Browse Exhibits (1 total)

The year 2020 made us grapple with white supremacy straight on. Students, faculty, and staff engaged in different actions from demonstrating, digging deeply into our disciplinary complicities, and writing statements, to organizing mutual aid. It is in this context that this project came about in 2021. What better way to learn qualitative research methods than to investigate the neighborhood we live and study in and how supremacy is present, reproduced, and challenged here? In the fall of 2021, students investigated specific corners of the neighborhood focusing on business, advertisement, political activism, norm-breaking, and the use of parks and recreational areas in the neighborhood. 

Two years later, in the fall of 2023, a new group of students embarked on ethnographic group projects in the Macalester – Groveland neighborhood in St. Paul. Each group project composed a piece of the mosaic of the neighborhood where Macalester College is located. Each group selected a location and each member conducted seven (7) participant observations and conducted two interviews with users/clients of the chosen locales. Before setting foot in the field, we learned about the concept of “racial grammar” (Bonilla-Silva 2012) that shapes everyday life, referring to the deep structure that guides how we see, talk about, and even feel racial matters, how this grammar manifests in social interactions, and how this grammar is reinforced and challenged. By using the same concept, students learned how to employ theory to analyze empirical data and make an argument. In addition to learning research skills, students learned to work in small groups throughout the semester, honing their group and collaborative skills. 

Kate, Julia, Ada: Metro Transit -A Line & 63

Cooper, Joseph, Maura: The Monument/Shadow Falls Park: The Hidden Abode of Recreation 

Yair, Abby, Murphy: Shadow Falls: An Anomalous Public Space

Francesca, Kendall, Louise: Expanding the Racial Grammar Through the Lens of Consumption: Whole Foods and Trader Joe's

Lois, Sam, Audrey: Kowalski's: Wealth and Whiteness in the Macalester Groveland Neighborhood

Maoli, Haoxuan, Michelle: Simplicitea and Starbucks

 Jesse, Felipe, Ben, Rhiannon: Dunn Bros