Town Line reports on ethnographic field school trip to China transfer station
The Town Line reported students in a University of Maine digital ethnography field school recently visited the transfer station in the town of China. Students in the class, led by Cynthia Isenhour, an assistant professor of anthropology and climate change, and Kreg Ettenger, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Maine Folklife Center and Maine Studies, learned how to properly conduct interviews as methods of collecting data for research. The course, titled “Exploring and Documenting Maine’s Culture of Reuse,” is part of the ResourcefulME research project headed by Isenhour. Students in the class interviewed employees about the transfer station’s popular Swap Shop, which allows China residents to drop off anything that can be reused instead of disposed of and for “shoppers” to give the items a new life, the article states.