Ethnography and Anthropology: Exploring Culture through Qualitative Research - Essay Sample

Introduction

Notably, ethnography and anthropology are related terms in the cultural perspective. Ethnography is a qualitative research methodology centered on understanding the world from the social relationship perspective. It is focused on cultural diversity and human behavior. Consequently, the ethnography entails a hand on the scene, learning about the people, and their interaction with nature, which might include primates. It is the central method of cultural anthropology and socialism. It further integrates humanities and social sciences since it is useful in capturing the first-hand information from the field.

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Most importantly, it sources its relevancy through personal experience study (Wolf, 2012). On the other hand, the focus and observation can also be through observing the ongoing behavior to analyze the trend or by studying the past event as outlined by the anthropology. Anthropology is a field consisting of humans. It tries to conceptualize aspects of human exposure through subfield, such as archeology, to observe the characteristics of humans in the past (Evans-Pritchard, 2013). Therefore, this article seeks to focus and analyze the Nobu Mini Ethnography on a cultural scene.

The Description of the Nobu Malibu Mini Ethnographic Scene

Nobu Malibu is a restaurant in California that is known for offering delicious dines, partying, clubbing, as well as hosting various ceremonies and events (Imai, 2010). The restaurant is mainly known for its gorgeous view of the ocean and its countless celebrity sightings. Everything about the venue is sumptuous, from the grand open the door to its dark lavish color palette and even the patio overlooking the ocean. Nobu Malibu Restaurant is a well-furnished building that operates between 5 PM to 9 PM Monday to Friday, and 11 AM to 10 PMPM on Weekends. As it was approaching the birthday of my best friend on February 10th, 2020, I took the chance to go and act like an anthropologist. My friends invited many people. Therefore, this was an opportunity for me to conduct my observation without revealing my mission of qualitative data collection to them because knowing my intention could have limited their behavior during the celebration, and this would have provided me with biased information. In American culture, turning 21is a fascinating "new chapter" for many people. This is the time when people can socially drink legally, which can be very exciting for some. For this special day, my friend took us to Nobu Malibu to celebrate her birthday. I attended this birthday dinner with 10 other ten friends who were all also college students. We were dressed up in cocktail dresses in hopes of best fit in with others.

None of us had ever been to a restaurant like this before. As we are first entered the restaurant, one could notice the peaceful sounds of the ocean waves splashing. The view of the ocean is very breathtaking. As one enters, he or she sees the waiting area and bar to your right side and the front desk reception to the left. Going forward is the dining area, all with amazing views of the ocean. The venue has an overall dark tone with lighting coming from centerpieces at each table or from the large fireplace. This gave the restaurant a very romantic and warm theme to it, which felt very cozy and luxurious at the same time. Most of the colors visible were different shades or either black or brown. There was very soft music playing in the background, but conversations could still be easily overheard. The people involved in this dinner included the valet staff, waiters, frequent high-class customers, and sporadic customers like us. During my time at this dinner, many things particularly stood out to me throughout the night. I was able to observe how different dress codes, rituals, and gender or race roles all play out in different social classes and can be even used to categorize people generally.

Dress codes can be very distinguishable in our everyday lives. During my dinner, I noticed three different styles of dress codes, and each can give insight into the different social classes. First, I was able to observe people dressed in business attire. It was very evident that they obtained a very significant role in their class, and they seemed to be dining in after a long day at work. The males were wearing black and white suits while the females came in wearing dresses with lovely bags and heels. Their attire was noticeably high end, and they seemed to fit in very well. Secondly, there were the people who wore very comfortable attire such as designer sweatpants. It appeared to those people that attending a beautiful place like Nobu was casual. This was a sign that they were frequent visitors, but they also were able to afford a place like it. Lastly, some people only visited the site for special events or occasions like ourselves. We wore very casual cocktail dresses but nothing extravagant or luxurious. None of us carried designer handbags, and even a couple of us wore jeans. Clothing was a very obvious way to distinguish the different social classes which ranged from high to "college student."

