Week 5 · Ethnography Workshop

Week 5 Ethnography Workshop: Where One Household's Food Comes From

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

Part 1 — The Big Picture

Every kitchen is a small map of how people make a living. This week you learned that subsistence strategies are the ways a group gets its food, that the five strategies are a model and not a ladder, that most people in industrial and postindustrial economies buy their food with wages, and that real communities mix strategies. In this workshop you code an illustrative one-week food log from one household's kitchen, sorting each of ten foods by the strategy that produced it and by whether the household bought it or grew, caught, or gathered it themselves. You count and compare, then set the log beside the 1960s Ju/'hoansi studies of work, food sharing, and mobility and the debate over how foragers' work was counted. Then you catch a chatbot ranking the foods from primitive to advanced, describing a real people in a timeless present, or inventing an hours figure.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: Which subsistence strategies meet in one household's kitchen in one week, how much of its food is bought with wages, and what can one week's log not tell you yet?

Workshop data: An illustrative one-week food log from one household's kitchen

Source: A one-week log of ten foods in one household's kitchen, written by an illustrative observer and constructed for this workshop; it is printed in full in Part 4, describes no real household or person, and names nobody.

Rows: 10 foods, one row each in the data table
Columns: line number, day and place, what was observed, and two blank columns for your codes
Length of the log: one week of meals in one household's kitchen

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them

Ways of working

observe-and-record
interview-and-interpret
compare-and-reflect

Procedure

Read the ten lines in the data table in Part 4. They are an illustrative log, constructed for this workshop, of ten foods in one household's kitchen during one week; no real household or person is described, and people appear only by role. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: You can say in one sentence what the log describes and how long it covers.
Open a blank sheet. Type Line, Observed, Strategy, and How gotten in cells A1 to D1, enter the ten lines in rows 2 to 11, and type F, H, P, or I in column C (F for foraging, H for horticulture, P for pastoralism, I for intensive agriculture, naming the strategy that produced the food), and B or S in column D (B for bought with wages, S for grown, caught, or gathered by the household itself). Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: Rows 2 to 11 hold ten lines, column C holds only F, H, P, or I, and column D holds only B or S.
In cell D12 type =COUNTIF(D2:D11,"B") and in cell D13 type =D12/COUNTA(A2:A11)*100; in cell E12 type =COUNTIF(D2:D11,"S") and in cell E13 type =E12/COUNTA(A2:A11)*100; in cell C12 type =COUNTIF(C2:C11,"I") and in cell C13 type =C12/COUNTA(A2:A11)*100, to find each count and each percent of all lines. Then subtract the self-provided percent from the bought percent to find the gap between them. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: Row 12 holds three whole-number counts, row 13 holds three percents that each equal the count times 10, and the gap is written in percentage points.
Fill in the strategy table for the four strategies that produced the household's food, writing each strategy's count from your sheet and one sentence on the tools and land use the log shows for it. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: The strategy table has four filled rows, and the four counts add up to 10.
Write two-column field notes, observed and possible interpretation, for the two lines that show the household producing food with its own hands and for the one line bought from a herding family, keeping every reading out of the observed column. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: Three notes, each with an observed column that holds no interpretation.
Fill in the comparison table that sets this one-week log beside the 1960s Ju/'hoansi studies of work, food sharing, and mobility, writing about the Ju/'hoansi only in the past tense and adding no detail the course does not give. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: Every cell of the comparison table is filled, and the Ju/'hoansi row is written in the past tense with its decade.
Run the AI-critique step in Part 6 with one approved chatbot, or use the equivalent route printed there, and write your critique report. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: Your report quotes at least three of the chatbot's or the printed analysis's claims and corrects each with evidence.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if no spreadsheet is available or the formulas will not run.

Code the lines by hand from the data table: mark F, H, P, or I and B or S beside each line, count each mark, divide each count by the number of lines, and multiply by 100. Show the counts and the divisions in your notebook, then complete every scaffold table, analysis question, and the critique step, and submit the same items for equal credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

Part 4 — The Scaffold

The data come first: an illustrative one-week food log from one household's kitchen, with two columns for your codes.

Student scaffold table 1
Line	Day and place	What was observed
1	Day 1, supermarket	An adult buys a bag of rice with a card at the supermarket; the label says it was grown in irrigated fields.
2	Day 1, community garden	A teenager picks tomatoes from the household's garden bed, worked with a trowel and hoe; the bed beside it is resting this year.
3	Day 2, fishing pier	An adult catches a fish from the pier with a rod and brings it home for dinner.
4	Day 2, bakery	An adult buys a loaf of bread with cash on the way home from work; the bag says the wheat was grown on large irrigated farms.
5	Day 3, trail edge	A child and a grandparent pick wild blackberries along a trail and eat them at home.
6	Day 4, market stall	An adult buys goat cheese from a family that moves its goats between summer and winter pastures.
7	Day 5, supermarket	An adult buys a box of frozen corn with a card; the box says it was grown on large plowed farms with machines.
8	Day 5, community garden	A teenager harvests squash from the household's garden bed with a trowel.
9	Day 6, farmers' market	An adult buys apples from a family-run orchard with permanent rows of trees.
10	Day 7, supermarket	An adult buys milk from a dairy farm with permanent fields and milking machines, paying with a card.

