This project differs from many assignments you have encountered at Bowdoin.  Because each place is unique, you have a lot of latitude in terms of how you can complete this assignment.  Therefore, I am unable to provide a proper list of instructions that will fit the unique conditions for every project in the class.   I can, however, discuss the elements you should include for a successful paper.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR, PROFESSOR GREENE?

First, you are not selecting a place to please me.

It does not matter whether you select a big city or a small one.  It can be a community you have lived in forever or a community you aspire to move to after you graduate.  The goal is for you to select a place that is particularly meaningful to you.  Each site is different; some of you will study a neighborhood, while others will explore an entire small town.  It all depends on the available data related to your selected location.

Second, I am looking for you to offer a reference point to your place by comparing it relative to another area.  You may want to look at two neighborhoods within the same city.  You might want to compare your site to the characteristics of the broader city, or the metropolitan area, or the nearby large city. If your community is divided into two “zip codes,” you might want to compare those two areas.  What you compare is entirely your choice.

Although you will be providing descriptive characteristics of your place in your paper, this is an analytic paper, not a descriptive one.  You do not have to be exhaustive in listing the demographic characteristics of your community.  You will want to provide some general information (population, racial characteristics, median household income), along with descriptive traits that you might find interesting.  Perhaps you are interested in crime rates?  Or its expanding senior population?   Or maybe you have an idea for the final project – you can also focus your discussion of the data on characteristics that figure into that discussion.

Your job is to use the data to uncover interesting, problematic, or puzzling qualities or trends that define your selected place:

Perhaps examining the population over time, you discover that there are no changes in the population over the last forty years . . .

Perhaps you discover that the Census tract your neighborhood covers includes parts of other neighborhoods . . .

Or perhaps you discover that the “community” you imagined as a singular place is actually carved into separate census tracts . . .

Or perhaps you are surprised by the size of a particular population of residents in the community, which does not seem to match your perception of the communities that live there . . .

Or perhaps you discover there are quite a few “hard-to-count” populations within your community . . .

Or perhaps you are interested in studying a particular population for your final project (same-sex communities; the homeless; youth) . . .

Your job is to highlight that within the paper, perhaps adding a little research that investigates what shapes these dynamics within your selected community.  In some ways that “puzzle,” “paradox,” or “interesting feature” should represent the anchoring feature of your paper (your thesis, in a matter of speaking).

Your paper should also provide a brief history of the community.  This may require you to do a little extra research (not just Wikipedia).

Your paper should also provide a discussion of YOUR relationship to the community. Positionality is essential; in what way do you see yourself within this community?

I am looking for a cohesive, well-proofed paper that demonstrates a thoughtful engagement with your selected community.

If you have doubts or questions – if you have ideas you want to float by me, you know how to find me.

You are also welcome to meet with our reference librarian, Beth Hoppe, by clicking the link here.