Adam Behnke ANTH 216 Professor Tooley December 5, 2008 Ethnographic Essay For my ethnographic field project I chose

to observe and study Traber dormitorys fourth floor, known more commonly as T4. The reason I chose T4 is because I live there and I wanted to analyze the day-to-day interactions more closely. I can see everything that happens on the floor, but I have never questioned why they happened. It is easy to coast through my daily interactions with floor members and not think about what factors influence the dialogue, status roles, arguments, and atmosphere of T4. I have enjoyed gaining a deeper understanding of the culture on T4. Over the course of this essay, I will explore the language, kinship, politics, economics, and religion of T4. Basic membership on T4 is given to all who live there. However, guys must display some sense of pride in T4 in order for those living on T4 to consider them part of the group. Freshmen who move in must do some action to signal to the other members that they value where they live. This would include at least one of the following activities: spending lots of time socializing on the floor, chanting T4! T4! at school-wide functions, hanging out with T4s sister floor, or attending organized floor functions. Members are encouraged to attend meetings organized by the Residents Assistant (RA) and sophomores, but they do not have to if they do any of the other activities. T4 is in a square formation, and at the center is a lobby, where organized meetings and informal hangouts take place. The RA organizes floor fellowship, which

2 takes place every Tuesday night, and the sophomores organize random functions meeting in the lobby several times a month. I found out information about T4 by living observationally. Because I have lived on T4 since August, I already had most of the information needed for this project. Once I decided to do the project on my floor, I focused on being more aware of any specific areas I was unsure of. This project forced me to search for intricacies of the floor I had never realized were there before. I asked a few questions of fellow floor members to see if there was consensus or if they agreed with my evaluation of T4, but my primary method for finding answers was simply by spending time more time with fellow floor members in order to experience as many situations as possible. This included being a part of late night a capella singing in a room two doors right from mine, debating over whether John McCain or Barack Obama would win in a fight to the death, and contemplating the world with another guy while we were brushing our teeth. The guys I spoke with on the floor could be viewed as informants, but I have observed the same events they have, so I do not know if informant is the right term to describe them. Consequently, one was not better than another. All floor members were equally important in creating the environment I observed. Being a member of T4 made it easier and harder to gather information. It made it easier because I have spent more time on T4 than I have anywhere else. Gathering information was usually effortless because of my familiarity with T4. I needed to do minimal fieldwork because of the amount of time I spent on the floor already. Much of the compiling of information was consisted solely of my recollections. Even though I had to do minimal fieldwork, the analyzing of the information from an anthropologists perspective was difficult. It was hard dissecting each

3 piece of information for the purpose of research, and not personal interest. Some elements were hard to analyze because they were commonplace, yet I was supposed to ask why they were a certain way. Because I am a member of T4, I might have misconstrued some areas an outsider would have been able to realistically evaluate. The dialect and phrases specific to T4 are spoken in order to establish a social connection between members. There are many special phrases used. Spread the word! is a favorite. It originated from one member who started saying it to announce events that were happening soon. He said it over and over, using different emphases and vocal qualities, which many guys on the floor thought was amusing. Consequently, T4 members will insert it into conversations where it does not apply, but the recollection of its original use will elicit laughter. Ghetto talk is also somewhat commonplace. This entails the use of the words and phrases yo, mad good, sup, and thug. It is unclear what the origin of this dialect is, but those who say it tend to be white and upper class. They have a certain wondering respect about the ghetto culture, but at the same time know how ridiculous a white, upper class person who tries to talk this way sounds. English spoken with a Turkish accent is also frequently used. This is because one T4 member grew up as a missionary kid in Turkey, and he can imitate Turks broken English very humorously. Others on the floor join in (even though they are do not have accurate imitations), and the insignificant conversations often last a few minutes. All of these dialects and phrases are spoken almost exclusively on T4 because of their floor identification. Members enjoy saying them, but only for the reaction they get from fellow floor members. There is quite a bit of code-switching on the floor because of the dialects and phrases associated with the floor. These are spoken in relaxed conversations, while proper English is

4 used in serious conversations. Most members observed speak in both styles, depending on the situations. As a whole, most guys on the floor know and regularly talk or try to talk with correct grammar, but there is a humorous and attractive quality to talking ghetto or with an accent from another country. The dialects tend to be spoken in relaxed conversations. By this, I mean non-academic and non-serious dialoguing. However, when it comes to academic discussions or debates, members of the floor try to speak correctly because of the respectability it brings. Previous schooling and environment had huge impacts on how floor members speak. They are predominantly white and upper class, and their speech reflects this. Language is an integral part of identification and involvement on T4. The sense of kinship on T4 grows stronger every day. As the year has progressed and friendships have grown stronger, the sense of brotherhood has increased. It seems that everyone has changed his home to the location of Wheaton College, and even more specifically to T4. Unsurprisingly, the primary relationships could be described as relational. At all hours of the day, floor members are laughing, wrestling, and talking excitedly with each other. It is common practice for anyone on the floor to walk into anyone elses room, which denotes a brotherly or informal quality of relationship. Even though this brotherhood of close friends has increased, not everybody is friends. Those who are not still have formal relationships because of the responsibility to respect other T4 members. These relationships are characterized by forced verbal exchanges that take place in the bathroom, in front of the water fountain, and on the many sidewalks of campus. This family environment of T4 ensures that members take care of and respect each other. Therefore, when one member gets sick on the floor, other members care for him. It is not viewed

