For my classical ethnographic review I chose Bronislaw Malinowski's Sex and Repression in Savage Society. The book is Malinowski's critique of psycho-analysis, in particular Freud's Oedipus Complex, and is one of the first participant observation studies done in Anthropology. He deals with two problems: the differences in what constitutes the ( Read more... )

Originally when I planned on writing this assignment I wanted to look at how my aunts and uncles percieve the same event in very different ways. But after talking to my Uncle and my mother about religon I began to realize there was a much more unique and interesting topic to look at within my family, religous and mystical beliefs. My father's side ( Read more... )

So the Uncle on my Mother's side of the family has been a favorite family member of mine for a long time. He's a graphic designer who I believe to be incredibly talented and gave me a lot of knowledge about the craft when I was first starting to learn it and still to this day gives me lots of input when I ask for it. When he was young he looked a ( Read more... )

At first I wasn't going to write this on the marathon. I've already used the experiences I had in Alaska for so much of this course it felt like I was milking a rock. But Marilyn suggested I do it and well you don't take the advice of someone whose teaching you lightly so I began to consider whether or not it could be done. After going through my ( Read more... )

Why do people think dogs and food don't mix? Most often its because dogs will stare at a person with food with an intensity that is disconcerting. Many people claim they are unsanitary but Ive seen a lot more people who unsanitary than I have dogs. One thing that is a must for any restaurant I go to with my dad is that it must have a patio and it ( Read more... )

For some reason lately I have been more and more interested in the theme of family in sociology. Maybe it's the fact that I've always thought of my family as being so unusual or perhaps it's that I am looking at what is considered to be a socially accepted "normal" family in order to better replicate that myself (why I would want to do that I still ( Read more... )

My girlfriend ran the Mayor's Midnight Marathon as part of a large charity group called Team in Training (TnT for short). People sign up and pledge to raise a minimum amount of money (Kelly had to raise $3,900 US) in exchange they are given free training, large weekend event runs to help get people into shape, fitness coaching and free airfare and ( Read more... )

I was recently in Anchorage, Alaska to support my girlfriend who was running the Mayor's Midnight Marathon. While there I decided to take advantage of this time to apply a bit of sociology in an analysis of a cultural site I may never visit again. I have been emerged in Aboriginal culture for many years due to the fact I work for The First Nations ( Read more... )

I have had difficulty trying to explain a phenomenom to some of my sociology teachers at SFU that I have noticed on the internet. Many of them can't grasp the concept of what is going on and it is very hard to explain to many of them because they simply are not involved in the large online communities and virtual worlds that becoming more and more ( Read more... )

WeeGee was once the most well known photographer of New York city crime scenes. His pictures documented the violent crimes and tragedies that occurred in his beloved city. After seeing his pictures in the SFU art gallery and hearing his story I am most interested in the many roles he played in New York. He was a crime scene photographer with an ( Read more... )