TMA 01
Drawing what you have learnt from Making Social Lives DVD and Learning Companion 1, outline how material things on City Road favour the activities of some groups of people over others.
Social Lives is the set of phenomena and processes implemented between people and people in society. It is a system where there is a way to interact – interaction between individuals and groups (Wikipedia). The first very important point for social scientist is the observation, is to imagine walking down the street which you familiar with or unfamiliar but try to describe it (Making Social Lives DVD).
The City Road in Cardiff is a good place where we can see a lot different people, many different shops, restaurants. We can see there many different activities. It is a place which is different in daytime and different in night-time. Dr. Simon Bromley says in this movie that very important point is to try to look at the street in four ways:
- Look at the activities – what are people doing , why they are doing what they are doing
- Material infrastructure of the street – what people needs for their life , how they are dependent on material things
- Connection between City Road and other places and times
- Focus on the differences across time and space (Dr. Simon Bromley, Making Social Lives DVD, 2009).
Material things are very important things in our lives. We can’t imagine being without them. As time goes by we change things which are important for us as material things. Very nice scene in this DVD was scene where Dr. Elizabeth Silva was talking with three students about material things, which was for them important when they was kids and which material things are important now (Elizabeth Silva, Material Lives, Making Social Lives DVD). Our needs are changing. We need mobile-phones to contact somebody wherever and whenever we need it. We need cars to get somewhere when we need it. Material things are the part of our lives and many of us are dependent on them. But how...