Some rituals at many restaurants that can be observed would include waiting to be seated, sitting down, ordering drinks, ordering food and then receiving the food. One thing that I noticed was how much food certain people ordered than others. I noticed how our table of college students tended to share plates while many others around us didn't. This can distinguish social classes because those who have more money can order much more food compared to college students like ourselves who were only able to afford to share an expensive plate. Many of the plates were an average of $40 which is not typically what most college students can afford on a daily basis but those in higher social classes might be able to do so if they desired.

Also, I was able to observe is how most people that came in were in parties of two, usually couples, except for those celebrating special occasions. This can distinguish different social classes because those that generally seem to dine casually after work tend to do so with just another person and not a whole group. They eat here as a form of relaxation and act in a very sophisticated manner. Their small talk sounded like they were mostly catching up with their day. A conversation that I happened to overhear would be “Were you able to get Connor to practice on time?” This was a conversation from what sounded to be a father to his wife. This opposes those who dine-in only on special occasions. They are likely to bring more people along with them to celebrate this rare occasion. They seemed to have more nervous gestures. One thing I noted was how those unfamiliar with the place tended to look around more which was an insight on how frequently they visited the place. Most importantly, the English languge culture enable us to be at per with the restaurant attendants.

Consequently, I closely observed ethnographic scene involving gender and race. As we parked our car I realized the entire valet workers were males and mostly Latino. Contrary to when we entered the restaurant, most of the staff were female and white. This strong difference between the outside workers being male and Latino while the inside workers were white females shows different social constructs that lead up to the different genders and races playing the distinct roles in society. Many other factors play a role in distinguishing someone's social class and there could always be exceptions. Although, for the main part, the difference in dress codes, rituals, and gender or race roles was an indicative factor of determining someone's social class. These were just some of the main observations I made but they are usually distinct among those in different classes. All of which is an association to wealth. The more someone spends on their food, clothing, how much money they make or how frequently or not they visited lavish restaurants like Nobu are all tied into social class in one way or another. The more money spent and earned are ways to be classified into a higher social class. For college students like us although, we were the black sheep who were not able to match our social class to most of those who were dining with us.

Application of the Four Anthropological Concepts

During my observational study of the Nobu Malibo Restaurant, I borrow ideas from the four anthropological concepts which include the communication, ethnicity, ethnocentrism (Kozaitis, 2018), and kinship language. I realized that our knowledge of the English language enabled us to communicate effectively with the restaurant employees during the celebration . Either, we could use English language to communicate among ourselves as we sing to our friend who was celebrating her 21st birth day. However, we realized that we could not interpret some p of the conversation between some group of white races who I believed belonged to a different kinship language. Conseqeuntly, we felt inferior to other group of peole inside the restaurant because we felt they were superior than us because we were black. We belived their culture were more superior than ours and therefore , we having an ethnocentrism feeling (Kozaitis, 2018). Similarly, we felt low because of ethnicity because most people at the restaurant were from white race and ethnic group.

Concisely, it was a real exposure on my life. I learnt that people portray different characters when they are alone. I also realized that in the Nubo Malibo, things were very expensive and emphathize with my friends on the amount of dollars she used to pay for the meal bills. Either, I realized that anthropological concepts such as ethnicity, kinshiplanguage, communication, as well as ethnocentrism play a significance role in shaping peole’s behavior and reaction duriung a social interaction. The background of people will limit them to a particular social class. In most cases, people will tend to interact with eact other based on one’s culture, social class and status, as well as economic and kinship status. Most importantly, it was a memorable day because I trained myself as anthropologist collecteing data that helped me analyze human behavior in a particular set up.

References

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (2013). Social anthropology. Routledge.

Imai, S. (2010). Nobu and After: Westernized Japanese Food and Globalization. Food and Social Identities in the Asia Pacific Region.

Kozaitis, K. A. (2018). Ethnocentrism. The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 1-3.

Wolf, Z. R. (2012). Ethnography: the method. Nursing Research: A Qualitative Perspective. Jones and Barlett Publishers, 285-335.