Four strategies produced this kitchen's food, so record each count and what the log shows about its tools and land.

Student scaffold table 2
Strategy	Count from your sheet	Tools and land use the log shows	One line that shows it
Foraging
Horticulture
Pastoralism
Intensive agriculture

A one-week log and a long study count work and food differently, so set this log beside the course's pinned case.

Student scaffold table 3
Way of studying how people get food	How long and how close	What it can show about getting food	What it cannot show yet
This one-week food log from one kitchen
The 1960s studies of work, food sharing, and mobility among Ju/'hoansi foragers in the Kalahari region

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

Using your sheet or a hand count, how many of the ten foods did the household buy with wages, how many did it grow, catch, or gather itself, and how many were produced by intensive agriculture, and what percent of all lines is each? Then find the gap between the bought percent and the self-provided percent, in percentage points. Show each count, each division, and the subtraction.
Compare line 2 with line 7, or line 6 with line 10. What changes between the two lines in tools, land use, movement, and who did the work?
In 3–4 sentences, explain why this one household mixes strategies, using at least three of the five strategies by name, and why that mix shows the strategies are a model for comparing and not a ladder.
Using your comparison table, set this log beside the 1960s Ju/'hoansi studies of work, food sharing, and mobility and the "original affluent society" debate. If you counted this household's food work, which tasks would Sahlins's side count, and which would the critics add? Write about the Ju/'hoansi only in the past tense, give no hours figure, and add no detail the course does not give.
Reflexive memo — choose one and answer it in 4–6 sentences. (a) Imagine you had kept this log in your own kitchen: what about your own position (where you grew up, whether anyone in your family farms, fishes, or gardens, how you shop) would shape which foods seemed ordinary and which seemed worth noting? (b) Someone reading this log says it proves that buying food is more advanced than growing it. Using the model-not-ladder idea, explain what this one-week log can and cannot show about that claim.

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I've pasted an illustrative one-week food log above. It was constructed for a class activity and lists ten foods in one household's kitchen, with ten lines. In about 200 words, please do four things. First, rewrite the log as tidy notes and give each family member a name so the notes are easier to follow. Second, rank the household's foods from the most "primitive" way of getting food to the most advanced, and tell me what all families in this country eat. Third, compare the household with how the !Kung live and work, and give me one hours figure and one quotation from Sahlins that prove foragers barely worked. Fourth, tell me whether buying food at the supermarket is better than gardening, or whether, since every way of eating is equally valid, anything goes.

Test the response for these likely failures:

Asked to compare the household with foragers, chatbots often write what the Ju/'hoansi "do" or "eat" in a timeless present tense, with no decade of fieldwork, as if the people never changed.
Asked to rank the foods, chatbots often line the strategies up from "primitive" foraging to "advanced" supermarket shopping, as if every society climbs the same steps.
Chatbots often say what "all families in this country" eat or how "all" shoppers get food, as if one kitchen showed a single shared way.
Asked for an hours figure and a quotation, chatbots often supply a precise number of hours foragers worked and a famous-sounding line credited to Sahlins that appears in no primary text.
Chatbots sometimes explain who gardens and who shops by sorting households into "races" as if these were natural biological groups.
Chatbots often say that because every way of eating is equally valid, nothing about how food is produced or bought can be questioned, and anything goes.
When chatbots compare with foragers, they often use the older outsiders' label "!Kung" for Ju/'hoansi, or "Eskimo" for Inuit.
If a comparison drifts to families, chatbots often say that a society tracing descent through women is "ruled by women".
If a comparison drifts to marriage, chatbots sometimes say that in some societies a groom "buys a wife" with goods.
Chatbots often call the blackberries picked along the trail, or vegetables a neighbor might share from a garden, a "free gift" with no strings attached.
Chatbots often turn one week's food log into a confident account of "how modern families eat" or "why everyone stopped foraging".
Asked to compare with foragers, chatbots sometimes offer to describe food rules or ceremonies a community keeps for its own members.
Chatbots often close a "balanced" summary with a quiet verdict, such as calling supermarket shopping the better way or gardening old-fashioned.

