Week 7 · Ethnography Workshop

Week 7 Ethnography Workshop: Who Keeps Order on a Garden Work Day?

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

Part 1 — The Big Picture

Every group keeps order somehow, even one with no police and no courts. This week you learned that power is the ability to make others act, that authority is power people accept as rightful, and that legitimacy is that acceptance. You also learned that gossip, ridicule, shunning, and the threat of supernatural sanction keep order alongside law, and that disputes are settled by negotiation, mediation, or adjudication. In this workshop you code an illustrative two-hour field log of twelve moments at a community garden work day, sorting each into authority, power without authority, a means of social control, or a settled dispute. You count and compare, then set the garden's disputes beside one documented form, the public song contests that early twentieth-century accounts describe among Inuit communities. Then you catch a chatbot ranking gossip below law, calling the coordinator a chief, or describing a real people in a timeless present.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: How was order kept on one garden work day, how much of it rested on informal social control and how much on formal rules, and what can one morning's log not tell you yet?

Workshop data: An illustrative two-hour field log of how order was kept on a community garden work day

Source: A two-hour log of twelve moments on a work day at a community garden, written by an illustrative observer and constructed for this workshop; it is printed in full in Part 4, describes no real garden or person, and names nobody.

Rows: 12 moments, one row each in the data table
Columns: line number, time and place, what was observed, and two blank columns for your code and your reason
Length of the log: one morning work day, about two hours, at one community garden

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 twelve lines in the data table in Part 4. They are an illustrative log, constructed for this workshop, of one morning work day at a community garden; no real garden 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, and Code in cells A1 to C1, enter the twelve lines in rows 2 to 13, and type one code in column C: A for authority, P for power without authority, R for ridicule, G for gossip, S for shunning, F for a formal rule with a set consequence, D for a dispute that gets settled, or X for a borderline line you set aside to discuss rather than count. 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 13 hold twelve lines, and column C holds only A, P, R, G, S, F, D, or X.
In cell C14 type =COUNTA(A2:A13)-COUNTIF(C2:C13,"X") to find how many lines you coded. In cell D14 type =COUNTIF(C2:C13,"R")+COUNTIF(C2:C13,"G")+COUNTIF(C2:C13,"S") to count informal social control, and in cell D15 type =D14/C14*100. Repeat in column E for F and in column F for A, then write each percent in words. 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 14 holds the coded total and three whole-number counts, and row 15 holds three percents written beside their meaning.
Fill in the order table, writing each kind's count and percent from your sheet and one line from the log that shows it, then fill in the dispute table, naming the route for each settled dispute and who made the final decision. 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 order table has five filled rows whose counts add up to your coded total, and the dispute table names a route and a decider for every D line.
Write two-column field notes, observed and possible interpretation, for the two lines you set aside as borderline and for line 12, 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 one garden dispute beside the public song contests described in early twentieth-century accounts of Inuit communities, writing about the contests 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 song-contest row is written in the past tense with the time of the accounts.
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 A, P, R, G, S, F, D, or X beside each line, count each mark, subtract the X lines from the twelve to find the coded total, divide each count by the coded total, 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 two-hour field log of one garden work day, with columns for your code and your reason.

Student scaffold table 1
Line	Time and place	What was observed
1	9:00 a.m., tool shed	The garden's elected coordinator reads out the day's jobs from a list the members voted on last month; members pick up tools and go to their jobs.
2	9:10 a.m., compost bins	A member who arrived first takes the only wheelbarrow and will not share it until the others agree to haul his bags first; they wait and then agree.
3	9:20 a.m., bed 4	Two members laugh loudly at a newcomer who planted seedlings too close together; the newcomer pulls them up and replants them farther apart.
4	9:30 a.m., water tap	A city sign says watering is allowed only before 10:00 a.m., with a fine for breaking the rule; a member turns off the hose at 9:58 a.m.
5	9:40 a.m., main path	Two members talk quietly about a plot holder who never weeds; one says that everyone has noticed.
6	9:50 a.m., bed 7	Two plot holders disagree about where their shared border runs; they pace it out together and agree to split the difference.
7	10:05 a.m., bench	A member who skipped the last three work days is not offered any of the coffee the others brought to share.
8	10:15 a.m., bed 2	A longtime gardener with no title shows two newcomers how to stake tomatoes, and they follow her method for the rest of the morning.
9	10:25 a.m., tool shed	Two members both want the last bag of mulch; the coordinator listens to both and gives it to the plot that signed the request sheet first, and both accept.
10	10:35 a.m., gate	Two plot holders argue about a shared rain barrel; a volunteer from a neighboring plot sits with them and asks questions until the two agree on a watering schedule.
11	10:45 a.m., gate	As members leave, one says loudly, to laughter, that whoever left the gate open last week must have been raised in a barn; a member who did quietly checks the latch twice.
12	10:55 a.m., tool shed	The coordinator collects the day's spare vegetables in one crate and hands them out to members who could not come; nobody objects.

Five kinds of order appear in this week's concepts, so record each kind's count, its percent of the coded lines, and one line that shows it.

Student scaffold table 2
Kind of order	Count from your sheet	Percent of the coded lines	One line that shows it
Authority (A)
Power without authority (P)
Informal social control: ridicule, gossip, or shunning (R, G, S)
A formal rule with a set consequence (F)
A dispute that gets settled (D)

Settled disputes differ in who makes the final decision, so name the route and the decider for each one.

Student scaffold table 3
Dispute line	Route: negotiation, mediation, or adjudication	Who made the final decision	Evidence from the line
Line 6
Line 9
Line 10

One morning's log and a documented form show dispute settlement at very different depths, so set one garden dispute beside it.

Student scaffold table 4
Way of settling a dispute	Who settles it	Who watches or judges	What the record cannot show yet
One settled dispute from this garden log (line 6, 9, or 10)
Public song contests in early twentieth-century accounts of Inuit communities in parts of the Arctic

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

Using your sheet or a hand count, how many lines did you code after setting the borderline lines aside, and what percent of the coded lines was informal social control (ridicule, gossip, or shunning), what percent was a formal rule with a set consequence, and what percent was authority? Show each count, each division, and each multiplication by 100.
Compare line 1 with line 2, or line 9 with line 10. What changes between the two lines in who makes others act or who decides, and in whether the people involved accept it as rightful?
In 3–4 sentences, explain where the coordinator's authority comes from, naming the source of its legitimacy in the log, and explain why line 12 is redistribution that runs through the person with the authority to collect and give out.
Using your comparison table, set one settled dispute from the garden beside the public song contests that early twentieth-century accounts describe among Inuit communities in parts of the Arctic, judged by the audience. Say who settled and who judged in each, and which route your garden dispute used. Write about the contests only in the past tense, use the people's own name, 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 at a group you belong to, such as a team, a club, or a workplace: what about your own position (your role in the group, how long you have belonged, whom you already trust) would shape which moments looked like authority and which looked like power? (b) Someone reading this log says it proves that gossip matters more than law in keeping order. Using this week's concepts, explain what one morning's 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 two-hour field log above. It was constructed for a class activity and lists twelve moments from a work day at a community garden. In about 200 words, please do five things. First, rewrite the log as tidy notes and give each person a name so the notes are easier to follow. Second, rank the ways the garden keeps order from the most "primitive" kind, such as gossip, to the most advanced kind, formal law, and tell me how all community gardens in this country are run. Third, tell me whether the coordinator is a chief and the garden a chiefdom, since the coordinator collects vegetables and hands them out. Fourth, compare the garden's disputes with how the Eskimo settle quarrels with song duels, and give me one quotation from an anthropologist and one figure for how often song duels happened. Fifth, since every way of keeping order is equally valid, tell me whether anything goes.

