The reason why I chose the capstone project Imigration, Small Business and Assimilation: Three Stories of Small-Time Capitalism on the Lower East Side was because it was interesting that the audio link that interviewed the study participants was attached as a result of the study. It was also because I wondered how the choice of such a form contributed to drawing up the finding of the study and how effectively it revealed the theme. However, when I actually looked through the writing, I was rather confused. It was because it was more out of the form of conventional research than I had expected. Basically, the project uses a kind of ethnomethodology that is widely used in anthropology and sociology. Investigate and describe cultural background and show the talks of the study participants as it is without setting up theoretical frame. What really stands out in this project, however, is that the personal narratives of the researcher, which do not seem to be directly related to the theme itself, account for a large portion of the writing (every semester he took at the center is listed on several pages, devoting a chapter of pride in completing the study). I would like to compare this project with the most formal academic form I have learned previously, concentrating on disclosure/hiden of the author, to think about what difference they have, what meaning each of them has, and what its effect would be.

Especially in the field of social science where I majored, the existence of researchers is completely excluded from writing. Because it is science, it is wary of the author’s subjectivity and intent in revealing facts and objectively analyzing them. A clear explanation and rationale (through theoretical background and prior study review) is required in selecting research questions, objectives and targets. However, his personal experience and motivation are actively showed in the project. (Of course it’s very feeble. It’s just that he loves New York so much, and he has personal career and experience as a radio host and city guide.) Meanwhile, ordinary studies in utilizing interview in research regard it as a discourse and analyze it by researchers on the premise that they are methodologically trained. Sadly, however, it is one of the most difficult tasks to analyze, leaving their intentions completely blank. On the other hand, the project has attached a link to the audio file to listen them directly and opened the full text of the conversation with the study participants (even describing the noise and music sounds heard during the interview) as an alive form. Here analysis and judgment are left to the readers.

Then, what does each of these extreme two formats have a meaning and an effect? In the case of formal academic form, researchers tend to set themselves as an observer outside the world. This is a modern way of approaching truth and closed to elitism as a reproducer of knowledge. This project, on the other hand, cannot be said to have revealed the world technically and scientifically. However, even the author is represented as part of the world he describes, and acts as living material. Thus, because the former uses academic language, it creates a distance from the real world and universal readers, but in the latter case, it has the advantage of narrowing the distance. However, for what contents this each form contains, when given the difference that the former is in philosophical methodology and the latter is close to aesthetic form, more research is likely to be needed on what difference they will bring.