Final Assignment

Submitted By:
Tasnova Zaman
ID: 1911260630
Course: Ant101.03
Submitted to:
DR. MD. HARISUR RAHMAN  
LECTURER AT NORTH SOUTH
UNIVERSITY
Topic: Passive observation.

Place: Plaza Area.

It was Sunday 4:20 pm, doing our regular class Anthropology (101). On that day we have been
made up a group of 5 people and placed the different group in different places to observe
students of the university elements as well as people’s activity which needed to be relatable with
cultural anthropology. Somehow our group placed in the most crowded and historical place of
the University- The Plaza Area. For some various reason student named this place as the heart of
NSU.

As I’m the researcher also analytics so I observed from the Etic point of view, and tried to relate
with cultural anthropology.

At 4:50 pm on that day, we all ran to the place as we had limited time to do our work. The first
thing that I felt over there was a homely environment. Before observing people activity, I tried to
crack the amazing architectural design of that place. The floor decorated with alpona’s for
upcoming Bangali Cultural event “Boshonto”. This is the place where the University placed the
maximum program/events. Those alpona shows the symbolic culture of Bangali. The most
interesting part that I saw was, the place organized different types of cultural activities i: e:
Chinese language day, Pohela boishak, Valentine’s day, shoroshoti puja etc. Both of them are
from two different cultural activities its shows mixed cultural activities which denote Culture is
shared. Culture over there is encompassing which means its changing with time. People over
there were so much adaptive to cop-up with these different cultures. Then again it is flanked by
two ten-storied structures-the North Academic Building (NAC) housing the Schools of Business,
Arts & Social Sciences and the Confucius Institute and the South Academic Building (SAC)
where the Schools of Engineering & Applied Sciences, as well as the School of Life Sciences,
are located. Some people said that NAC and SAC have rivalry and others meant it covered a
North and South portion of culture. But Bangali culture mostly found over there i: e Boys lounge
and Girls lounge is situated in there opposite distance and we Bangali’s always tried to kept
distance with each other and make it in their comfort zone. The stage of the plaza area meant the
symbol of an educational institution. And on that stage our University events mostly organized.
Form the middle of the plaza area I can watch the maximum portion of University, even the one
and only connector of NAC and SAC building is also known as NAC & SAC bridge. In the front
side, Admin building was situated and it’s the most attractive and beautiful place of this
university. Board of trustees and other admin workers have their palace over there and its
departed from the academic building. From my right and left side both structured the same 10 th-
floor building and it contains some posters and banners which shows the recent activities of the
university. I saw a poster of Blood Donation event by the pharmacy club of NSU also some
business competition events and seminars. On that month the whole country was in the mood of
festive because of Bongobondhu’s 100 years Birthday celebration. NSU also made a huge banner
for 7th march speech of Bongobondhu, father of our nation, just to memorize his role and what he
did for our country.

After that, I noticed a small booth where polar company promoting their brand by selling their
products. It's not very rare that branded company came to NSU and sell their product, and it's not
free either. They sponsor university club activity and they got the chance to promote themselves
and selling their foods. It shows the activity of Business and Media Anthropology. Mankind
beliefs the most what they can see by his/her own eyes and for that they prepared a physical stall
(visual) which is also a sub-field of Anthropology.

After observing the physical attributes, I urged to watch people’s activity. It’s a crowded place
and most of them standing with their groups. Each group contain a maximum 4 people. Everyone
was gossiping and having their time with their closest friends. Since all the classes were going on
that period, I perceived only few people over plaza area. I saw a group of four was grouchy about
their hard times in the mid-term exam and they were so frustrated and on that moment for me
that seems very obvious. A very few people running straight through the exit as it was the last
hour of that day. It found interesting to me that there were two kinds of people, one of them were
interested to pass their time by gossiping and others want to go home early for their own will.
There was an exceptional group of people who were sitting inside a booth for recruiting member
to their club. These club people tried to find a few specific and qualified people. I found it hard
for the other who didn’t get the chance to work with those people and they never got the chance
to explore new culture and new activities. The sun was about to set and few groups of boys and
girls going to their own lounge for prayer as most of the students were Muslim they got the
chance to pray in time but other religions couldn’t get the opportunity and in my perspective, it’s
wrong and over here Muslim is the dominant culture. The most interesting thing that caught my
mind was people’s dress-up. Everyone has the opportunity to wear their chosen dresses.
Maximum wearing western dresses and in this Muslim dominant culture I found mixed cultural
activities.

That’s all I have experienced and passively observed during the field work time.

 The Picture of our Area for passsive observation: