I have decided to use a participant observation method to catalogue my experience watching people move through the parking lot of a Wal-Mart on March 17, 2011. With this, I have noticed a number of interesting physical behaviors and nuances between different groups of individuals, which I will denote here.
In my experience watching people in this parking lot, I saw many families of varying sizes – single mothers, two parents, one to four children, and so on. A great number of these families would chat jovially with one another, taking their time and smiling at each other, enjoying each other’s company. However, there were also families who simply walked quickly, stone-faced, not looking at each other through the lot, not paying attention to each other. One rather large parent would often have to talk down fussy children of theirs who were crying, standing still in the parking lot. One group of siblings would argue with each other incessantly about who got what from their parents once they got there.
Peppered in with the families would be individuals or couples. Most of the individuals would be on their cell phones, chatting to whoever was on the other line; very few people actually walked quietly into or out of the Wal-Mart. As for the couples, there seemed to be a relationship between the age of the couple and their level of public affection; younger, teenage couples would hold hands and be extremely affectionate toward each other, whilst older couples would behave in a more businesslike, modest manner. One younger couple kissed for a very long time next to their car, much to the chagrin of passersby. Overall, my experiences observing the movements in and out of a Wal-Mart parking lot yielded a lot of qualitative information about the individuals who inhabit it on a regular basis.
