Student blog posts from the Great VCU Bike Race Book

Edison, Victoria

English

VCU Scholars Compass

Virginia Commonwealth UniversityVCU Scholars CompassGreat VCU Bike Race Book Student Blog Posts Great VCU Bike Race Book2015Anthropology of the Crowd, Blog 3Victoria EdisonVirginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/bike_studentPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA4.0) License.This Blog Post is brought to you for free and open access by the Great VCU Bike Race Book at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted forinclusion in Great VCU Bike Race Book Student Blog Posts by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, pleasecontact libcompass@vcu.edu.Downloaded fromhttps://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/bike_student/17Observing the bike race in Richmond https://rampages.us/edisonve/ Victoria Edison  WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT THE BIKE RACE OCTOBER 1, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT For myself the bike race was pretty interesting. I got to talk to people from all over the world. For a town like Richmond to receive so many foreign visitors and host such a huge race was really awesome. I love traveling to different places so to be able to talk to people who live in these places was pretty amazing. I learned that people can come together and cheer for everyone and not just one team, it’s the only event that I have really seen; where everyone cheers for everybody. It was kind of like being at the Olympics, because the cyclists would get so emotional if they went up in the rankings or won a high place.  It was also interesting to see how empty the college was, the library is usually packed, but it was so quiet and empty. There was no line to get food or if there was it was short. It was actually kind of enjoyable and fun to have the whole campus almost empty. But I also learned about people and where they come from, some would talk about family traditions and they’re eyes would light up. I really enjoyed talking to all the people during the race. VARIATION OF THE CROWD OCTOBER 1, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT Measuring crowd data is important because it allows us to see what kinds of events draw crowds. It allows us to see what kinds of people come to events such as the bike race. For example, the bike race drew in people all the way from South America and from Asia. It allows us to see where people come from because people come from all walks of life and as Anthropologists to study people and what better place than at a huge bike race that draws crowds from as far as China. It also allows us to learn what types of people come, their ethnicities, their religions, their culture because they all converge in one place. We can learn a lot about people from how they cheer to what type of words they use to describe how they feel. Variation also allows us to see a wide range of variables and collect a good sample of data. WHAT OTHER DATA WE COULD HAVE COLLECTED OCTOBER 1, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT I feel like we did a good job collecting data, but I kinda wished we had asked some personal questions or asked about where they lived like about the topography of the area and have them describe what it looks like. Maybe ask them more about the social classes in their country.  I think asking about what type of job they had could have been interesting and maybe learn about something different or a special job that is done in that country. I mean there are probably a lot of different things you can ask somebody about what part of the country they live in or what the area looks like. Such as is it made up of rolling hills or if it’s completely flat. ONE DAY OF DATA COLLECTING OCTOBER 1, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT I honestly had a bit of a hard time collecting data. The first couple of times I asked for people to participate in an interview they either ignored me or said no. It kind of discouraged me a little, but one of my group members joined me and I was able to work up the nerve to talk to people and ask them if they would let me interview them. As the day went on we continued to ask people if they would like to be interviewed and many people would talk to us. If I had to change one thing about how I collected data it would have been to have been more assertive and ask more people. WHAT ASPECT DID I ENJOY OCTOBER 1, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT I found that the aspect of viewing the crowds enthusiasm for all the bicyclists was quite enjoyable. People just didn’t cheer for their team they cheered for all of the cyclists passing by. I really enjoyed seeing little children waving and cheering the cyclists on. As I was walking home I saw the Israeli cyclists and I cheered them on. I was like whoo go ISRAEL!!!!!!! It was just really nice to see all the sportsmanship from the spectators for every team that participated in the race. GLOBAL POPULATION SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT In my personal opinion I don’t think our data accurately represents the global population. The crowd that we interviewed was mostly American and took up a huge percentage of our global population. I could say that it is to be expected because the race was in the USA, but that is not entirely accurate, because many people came with family and friends. So I believe there we plenty of people to interview, we just got a lot of Americans. I do think we could have done more interviews with international people because we did have a wide variety of people from all over the world, we just did not interview a lot of international people. So I believe our data will be somewhat inaccurate of the global population. THE HARDEST THING ABOUT INTERVIEWING PEOPLE SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT First off one of the things that I found to be difficult was the language barrier. Some people understood english enough to be able to hold a conversation with me, but many on spoke Spanish or French, which I am very limited in my Spanish speaking abilities so it was hard to talk to some of the spectators. Another thing was that I am kind of shy talking to people I don’t know so I had to work up the nerve to go talk to some of the people or ask the questions. Second, was the fact that some people gave me a phrase and not just one word to describe the