Intro LDS Research

[One speaker.] 

[Audio only; this is a podcast.]

Narrator: Okay, what I’d like to do now is kind of give an introduction to the final analysis paper. It will be due at the end of the semester; it’s basically the final exam for the course.  One of the, kind of, key objectives— or things that anthropology does for us— is give us kind of a unique way of looking at the world. And so one of the objectives we have is helping you be able to view the world through this anthropological perspective. And so the final paper— research paper— that you’ll write for this class is an analysis of LDS culture. I picked the culture; everyone’s gonna do the same thing, but analyze the culture from an anthropological perspective. And so at the end of the semester, what you’re going to do is write a paper analyzing different aspects of LDS culture according to an anthropological perspective. So it’s not just going to be “they,” “this is what LDS culture,” you know, it’s not going to sounds like “they,” introduction to mormonism or something, it’s going to be a data driven sort of analysis. And so what’ll happen is in each chapter, as we work through the chapters of this textbook over the semester, each week we’ll spend some time discussing and looking at specific content, and concepts, and ideas from each chapter as they relate to anthropology in general, and the world around us. But then we’ll have a second section where we will talk specifically just about how these things relate to, or are tied to, LDS culture, or how we would see these things manifest in LDS culture. And that’s the part that you need to kind of work on for this final paper. So each week you have the opportunity to, basically, begin gathering some data and writing some ideas about your final paper.

You will also get the opportunity to discuss this— each week you’ll get an opportunity to discuss with your group members ideas you’ve been having, or things of interest about LDS culture in that week’s content area. And that’s fine: share ideas, explore ideas, share information what not. Just the final paper, when you write it, will have to be your own work, obviously. So basically here’s your job, here’s what’s going to happen: every week you’ll find something— or more than one thing— in the chapter that’s of interest to you as it relates to LDS culture. And then you get to explore that a little bit. And you need to gather some data; it’s an analysis paper, a research paper, not just a discussion. And so what you’ll do— let me give you an example, here’s an example: so let’s say we’re talking about language, we’re in the language chapter. And we talk about how important language is, and you— kind of peaks your interest that in our culture, we have lots of names for ourselves. We sometimes refer to ourselves as “Mormons,” sometimes refer to ourselves as “members of the church,” without identifying which church we’re talking about, right? Just oh, “member” or “nonmember,” it’s just a given. We’re not the only people who do that obviously, but some of us refer to ourselves as “LDS.” I keep saying “LDS” culture, I could be saying “mormon” culture. And so maybe what’s of interest to you is, “Why do we say LDS culture and why do we say Mormon culture? Or church culture?” So what you want to do is explore this a little bit. And so perhaps what you do— you begin with try to pay attention to what do people actually say when they’re referring to the church members in our culture. And so you would literally get a little notebook, or a scrap of paper or something, and kind of keep track. Do it over the course of several weeks: at church, and in your community, and talking to members of the church. And just kind of jot down the number of times people refer to themselves— or members of the church— and what sort of term, or title, or phrase that they use. And let’s say that after about a month of doing this, you would look at your notes and say, “Okay, I’ve heard at least a hundred references to church members by church members, and about ten of the hundred people say ‘members of the church.’ About fifty times they say ‘Mormon.’ And about forty times they say ‘LDS.’” And so it’s very clear that a majority of people, or the most-likely term that people use is “Mormon” when referring to themselves, with “LDS” being a close second. And so now you take that and you say why? Does it matter? Because you know, it’s of interest: Mormon started as a derogatory term, kind of targeted towards early church members, meant to be kind of mean towards them. And most of us, I would bet, don’t feel that today. I’m a Mormon. We’re proud of it. We own it now.

So now you’ve got this data: these numbers. And so what you do is you now explore that with other people. So you ask some of your friends at church. Say, “Hey, I’m in this anthropology class, and we’re talking about language and titles, and I kind of kept track and found that most of us refer to ourselves as Mormons. And I’m just curious why, do you think it matters?” So you ask this other people right? “Do you think it matters what we call ourselves?” Why or why not, you know, explore that, ask them some follow-up. And then kind of keep track: you jot down just some brief notes about what their answers are. Now if you’ve talked to a dozen people, perhaps you start to get this sense of, “We kind of like the term Mormon: it’s unique, it sets us apart, and easily identifiable. So when I say I’m a Mormon, I don’t have to explain a lot. And so it kind of works.” And so you kind of keep track of that. And maybe you ask people why they don't like a certain term. LDS: why don't they use LDS? Is that because people don’t understand what that means? I don’t know, you’ve probably all heard the joke about how— oh I’ve heard it in so many contexts— but the idea that there’s a natural disaster somewhere and the church responds to this quite efficiently and effectively, and they’re talking to some local person after the disaster and recovery effort and everything and they say, “How did it go?” The news reporter asks, “How were you able to recover and be okay?” And they say, “Well, it was the two groups that helped the most, of course: it was the Mormons and then The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.“ And so, you know, people sometimes don’t connect the two. So you might want to know, do your friends know what a Mormon is? If you were to say “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” do people not know what that is? So maybe that’s something else you want to go, and explore, and start keeping track of. And asking people do they know who—what group you refer to when you say “Mormon” or “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.” But anyways, back to the original. And so you ask a bunch of church members, and you kind of just get their ideas about “What do we call ourselves, and “Why do we call ourselves that?” And then you drop down, you know, you have some pages of notes about this. So you have your numbers and some notes and things. And then you kind of set that aside and we go on through the other chapters and each chapter you find something of interest, maybe multiple things, you know again, I don’t want to limit you, and you can do the same thing. Kind of keep track, notice, jot down some numbers, ask people question, explore these ideas.

Now, at the end of the semester, towards the end of the semester, you’re going to kind of put this stuff together You don’t necessarily need to use every chapter. This isn’t gonna be this big thirty-page paper with every chapter needs to be covered. Maybe you’ll study one specific thing about one aspect of LDS culture so far in depth that you’ll write the majority, if not the entire paper, just one that one topic. The most common thing, and probably what I’d suggest you’d do, is you pick two or three of these kind of topics and you write them up, two to three pages each, and explain what you did. So you take this language pages, and you write it up, and you’d say “So, I was interested about why we call ourselves what we call ourselves. And here’s the statistics I found, out of one hundred yata, yata, yata.” And then you explain: “And I asked some people about why do they think we use these names and what not, and here’s my explanation - from anthropology we know that titles and language are meaningful and significant, so here’s why I think we tend to call ourselves Mormons more than any other thing.” And you give your explanation and your analysis— tying it back in to some key concepts or ideas from the chapter in the textbook about language. And this will become a section of your final paper. And like I said, you’ll put two or three of these together into your final paper, and be done. Even though you’ve kind of done little investigation things across most chapters. There might be a chapter that nothing about it really interests you. That’s okay, but don’t make that the pattern; that should be the exception. And you just do limited things. But whereas other chapters just fascinate you, and you spend tons of time exploring that aspect, you know: the idea of gender in LDS culture, how we survive, dress, things like this, right? And that’s the basic idea. So, having said all of that, and rambled through that, every week we’ll have some time to explore and discuss together, and I’ll do a little message like this to get some thoughts going and discussions going about how that chapter and the concepts from that week relate to LDS culture.