When I have taught sociology i have given students an assignment that required them to look at a slice of their own culture from a more objective perspective. Prompted by Dr. Paul Colomy from the University of Denver, I ask students to look more closely as social behaviors and attempt to decipher social patterns. Students noticed that males drove cars and paid for dinner dates more often than females, that their high school teachers did most of the talking in classes, that strangers in elevators avoided eye contact, etc. This was an attempt to make the unconscious conscious and thereby take a more analytical look at one's own social behaviors - recognizing norms and structures. We called the assignment a "Pattern Paper" as students were encouraged to see social patterns, see order, see institutional norms where before they may have not seen anything. Hopefully, by encouraging students to increase their awareness they also gained an ability to question, reflect, and ultimately take more control of their lives??? And be more respectful of differences?
As students in anthropology we attempt to do something different, at least initially. We "do ethnographies," that is, as participant observers in a different culture, we attempt to notice their behaviors, their norms and practices and social patterns without ethnocentric judgment. Anthropology takes a relativistic perspective, assuming that what strangers do makes sense from within that world view. We bracket our own tendency to judge others from our perspective and attempt to see and accept and understand others from within their own social context.
And then ultimately we are able to better see ourselves from that other's point of view? Is this not what is needed in order to have true dialogue?