race so it made collecting that part of the data harder than most of the others. Third, was just how big the race course was, if you went to Monroe park some days it was full of people and other days it was not. If you headed to the start and finish line there were way more international people there cheering for the cyclists. So it was a matter of finding large groups of internationals and Americans that was challenging some days. Overall most of it was not bad it was just those three things that were difficult that made collecting data a little more challenging. I did enjoy talking to a lot of people though. GROUP 1 CROWD DATA SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT  Group 1 crowd data                 Our group spent the past week interviewing many people throughout the race. We got a wide range of people spanning from Central and South America, Asia, Asia Minor, Europe, and people from all over America. One of the things I found interesting was the fact that we had a large number of Americans, but I also figured that was to be expected since the race took place in the USA, but there were also many other countries represented in the crowd as well. One of the things that I found hard was the language barrier. Some people from other countries knew English and spoke kind of well, but primarily many knew only Spanish. Which is not all that surprising since Spanish is one of the top ten most spoken languages in the world.        I also think it was interesting that many came with there families or with friends to watch this race. It was also interesting to hear all the languages being spoken in a semi-small city such as Richmond. We don’t get a lot of internationals as we did for the race, with the exception of Globe. Overall I enjoyed talking with the people that I interviewed and my group members did as well. Just being able to talk to someone from a different place and ask them about what it’s like to live there was very interesting and insightful. The eye color was interesting and predictable because brown and blue eyes are the most common. It was also expected that English would be the most spoken language. MEETING THE ISRAELI’S SEPTEMBER 22, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT Last night, I had the opportunity to meet the Israeli cycling team. Observing them was quite interesting because their ages varied from 18 to their early 40’s. I am Jewish and do not understand nor speak Hebrew very well, but I got to listen to them talk to each other and joke with each other in Hebrew. Many of the American Jews asked them questions about whether they liked Richmond or specific questions about what type of bike they used. Their responses were very insightful. While expressing my desire and urgency in wanting to go back one day. The oldest gentlemen of they’re group told me that I am young and have all the time in the world to come back. My father, who also came to meet the Israeli’s talked to one about how he desired to go back as well to visit the holy land. At one point the oldest gentlemen described a program he wished he could start to help young boys and girls stay in cycling and sort of create a national team. I asked him about going to his officials or representatives about it and he explained clearly many of the problems with getting the funding for it. Talking to the Israeli’s gave me insight into how much they love cycling and how comfortable they were with each other. Joking and laughing and having a good time with us. They even asked us how to say certain words to express things they wanted to say. I honestly had the best time getting to meet people from an entirely different culture than my own and also hear them speak Hebrew with each other and teach us words as well. As a young Anthropologists in the making, I found it insightful to see a wide range of people from the same country and of different ages acting like best friends even though they come from different generations. They acted almost like they’re own band system or like an adopted family with one another. So it was very interesting to see them enjoying themselves in Richmond.  MY PREDICTIONS OF THE CROWD SEPTEMBER 22, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT When I first started this course, I assumed that many different nations would be here to participate in the bicycle race. While walking around and observing the preparations for the time trials that day. I saw many people representing countries from Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, and I even met a man from a country in the middle east. It was insightful because I learned that not everyone could speak English, but they could speak Spanish. So I tried my best to remember my Spanish and spoke with each of them the best that I could. My prediction on the crowd was also correct, I saw many people in the crowd cheering for their country and speaking in their native language. It was quite refreshing to hear so many languages being spoken in one place and I thoroughly enjoyed trying to speak to people in Spanish, even if I wasn’t very good. It opened my eyes though and taught me that maybe I need to learn another language or two so that I can speak to people from different countries in a language they understand. Over all though I was correct in stating that people from all over the world would come to see this race and that Richmond would become an epicenter of different nationalities gathered in one place. WHAT I THINK THE CROWD WILL LOOK LIKE FOR THE RACE SEPTEMBER 3, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT I like to think that the crowd will be composed of many different kinds of people from all over the United States and even from different parts of the world; like England or Spain, maybe France or Italy. I feel like there will also be a lot of fit people who are in the bike race and than there families and friends will be there to support them. They may be white, hispanic, asian any number of mixed ethnicities could show up to the race. I feel like we will hear different languages such as Spanish and various dialects such as midwestern, pacific ocean, new england accents. I feel like this race will bring all sorts of people from different places and different walks of life together in one place for a little over a week. HI THERE LET”S GO ANTHRO AUGUST 26, 2015 LEAVE A COMMENT I’m so excited to be starting my study of people for Anthropology!!!!!!  

