My Perspective...

             Although this picture may seem weird for a blog about the Beef Barn... this picture explains the purpose of this post perfectly! As I am preparing to go out to my field site, I am thinking about some of my perspectives. My biggest concern is that my "rose colored lenses" picture the Beef Barn as some highly regarded establishment where I connect it with family and bonding over food. I am fully aware though, for some people they may see it as a small, inconvenient restaurant with greasy and overpriced food.

With my field site, I can’t foresee having any difficulties getting an objective view of the place or interviews with customers and employees based on my fixed positions. Examples of fixed positions would include my gender, race, where I live, age, etc. Actually, where I live may help me out. The Beef Barn is in my hometown of North Smithfield, and I sometimes recognize people from town eating there. If they know I’m also a “local”, they may be more willing to give me a thorough interview. If I wasn’t American, I’d have a very different view of a place like the Beef Barn. Americans go out to eat all the time and we are known for having fast food places. If I researched a restaurant in a different country, it’d definitely be different than a restaurant here.

Another obstacle is my subjective position. This is what I hinted at earlier, how my life experience and personal history may shape how I see the place. I understand that some people will not have the same personal connection with the Beef Barn. I know some people in my family who are don’t like the taste of the burgers, think the fries are under seasoned and hard, and would prefer McDonalds. Although I don’t agree with it, I respect their views. This means my report back on the Beef Barn may be different from the perspective of a vegetarian who was also studying the Beef Barn. Another interesting aspect is the fact that I grew up eating all my dinners at home, sitting at the table with my family, with the TV off. That is so uncommon now! I don’t know many families who even have home cooked meals. Going out to eat used to be for only special occasions. If it was one of our birthdays, or we were celebrating, we could pick somewhere to eat. Now you see families eating out or ordering take out almost every night, then not even eating together. Some may be in front of the TV, some may be eating in their rooms, and some may not even eat with their family at all. It’d be interesting to ask some of the waitresses and waiters the majority of people they serve, if most of the orders are from families trying to get a quick bite to eat, or from families all sitting together talking instead of everyone looking down at their phones. Another little fun fact is that whenever I go and eat at the Beef Barn I have always ordered a grilled cheese. I am not a vegetarian, but I prefer the grilled cheese to a meat sandwich. So will my view of a heavy, greasy burger from the grill influence how I describe their food? We will have to wait and see if my ordering habits affect how I describe other people’s orders.

The final position some people may encounter problems with is called textual positions. I don’t believe I’ll have this problem because I won’t be using a language that is unfamiliar to the people I’m studying. The ones I’m studying are similar to me, so I’m not an outsider. I won’t be referring to the people who eat in my home town as “those people” because it makes me sound like I’m above them, when I’m definitely not. The language or accent I may use when I talk will be familiar to the people in the Beef Barn as well.

I’m excited to start my research on the Beef Barn! I’m very interested in reading my final report back about the Beef Barn, to see if any of my perspectives leaked into the paper. It’s impossible for me to remain completely subjective, considering my personal history with the place, but it helps when you can recognize that you do have different perspectives from another person.