Ethnographic Claim Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Ethnographic Claim Paper - Essay Example By doing this, they display a fluidity as far as identity is concerned and they test the traditional understanding of space. I chose this ethnographic study with regards to Italian culture at the Angelo’s and Vinci’s restaurant. The restaurant is in California and boasts of a total Italian ambience. What made it interesting as a research target was my swish to see how the people, including staff members and customers, performed within their cultural settings. Among the staff members at the restaurant and customers, I sought to study how the use of space in the restaurant becomes a performative site for Italian culture in their everyday lives. This led me to ask how the staff members and customers perform the Italian culture at Angelo’s and Vinci’s. The people at Angelo’s and Vinci’s demonstrate authentic Italian cultural practices using language and food. Theory Review Migration, especially in the contemporary period, challenges the tradition al comprehension of attachment of identity and place. Different observers have called for a re-examination of the uses and meanings of space as a concept during the discourse of identity (Appadurai 300). The process by which migrants create belonging among themselves shows a new conceptualization and organization of space, also referred to as re-territorialiazation of culture, as well as a redefinition of the collective identities that have undergone de- territorialization. Basch et al (28) frame the re- territorialization as a manner in which there is a reconfiguration of space by various practices, which migrants who migrate between different countries carry out. Anderson (83) deals with the discourses of resistance that are employed, by native or indigenous people, to negotiate for fixed notions of place or race. Just like subjective identity is produced form the performance, so also are localities created by the subjects who represent, perceive, and construct them, over time. Fo rtier (42) investigates the manner in which performance of one collective body utilizes terrains of belonging. He contends that belonging may be inclusive of physical places, although they are not limited to them. While they may utilize these physical places and these places do become belongings, they are more historical and cultural belongings that are reconstructed from cultural practices. Via the expansion of the theory by Butler on performativity, renegotiating space and identity can be seen as the way in which both space and bodies are invested to become representative of cultural identity. Therefore, belonging can be seen as a struggle that seeks to reconcile representation of groups in the way they are viewed by the rest comes close to the way that they view themselves (Basch et al 59). The struggle or negotiation concerning representation deals with simultaneous shifts in subjective identity, as well as its belonging. Concern over place could be especially potent in the cont ext of minority and immigrant communities that have little or no development of institutions. Racial stereotyping and racism could act as a hindrance to the ability of