School of Social Sciences
School of Social Sciences
102170
PEOPLE, pLACE AND Social DifFerence
Manual: self-guided field Trip
The major assignment in this unit is a Photographic Essay (Assignment 2) that requires you to undertake a self-guided field trip. This field trip manual overviews the activity and requirements.
Contents
TOC o "1-3" h z u 1. General Aims of the Self-guided Field Trip PAGEREF _Toc42778661 h 32. Outputs PAGEREF _Toc42778662 h 33. Working Safely in the Field PAGEREF _Toc42778663 h 44. The Ethics and Politics of Fieldwork: Minimising our Impact on the Community PAGEREF _Toc42778664 h 55. Completing the Field Trip: Reading Landscapes PAGEREF _Toc42778665 h 76. How Do You Use the Results? PAGEREF _Toc42778666 h 87. Rules for Reading Landscapes PAGEREF _Toc42778667 h 9APPENDIX A: Table 4: Recording details of your photographs PAGEREF _Toc42778668 h 12 APPENDIX B: Information Sheet PAGEREF _Toc42778669 h 14
1. General Aims of the Self-Guided Field TripTo collect evidence of the impacts of multiculturalism on the landscapes of Sydney.
To collect evidence of cultural diversity in Sydney.
To critically reflect upon the field methods used and their advantages and disadvantages compared to secondary data.
This self-guided field trip manual, the Workshop in Week 6 and all the supporting material provide details and expectations of the self-guided field trip. This includes instructions on how to conduct safe field work. We will also look at how to navigate some of the ethical and political issues of field work in human landscapes.
2. OutputsThere are two substantive outputs that come from this field trip. The most important is Assignment 2, the Photographic Essay (worth 40% see below and in Learning Guide). There is also a workshop where you will draw upon the images and other observations you have collected in the field.
Workshops
The images captured, and the worksheets used in this field trip, are to be used in a future workshop (Week 8). The workshop will show you how to use your images in a formal report or essay. We will do some thinking about how it might feel to peer at people while doing observational work in real human landscapes (this workshop).
Photographic essay (40%)
The photographs you take, and other data you collect in the field, are to be integrated into your photographic essay.
Photographic essay question:
What are the benefits and challenges of multiculturalism in Sydney?
Your essay must include three (3) of your own illustrative photographs.
The essay should be 1,000 words (but this does not include your reference list, figure captions or photograph source information).
3. Working Safely in the Field
School of Social Sciences and Psychology
Field Work Safety Rules for Participants
Before conducting the self-guided field trip
Listen to the Field Trip Safety Briefing (in Week 6 workshop folder)
Complete an Authorisation and Safety Questionnaire. A link to the questionnaire will be posted in an announcement on vUWS and you should also receive it as an email. This form needs to be completed prior to 9am Monday 30 August otherwise your mark for the photographic essay may receive a deduction.
Ensure you have organised any Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) (e.g. comfortable walking shoes, hats, sunscreen, sunglasses, etc.) and suitable clothing
If you have a mobile phone, dont forget to charge it before you leave.
Ensure that your phone/camera has enough power and memory to take photographs during the field trip.
Inform someone close to you of your intended time of departure, duration of the trip and anticipated return.
Travelling to and from fieldtrip
This is self-guided field work so you will need to organise your own transport. Try to travel with someone else whenever possible.
If you get lost or experience other problems, please ring the School Office
(Liverpool 9772 6491; Kingswood 4736 0196; Parramatta 9685 9193).
Whilst On-site
Behave responsibly; watch out for both your own safety and the safety of others who may be with you.
Follow the instructions in this manual and as provided in the safety briefing video (vUWS folder for this weeks workshop).
Ensure you bring and use your Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Do not work in the field by yourself (take a friend, relative or classmate)
Do not take close-up photographs of people. Do not take photographs where people can be clearly identified.
Tell your field trip supervisors (Unit Coordinator and tutors) of any risks you noticed that could be a danger to peoples safety.
4. The Ethics and Politics of Fieldwork: Minimising our Impact on the CommunityDuring the self-guided field trip you are expected to take photographs of landscapes of cultural diversity/multi-culturalism. How do you think it will feel to take photographs of cultural landscapes? What if there are members of the public in your photograph? Is it ok to photograph the outside of a private home?
Activity:
How does it feel to observe people and places (embarrassed, scared, daunted, excited, etc.)? What risks are posed by observing, analysing and writing about people and places (objectification, othering, voyeurism, elitism)?
Categorise your anticipated feelings and concerns under meaningful headings, e.g. ethical concerns, power issues, cultural subjectivity, discomfort, superficiality, etc. Report back to the class on the varied feelings and thoughts within your group.
