Ethnographic Fieldwork Assignment

Nalini Sharma
Professor Moran
Anthropology 102
December 3, 2013

Ethnographic Fieldwork Assignment:
FINAL RESEARCH PAPER The subject of our research topic were homeless people. We had chosen this topic out of curiosity and wonder about the cause behind homelessness. Our hypothesis was that alcohol and drugs play an important role and are the leading cause of homelessness and expected more males or an individual homeless person. To conduct our field research we had gone to The Samaritan Center in Simi Valley and interviewed the homeless people. It was really shocking to see that mostly, the homeless people were families with small children. Upon interviewing them we figured that alcohol and drugs had no connection with their homelessness.
They were the Jones family. The Jones family had a husband, wife, a grandmother, and a small 4 year old boy. I didn’t really speak to the grandmother that much. It was just an ordinary hello. I mostly spoke to the couple about everything. They both were college graduates and employed. First, the wife was laid off about a year and a half ago and then the husband about 9 months ago. It was so hard for both of them to find a job. All this time they had been surviving off of their savings but eventually came a point when those were gone too. Now they purity much just live at the center and their car and the center is the one that provides them with food. The couple are just tensed and yet still are trying to find a job. Grandma is just old and quiet keeping all her emotions inside of her. The cute little boy is clueless of what has happened to them. He is just happy in his own little world and plays with other children that came to the center once in a while. I remember not clearly, but while I was observing he was talking about going back home, was kind of depressing. I also, interviewed another couple somewhere in their middle adulthood with no children. They both were working in the same firm due to the economy their firm was laying people off randomly and both of them ended up losing their job. I didn’t go up to the woman as she was on the phone. I decided to talk to an old white man somewhere in his late fifties early sixties. He was by himself. At first I didn’t want to speak to him because I was afraid that what if he yells at me, but then I decided to just go ahead and do it because it would be a different age group , gender, and an interview of a homeless just as an individual. I was being as polite as I can to him and put out my questions to him in the form of a conversation not as an interview so it doesn’t offend him. His name was Timothy Garter. Like everyone child he went to school and