Riding The Rails, Essay, Research Paper
SEPTA is a major form of transportation for many people in Philadelphia. My fieldwork is going to take place in the Orange Line of Broad Street during the morning rush hour, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the week of March 19, 2001. The purpose is to see examine commuters actions while riding the train. My guiding purpose is to answer many questions I never knew I had until I started doing this research. First I am going to focus on why people sit in a certain part of the train and their reactions to strangers sitting next to them. Next, I am going to examine the type of clothing people wear and what they are actually physically doing while waiting to reach their destination. As a result of boarding the same train every morning, my goal is to see how many of the same people start their morning commute the same. Many of them, including myself, are dressed in business attire. This fieldwork is going to include the field notes, cultural relativism thick description and participant observation (Tran 1/25/01). I am going to involve myself in this fieldwork by changing my usual routine by sitting in a different seat, starting conversations with other passengers
A major theory for this fieldwork is going to be Boas theory of cultural relativism. Philadelphia is very diverse; as a result there are many different genders and nationalities of people on the subway. Boas believes the range of culture is so diverse that any association with race is impossible (Boas in Bohannan &Glazer 1988:83).
The fieldwork begins on Monday, March 19,2001. I am standing on the platform of the Fern Rock Transportation Center in North Philadelphia at 7:45 AM. This station is very popular for commuters because of the availability of parking. On the platform, there are about thirty-five people waiting for the train to arrive. There are many more women than men, most with suits, carrying briefcase. Many of these people are Caucasian but the majority is African- American. To the left of me, there is an Asian woman carrying a large pocketbook. I have seen her many times before on the same early train that I take when I am on the way to work on Monday. We say a brief hello, which is usually the extent of our conversation. Standing to my right is a black man dressed in construction clothes carrying a mini cooler, which I assume is holding his lunch or snacks and heading to work at a construction site.
As the local train begins to board, I take my usual seat on the side closest to the door, so not to step over anyone when my stop nears. The Asian woman usually sits directly across from me. She is reading the paper she had purchased earlier from the singing newspaperman on the top of the platform. I notice she turns the paper to the middle for the horoscopes and begins reading her way back to the front.
After a few minutes of observing her actions, the train pulls into Olney Station. The doors open and about twenty-five people that board the train. Many find seats, while a few chose to stand by the door. An older black woman takes a seat next to me and notes that fact that the book I have in my hand is very good. The woman is dressed in a flowered dress and a has a bag in her hand. I turn my head and notice she is carrying pamphlets on Jesus Christ. She is reading a part of the bible in JOB. As the train begins to stop at the North Philadelphia station, the woman gathers her belongings and heads to the door, not before handing me a pamphlet and telling me, Jesus is in all of us if you look in the right places. I smile and tell her thank you as I put the pamphlet in my bag for future reading material.
As my stop at Cecil B. Moore gets closer I notice that many of the people I boarded the train had gotten off at Erie to board the express train they had missed earlier. The construction worker had departed at Hunting Park, but not before taking a quick pull of a cigarette, in between the cars of the train. I wonder why he could not wait until he made it outside.
The next morning, I board the same train and notice many of the same people from the previous day. The Asian woman is standing next to me. We exchange our usual greeting. On this day I decide to use participant observation in evaluating my fieldwork studies. This is going to be an intense interaction with some of my informants. Instead of sitting in my normal across from the Asian woman, I take a sit next to her. She begins her usual routine of reading the paper from the horoscopes back to the front. This time I finally ask her for the reason why she always starts to read paper from the middle. At first she looks a little startled, but explains that it is easier to start with the good news then end with the bad. As a result of that conversation, I find out a lot more information about my informant. I told her that I go to Temple and I found her actions really different. Her name is Jihae and she came from China sixteen months ago to live with her brother. She currently works at a jewelry shop in Chinatown so she can save enough money to go to Temple. Jihae was wearing a jacket that had the logo from the Hard Rock Caf in London. She has never been to England but has always wanted to go. In the middle of our conversation, the train stops at Erie station. As the people board and leave the train I notice a man who was dresses in tattered clothing sit in the seat behind us. All of a sudden a smell makes us and all the passengers next to us jump from our seats. The man had defecated in the seats and was laughing. We were so overcome with the smell everyone left the car. When I got myself situated I noticed that my informant had disappeared.
On the final day of my observation on the Broad Street Line, I change my routine by a few minutes. This time I decide to board the train at 8AM. There are more people on the train. Most of them are students on their way to school. As I wait for everyone to get situated in a seat I notice that there were a couple of people rushing to the seat on the side where I usually sit. I wonder if it is for the same reason as me, so not to step over anyone when the designated stop arrives. Most of the riders are generally mixed in race and age. Many of them, including the students are reading Septa s paper, Metro. As I look around I notice a woman sitting in the aisle seat. I assume so no one would sit next to her. I then begin to move towards to take a seat next to her. As I stop and look at her, the woman rolls her eyes and moves over. Judging from her form of non-verbal communication, the woman was really annoyed with a stranger seated next to her. She departed the train at Logan. The second she got up from her seat a Muslim man dressed in traditional clothing, sits next to me and says, Salaam Alaickal my sister. I respond back the proper Muslim way by saying, Alaickal Salaam . The man seems stunned then asks if I am Muslim. I tell him no, my best friend is, that is why I responded. The man then tells me that he was once Christian, but found the Muslim faith in college. He told me I should consider converting. I kindly responded that I was brought up to be Catholic by my parents and that I have no intention of converting. After listening to the his reasons conversion was absolutely necessary for me, my stop finally arrived. I told him bye and thanked him for the information.
In conclusion, my fieldwork on the Orange Line of Broad Street answered all of my guiding questions. Participant observation played a very important role in the field. I was able to get involved in Jihae s activity of reading the paper from the middle to the front. I also managed to get a woman a little upset with me by sitting next to her when she did not want the company. As for the Muslim man, even though I did not chose to speak with him, our conversation was very interesting. My goal was to see how negatively these people reacted to strangers, either verbal or nonverbal. Boas theory cultural relativism played an important role because no one notices race in people. Everyone is dressed and acted alike while riding the subway. The majority of the riders were either reading or talking with others. When the man went to bathroom in the train, everyone had the same negative reaction. Thick description is another key point in researching my fieldwork. It is the ethnographic writing in which, through careful attention to detail and context, there is an integration of description with interpretation (Geertz in Bohannen and Glazer 1988:530). I was able to draw my conclusions of people because of the way they were dressed or the way they spoke. By being self-reflexive, I was able to understand how we are so we could evaluate others, it is a way of understanding the cultures of others (Tran 1/16/01). Self-reflexivity was very useful with my conversations with Jihae and the Muslim man. The most important part of my fieldwork was actually getting involved with my informants to gain a better insight how and why they behave the way they do.
Boas, Franz. In High Points in Anthropology, edited by
Paul Boahannan and Mark Glazer. Second Edition.New
York: Mcgraw Hill, Inc. 1988.
Geertz, Clifford. In High Points in Anthropology, edited
Paul Bohannan and Mark Glazer. Second Edition. New
York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. 1988.
Tran Hoa, Class Lecture. Anthro Co61.Temple University.
1/18.1/25.2001.
The Philadelphia Orange Line 2001