Table 1: Ethical and political issues surrounding the observation of people within their landscapes
Type of issue Examples
What ethical concerns might there be? e.g. is it ok to take photographs of individual people?
Are there any issues of power or politics that need to be considered? e.g. is there a power difference between the researcher and the public?
How valid will your results be? e.g. how can you ensure that your essay is not just your opinion?
Will you feel comfortable or uncomfortable? e.g. will you feel comfortable with members of the local community wondering why you are taking photos in their suburb?
Other 5. Completing the Field Trip: Reading Landscapes
5.1 Choose a Sydney Suburb to investigate
The purpose of the field work is to collect photographic evidence to help you answer the essay question:
What are the benefits and challenges of multiculturalism in Sydney?
The photographs you take should therefore illustrate a benefit or challenge relating to multiculturalism in Sydney. You are able to choose any suburb in Sydney that you like (you could even choose the suburb that you live in!). We advise that you choose a suburb that you can access easily (so do not choose a suburb that will take you 1-hr to travel to) and that is safe. If you know there are safety issues in a particular suburb, please dont use it as your field-work site. Please also conduct your field work during daylight hours (no night-time field work). Given that the essay is about multiculturalism, it is a good idea to choose a suburb that is culturally diverse. In order to find out the cultural makeup of the suburb, youll need to do some background research (see next section).
5.2. Do some background research
Before you visit the suburb you have chosen and complete the self-guided field work, you should do some background research to help you locate a good transect route and give you some ideas of what to look out for/photograph. A good place to start is the Local Council Website. It is also advised that you look at Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census data for the suburb you have chosen to learn more about the demographics of the area (here you can return to the ABS Quickstats website). For example, what are the different language and ancestry groups in the area? What is the proportion of Australian-born versus overseas-born residents in the area? What are the main overseas birthplaces of residents? What is the religious diversity of the residents?
5.3 Conducting a transect
Once you have decided on the suburb you want to investigate, you are required to conduct self-guided field trip and to produce a photographic essay. To complete a transect of your chosen suburb.
A transect is a line or a pathway that you travel down. While travelling down the line you observe the landscape and features that are present. The line might be as short as a single street, or several streets. We recommend that you review several streets to ensure that you understand the suburb more fully, and not just the main street.
What do you do?
Travel along the route and take photographs of key locations or landscape features that illustrate a benefit or challenge of multiculturalism in Sydney. The lectures and unit readings in weeks 4 and 8, and the suggested readings for Assignment 2 are an essential starting point. These will give you clues about the sorts of things that you should record and photograph. You should not just turn up to conduct your field trip unprepared. You need to be strategic and this will require you to do some thinking and reading beforehand.
Ensure that you record the location of the photograph, the date and time of day that you took it and the direction you were facing, as this information is required in the essay (it will form part of your figure caption). There is a table in the Appendix of this document to record this information.
You should also take notes about the landscapes you are observing (e.g. recording in detail the characteristics and cultural meanings of the landscapes, sites and objects you are observing and photographing).
You must have the completed Information Sheet (see Appendix) with you at all times, in case someone asks you what you are doing.
HINT 1: Use the rules for reading landscapes (next page) to help you with this.
HINT 2: Do not ignore the ordinary: do not ignore ordinary landscapes, or what you might consider as normal or ordinary culture in Australia (e.g. Anglo-Celtic cultural traits).
6. How Do You Use the Results?
Transect data is important evidence in your essay it helps you to make and prove the argument you are making.
Photographs taken on your transect walk are required in your essay. You will learn how to correctly present the photos in the week 8 workshop be sure to bring field trip photographs to this workshop.
7. Rules for Reading Landscapes
Table 2 provides important information on how to read cultural landscapes. Following these rules will help you to know what to look for in the landscapes of the Sydney suburb of your choosing, how to make sense of it and the photographs you need to take. More details are available in the Week 6 Lecture Pod 3: Reading cultural diversity on the landscape.
Table 2: Rules for Reading Landscapes
# Rule Explanation Example
1 Landscape is a clue to culture Change in the landscape will equate with change in culture, and vice-a-versa. Landscape change can lag behind cultural change. A major transformation in the cultural look of the landscape is indicative of a major change in culture. New tastes in cuisine and the entry of new cultures through migration will manifest spatially. Social disharmony and exclusion will manifest as segregation (Figure 2.3).
2 Cultural landscape equality No specific landscape feature, or cultural manifestation of a group, is necessarily more or less important than another, nor better, nor necessarily worse. The McDonalds Family Restaurant is as instructive to geographers as an artefact of culture, as is the Eiffel Tower.
