Buskers Ethnography

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Street performers, otherwise known as Buskers, are commonly located in urban areas such as New York City. The two short films, “Amazing Street Performers/Central” and “Too Many Zooz”, show buskers live in performance. In studying buskers, you are interested in exploring how they function as a group in urban culture, why individuals are drawn to participating in the group, and how they are perceived. Ethnography is the study of people in naturally occurring settings (fields) by methods, which captures their social meanings and ordinary activities. In order to study the ethnography of buskers in urban culture you must visit an urban area. Buskers are street performers who perform in urban areas for some form of gratitude. In order to ensure…show more content…
In dominant culture they are expected as a form of entertainment. Whether on the train platform, in the subway train cart or outside on the street they are expected to perform. However, studying buskers could be difficult for a researcher for various reasons. A researcher who doesn’t live near an urban area will have a hard time studying buskers of urban culture for the reason that they aren’t familiar with the art of the street performers. A cultural barrier could emerge in certain areas where foreign languages are more common. Another important factor could be weather. Weather could affect the amount of buskers performing or the amount of people who view their…show more content…
The background will allow insight on the individual, what their reasons are for preforming on the street and explanation for their talent. Two citations that might be useful in a literature review are, “New Documentary Captures Asheville Busking Culture” by Carol Motsinger which is a documentary on why a woman from Asheville decided busking was what she wanted to do or a primary citation. An alternate type of citation that would be important is a scholarly citation using Passing the hat: street performers in America by Patricia Campbell, which covers the life of street performers. Archival Research is a collection of a variety of documents such as newspaper reports, administrative documents, written reports of events, communities and maps and charts. Archival research on buskers could include but is not limited to maps where buskers are primarily found. Written reports and videos of “must-see” street performers. For example, rules and regulations for street performers can be found online. This includes areas where street performers can and cannot perform. This allows audience to know where to look for street performers and the knowledge of knowing where to go to avoid

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