Anthropology of the Crowd, Blog 3

Gupton, Victoria

Virginia Commonwealth UniversityVCU Scholars CompassGreat VCU Bike Race Book Student Blog Posts Great VCU Bike Race Book2015Anthropology of the Crowd, Blog 4Victoria GuptonVirginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/bike_studentPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA4.0) License.This Blog Post is brought to you for free and open access by the Great VCU Bike Race Book at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted forinclusion in Great VCU Bike Race Book Student Blog Posts by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, pleasecontact libcompass@vcu.edu.Downloaded fromhttps://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/bike_student/18THE LATE GREAT BIKE RACE https://rampages.us/lategreatbikerace/ Victoria Gupton  THE NOT-SO-LATE GREAT FIRST POST August 31, 2015 • guptonvh This site will (hopefully) be an exploration into what the UCI Road World Championships leaves behind in our great city of Richmond after all is said and done. After the estimated quarter of a million visitors flood our town, what will be left for archaeologists and anthropologists of the future to find? What deductions will they make about us and our society? I’m not sure, but I do hope to find out. THE RACE WITH HALF A MILLION FACES September 7, 2015 • guptonvh What does a race with half a million faces look like? Will it be the many faces of families, or the singular faces of individual and couples? What will there skin look like? What will they sound and dress like? What will be in their wallets? While I would certainly hope that an international race such as this would be as diverse as the world, my gut, or maybe my cynicism, says that the crowd for this race will be upper class, white, Americans and Europeans. Again, that may sound cynical, but the question really is this: who has the money to travel far and wide for a bike race? Westerners. Westerners with money to travel and time to spend not worrying about the opportunity costs of missing school/work/what-have-you to actually view the race. Of course there will certainly be exceptions to this, and honestly I hope I’m wrong. I hope the half a million faces traveling to our beloved city will meld seamlessly with the population here- who for all intents and purposes look about as diverse as the population of the world. I hope to see hijabs and saris, and as many shades of skin as there are colors in ROYGBIV. What I hope and what I logically conclude may be two different things, but in the end without the hope of change there is no change, so I’ll go into this race hoping for half a million faces I can scarcely imagine right now. I’ll go into this race hoping for the best. WHAT ASPECT OF THE CROWD DID YOU FIND MOST INTERESTING? September 30, 2015 • guptonvh “Hi, do you have a minute to-“ I started. She shook her head vigorously from side to side. “Oh, uh… thank you for your time.” This embarrassing yet hilarious scenario happened on more than one occasion, and I found it both incredibly fascinating while albeit, a little dismaying. Most of the folks I approached, even if they were hesitant or skeptical, still obliged to answer my questions; it was those that refused to answer that peaked my interested. The first time in happened was with a little Italian lady who I was very much excited to interview. She was in a crowd of other Italy supporters and as soon as I approached her she shook her head as if to say, “No, not today, please don’t even try.” While I’m fairly certain that this was because she didn’t speak English, I had no idea what to do or say back in response, so I simply thanked her, and walked away. My first reaction was to think of how rude she was, outright rejecting a young girl who just wanted to ask her a few questions, but those thoughts quickly faded. What would I have done if I were in another country, in a large crowd, approached by a stranger speaking a different language? Well I would shake my head and say no thank you. The second time this happened went very similarly, with a young man who said in broken English, “No, no English. Thank you.” This time I understood, so I smiled, thanked him, and tried again. WHAT WAS THE HARDEST PART OF COLLECTING THE DATA ABOUT THE SPECTATORS? September 30, 2015 • guptonvh Good statistical procedure—that was the goal. Approaching the crowd without a set method of attaining these random interviews posed a dual challenge wherein I had to ensure that I 1) wasn’t just interviewing one particular type of person, i.e. just men, just women, just people of one race because of my own particular preferences and comfort; and 2) that I wasn’t skewing that data by intentionally seeking out different types of people. While I may only have taken a basic statistics class, I knew that my own personal biases would get in the way of collecting accurate data. For the first two or three interviews I collected I, unknowingly at the time, sought out only older women. The women I approached were in my comfort zone and safety nestled into my little spreadsheet, never to be heard of again. Only after seeing the data side by side on my spreadsheet did I realize what i was doing, and why. I knew the race crowd was comprised of more than these old women. My solution? I needed to expand my comfort zone and even step out of it at times and force myself to interview people of all ages, races, and genders. While I don’t know the end results of the bike race statistics, I hope I managed to find a balance that accurately reflected the crowd. Only time will tell. WHAT OTHER TYPES OF DATA ABOUT THE CROWD MEMBERS DID YOU WISH YOU HAD COLLECTED? September 30, 2015 • guptonvh In retrospect, while the data I collected in