Ethnographic Research paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Ethnographic Research paper - Essay Example This has been made possible due to the rapid growth of industries and technological uses in the daily lives of people. Technology is a very important part of the lives of people around the world at this point of time. This also is due to the fact that the economic processes that take place in the world have a lot to do with the cooperation of people across the globe. For instance several parts of a machine that is to be assembled in a certain part of the world would come from different corners of the world and the entire process would not probably be completed at one place. The after sales services would probably be offered from a place different from all of these depending on a host of factors ranging from the availability of raw material to cheap labor to costs of transport. This paper shall seek to analyze conversations that were had with an Indian friend of mine, Amit Kumar (name changed). The differences of opinion and the misunderstandings that happened during these conversatio ns shall form a part of the analysis. The paper shall look at these conversations through the lens of a multicultural world where the cultures of different people have to be understood properly. They also have to be understood as products of globalization themselves where there may be a disconnect between a person and his or her own culture. Amit Kumar hails from Kerala, a state in the Southern part of India. The place is known for its high rates of literacy and the political awareness that people of this state possess. It is also a state that is very diverse in terms of the religions that people follow here and also the kind of dialects that people use, in different parts of the state. There is however, as a result of the process of modernization, a certain amount of a lack of awareness regarding the pre-colonial cultures and art forms that were a part of that culture. There is thus a rootlessness that the people of Kerala feel at this point of time. This can best be seen in the no vel Roots that was written by the very popular Malayali author Malayattoor Ramakrishnan which talks of the reclamation of the cultural roots of a person (Ramakrishnan, 2000). I talked to Amit Kumar regarding this aspect of the Malayali existence at this point of time. Me: How does it feel to go back home these days, Amit? Amit: It is quite disconcerting. The effects of modernity on the lives of people at home even at this point of time seems to be one that has been imposed without taking into concern the particular social conditions of Kerala. Me: why would you say so? Amit: The very basic elements of our culture are not present in the culture that is sought to be imposed upon us. They are then made to be a part of nothing more than attractions for tourists. Amit here may be referring to exactly what Arundhati Roy refers to her Booker Prize winning novel The God of Small Things. In this book, she talks of the marginalization of indigenous cultural forms and their resurfacing as mere elements of the past that cannot be integrated into modernity. Roy uses the trope of the kathakali dancers to make clear how certain symbols of the Malayali society and postcolonial societies in general have degenerated from being frameworks of signs through which a society used to store its memories to being nothing more than a form of attraction that is set up for tourists to watch and enjoy without realizing the importance that that form of art may have for