Short Assignment 4: Walking & Thinking Observation (Use those articles below) Be

Short Assignment 4: Walking & Thinking Observation (Use those articles below)
Bernhard: “…we can observe someone else without his knowledge (or his being aware of it) and observe how he walks or thinks, that is, his walking and thinking…” (74).
How to complete this assignment:
Find a public place in Burlington where you can easily observe people walking. They can be walking in groups or alone, it is up to you.
Observe the scene discreetly for at least 10 minutes. The easiest way to do this is to find a place where you can sit quietly and then simply watch what is going on. Do not talk to or interview people for this assignment.
Take notes on what you see. Make sure you do not find yourself so focused on taking notes that you do not watch what is going on but try to capture important points so you can describe them later on.
Pay attention to:
How people interact with each other while walking. Are they walking with a group? Alone? What happens when groups or individuals encounter each other? Who moves and how?
Aspects of how one or more specific individuals walk. Describe, in rich detail, the walk (gait, tempo, energy, posture, etc.). How would you illustrate the look and feel of the walk to someone who is not there?
Write a short (300-500 word) analysis of what you observed that addresses the following points.
Include a general description of what you saw. Summarize your observations to identify important patterns and include a detailed description of an individual’s walk.
Considering the Mauss, Bernhard and Gutierrez texts, how were people walking in relationship to their thinking? In relationship to social norms and expectations? In relationship to their environment? Use one or more of the following quotes from the texts to help analyze what you saw.
Mauss: “The position of the arms and hands while walking form a social idiosyncrasy, they are not simply a product of some purely individual, almost completely psychical arrangements and mechanisms.” (p. 72)
Bernhard: Walking or thinking more intensely? Excellent walker or excellent thinker? Can you “know how (he) thinks” based on the walk? Does the person “walk with (their) mind?”
Gutierrez: “Our culture is confused by bodies that it cannot understand. Or maybe it’s better to say that we are confused by bodies that we do not understand.
Based on their walk what do you know about the people you observed?