Test the response for these likely failures:

Asked about song contests, chatbots often write what Inuit communities "do" in a timeless present tense, with no date for the accounts, as if the people never changed.
Asked to rank the garden's ways of keeping order, chatbots often line them up from "primitive" gossip to "advanced" law, or call a band an earlier stage of a state.
Chatbots often say how "all community gardens" or "all Americans" keep order, as if one garden spoke for everyone.
Asked for a quotation and a figure, chatbots often supply a famous-sounding line credited to an anthropologist, or a number of song contests, that appears in no primary text.
Chatbots sometimes explain who leads and who follows by sorting members into "races" as if these were natural biological groups.
Chatbots often say that because every way of keeping order is equally valid, the member who hoarded the wheelbarrow cannot be questioned, so anything goes.
Asked about song contests, chatbots often use the older outsiders' label "Eskimo" throughout.
If the comparison drifts to families, chatbots often say that a society tracing descent through women is "ruled by women".
If the comparison drifts to weddings, chatbots sometimes say that in some societies a groom "buys a wife" with goods.
Chatbots often call the vegetables the coordinator hands out in line 12 a "free gift" with no strings attached.
Chatbots often turn one morning at one garden into a confident account of "how communities keep order" or "why people obey leaders".
Asked to compare with song contests, chatbots sometimes offer to recite the words of songs or ceremonial details that a community has not chosen to share with outsiders.
Chatbots often close a "balanced" summary with a quiet verdict, such as calling the coordinator a chief, calling law the mature way to keep order and gossip immature, or calling the wheelbarrow member a natural leader.

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 morning at this garden I can tell you how all community gardens in this country are run, and they all do it the same way. Informal social control made up 50 percent of the coded lines, which proves gossip matters more than law everywhere. In my tidy notes I gave each member a name so the log is easier to follow. The member with the wheelbarrow was a natural leader, which is an observation, not an interpretation. Gossip and teasing are the primitive, stone-age way to keep order, and law is the advanced form every society grows into. The coordinator is really a chief, so the garden is a small chiefdom. The Eskimo settle every quarrel with song duels, and as one anthropologist said, "every dispute ends with a judge somewhere." The members could be sorted into natural biological races that explain who leads and who follows. Since every way of keeping order is equally valid, anything goes, and the wheelbarrow member cannot be questioned. In a society that traces descent through women, women rule. In some societies a groom buys his wife with goods. The spare vegetables in line 12 were a free gift with no strings attached. I could go on to write out the words sung in those contests, whatever the communities have kept to themselves. To be neutral: gossip has its charms, but law is plainly the more mature way to keep order." Mark it up: quote each flawed sentence, name what is wrong (one morning read as a whole country, a group spoken of as one voice, a percent that does not match your own count, names added against the course's rules, a reading passed off as an observation, ladder-of-progress language about keeping order, the garden called a chiefdom, an outsiders' name and a timeless present tense for a real people, an invented quotation, 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 what a community has not shared, 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 objectives (Objective 5 and Objective 4) 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 codes and reasons
The completed order table, dispute 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 two-hour field log of a community garden work day: the completed data table with your codes and reasons, the order, dispute, 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 garden log	The coded total and the three percents are correct with the counts, divisions, and multiplications shown, and every line carries a defensible code with a reason, including the borderline lines set aside.	The counts or percents are attempted but one is wrong or unshown, or several codes or reasons are missing.	No counts, percents, or codes appear, or the numbers are invented rather than counted.
Power, authority, and social control named without ranking	All five order-table rows carry a count, a percent, and a fitting line, and the explanation names the vote behind the coordinator's authority, reads line 12 as redistribution through that authority, and ranks no way of keeping order.	The table or explanation is attempted, but power and authority are blurred, a row is thin, or ladder words such as primitive or advanced slip in.	No order table or explanation appears.
Disputes, field notes, and the comparison with the song contests	Every dispute line carries a route and its decider, three two-column notes keep observation apart from interpretation, and the comparison table is complete, with the song contests in the past tense, Inuit named by their own name, and nothing invented.	The tables or notes are attempted, but a route is misnamed, an interpretation sits in an observed column, or the contests slip into the present tense, an outsiders' name, or added detail.	No dispute table, 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 morning's log cannot show that gossip matters more than law.	The memo is answered but stays general, names no specific feature, or slips into ranking ways of keeping order.	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.
The five counts add up to your coded total, and every percent is a count divided by the coded total and multiplied by 100.
Power, authority, and legitimacy are kept distinct, no way of keeping order is called primitive, earlier, or more advanced, the garden is never called a chiefdom, and every person in your notes is named only by role.
No custom, statistic, quotation, or detail about any real people is invented anywhere in the submission, the song contests are written in the past tense as early twentieth-century accounts, and Inuit are named by their own name.
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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