

1. General goal of the assignment. This assignment is designed to make you reflect on one specific concept that is found throughout several of the readings for this course and yet it is used slightly differently by different authors. The concept is "participation." You have read about "participation" in general, "participation frameworks," "participation structure," "participant structure," etc. In each of these cases, "participation" is an analytical notion, that is, something that researchers use to analyze their data in specific ways. It is also a notion that has methodological and theoretical implications, for example, thinking in terms of participation is different from thinking in terms of speakers, or even social actors. "Participation" implies that one is thinking in terms of a whole event or situation, rather than in terms of individuals performing an action without language (e.g. jumping up and down, dancing, staring, smiling) or one with language (e.g. giving a lecture, asking a question, making an offer). Participation makes us think not only about those who are "doing" something but also to those who seem not to do something, those who are just "there." It turns out that "being there' or what might be emically called "doing nothing" in fact counts a great deal, i.e. has consequences for self and for others, and therefore it is "something." Furthermore, the notion of participation implies or, rather, allows for, talking about differentiation. We can talk about different individuals or groups participating in different ways or capacity, or with different "roles" or different authority or different rights and duties. There is a lot you can do with this notion and what you do will be informed by other kinds of analytical notions that you use and also by particular theoretical perspectives. In Wendy Fonarow's book (Empire of Dirt), for example, she uses participation to rethink the usual attention given to artists and performers on the stage and change the focus of analysis to (i) the audience, (ii) the interaction between the artists and the audience, and (iii) the interaction among members of the audience. For her "participation" is also very much a spatial and a temporal dimension.

2. Procedure.

(a) Review the readings so far. Make a list of the different ways in which participation comes up, is used, analyzed, labeled (e.g. with other accompanying terms, e.g. participation framework), theorized, and implemented by different authors. Make sure to keep track of who says what.

(b) Merge the different notions and definition and come up with a general definition that seems to cover all the different meanings and uses of participation you can think of (or as many as possible).

Write the rest of the entry as outlined in (3) below. After you have written the whole entry, go back to the original definition at the beginning of the entry and see whether it still makes sense. If not, revise it.

3. Content and structure of entry. Your paper should be organized in the following way:

3.1. Definition of "participation." Provide a general definition of the notion based on your understanding of the sources you consulted.

3.2. Discussion of what the notion of "participation" is good for, that is, what kinds of situations or phenomena benefit from thinking about them in terms of participation? Does participation (in the way defined in 3.1) help you uncover behaviors or phenomena previously ignored? Is participation, in other words, something good to think-with? Why?

3.3. Provide a distinction (whenever appropriate) between different versions of the notion of participation (and various terms used to refer to it) and clarify what the contribution of each notion is (if they are different). This is the place where you are expected to refer to the authors who have worked on the notion of participation (See 4 below for directions on bibliography and citations). This is also where you might notice whether there are inconsistencies in the ways in which the notion is named, defined, or used by particular authors.

3.4. Evaluation. Provide a general statement on the value of the notion of participation. This means that you can say here what the notion has done for different authors and also what it could do in the future (i.e. what else it could be used for).

3.5. In-text citation and bibliography. Specify which authors are responsible for which terms and/or ideas by referencing them in the text (i.e. by putting their terms or definitions within quotes and by citing their work in the standard social science way, which is by providing the last name of the author(s) followed by the year of the publication, followed, when appropriate, by page number(s), e.g. Woolard 2004:333). The same format should be followed if you are citing material presented during lectures (it can be done by either referring to handouts or by referring to lectures, e.g. Duranti, lecture 2/1/07, H.Samy Alim, lecture 2/1/2007). You must show through citations that you have reviewed the relevant literature. This means that you should cite at least 4 separate sources from the class readings.

4. Some further thoughts and suggestions:

4.1. About being theoretical and being critical. By being asked to write an encyclopedia entry on the notion of participation, you are being asked to inform an audience who might not know anything about this notion. At the same time, you are asked to assume a "theoretical attitude" toward the material covered in the literature (for you this means the readings). This could be interpreted as being "critical", which is not a bad way to conceptualize the task if by "critical" one means that you are asked to reflect upon what people have written, the ways in which they have defined their analytical notions, the ways they have used them, how consistent they are, how effective they also are in uncovering interesting phenomena. But being "critical" does not mean that you are expected to find problems and that only by finding problems you will be able to show that you are indeed "critical." You might find problems, in which case you should mention them, but you should not overextend yourself in finding problems: By being asked to write an encyclopedia entry on a given notion, it is expected that there is something useful in it and that you can be a sympathetic, albeit critical, interpreter (this means that an editor does not assign a given notion to an author who is known to be very critical of the notion). Furthermore, since this is a short essay/entry, your first duty is to use your allocated number of words to explain what participation is and what has been used for. Ultimately, you are responsible for telling the reader(s) what the notion of participation can contribute to our understanding culture and communication.

4.2. About being scholarly. You should think of yourself as future scholars. This means that you need to start acting like a scholar. You need to pick up their good habits. One good habit is to keep track of your reading of different authors and of the origins of the ideas you are interested in (I usually take notes on all of my readings on my computer and I have a file for each book or article I have read over the last 25 years - this helps me; it might work for you, it depends). Keeping track of who says what is not only about giving credit where credit is due (so that you are not looking like you are "stealing" ideas from others); it is also about engaging with other authors, establishing a dialogue with them and thus "entering" a field of study. It is about being accountable for what you say and at the same time making clear what you are taking from others and what you are saying on your own. This allows other future scholars to build on your work. It allows for keeping track of the history of ideas, which is something important when we want to go back and figure out how we got where we are and think about what other, alternative paths would have been and hopefully still are possible. Practically speaking, this means that you need to quote the ways in which authors in the readings usually quote others and to have a bibliography at the end with all the sources, done in the ways in which it is done in the readings, e.g. in the bibliography at the end of A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. or at the end of some of the handouts distributed in class.

5. Individual assignment

This is an individual assignment, that is, you will each hand in your own separate assignment (see below). However, this does not mean that you are not allowed to talk to others about it. In fact, you are encouraged to share your ideas and problem-solve with other students in the class or whoever else you find as a potential listener.

6. Handing in the assignment. Hand in to your TA a typed (double spaced) version of your paper. It should be in Times New Roman font, size 12. Its length should be no less than 750 and no more than 1000 words (not including the bibliography at the end). The deadline is the one established in class by the instructor. Make sure to write on top of all pages: (a) your first and last name; (b) Name of your TA, and (c) time and day of your session.