Find - Observe - Record

We brainstormed the topics of the people on my table and thought about potential questions and themes to think about and also about how these could be researched. I found this really useful as it assured my that my topic did have some potential in it because I wasn't sure whether it did before. It needs a lot more work and refinement before developing a good argument but I guess this will come with my continued research and exploration of themes. 

Ideas raised when talking about my topic:

Are nationalities becoming obsolete?

Do we need to be categorised?

Should our nationalities define us as people?

Is it more effective to be identified by our culture rather than by our country of birth?

Does sentimentality keep people tied to their nation?

Nationality is a manmade idea, culture is a living, existing thing. 

Borrowing of cultures.

Clothing trends / markets / world foods. 

Blending of nationalities. 

Will we all become one huge race as nationalities continue to blending. 

Ideas raised when talking about other people's topics but are still relevant to mine:

Cross cultural awareness. 

Diversity

Cultural appropriation.

I found this task quite easy in the group because we could just let our minds wander and come up with loads of ideas for each person's topic which as really useful for everyone. It was afterwards, when looking at the mind maps that I realised this project could be quite difficult to handle because most topics have so many different potential avenues to explore, it may be hard to stay on track and narrow my topic to a specific argument. 

Find - Observe - Record

We went outside and recorded things relating to our topics, through photography, writing, drawing and collection of physical objects. This is what I gathered in half an hour. 

There are influences from food all over the world that we take for granted. 

Italian pizzas, nachos, herbal teas, Italian coffees, pastas, to name a few in these examples. 

What nationality are these people?

Do we make an instant judgement about their nationality purely from their way of expressing their culture? 

Their headscarves symbolise their devotion to a certain religion but their nationality or what they consider their nationality to be is totally unknown to us without talking to them about their lives. 

This made me think about how language divides us a human race. Your language normally suggests an idea about your nationality but this is not a definite thing. It does tell us something about your culture and experience though.  

These are about music, art and dance, all key themes in culture. These are showing our awareness of other cultures but also maybe a lack of knowledge and appreciation. For example, the poster with a quote from Buddha on it may be used purely for decorative purposes and the actual meaning of the image itself may not be recognised. 

A lot of this material is linked to the idea of nationality and cultures blending and how we barely notice the influence that other countries have on our daily life. If we don't notice the original nationality of products, why is it necessary to acknowledge the nationality of a human being?

At first I found this task was quite hard because admittedly, my usual first point of call when it comes to research is the internet, closely followed by books. Going outside and finding examples in the real world seemed a bit alien and I felt a bit lost about where to begin. However, as the time went on, I felt this task made it even more difficult to stay on track because anything vaguely related to my theme attracted my attention. I suppose this a good thing at this point because I want to get a good range of research before making an informed decision about my chosen argument.