TENSION: a state in which people or groups disagree with and feel anger toward each other
Just like in fiction, writers of academic research also need to look for the tension in any given context, for in the tension, there's a story. Now, tension doesn't have to exist in the physical world as a struggle between two opposing forces. Tension can creep silently underground, where it exists in forms known to us as "racism," "homophobia," and "age-ism," to name a few tensions that exist in our society.
There's tension in the field of education: some people want more and more standardized testing, as a way of measuring what students are "getting" out of school and other people want less testing because they know that making kids take tests is not the way to engage them in learning or to accurately measure what they have learned.
There's tension in the field of conservation: some people want to protect green spaces and parks, want to work for clean water and clear air because they are imagining the kind of world they are leaving for their grandkids; other people do not care about protecting wildlife and clean air, as they would rather contribute to pollution problems and pretend that the Earth is perfectly healthy.
TENSION lives EVERYWHERE!
This week, I want you to write about the tension/s that you've sensed or witnessed in your fieldsite and/or in the subcultures of people who hang out there. What issues or larger problems are important here? Identify a point of tension (or two) at your fieldsite and discuss it here so that we--outsiders!--can understand all sides of the issue. You may need to do some extra research to complete this blog post, so please be willing to do a Google search or two if that will make the difference between an informed, smart blog response and a hollow, vague response. MAKE YOURS SMART!
I look forward to reading all about tension this week!
At Parente's restaurant, there's many forms of tension. Whether it's between workers and customers, or just between two employees, you can definitely feel tension every time you're there.
ReplyDeleteThere is constantly tension when the Bryant students are around. Not one employee wants to deal with them although they eventually have to wait on them. Although some students are nice and polite, i think that a handful of students ruined our views on all of them. They think they're "cool" and better than everyone else and they only think of themselves (see, even I'm stereotyping). They're constantly loud no matter how many families there are and will ignore your polite request if you all them to lower their volume. In addition, they don't care how many hot plates you're holding, they will refuse to move. Lastly, they leave terrible tips unless you add it into the bill yourself. Although this doesn't happen every time, it occurs a majority of the time. This leaves the servers very angry and they will always say something to another coworker.
Aside from the Bryant students, there's tension among the employees. Everyone always has something bad to say about someone. Then, as always, it gets back to the person and they start talking bad about the other person. Whether it's how they took a food order, how they dispersed the food to a table, or something going on in their personal life; there's a person always mentioning something that they should just keep to themselves. For instance, Barbra (not her real name) is getting married. Her wedding cake is star wars themed. Berry (again, not get real name) keeps talking about her behind her back. Even though it has nothing to do with her, she still feels the need to put her two cents in. This is why everyone secretly hates each other.
Lastly (this is my favorite), there's tension amongst EVERY SINGLE employee and my bosses girlfriend. She's psycho and everyone hates her. This women will talk poorly about employees to customers, she thinks she owns the place, and now she's in their personal life. One employee actually confronted her about it and they got into a fight and now she's not allowed in there anymore (thankfully)!
Therefore, within one restaurant facility, there's many ongoing tensions every single day. I think that the world needs tension in order to keep on going because sometimes it's funny (If it's not you) and you need bad things to balance out the good and keep the world in equilibrium.
After reading a little bit about the types of tension and after thinking about I have witnessed some tension at the Oak Lawn Grange. A lot of the issues the people focus on in my field site is taking care of and bringing together the community. They organize events from pasta dinners, clean-up-day, holiday tree lightings and more. One point of tension I noticed was the fight to keep the building up. Without this building the people who volunteer to organize these events would not have a pace to do so. A few years back there was discussion of knocking the building down and putting a house in its place. As you can imagine the tension from the people who wanted to knock it down and the people not only who are involved with the building, but the people in the community as well was noticeable. The people who were pro knocking it down were looking to buy the land and fill its space with a house, which I did not agree was a good choice. The volunteers fought saying it’s a big part of the community and is used weekly to bring people together and help out. After about a year of going back and forth they decided to name the building historic and it was not allowed to be knocked down. This made many people in the community happy as well as all the volunteers who work with the building to continue what they do. As someone who didn’t know much about this building down the street from my house, I am happy today they decided not to get rid of it. It has unknowingly become an everyday part of my life driving by it, using it to give directions etc.
ReplyDelete. The tension that lies within a community regarding people with mental and intellectual disabilities is mainly that society kind of puts them aside because they are misunderstood. Society makes a huge judgment on people with intellectual disabilities and they think they are dangerous, or not worth anyone’s time. If you bring back time 50 years ago, some communities decided on just throwing the disabled into an unkempt and barely supervised institution. They did this so they could hide the disabled from the rest of the community, because they weren’t like them or because they were afraid of them. Up to the present day we live in we do have some very successful group homes such as the one I’m researching but there is still that underlying tension as to how people can react with the disabled and how to understand them, or when some families decide not to put their relative in a good group home. Learning about the mentally disabled isn’t something always taught in school and to children; so when a child is confronted with someone with an intellectual disability they usually feel very uncomfortable. This should not be a problem. I mean, we live in a world where we hold a computer in our hand , but still some of us in society still cannot grasp the fact the there are others different from us.
ReplyDeleteAt first I never thought that there would be tension at a boat ramp, but I have been proven wrong. On my first day of fieldnotes I noticed the first tension at Allen's Harbor. This tension revolves around how fast people will get their boat in the water and how fast other people expect them to get it in the water. As I cited in my fieldnotes many people become impatient when people are taking longer than they should getting the boat in the water. I can understand this tension because many people don't like waiting and when they know what they are doing they are even more impatient than most who aren't sure what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteThe next form of tension that I noticed was out on the water. My guides were very worried about other fishermen seeing the fish we were catching. I realized that even though we were out there for fun, the spots we fish will no longer be just our spots if other people find out where the fish are. The tension I felt while in this situation reminded me of tension felt when you are at work or trying to protect something from other people to find out about.
