Confessions of an Addict

One thing I am excited/scared about for my three months in the field is the inevitable lack of technological connection I will have access to. When I think about losing Facebook, texting, blogs, Pinterest, etc, it may sound pathetic, but it is like I will suddenly be going cold turkey as a smoker after being used to three packs a day. I can honestly say I am addicted to the Internet and my cell phone. Although I'm not alone, as I'm pretty sure most other kids at BYU are also addicted, it is still humbling when you fully realize you have succumbed to a dependency on an inanimate object external to your body. I wonder what it will be like having these things abruptly stripped away for 90 days - probably one of the better things that will ever happen to me.

While pondering this, I have also thought about how as an American, middle class teen I have just fully accepted technological saturation as a natural part of life. For many Ghanaians this is not the case, as well as for the vast majority of the rest of the world. I wonder how this dichotomy of technological exposure makes my life experiences different from those who do not experience mass technology. I know from sociology classes that our social interactions are drastically different in a lot of ways. These types of differences can be seen among Americans between mere generations. However, I wonder if this difference in experience also causes variations in perception, time value, definitions of place, etc. For example, maybe Ghanaians would see it as utterly boring to sit and scroll through Pinterest for an hour, while many American girls find this a great source of entertainment. Or maybe an American boy views his online teammates in a video game to be better friends than the people he physically interacts with at school, a concept that Ghanaians may not be able to relate with. Basically, it is just crazy how although we are all human, what we actually define as the human experience can vary so drastically.

Beginnings in Anthropological Awareness: What I Hope to Gain from this Prep Course

For a long time now I have been obsessed with travel. However, my intentions and perspectives surrounding travel and cultural exposure have drastically changed over the past year and a half. Before delving into the literature behind anthropological theory, especially humbling ideologies like those of Geertz, my view of travel was highly romanticized. I was very much swept away in the exoticism of foreign places, and the novelty of bringing home quaint souvenirs to show off. Even when I had the chance to actually visit parts of Peru, and live in Japan for over a month, I did not allow myself to appreciate and learn from the variety of culture my privilege had allowed me to become exposed to. I breezed through my travels, enjoying them immensely, but taking away a rather shallow experience.

My major in Sociocultural Anthropology has allowed me to begin the process towards better understanding what may be improved options for exploring different cultures. This mental and theoretical development has caused me to ask questions about society I had never thought to ask, and venture thoughts about issues I had not even been aware of before. When I began to think about embarking on a field study to Ghana, Africa, I was wary, and felt much more intimidated because of my new awareness. I have realized it is extremely important for me to develop and understand my own intentions and attitudes as I prepare for this field study, because entering an unfamiliar culture as an outsider does not give me any entitlement, and the way I will learn the most is by realizing how much I have to learn. The more I travel the more I will become aware of how little I know, instead of deciding that because of it I know more.

With this being said, my hope for this preparation course and field study is that I will make much more progress down the pathway I feel I have at least slowly begun. I want to learn the skills necessary to interact in different cultures without coming across as arrogant, and veering as far away as possible from the ignorance born from narrow mindedness. My desire is that the preparation course will be a vehicle for my personal development as a researcher and traveler, into someone who can learn as much as possible from my environment and the people I interact with, and who can suppress my socialized tendencies to make situations about me, turning my thoughts and actions outward instead. I want my experiences in and out of the field to help expand anthropological discourse, and to humble and shape me as I work towards becoming a successful studier of humanity.