SOC212H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Ethnography, Seed, Drug Lord
Document Summary
Soc is diverse, can study anything, fewer accepted practices than in science: picture of pigeons jerolmack (don"t need to know) Observed intro of pigeons to modern american cities, their interactions reflect human social organization. Perspectives: absolutist: collective consciousness of right vs wrong, relativist: depends on context, social power: laws created to protect interests of powerful groups, based on conflict perspective. Hard to study deviance bc ppl hide or flaunt status: ex. Mark emmery, vancouver pot drug lord, flaunts drug lord status to help decriminalize pot: subjects rarely analyze or are defensive of behavior, dangerous deviance can by risky to researcher. Theory: assumptions of how deviance is caused/ identified, what concepts drive it, testable predictions hard to do bc subjective (ex. interviewees may rate their comfortability out of 10 differently) Generalizability is rigorous & useful: statistical: probabilistic sampling claims observed patterns can apply to ppl not studied, theoretical: investigation claims concepts/theories can apply to scenarios not studied.
