Finding Ourselves

Good evening and welcome back to my blog. This week I will be going over another chapter in Arlie Hochschild’s book, “Strangers In Their Own Land” and discussing certain processes Anthropologists use to conduct the research of their subjects. To start off, let us take a look at the anthropological processes and guides that are used. Anthropologists use a code of ethics to perform their research and bring the lives of their subjects to the view of the world. The code of ethics entails the following:

• Do No Harm
• Be Open and Honest Regarding Your Work
• Obtain Informed Consent and Necessary Permissions
• Weigh Competing Ethical Obligations Due Collaborators and Affected Parties
• Make Your Results Accessible
• Protect and Preserve your Records
• Maintain Respectful and Ethical Professional Relationships

For my blog I will adhere to these codes, paying special attention to protecting the identities, reputations, and integrity of my sources. To help with this I will for example only mention that they live in the Pacific Northwest, not specifically where in the PNW. This will be especially difficult, however I am up to the challenge of this assignment.

This weeks chapter that I will be covering will be Chapter 2 of Hochschild’s book which is titled “One Thing Good”. This weeks chapter focused on the continued story of Lee Sherman and dealt with his time working for the Pittsburgh Plate Glass(PPG) Company. Lee spent many years doing some interesting things, either racing cars, playing football for the team which would later be the Kansas City Chiefs, working in Seattle, WA on the Navy Shipyards and then moving to the state of Louisiana to perform pipe fitting duties, and while he was working for PPG, pollute the environment. This last is what would be the most interesting thing to me, because here is a man who knew better than to pollute the environment but since he was a loyal employee he would do what he was told to do. Even after he would have several incidents at work that would leave him ill later on in life, he performed his duties as they were assigned. This devotion to his job, coupled with his experiences makes him an interesting subject because of where he is in his beliefs in this stage of his life(Lee is 82 years old at the time of writing). When Lee lived in Washington State, he was a conservative Democrat, and upon moving to Louisiana he became a Republican, and at the time of writing had become a member of the Tea Party. Even though Lee classifies himself as an environmentalist he supports making the EPA smaller, which if it had been in place during his time working for PPG, he probably wouldn’t have poured the toxic waste into Bayou d’Inde. His actions, which he would publicly own up to and take the blame for, led to a public meeting between the residents surrounding Bayou d’Inde, members of PPG, and representatives of the US Government. This meeting took place in 1982 after the waters surrounding the PPG plant had been determined to contain toxic waste and there would be a limit placed on eating fish caught in the rivers and bayous surrounding the plant. This publc meeting took place 15 to 20 years after Lee had been ordered to dispose of the remnants of toxic byproducts made from the manufacturing of products at PPG. Interestingly enough, shortly after Lee had been ordered to perform the disposal, he had suffered an on the job accident and had been put on medical leave by the company doctor for roughly 8 months, after the 8 months Lee would return to work only to be brought before a workers competency board and would be fired due to “absenteeism”. This unjust firing would be because due to his accident his health had begun to fail, and companies then and now still prefer profits to payouts. However, due to Lee’s and other workers experiences since the 60’s and even now, more and more companies are being held accountable, however slowly. The chapter’s namesake comes from a statement made by Lee about his actions during the dumping of the toxic waste in which he had rescued a bird that had flown over the toxic chemicals and breathed in its fumes. Lee saw the bird and had resuscitated the animal and after placing it on the hood of his truck to stay warm and he went back to overseeing the disposal, he came back and the bird had flown away, being the “only thing good to come of the whole thing”.

In Closing tonight, I am going to contemplate 3 questions to ask my subject of research:

• Has there ever been a time when you were at your darkest, and there was still light?
• Is it difficult to juggle the current state of the country and your personal beliefs?
• Do you feel that your upbringing impacted your current political or philosophical beliefs?