Blogging Assignment 1

Joan Brumberg presents the very controversial topic of adolescent and young adult body image in her book Body Projects.  While the topic of Brumberg's study is fascinating, the analysis of her writing is an interesting study in ethnography.  Fieldworking defines culture as "the behaviors, patterns, rules, and rituals of a group of people who have contact with one another and share common languages."  Brumberg chronologically analyzes the history of how adolescent, female culture has changed.  The females mentioned in Brumberg's book share a common desire to modify their bodies in order to fit an ideal.  This is an example of culture because the girls share behaviors, and rules.  The definition is complicated, however, by the phrase "share common languages", because the girls don't have a language different from the rest of society.  Because the girls share common values, though, they have formed a subsect among themselves within society.