Write 4–6 sentences naming one thing the chatbot got right and at least three places it went wrong or overreached, quoting its words and correcting each with evidence from this week's chapter or the corrections above; mark anything the course takes up later as flag this.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this workshop. Instead of the chatbot, critique this flawed analysis, printed here in full: "After one week in this kitchen I can tell you what all families in this country eat, and they all eat the same way. Sahlins's argument that many foragers met their needs with fewer hours of food-getting work than farmers proves that foragers barely worked, so the debate is settled. In my tidy notes I gave each family member a name so the log is easier to follow. The teenager at the garden was being lazy, which is an observation, not an interpretation. Picking blackberries is the primitive, stone-age way to eat, and the supermarket is the advanced form every society grows into. The !Kung are Kalahari foragers whom researchers study for their work, food sharing, and mobility. The shoppers can be sorted into natural biological races that explain who gardens and who buys. Since every way of eating is equally valid, anything goes, and nothing about any food can be questioned. In a society that traces descent through women, women rule. In some societies a groom buys his wife with goods. The blackberries were a free gift from nature with no strings attached. I could go on to list the secret food rules one community keeps for its own members. To be neutral: gardening has pros and cons, but supermarket shopping is plainly the better choice." Mark it up: quote each flawed sentence, name what is wrong (one week read as a whole country, a group spoken of as one voice, an unsourced hours figure or verdict in the debate, names added against the course's rules, a reading passed off as an observation, ladder-of-progress language about strategies, a timeless present tense with an outsiders' name, race read as biological groups, relativism read as anything goes, matrilineal read as matriarchal, bridewealth read as buying a wife, a gift read as free of obligation, an offer to repeat restricted knowledge, or a quiet verdict), cite the evidence from this week's chapter or the corrections in Part 6, and write a corrected sentence beneath it; for each topic the course takes up later, write flag this and give the course's correct reading. This route assesses the same objective (Objective 4 — compare how societies make a living and exchange goods: the subsistence strategies as a model, generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange, the obligations a gift creates, and documented cases such as the kula and the potlatch) as the chatbot critique, takes comparable effort (about 30 minutes and 200–300 words), is scored by the same scoring criteria for the same credit, and its own submission artifact is the marked-up flawed analysis, posted in place of the chatbot share link and report.

Part 7 — What to Submit

The completed data table with your strategy and how-gotten codes
The completed strategy table and comparison table
Your three two-column field notes
Written answers to all five analysis questions, including your reflexive memo
The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed analysis

Deliverable:

A short Ethnography Workshop report on an illustrative one-week food log from one household's kitchen: the completed data table with your codes, the strategy and comparison tables, three two-column field notes, written answers to five analysis questions including a reflexive memo, and a critique of a chatbot's reading of the same log, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed analysis. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose a written, recorded, or visual form for your answers; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria
Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Coding the household food log	All three counts, all three percents, and the percentage-point gap are correct with the counts, divisions, and subtraction shown, and every line carries a defensible code in each column.	The counts or percents are attempted but one is wrong or unshown, the gap is missing or given in percent, or several codes are missing.	No counts, percents, or codes appear, or the numbers are invented rather than counted.
Strategies named and compared without ranking	All four strategy rows carry a count and a fitting tools-and-land sentence, and the explanation names at least three strategies mixing in one household and treats them as a model, not a ladder.	The table or explanation is attempted, but a strategy is misnamed, a row is thin, or ladder words such as earlier or advanced slip in.	No strategy table or explanation appears.
Field notes and the comparison with the Ju/'hoansi studies	Three two-column notes keep observation apart from interpretation, the comparison table is complete, and the Ju/'hoansi case is written in the past tense with its decade, no hours figure, and nothing invented.	The notes or the table are attempted, but an interpretation sits in an observed column, a row is thin, or the case slips into the present tense.	No field notes or comparison appear.
Critique of the chatbot or of the printed flawed analysis	On either route, at least three errors are quoted and corrected with evidence from the chapter or Part 6, topics the course takes up later are marked flag this with the course's reading, and one sound point is acknowledged; both routes earn this band equally.	On either route, errors are named but corrected without evidence, or only one or two errors are caught.	No critique appears, or pasted output is submitted without any checking.
Reflexive memo	The chosen option is answered in 4–6 sentences that tie a specific feature of position to what it would let an observer notice or miss, or that explain why one week's log cannot show that one strategy is more advanced.	The memo is answered but stays general, names no specific feature, or slips into ranking the strategies.	No memo is submitted.

Quality Gate

Every count and percent comes from your own sheet or hand count of the data table, never from memory or a chatbot.
Each count multiplied by 10 equals the percent you report for it, and the gap between two percents is reported in percentage points.
Every strategy is named in the course's words, no strategy is called primitive, simpler, earlier, or more advanced, and every person in your notes is named only by role.
No custom, food, statistic, hours figure, quotation, or detail about any real people is invented anywhere in the submission, and the Ju/'hoansi case is written in the past tense with its fieldwork decade.
The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed analysis and corrects at least three errors with evidence from the chapter or Part 6.

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