certainly useful, I wish I’d asked how many miles people traveled to get to the bike race. This single question implies so much and would have offered a whole new facet of analysis. For example, what is the single largest limiting factor to human travel? Money. While asking something such as, “What is your total household income?” would be an overly intrusive question for this project, dealing with sensitive subject matter, the amount of money individuals have to spend on leisure time and travel is fascinating. From which countries did people travel the farthest, and thus spend the most money, to view the race? Is this typical for this country, or unheard of? This question would give anthropologists of the future an idea as to what countries at the time produced citizens who could not only forgo the opportunity costs that come with missing work, etc., but also could spend large sums of money to travel for leisure. This question is absolutely fascinating, for in reflects the present day world class system. What types of people are most likely to travel long distances for an event such as this? While I unfortunately did not collect this data, I certainly hope other groups did because it is data critical to analysis of the crowd.  DO YOU THINK THE SAMPLE OF HUMANITY IN THE BIKE RACE CROWD ACCURATELY REFLECTS THE “GLOBAL POPULATION” OF THE WORLD? WHY OR WHY NOT? October 1, 2015 • guptonvh My inner skeptic is a little too smug. Before the race I’d guessed that the crowd would, unfortunately, not reflect the global population of the world, predominately because of costs. Not everyone in this world has the financial stability to not only forgo the opportunity costs associated with taking time off to attend the event, but the ability to bear the upfront costs of traveling to and attending the race. Who did I think would be able to do this? Westerners, particularly white Westerners. This may sound presumptuous, or even prejudice at first, but statistically the overwhelming majority of the world’s wealth is held in the hands of white Westerners. Citizens from privileges countries such as Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, America, etc., all have citizens who financially are able to travel the distance to see the race, countries in Sub Saharan Africa, East Asian, and the like simply don’t have these resources except among a select few. While this is an unfortunate reality it is still reality, and cannot be ignored. This is not all to say that the race was some white washed event. As they say, “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” The race was no doubt a breeding ground for international citizens to interact and appreciate one another, but a few passionate citizens of a handful of countries does not make up for the large majority of the world not reflected in the crowd. Anthropologists of the future will hopefully look back at this inequality and laugh at how things used to be, but for now we can only try to seek out a future where this will be possible.  WHAT CAN A HOLISTIC, ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN VARIATION CONTRIBUTE TO HOW WE UNDERSTAND OURSELVES AND OTHERS? October 1, 2015 • guptonvh In much the same way we seek to learn from past mistakes in both our lives as well as our shared histories, a holistic anthropological perspective on variation within the bike race crowd allows for just one snapshot of what life was like during that one week in September 2015. If done correctly, the data collected during that week will reflect what life was like. Who is able to go to the races and in what proportions? What can we deduce about the limiting factors of attendance? What groups dominate, and what groups are not represented at all? These questions, which ideally can be answered, or at least hypothesized by future anthropologists, will serve as benchmarks. Where were we, where are we now, and where are we going? The myriad factors which play into attendance of the race reflect our world socially, economically, politically, and culturally at this very moment. In the future they will hopefully look at the inequities of attendance between states and laugh, because the world then is far more equal. This will hopefully be the case again and again as society as a whole learns from their past mistakes and creates a better world in turn. The data collected from the race will hopefully allow us to understand that it is our job as citizens of the world in 2015 to fight for equality in the darkest corners of the world in the hope that one day we can see the world’s most marginalized people have the ability to travel across the globe to enjoy an international event such as this.  WHAT WAS ONE DAY’S WORTH OF DATA COLLECTION LIKE? HOW DID IT GO? WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE ABOUT THE WAY YOU COLLECTED DATA? October 2, 2015 • guptonvh One day’s worth of collect was, in sum, exciting and hectic all at once. Navigating the crowd and not being quite sure of where I was and was not allowed to go, or where the best spot to collect data was, was no doubt frazzling but it came together soon enough. I quickly discovered that I had to interview people in between race cycles because people were, understandably, very focused on seeing the racers. Thus I would conduct an interview, maybe two, then stand back and just wait for the sound of cow bells and shouting to subside. Personally, the people watching aspect of attending the race was phenomenal. I’ve never been to something quite the size of this race and just being able to sit and watch people go by was enough for me. The crazy wigs and face paint, scarves and flags, drew me in. While on the whole my day of collection went very well, if I could re-do it I’d change the format in which I collected data. I made the mistake of trying to navigate a huge spreadsheet on my tiny little phone screen and sometimes left people waiting for the next question simply because it took too long to type the answer to the previous one. Next time I would print out a spreadsheet with enough space to write out people’s answers and import them later digitally. Other than this one minor hiccup everything went smoothly, and I wouldn’t change a thing.  HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE RACE CROWD? IS IT WHAT YOU EXPECTED? October 2, 2015 • guptonvh As mentioned in previous blog posts, the crowd indeed was what I expected, and while of course there were a few outliers here and there, the general consensus I gathered was that the majority of race attendees were from Western countries, countries which typically produce citizens wealthy enough to make the hike out to Richmond and enjoy the race. However, if I were to describe the race in three words, much like my interviewees were required to, I’d say that it was proud, eager, and patriotic. While I don’t think there were as many countries represented as I’d like, particularly the poor countries of the world, the ones that were represented wanted you to know they were there. There were citizens old and young that did everything short of getting their nationality tattooed on their faces to let you know where they were from, and many of them I was lucky enough to get pictures of. Even though racially and ethnically the crowd was about what I expected, I didn’t expect the enthusiasm to be quite at the level I saw. I thought shirts and flags would be present, sure, but I didn’t expect 90 year olds to dye their hair their national colors. The pride was palpable, and contagious—even I couldn’t stop myself cheering for the American bikers.  WHY IS MEASURING VARIATION IN A CROWD IMPORTANT? WHAT CAN WE LEARN ABOUT VARIATION FROM THIS TYPE OF SAMPLE? October 3, 2015 • guptonvh Crowd variation translates directly into crowd diversity, something we certainly stress here at VCU. Variation in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation—just to name a few—are critical to learning to empathize and gain consciousness into the human experience as a whole. Without this variation you’re essentially locking yourself in a box and throwing away the key. One cannot learn from a textbook how to empathize with humanity; that is gained from pure personal experience with those one would typically consider “other.” This Us versus Them mentality is what starts wars and creates genocide. As my favorite author John Green once said, “There is no them, there are only facets of us.” We learn not to separate Us and Them in just this way, in experience with cultures and peoples starkly different than our own. International events like the bike race bridge this gap and serve a purpose far greater than entertainment value; they serve to help humanity in its never ending goal to simply be better. Variation, therefore, is critical; it can save your life.  THE HAVES AND THE HAVE NOTS October 3, 2015 • guptonvh Throughout my blogging and experience with the bike race I’ve undoubtedly put emphasis on certain factors, particularly those of money and race. I do this because this is what’s important to me, the social justice of the race. I find it appalling that in a so called international race that some parties are left out because of inequality. No everyday citizen in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, or myriad African countries could even begin to think about attending the race; it’s simply economically unfeasible to do so. Not acknowledging the have and the have nots of the race is simply blinding one’s self into thinking we live in a flat, equal world, when that is simply not the case. The world’s poor consistent get the short end of the stick. They don’t get to enjoy the magic that I experienced walking though that bright and colorful crowd. If I’ve learned anything from these experiences it’s just that—to always be aware of the haves and have nots, because it is our goal as humans to bridge the gap between the two. I sincerely hope that at least being cognizant of these facts will allow us as a species to take one step further into creating a world where everyone can join in on the international cooperation that creates events like the bike race, and everyone can have the opportunity to walk down that bright street with me. ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSEMBLAGE! October 27, 2015 • guptonvh           Above all else, I think (and simultaneously hope) archaeologist of the future will find flags. Dozens of flags in various shapes and sizes. I hope they find little bits caught on a stranger, ripped and washed down a drain, or even whole flags if they’re lucky enough, losts in an act most unpatriotic by their owners. Next to flags, bike parts and car parts have got to be a close second. There is no way that many bikes made is all those miles unscathed, surely a bike tire popped and landed in a remote location, to be found years to come. Other than that I can think of nothing else but simply trash to be found, which is not necessarily bad. What did people of the past drink at world events like these? Beer. Beer. And more beer. Surely a crumpled beer can or far too expensive beer cup will be found in the future. Whether it be a flag, a piece of tire, or a bottle cap, I certainly hope that archaeologists of the future get at least a glimpse of who we are, or were, in that one week in September 2015.  

Anthropology of the Crowd, Blog 4

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=bike_student

Anthropology of the Crowd, Blog 3

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