3 The everyday landscape of common things The ordinary landscape has been little researched. Researchers have been dismissive or disparaging of such common things. If studied with care and without elitism they can tell us a great deal about everyday culture. The rapid spread of McDonalds Family Restaurants (Figure 2.2) through Sydney is reflective of the up-take of American popular culture, as are the everyday shop-fronts within malls.
4 History and landscape To properly read a landscape a researcher needs to know something of the history of a place. To properly interpret graffiti and murals in Belfast, one needs to know about sectarianism in Belfast, The Troubles, and the historical development of Ireland, especially the north of Ireland.
5 Geographic context A landscape or landscape feature can only be understood with reference to the surrounding places and landscapes. A reading of the city of Newcastle (Figure 2.3) should be cognisant of the nearby coal-fields, and the nearby presence of a navigable port.
6 Physical landscape The human landscape is related to the bio-physical environment. Aspects such as terrain, climate and geology can be important. The river, timber and the presence of coal deposits help explain the location and morphology of Newcastle (Figure 2.3)
7 Landscape obscurity The landscape does not speak to us very clearly. Primary messages can be deceiving. Cultural geographers need to ask the right questions and look the right way Ask the basic questions, especially of ordinary and also exotic landscapes. What do they tell us about how our society works?
8 Landscape silences The silences of a landscape may be as important as the texts of the landscape. The many silences are integral to cultural processes. They are reflective of power relations, and so are clues to our culture and cultural relations. The absence of a mosque in a city suburb may reflect the Islamaphobia that prevented its development. The lack of indigenous culture in a built environment reflects colonial dispossession (Box 2D).
Excerpt from Winchester, Kong and Dunn (2003, p.25) link to full source available in Readings and Resources on vUWS and in the Week 6 and 7 Folders. Original sources: adapted from Lewis (1979); Sedgwick (1990, p. 3, 1993, p. 11).
7.1 Recording the Circumstances of each Photograph
McCracken (1991, p.13) reminds us that the circumstances in which a photograph was taken should not be forgotten. As you walk down the transect you should record and photograph the major features. You must ensure that you record the location of each photograph, the direction you were facing, and the subject of the photograph. Use the table at the back of this manual to record these details.
In the photographic essay you must use three (3) good quality photos. Each photo must be correctly presented with a figure title and caption, and source statement. It is essential that you record details of your photographs correctly when you are in the field so that you do not have to go back to Cabramatta later to collect the necessary information. Refer to your workshop in Week 10 for more detail on using photographic data.
For each photo you must record:
When the photo was taken: date and time?
What the photo is of: what is the subject of the photo?
Where the photo was taken:
What street or cross-street were you on?
Which direction were you facing?
Type of cultural product (see next page)
You can record this information in the worksheet at end of this manual (see Attachment A)
7.2 Interpreting Landscapes
When you take photographs you should record the culture and type of cultural product, as in the example below.
Table 3: Interpreting Landscapes
Culture Type of Cultural Product Specific Cultural Products and Exact Location
1 Chinese Public statue A pig with litter. The pig is one of the 12 key animals of the Chinese zodiac. John Street, Cabramatta.
2 Russian orthodox Religious site Russian Orthodox Church, John Street, Cabramatta.
1 27940000 2 -1057910762000
APPENDIX A: Table 4: Recording details of your photographs# Date, day and time of day Location Direction you were facing Subject of the photograph (type of cultural product and type of culture)
e.g. Monday 9 September 2020, 11:30am Cnr Park Road and Arthur Street Cabramatta Looking south Pai Lau Gateway, Freedom Plaza, Tourists etc
1 2 3 4 5 right000 APPENDIX B: Information Sheet
INFORMATION SHEET
Self-Guided Field Trip:
People, Place and Social Difference (102170)
This student (name:) is undertaking a self-guided field trip as part of their enrolment in the unit People, Place and Social Difference (102170) at Western Sydney University. The student is required to take photographs of landscapes in this area which show the impacts of international migration and evidence of cultural diversity.
Aims of the Study
To collect evidence of the impacts of multiculturalism on the landscapes of Sydney.
To collect evidence of cultural diversity in Sydney.
To critically reflect upon the field methods used and their advantages and disadvantages compared to secondary data.
Use of the Data Collected
Results of the study will be compiled and analysed as part of the students unit assessment. Students have been told not to take close-up photographs of people or photos that allow people to be identified. They are to delete photographs of private businesses and premises if requested to do so.
Further Information
Should you have any questions relating to this research you can contact the unit co-ordinator Dr Alanna Kamp: a.kamp@westernsydney.edu.au
The School of Social Sciences can be contacted at the following address/telephone numbers:
School of Social Sciences and Psychology
Western Sydney University
Locked Bag 1797 (Kingswood Campus)
Penrith NSW 2751
Telephone: (02) 9852 5943
