Student Workbook on the Symbolic Anthropology: Marriage Fashion
“Marriage Fashion” stresses the importance of symbolism in marriage customs. Students will conduct fieldwork first by visiting a business that sells wedding attire and selecting a type of marriage attire or accessory to investigate. The research and report writing phases will follow. Each student will submit the report (including a photo of the item or outfit by the student) that explains their research experience and covers the questions below as a password protected chapter of this workbook.
Fieldwork Questions (If a question does not apply to the item/outfit, skip it):
1. Where did you do this research? What is the name of the shop/store? Where is it located? Describe it and the experience doing this assignment there. Include the address/website if possible
2. What item or outfit did you choose? Describe it in detail, using the following questions (do your best, if you can not answer one or more of these questions, that is fine-some may not apply to what you have chosen.
3. What material (s) were used to make this? Is it heavy, light, big, small?
4. Is it difficult to wear or perhaps easy to wear?
5. Where was it made?
6. What is the price?
7. Do you think the price is justifiable? Explain why or why not.
8. Why did you choose it?
9.Have you seen it before this visit? If so, where/when?
10. Is it associated with a particular ethnicity, religion or tradition?
11. Do you think it is a popular item or is it rarely worn?
12. Are there variations to it?
13. Does it have a symbolic function?
14.What type of person is it normally worn by (think about biological sex, gender, social class)
15. How does the item make you feel?
16. Is there anything you learned about this item that you think is important to share? For example, do you think there are any misunderstandings about this item?
Discovering Cultural Anthropology by Antonia M. Santangelo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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