What I learned

Ultimately in this past quarter and my research and my interactions I have learned a lot, and enforced my own personal ideals as well. There has been many validating interactions and as well allowed further insight into a world that I do not belong.

With the fieldwork experience I didn't realize how much fear can be in another country towards ones own identity and what could be thought of as polite in a different setting. I also believe I made a good friend through this. I had never heard much of Argentina as well as the interactions of someone such as Talias or political or ethical backgrounds of her. Something that may be controversial to us her personal culture seeing it as okay.

This lead me into a way of thinking that maybe my ethics may be called into question as well as they stand. With so many different cultures in the world and so many different view points what can truly be considered good, or proper? Am I even qualified to answer that question other than what I want to succeed in. I don't have that answer and I am unsure who does if any of us do.

The book itself was a fascinating read. I can't bring up one passage that particularly stood out compared to the rest of it, because I get so excited. But many of the stories and the points brought up in the book "Strangers in their own land", I felt I could relate with a lot of it. Not from cultural stand points but from an ethical and point of view. Because I have tried my best to become objective in my ideals, despite putting myself into a situation of not having strong opinions but thats not entirely a bad thing from an anthropological stand point. In the end the book gave me a few more tools to go down my path as a potential journalist.

In the end my empathy walls have always been maxed out even from a young age. However I think they have changed to a point of thinking that perhaps I can take a logical view of emotions as well now instead of just feeling them I can think more clearly and perhaps understand why people are feeling the way they do versus just knowing how they feel. 

5th blog Talias background

When I spoke with Talia in the previous blog it was made apparent that her upbringing in Argentina was apparently a fairly "normal" one. Happy family, a lot of childhood friends and highly active life. When she was younger she saw a lot of people as she said, "were fake, and could not trust them", in regards to religious view points and when she got into middle school her grandmother began to show her more spiritual paths such as witch craft.

While her parents didn't seem to like that she continued to practice in secret. With this she began making different friends that sort of lead her into a party life style, despite maintaining a strong academic life. She began to pursue drama in her highschool ages, and felt like progress was starting to happen. However she was still warry on being public about her sexuality and political view points as much in Argentina is still conservative.

Such as viewpoints on other spiritual paths other than Catholicism or abortion or LGBT. While recently there was a lot of progress to allow LGBT more rights, she felt that her identity would still compromise her life. Despite being highly sexually active with multiple of the sexes, she did all of such in private. Keeping that part of her life away from most of her peers and family. Though many did know she enjoyed the partying and concert going scene. She continued to practice her witchcraft and sexuality and she was content with that.

The recent president put strain on her values as well when activists began to go missing that were pro indigenous peoples, or pro LGBT. That the country started to become more tight police wise. So she thought it was wise not to come out to others. Despite this fear, she loved talking about her crushes and her wanting to be with a girl who she met in her drama class. However she felt it might not be morally correct, as at this point she was helping teach the class. While in America that is a big taboo, teacher and student, she says there are few laws of professors or teachers in Argentina from being able to fraternize with students. 

But still was conflicted.

She also asked if I drank Yerba Mate. I said I did, and she was extremely excited by that fact. She said she never met an American that drank Yerba Mate. Which is a tea made from the Yerba tree, that is high in caffeine as well other nutrients that make it supposedly healthier than coffee.

This point is important because she uses Yerba Mate in her magickal practice, because everyone shares Yerba Mate, and it becomes easy to implement a spell or herbal interactions with others. Through this she can practice coercion or manipulation of another through herbal concoctions she creates with her yerba mate.

While she has a high ethical value from an Americans perspective, she does believe that future is hers for the taking especially when she was given the tools to do so. So as of now she has strong feelings in magickal practice, but still holds enough sense to be quiet. 

Talias Concerns 3rd blog

My first meeting of Talia, a young woman from Argentina it was met with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. My first interest was getting to know her and how her own culture played a part of who she was and how she got to who she was as well.

You see when I got into talking to her I became further intrigued with her ideas of religion playing a major role in her family and surroundings, despite the fact that she didn't subscribe to the same dogmatic practices that they all did.

Firstly her family and region in Argentina are relatively catholic in nature. They have strict rules in the religion that should be followed in order to avoid cultural back lash. So when I got to talking to her she first brought up the idea of her being a witch. Which is frowned upon initially however she also got into different sexualities as well. Both Polygamous as well as pansexual.

So despite feeling pressure from family and her social structures she manages to quietly hide her identity and still actively practice without feeling shame and guilt. As the overall project for this blog is for beliefs different from my own, I decided to focus on the cultural aspect and how it effected her polygamous ideals.

She brought up the fact that she does have to hide a lot of what she does as where she is from it's frowned upon to have multiple sexual partners. She feels that if she were to actively open up about those things without being under handed, in her own words, that she might end up disappearing or being shamed by her family to keep it under wraps and to try to change her. So she simply hides it.

While in America that is becoming more and more widely accepted these days, in Argentina especially under the new regime of power they have been put under she feels increasingly oppressed by these ideals that are being forced country wide. From anti-abortion laws to laws that fully support straight monogamy. However this wasn't the case until a few years ago, similar to the Trump administration actively doing similar actions, it was a very accepting country, to a country that quickly went into fear for her own life.

She told me a story of a man named Santiago Maldonado who had gone missing after an indigenous peoples march and said his disappearance was being covered up by the government. She felt that if something happened to someone like that who was a citizen everyone should aspire to be, what would happen to someone like her? 

2nd blog

First I would like to outline the ethics of this interview. I will be using a different name for the interviewee, as well as not give specific location nor attempt to bring harm in any way, physically, mentally, or socially to this person. I will protect their identity and portray their culture and ideals as much as I possibly can and as objectively as I possibly can.

I will review chapter 2 of Strangers in Their Own Land, “One Thing Good,” where Horschild speaks with an older man. His name is Lee Sherman, age 82, who played for the Dallas Texans. Sport player to environmental enthusiast who supported the EPA and had a strong hatred towards federal taxes. One of which he would actively fight against when he made a democratic shift in the late 2000's. 

Some of the questions I wanted to ask in my interviews would be, What their cultural heritage is? What are their beliefs now in terms of personal identity, how did they come to find their ideals? Also how does their social culture effect them and their beliefs as they stand now? As well as other questions that may arise during the interview. 

First Blog

My name is Atria Wulf,

The purpose of this blog is to introduce the coming project of stepping into someone elses shoes as it were. I will be finding someone whose culture and beliefs are different from my own especially politically and ideologically. I will be attempting to view things from their side of the world, and see who they are.

My first task is simply to describe someone who did it before hand. Today I will be reviewing the writing "Strangers In Their Own Land" by Arlie Russell, for examples on how to do this assignment  and comparing how he set out to do something similarly.


Arlie Russell had gone out with a mission in mind. That mission being to take record of indigenous cultures that were threatened by extinction due to the post colonialist industrial world. He saw it as an important mission due to the fact that it was important if not able to save the work, but rather immortalize it through recording and preservation of thorough documentation of these tribal networks. This is, in a way, helping the culture survive, and gain further understanding of humans social identities. while doing this he focused on the underlying morals and beliefs of peoples through their emotional values.


Hochschild, Arlier R. Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American right. SI New Press, 2018 Print.