5 as a responsibility, but in a sense it is. Medicine such as pain relievers and cold medicine are supposed to be shared because families do this. If one member is asleep, other members become at least moderately quiet in respect of the sleeper. This respect also occurs in the bathrooms with cleanliness. Each member cleans up after himself because of the expectation that others are also cleaning up after themselves. Kinship is important in the dorm atmosphere (such as T4) because the students are away from biological family. The politics on T4 help, not hurt, floor chemistry. Besides the RA, no one was granted power. The power is decentralized, because the power the RA has (to enforce rules that are seldom broken) is totally different from those that the five sophomores have. Everyone does have equal access to the privileges and power, but they must earn it. The five sophomores earned their right to speak and be heard by their attractive personalities and physical imposition. They all are listened to above anyone else on the floor, and no one resents this or shows signs of jealousy. Three of the sophomore members organize floor activities, which makes the other members on T4 dependent on them. This dependency is a benefit though, because the sophomores are fun loving and reasonable. Floor members enjoy their efforts, because they know that these sophomores are not abusing their power, but rather trying to make T4 the best floor. One more thing worth mentioning in the politics realm of T4 is that of the settling of disagreements. In my observations, there was not a third-party who took control or mediated the situation. The two parties work it out themselves. I have witnessed many methods; the most frequent is that one party will forget the incident, or give in because confrontation is not in his nature. This happened when a one roommate completely changed around the setup of his room

6 during fall break without asking his roommate. The roommate came back from break, was visibly mad, but never confronted his roommate about it because it is not in his nature to confront. If this does not happen, the two parties often talk it over, with each side thinking he is right, until they agree to disagree or actually work out a resolution. Lastly, there was one instance where the two parties got over the disagreement by wrestling each other. The two parties got out any anger they had towards the other person, but also got rug burns. It was actually effective stopping the disagreement, because each party forgot about the initial point of contention. T4 has very little economic activity. To start with, some members have part-time jobs, but there is no production of goods or selling of supplies. T4 members are primarily consumers who occasionally trade on a small scale or loan out a small amount of money. There are no group fees or goods to buy, and no organizational structure to regulate the small amount of money flow. Money is not considered to be inappropriate on T4, but money is seldom talked about, and never argued (at least so far this year) about. Small amounts (less than $5) of money and goods are often given in brotherly love. This is generalized reciprocity. Balanced reciprocity also takes place on the floor in the form of loans and equal exchanges of food. The only flow of money on the floor is through loans. The economics side of T4 is simple. Lastly, religion plays a large role in T4 members lives. Every Tuesday night, T4 holds floor fellowship, where the group prays and sings together. As a whole, Wheaton College wants each and every student to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and attending floor fellowship gives everyone another opportunity, in the middle of the workweek, to grow as a group in love for the Lord. A member on the floor must somehow demonstrate, through words

7 or actions, that they have a relationship with Jesus Christ in order to be fully accepted by the group. Some practices on the floor are a localization of Christianity, such as the worship and discipleship groups. At floor fellowship, a singer/acoustic guitar player always leads the worship music. This is effective because it sounds like popular music and appeals to the members music tastes. Also, T4 members also meet with two to three others once a week in what are called Discipleship Groups. Members view these groups as a neat way to stimulate spiritual conversation. The effectiveness of these groups is debatable, as some groups are willing to get personal, while others are not. There is also a small amount of syncretism in the religious attitude on T4. Some members hold the belief that God helps those who help themselves. This belief is not biblical; it is an American ideal that has been picked up by some Christians. The reason I say that some on the floor hold this view is because of the use of the saying, Itll work out. If something is going wrong, some people think that God will make life stable again if they keep working hard. Nowhere in scripture does it say that God will eventually make our lives enjoyable or peaceful while on earth. Despite this little discrepancy, religion plays an influential, positive role. There are a couple things I would do differently if I were to conduct an ethnographic field study again. First, I would not pick a group that I am a part of. Choosing T4 eliminated any extra time spent doing fieldwork, but I think it also skewed my analysis. For me, it is impossible to evaluate the floor around me from the objective view of an outsider. I had trouble solely analyzing; I would think about how much I liked certain people, possibly distorting any observations. Secondly, I would spend more time listening. In general, I talk too much, and I could have realized a lot more about my floor if I had kept my mouth shut more than open.

8 Lastly, I wish III would conduct more personal interviews. By gathering the opinions of many floor members, I could have gained more information and insight into why things run the way they do. When I first found out about this project, I was pleased because I thought it would be easy. I enjoy observing people and groups habits, so I figured this project would be simple. However, as I started it, I realized just how complex anthropological fieldwork is. There are so many activities happening on T4 at all times, so everything cannot be recorded. Facts are relatively easy to compile, but recognizing trends of behavior and causes for that behavior is a whole different story. At some point, it hit me that there actually is some extent of order and reason behind every single thing that happens. This realization is quite staggering, and has caused me to admire the Creator and His structured world even more.