Report On Unobtrusive Observation Using Herbert Blumer’s Approach

Symbolic interactionism is a micro-level concept that concentrates on the relationships among people in a society. Communication which is the exchange of sense through symbols and language is believed to be the manner in which individuals make sense of their social worlds. This perception views individuals as being dynamic in influencing the social world as opposed to simply being acted upon (Blumer, 1969). In this paper, I will discuss activities observed in a public park that I visited in light to Herbert Blumer’s approach on human behavior as outlined in the article society as a symbolic interaction.

As we obtain symbols we become sanctioned to interrelate with others using those signs. We really get symbols as an outcome of other individuals symbolically interrelating with us. A public park is a place where people retreat in the evenings, weekends and during holidays. Public spaces offer social arenas for all sorts of people; workers, residents, visitors, shoppers, and children to play (Binti & Binti, 2015). I visited the public park in our region at different times of the day. I noted that different age groups are likely to use the park at different times of day and for different motives. Children and older people particularly seemed to be swayed by the attendance of other age groups. Older individuals are often absent from park especially after dusk. Additionally, to the social purpose of the park, some individuals used it for isolation or to endorse a sense of state ownership, this mostly applies to the marginalized groups and young people. There was slight interaction between age groups, mainly between strangers. Groups of diverse ages appeared to avoid contact, mainly by inhabiting different parts of the same space. This minimized the probability for fight, but signified a distinct isolation between the public lives of older and younger people.

At one time it is about to rain, it is very cold. There were seven individuals in the skate park who are all white males. Three were young teens, three were older teens, and one was an adult. Some were skateboarding others were riding BMX bikes and at times they chat amongst themselves. The clothes they were wearing are loose and grunge-like. Five alcoholics were sitting on the pew, there were three white men and two white women. They share between them cheap and nice bottles of White Lightening, which as I recall tastes nasty. Opposite them were two Asian adults, one man, and one woman who were seated. They are engaged in a conversation. Apart from these people, nobody else was using the park in the vicinity of where I was seated. Nobody had left the park or got in in the last ten minutes. The alcoholics threw their cans in the litter bin, disperse, and go their individual way. In the next one hour, nobody was in the park. The weather was cold, dusky, and windy and seemed like it would rain. It is probably for these explanations that not a solitary person is using the park. Perhaps in hotter months more individuals will be using the park. A white woman is smoking outside the gates of the swimming pool.

As I left she was still there. The thing I noticed at once is the absence of the people who were drinking in the bench area. I straightaway felt more easiness as they were the obstacle to observing the park. There were five young teens relaxing on the grassy zone – mostly having a giggle. The group comprises of two men and three women, one of the men was standing up and boasting, but it was all in good fun. A group of three young teenage boys enters the region from the stairs leading towards the park. One was white while the other two were mixed races. They were laughing about a thing and one of them goes on ahead and kicks a football. One of the men (white) makes like going and sees the other group of teens but appears to alter his mind after a discussion from the other boys. I am not sure what that was all about. This region is generally quite busy in spite of mostly being used as a short cut. This was however not the case that day. The only other individuals I see were a mum with her two kids – a little boy who was skipping next to her mum while she pushed a stroller. They were walking out of the park. The little boy was chattering about what they were having for tea. There were a lot of teens at the skate park I estimated about 23 children which is pretty a lot bearing in mind its early evening time. I finally got used to observing the park. I felt a lot less noticeable anyway.

There was a disruptive collection of young teens collected in the pavilion. Four of them were boys and two were girls. Two of the men were back and were making a lot of noise. They were all smoking, together with the girls, and drinking coke cans. One of the boys went further away to kick a ball but appears to be pointing it to his ‘friends’ heads. The region is quite busy. The play area is not very busy. There were only three children playing and they appeared old enough to not be monitored. Two young teens were sitting near me on the steps. They had wet hair and I supposed they had been swimming together – possibly on a date!In connection to the theoretical piece by Herbert Blumer, people act towards things and people on the basis of their meanings and this normally entails everything that can be seen in the world. The meanings of these things are normally gotten from social interactions asserting that individuals interact with one another by defining as opposed to just reacting to the actions of one another. The meanings are changed through an interpretive process used by the individual in handling the things encountered. Therefore, the use of symbols, social construction, and negotiated meaning in the process of modification brings our concern to the nature of the part played by other people. Blumer (1969) disputed that Mead saw symbolic interaction not only as a way by which social factors are articulated, but instead as the very foundation from which a society materializes. This was evident in my observation as people were relating with other people who they believe have meanings towards them. For instance, teens associating with teens and the elderly with the elderly.

In my chosen setting, which is a public park, people are expected to be interacting with one another in overt ways. People normally got a set of responsibilities to be played on stage in front of other people while at the same time looking for analysis to their actions after which they withdrawal to the backstage where their innate characters occur again. Mostly, people were engaging in non-symbolic interactions where they responded to the actions of other people immediately without interpreting them. However, at the same time, people adopted the situation theory for them to put in mind how they will react to a particular situation and the person they are interacting with. In conclusion, the sociology of public space entails studying the behaviors of people in a certain setting. Public spaces maintain a civic and democratic function, together with commercially driven usages (Lipton, 2002). They propose that policy makers can encourage this by promoting diversity and connecting people’s predisposition to ‘self-regulate’ to evade conflict. The particular setting has a collection of adapted expectations that define how individuals will behave and the kind of social interaction that will take place.