RJ 19

November 3, 2009 haleymull

Chapter 7 is all about researching archives (collections of documents and artifacts). The internet allows us to connect with archives and artifacts we never would have been able to many years ago without actually going to see them. Artifacts are useful to study because they are examples of tradition (rituals, behaviors, language, beliefs, culture in general). Archives are also important because they “strengthen your fieldwork through triangulation” (meaning they back up your data). When encountering archival material, the first step is to organize it. There is no right or wrong way to do this, it just must be done. It is important to know what the time period was. Diachronically means according to many points over a length of time and synchronically means according to events, environmental features, or artifacts or items that exist at one period of time. Ethnohistory is a study of the development of cultures. Electronic archives can be easier to research.

Box 31: The keyword I typed in was “Catholic discrimination.” I found many, many results, 3,790,000 to be exact. The first hyperlink took me to a website called Catholic online (catholic.org). It was a blog post of a deacon telling a story of him and his son that lead into discrimination of their religion. This story probably isn’t a good source for my research. The next website was the definition of “Anti-Catholicism” from Wikipedia. Instead of overlooking this source, I went to the bottom of the page and clicked on their sources, most of which usually provide valuable information. Most of the sources were books not found online, but The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice is a book that was hyperlinked and took me to a page about the book. It seems to be about Catholic bigotry, especially within the United States. I feel like this book may boost my knowledge and help my study. The third website was helium.com where anyone could write their thoughts on Catholic bashing: the accepted discrimination. Fourteen people replied to this. Some of them were interesting; some of them were out of control. I wouldn’t use these in my studies – I am focusing on Commerce, TX. But I may be able to parallel views I receive throughout interviews with views like these. The fourth was a lawsuit on Catholic discrimination. This may be interesting to look into- how far has this discrimination gone? All the way to the court system? Is it that serious?  The fifth item was a newsweek.washingtonpost.com where “Catholics are influenced by the bishops,” making it sound like bishops just tend to their “OWN agendas.” I thought the search was interesting. If I wanted to delve deeper and find out more specific information, I would change my keyword. For example, I could do Catholic discrimination in Texas; Catholic discrimination AND Texas; Catholic population in Texas; Catholic background in Texas. Any of these searches would yield different and wonderful results that can be potentially helpful to my research project. I plan to use some sort of internet archive or artifact or simple information to provide information for my ethnography.

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