Blog : Ethnography - Prior Assessment: Quidditch

Group:

Daniel Aninag

Xandrix Baluyot
Will Hausman
Jonathan Wiese

Discussion:

For the Ethnography assignment, I have selected the Texas A&M Quidditch group. They are students who simulate and play the fictional sport of Quidditch from the Harry Potter book series. The reason I chose the Quidditch group is because I was curious about the people who would want to try and bring the sport into reality. This fits the criteria for the assignment.

As for my expectations, I believe that interaction with the group would not be too difficult. I perceive that people who would play a fictional sport from a fantasy novel are going to be friendly. They must have love for the sport and the book, if they want to play and share their time with other people. So far, I plan to integrate myself into the group as an observer. I believe this would be an easier method to observing the group than participating. However, I do plan on talking with the members and spend time with them during their activities. Joining the Quidditch group directly would be nice; however, I do not know if I would be able to study the group properly in this manner. Playing Quidditch alongside them may help establish friendships, but it can also reduce time for observations and interviews when we are busy with practice and games.

When approaching the group, I think it would be best to be forward about the reason for being there. I would tell them that I would be doing this for a class. If the people are friendly, they should not find it to be a problem. This would allow us to sit on the side and watch. This way, they will understand why we are there and can stay out of the way if they need to practice. They might even be interested about the study or what we may do with it. It may even be a topic for conversation that can lead to exploring each other’s majors or studies. The people in Quidditch should be composed of a diverse group of students.

 For prior perceptions, I find it weird for people to try and play a magic game from a fantasy novel, especially when reality is void of magic and flight. I think that many of the people who will be there are a group of nerds and fans of the novels out to have fun. This is my reasoning to why they are playing Quidditch in the first place. They might choose to hang about and enjoy other activities or talk about other things during their practice times. I would not label these people as weird, but I would like to see each of their reasons for getting into this game. I think that many of the members may come from different backgrounds instead of similar backgrounds because Harry Potter was a very influential book to many of us growing up.