The point of this exercise is to identify a potential site for studying consumers in your context. Note that we do not expect you to include ethnographic data into the final presentation or report, but you are welcome to include such data if you so wish.

  • Come up with a potential place where you feel you could observe the consumer behaviour that your group project wants to study
  • Go to this place (with adequate COVID-19 caution!) and using the Spradley Matrix (1980) from MyCourses and make preliminary observations on what data you could gather across these dimensions.
    • See MyCourses for a version that explains the relations between these dimensions. We encourage you to print out the template from MyCourses and take it with you to the field.
    • You may take photos and video, but be considerate of people’s privacy
  • Use as much time as you like, but we recommend that you spend at least 60 minutes in the venue (can be split into shorter periods). Actively take notes as you go.
  • The deliverable itself is a 2-4 page report (12 bullet point font, 1,5-line spacing) with:
    • Start with a brief description of the location or context of your choosing
    • Provide engaging and vivid description of how this location “operates” from an ethnographic perspective where you draw from your matrix observations.
    • Elaborate the location by focusing on at least 15 combinations of dimensions (for example, actor-space; emotion-activity; actor-actor) from the Spradley matrix and explain why these dimensions are the most relevant dimensions for understanding the context o Include your original field notes as an appendix (does not count towards the page count)

The assignment is 10% is overall grade.


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