Lastly, the most surprising form of tension I felt while out on the water with my guides, was the tension when we had a fish on the line and were trying to get it to the boat. I guess it was tense because if you lost the fish after it was on your hook then you know you messed up and lost a fish that could've ended up as food. I lost a fish or two when I was fishing on the bay and it is very upsetting because the fish on the end of the line could've been a keeper or a record setter and you will never know because you lost it. I never expected fishing to be an activity full of tension, in fact I always thought of it to be a relaxing activity since it always made my Dad calm and happy.
My fieldsite is subject to litter. Trash sweeps the park among broken buildings leaving the park with a disgusting scenery at times, piled up soda bottles strewn through the untamed, billowing forest. The litter among the grounds seems that it will always remain there, no matter what happens to the park, even if it was ever reclaimed. In a way it has been, reclaimed by nature. But among all of the natural beauty the dense plant-life, litter intrudes and the buildings themselves serve as an part of human culture that will never be removed from the forest.
ReplyDeleteAnother tension is that of the visitors and how they treat the park, many retorting to littering, and vandalizing the park. Visitors have broken the boarding off buildings, they have dumped their own trash to add to the litter issue. People have pushed around the fences, dragged around leftover knickknacks from the park, and even though they're interesting pieces, left graffiti in every nook and cranny they could find. These are all intrusions into the park as a natural setting by people. We're very much a people who feel entitled to expand our environments to our needs, but as the Enchanted Forest now exists without human ownership, it seems wrong for the perpetuating disturbances they cause by entering the park out of curiosity or self-interest or whatever, myself included. It's a conflict of man versus nature, but there is no fight.
The army has always been subject of controversy ever since it has the revolutionary war when it was established as the Continental Army in 1775. Lately the army has been trying to adapt to the demands of today’s generation by changing regulations and modifying its enlistment requirements to meet the population’s standards like allowing homosexuals to join the armed forces to the recent most recent addition of women in the artillery. Now women had been known to serve in the army as nurses and cooks during the revolutionary war, and have now taken the role of much more important within the army like military police jobs or mechanics. But if women are now incorporated in the service why is it such a big deal to let them be in the artillery? Well, jobs in the artillery as well as infantry related jobs are field related meaning that main line of work is carried out at locations where privacy and hygiene are not adequate especially during enemy fire or fast passed missions. Personally, and trying to avoid the tone of being sexist, women are a valuable assets in the army but of personal experience would recommend to have them in the artillery. As of this year a hand full of women had been selected to be part of artillery batteries as a way to “test out” the idea of fully reinstate them in the artillery. i don’t see this lasting more than a year before the first sexual harassment claims start to surface , but hope fully I’m wrong and men and women get along just fine while out in the field. Just hoping.
ReplyDeleteAfter thinking about it and remembering my visits, I realized that there is some tension at the Wareham Free Library and the James P. Adams Library. The type of tension at the Wareham Free Library is that of elders vs.teenagers. This is expressed because there is a teen section in the library but there is also a resource/study area right next to it. So, at times I have seen elderly people complaining that the teenagers were being too loud and obnoxious and that they were trying to focus. I have even had an experience with this myself because one time a friend and I were hanging at the library and we were laughing and talking too loud so an older lady came over with an aggravated voice and said "Can you please be quiet!" On the contrary, James P. Adams does not have that much of a problem with tension unless of course a college student vs. college student brawl starts there or maybe an argument concerning taking out material. Other than that I would say that both libraries are usually very well controlled and don't have a lot of tension in general.
ReplyDeleteThere aren’t many tensions I can think of at the Recreation Center. The only thing I can possibly think of that might be a problem is the people that go there and use the machines might not always feel like or that they forget to clean the machines or weights that they use. When the machines and weights aren’t cleaned after them being used, bacteria can grow, and people can get sick from them if they are not cleaned properly. Other than that easily solved problem, the recreation center is run pretty smoothly.
ReplyDeleteThe tensions I found in my field site are based on the competition level. My field site is a dairy farm and it is one of the last family owned local dairy farms. To keep business alive the farm had to add a bakery so that it would not fall through. When I spoke with one of the family owners she told me that it is very tough competing with big chain supermarkets like Stop N’ Shop, and Shaw’s. The fact that this dairy farm is not a chain farm makes it difficult to get more customers other than the locals. The only places Wrights can sell their milk to at the moment are other local farms. They wish that someday they will be able get their milk products into the chain supermarkets and make the farm more profitable.
ReplyDeleteGoing back and thinking about the tensions in my field site I can not think of too many. Alpha Beauty runs smoothly and the people all work very well together because they are close. I didn't see any tension while I was there. That doesn't mean there isn't any though. The obvious tension is based on competition because working in a salon you need to get people to return and even more so return to you. There's not too many walk ins so you need your own clients.. So "doing better" than the other stylists is a goal that can cause tension in the environment.
ReplyDeleteThere are not many noticeable tensions at Mystic Aquarium. Most of the tension is between the families and children that come to visit. As with any family outing, there is a lot of stress to keep children from wandering and to make sure everyone is getting along. I've noticed parents yelling at kids, and kids fighting with each other and their parents when they don't get their way. As for employee's, the only noticeable tension appears to be enforcing rules for visitors. For example, employee's often have to ask visitors not to lean on railings, lean over into the exhibits, put drinks/trash on the exhibit ledges, etc. Other than that, Mystic run's very smoothly with minimal tension.
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