For this assignment, I’ve been tasked with writing up my topic idea for my dissertation and proposal and what will be my research and writing technique.

What’s my idea?:

My focus will be on Topoanylis, which is the study of human identity as it relates to the places in people’s lives. (e.g: The house I grew up in is an essential part of my childhood since I have many memories there and it was quite a big step to move out of my childhood home into halls, and soon my old house will be just a memory since my parents will be moving out of it soon.) This study will act as a story and sensory anthropology report, the format I have chosen for my dissertation is a 6000-word conference paper along with a slideshow presentation.

Why did I pick this particular subject?:

Last term I wrote an essay on “story anthropology”, the name of my essay was “The transition of a person through negativity”, in this I explained how a person can go through life after a bad turn in their life can start changing and feeling new things and to some extent contribute something positive toward something or others. So when I was given feedback on my work, my lecturer suggested that I explore topoanylis if I wanted to continue this sort of theme for my dissertation and  I believe that my last essay was very successful.

What’s so important about this topic?

This topic is supposed to give people a new interpretation of life as I did for the other one, I gave my own commentary on human behavior and society, so with the recommendation from my lecturer to further explore this subject, I want to give people a new sense of familiarity and a way of seeing into someone else’s mind. Another reason why this topic is important is for me personally, writing my last essay gave me the chance to write my own commentary by comparing my world views to others and to give people the sense I feel, and while I really enjoyed writing and felt I was really good at reading, writing and understanding anthropology, especially the specific topic I was writing about, so I really want to continue writing in this type of subtext.

What are going to be my research methods?:

A good way to start is by revisiting the book I read and referenced to for my last essay, Sarah Pink’s Home truth gender, domestic and everyday life, since in her book she commentates on a person’s daily life around the house, narrowing it down to the smells, the sights, the feels and the experiences to establish a person’s identity (e.g she mentions that for housewives certain sentiments aren’t necessarily forms of familiarity and because of this some housewives could experience oppression, isolation, depression, loneliness, and even disempowerment with isn’t conterminous with a house wive’s identity) another thing to do is research more authors/philosophers who specialize in this kind of topic.

How am I going to write it out?

For both the dissertation and proposal, I will take the massive word count and divide it by categories which will then limit the word count to each category, when all typed up and combined it will complete the entire word count.

 

Book: Pink, S, 2004, Oxford, Berg