A Home in Brick City

Abstract

In this chapter, Jeffrey Togman recounts how Home, an ethnographic film, which he directed, came to be made. While directing the film, Togman fluctuated between the various classical roles of the participant observer – complete observer, observer as participant, participant as observer, and complete participant. The camera and the microphone allow the researcher to record information in quantities and at speeds than are exponentially larger and faster than what can be accomplished by conventional note-taking, but the equipment is also more obtrusive and disruptive. The tyranny of the camera demands that the director puts it in a “real” place, and thus, it is the nature of ethnographic films to challenge generalizing, predictive theories of human behavior. Togman also presents the findings of his filmic project, stripped of its visual elements. The film's main character, Sheree Farmer, a single mother of six children, tries to get her family out of public housing in Newark, New Jersey. With the help of Mary Abernathy, a former fashion executive turned community activist, Sheree endeavors to purchase her own home. As Sheree struggles to clear her credit and qualify for a mortgage, it becomes clear that she faces more than material obstacles to becoming a homeowner.

Citation

Togman, J.M. (2011), "A Home in Brick City", Denzin, N.K., Athens, L. and Faust, T. (Ed.) Blue Ribbon Papers: Interactionism: The Emerging Landscape (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 36), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 183-199. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-2396(2011)0000036010