What are you doing?

In his book Syrian Episodes, anthropologist John Borneman proposes to use an experiential method in his ethnographic fieldwork: rather than asking people specific questions or getting them to talk about particular customs, he simply goes along with the flow of things and examines the culture from these instances. Part of his method includes using the questions people ask him—especially the questions regarding his identity—and using those to understand the people and culture he is studying (which, in his case, is Syria).

We decided to take Borneman's "questions method" and see how it would work for us. We sent an email out to a number of our friends and acquaintances who we knew had either studied abroad or spent a significant amount of time outside of the United States, meaning they were not interacting with the people in that country as a tourist might; they had been given a chance to get to know the people and the country on a deeper level. In this email, we asked our friends to try to identify some of the questions they were most commonly asked and why they thought they were asked those questions. We also had them identify where they went and how long they were there for.

While many of the questions were common questions ("Where are you from?" "What are you studying?" "Do you enjoy it here?"), some of the questions were very unusual; even more than that, the ways our friends interpreted the questions were very intuitive and demonstrated an understanding of the people with whom they had lived for so many months.

There is a general consensus that many of the questions were aimed at confirming if these Americans conformed with the ideas that were held of Americans in that place and time; this can be seen in the number of times people were asked if they were from either New York or California (perceivably the only places Americans come from) as well as the questions people were asked about the upcoming US elections.

Other questions often had to do with "getting to know you" or "because they were curious". We think this is a way of people trying to organize other people into categories or schemas as a way of understanding the world. This way of classifying the people one meets through a few basic questions allows one to make assumptions about that person which can help determine the best way in interact with that person in line with one's own cultural mores. Some of the most interesting questions came from people who differed from their hosts' expectations.

We'll be posting updates as we get new emails. Please feel free to comment on the posts regarding similar experiences, or just your thoughts on the subject. If you have been abroad and had questions posed to you which you found interesting, go ahead and email either of us and we can create a new post with your story!

Alysa & Allison