Week 2 update

Since the last meeting, I issued a social media challenge to engage the online community and help develop non-biased locations for polling and observations to occur. People from ages 16-79 weighed in by recounting all of the places they had been in the last ten days, allowing me to determine the most effective and efficient places to do polling. From the responses I received, I designated 6 types of locations to poll and 3 types of locations for observations. These locations include a local gym, a coffee house, a grocery store, the Botanical Gardens, and local farmers markets. These are all places that people of various ages groups visited regularly and are accessible to most of the population. 

This past week also brought to light the lack of academic research already done on this topic. While I did not expect to find much due to the lack of recognition of the word "sonder" in the english language, I had hoped to find more research than what I actually found (the references I was able to find are listed below in the references section although they are not specifically referred to here). Though I was only able to find one or two credible academic papers on the topic, I found that the concept itself is not ill-explored in the online social atmosphere. Many small businesses have utilized the word sonder for businesses related to self exploration, life coaching, mindfulness, and social awareness. Perhaps the best example of all of these was Sonder Magazine, a website compiled of submissions from people around the world that celebrates different cultures, viewpoints, and stories. Sonder Magazine (linked here: https://sondermag.wordpress.com/), is a digital avenue to explore what people have shared. Although it differs from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows definition in that it is not experienced with the people in one's immediate surroundings, it does show the outcome of the recognition of other ways of life and stories outside of one's own. People drawn to sources such as this are naturally curious about other ways of life and show a desire for other viewpoints or understanding. 

For this upcoming week, I will be focusing on finalizing the questions to be asked in each location and which avenues we will use to interact with participants and ask questions. I will also be finalizing the learning objectives for this project with measurable results. While they still need work, my hopes for this project were to challenge myself artistically in capturing people's stories on a page as well as developing my skills and comfort doing researched based on interpersonal interaction. 

References

Axel, B. K. (2012, December). Of Wonder and Waking (Doctoral dissertation, University of California Santa Cruz, 2012). Abstract, 4-5. Retrieved September 16, 2018, from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/83q5g373.

Bowman, D. (2015). On Sonder [Editorial]. Medical Humanities. Retrieved September 16, 2018.

SONDER MAGAZINE. 2018. Retrieved September 16, 2018, from https://sondermag.wordpress.com/

Walsham, J. (2017). Sonder: Locating the Unessentialized Self in Movement Practices (Doctoral dissertation, Dominican University of California) [Abstract]. Self and Society,6-10. Retrieved September 16, 2018, from https://scholar.dominican.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1007&context=honors-theses.