Q.1. Recipes are innate knowledge from experience or shared stacks of knowledge that are implicit instructions for everyday. Discuss 3 recipes that a person can use in a typical classroom or home situation. Be as precise as possible about the exact conditions under which one can use these recipes and how you acquired them.
Answer. Recipes are the knowledge acquired from the system of relevance which varies with the expert knowledge in terms of being partially clear and prone to eventual contradictions depending upon the source of information (Appelrouth and Edles 545). In simpler terms, recipes are information which helps in gaining the immediate results even with a lack of the actual awareness of the underlying process and phenomenon. In real-life scenarios of home-situation the recipes can be applied in the following ways:
Preparing the budgeting exercise for the monthly expenses based on tentative consumption and price stagnancy of objects: This recipe involves the process of maintaining a budget of monthly expenses for the home expenses which is generally done at the beginning of the month. The source of information for the recipe applied in this situation is that of standard prices which are taken into relevance as an eye-witness to the last incidence of purchase. Thus, the budgeting action is completed without taking into account the real prices of the various objects and articles of regular use. The end result is that a tentative budget is prepared which gives the satisfaction of getting the expenses under control for a month.
Checking the automobile engine (car or bike) and attempting a repair of the specific known parts to ensure that the problem is temporarily resolved: This recipe involves cleaning the attachments and fixtures in the engine on a regular to ensure a hassle-free operation of the automobile till the next service. This knowledge is generally acquired from an analyst of the similar information, like a neighbor or a mechanic so as to ensure that the temporary flaws are removed without the actual involvement of an expert, which is generally a cost-saving measure.
Using baking powder and baking soda for preparing cake at home on Christmas: This recipe is used when the use of baking powder and baking soda enables a preparation of the cake at home during the festival season. Although, the actual chemical process that enables the preparation of the cake by using baking soda and baking powder is not known by most of the people, still the relevant knowledge of the process oriented knowledge helps in getting the end result of a perfect cake.
Q. 2. What impact might the insights of phenomenology have on doing cross-cultural research? More generally what types of research questions do you think this approach can address. To what types of research are they not well suited?
Answer. The phenomenological insights help in developing an interpretative framework for conducting a cross-cultural research based on an ethnic methodology which uses the various aspects of social interaction and conversation analysis to conduct such research. This phenomenological framework enables the researcher to pursue a better coherence with the experience of people belonging to different cultures so as to develop an understanding on the basis of his own experiences and developing his preconceptions of the phenomenon under study (Appelrouth and Edles 546). Therefore, the prime necessity for the successful conduct of the cross-cultural references depends on a phenomenological connection between the experience of the researcher and the experiences of the participants over the subject of the research.
The category of research questions which the phenomenological approach can address in a cross-cultural research are as follows:
Questions related to relationships, profession and traditions, religious rituals, and distribution of power can be addressed using this approach.
Questions related to interpersonal recognition, wishing styles, and ways of showing gratitude within a culture.
Questions related to showing discomfort, anger, discord, and unacceptability can be easily understood.
This approach is not feasible in those cross-cultural researches when the cultural differences and language barriers among the researcher and the participants are too wide to develop an inference regarding the observed responses. This example is just adverse of the above-stated example when the cultural experiences of the participants have no common mode of link with that of the researcher.
Q. 3. Phenomenologists explore the methods people use to construct their everyday world. What methods do we use to construct race or gender? In other words, how do we “do” race or gender?
Answer. The realistic grasp of an individual about assigning the witnessed appearance of other individuals with respect to the certain experience roles in his normal environment defines the way by which the people construct their everyday world. Thus, various aspects of gender and race are the interlinked associations between the earlier experienced knowledge in terms of the facts acquired in sync with the particular appearance of an individual. Therefore, in terms of a phenomenological approach, how we have experienced or acquired the specific facts related to a particular race or a gender define the way we develop the definition of those people by keeping them at the edge of our own self-esteem.
The sociological theory of inter-subjective understanding comes into relevance here because how an individual perceives the experiences of another individual determines the way he develops his own experience regarding the life of the other person (Appelrouth and Edles 539). If two people are fully aware of each other’s experiences, they can practically be the same person in phenomenology. Therefore, in order to seek the experienced differences of morality and perceived values with people of different race and gender, we develop the notion of race and gender so that their experience is always well discriminated with that of our experiences. This is the phenomenological explanation of how we do the race and gender in our lives.
Works Cited
Appelrouth, Scott and Edles , Laura Desfor. "Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory: Text and Readings". Pine Forge press. Classic edition: Sage publications, 2008.537-546.Print.
