CAMPBELLS CHICKEN

SOUP FOR THE STAMPS:

A Performance Ethnography

Tim Carlin
WRIT 1133: Writing and Researching Local Food Communities
Professor Megan Kelly

Growing up in Northeast Philadelphia has largely shaped who I have become and how I feel
about culture, art, equality, and diversity. Thinking back to my childhood, I remember colorful

people and streets dotted with undertones of poverty and hardship I was too blind to see. Not
to say I dont love my roots, but the reality of the situation is that I witnessed people depend-

ing on the very government that was holding them back. When I came to DU, I began taking
classes in whatever seemed interesting to me, especially theatre classes like Aesthetics in
Performance and Slavic Is Sexy and sociology classes like Gender in Society and Un-

derstanding Social Life. These courses all made me question what privilege is and where the
causes for social problems like the achievement gap lie. I began to question my own life and
the social inequities I witnessed, without realizing, my whole life.

Entering WRIT 1133, my professor asked us to consider how people define their relationships
to food. I thought about my experiences growing up and how those memories have crafted
my own relationship with my plate. As I started researching food in my hometown, it quickly

became clear to me that there was a story that needed to be heard. I found that Philadelphia is

one of the poorest big cities in the country, has a plethora of dietary and health issues, and has
a staggering amount of the population living off of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

(SNAP), or food stamp, benefits. Possibly the most shocking information I learned was that my
own neighborhood has been identified as a food desert, meaning that people living there have
limited access to and funds for acquiring healthy foods for their families.

I created a performance ethnography as my final piece for this WRIT 1133 class. I want to give
a special thanks to my best friend Amber (which is not her real name) for her contributions to
this project and her willingness to be a voice for her community. In the end, it is my hope this

piece may spark an interest in performance ethnography and also allow the reader to identify
his or her own assumptions about this community by engaging with the text.

In WRIT 1133, I was tasked with developing

my own research questions about food and then
producing an ethnography. The first questions I
developed related to food access, and I was taken
back to my childhood in Philadelphia. I gathered
information about the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP) and other food as44

WRIT LARGE: 2015

sistance programs around the world, and I realized there were too many voices in this community to bring together in one project in less than
ten weeks. I decided to conduct primary research
on one voice in one food community and support that research with secondary sources.
When I began to consider how to tell this

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story, I looked to my love of theatre and specifically the ethnographic performances of Anna
Deavere Smith, whose works explore the topics of race and ethnicity. Smitha well-known
actor, playwright, and professorconducts her
research by interviewing people and then creating full plays centered around one theme that
emerges from these interviews. Smith uses her
interview subjects actions and words verbatim
in these monologues, giving an authentic representation of peoples feelings about the issues
being investigated. For example, in her play Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, Smith takes on the roles
of people she interviewed following the violent
responses to the 1992 Rodney King trial. In
her TED Talk, Smith says, If you say a word
enough, it becomes you. This observation has
largely shaped my interest in carrying out performance ethnography. I realized that many
Philadelphians, myself included, have discussed
their difficulties with money, food stamps, transportation to and from the food store, and every
painful aspect of our food shopping experiences
so much that these conversations have become
us. All of these experiences have shaped our relationships to food and also made us accept our
situation, while at the same time we stopped
questioning the world around us.

COLLECTING INTERVIEWS: BEING IN

IT, OUT OF IT, AND ALL AROUND IT
Inspired by Smiths performance ethnographies,
I interviewed my best friend from back home,
Amber, to construct an accurate monologue depicting her changing relationship with food. My

best friend growing up, Amber lived down the

block in her uncles home with her mother and
little sister. Ambers family has been on food assistance of some form since she was a child. This
situation has greatly determined her relationship
with her family and how her own developing

Performance ethnography is a way of researching a

community by using peoples words and enacting them
verbatim. These performances involve in-depth study
of peoples body language and life styles and are often
accompanied by some form of written analysis or discussion on how the community is portrayed through the
piece. The transcript for my final ethnography has been
included here, as well as a description of my research
process and techniques.

family is handling food in a hard economy; it

also has made her appreciate a new level of access to food that she has recently acquired now
that she has a car and a better-paying job. I have
known Amber my whole life, and her family
once opened their doors to me, adding me into
their thin food budget. Knowing her family well
was an incredible help with my research because
it increased my investment in the project. I cared
about Ambers story and thought it needed to be
told. Being in it helped me focus on her experience, even as I kept in mind the implications
her story has for the community for which she
is speaking.
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(left) Tim Carlin /

LP Picard
(right) mikeledray /
Shutterstock.com

Tim is a transfer student in his junior year

at the University of Denver. He is currently pursuing a double major in psycholo-

gy and sociology with a minor in theatre.

Tims interests include acting, directing,

camping, baking, eating baked goods,

and spending the summers in Estes Park

exploring the Rocky Mountain National

Park. He hopes to further his research in

performance ethnography and encourages people to find a way to bring art into
their research.

One hurdle I faced was how to shape questions and create an environment that would be
conducive to eliciting responses people would
want to hear and watch on stage. Since I would be
composing a performance from this interview, I
needed Amber to be active while she spoke: this
is the key for performance ethnography. My first
thoughts were to put Amber in a situation where
she would be actively food shopping and I would
interview her over some form of video chat. We
quickly realized that food shopping, staying in
budget, and keeping track of a 2-year-old was already too large a task to add an interview into the
mix. While it was a shame to lose out on interviewing her in the store, it did give me an even
deeper understanding of the experiences Amber
was having with food.
We settled on a Skype interview that took
place while Amber was putting away her groceries. This allowed for a calm environment where
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Amber could think while also physically interacting with her surroundings. Interviews can be
very informative when the researcher pays attention to the circumstance in general: What is the
interviewee doing? Where are they? What time
is it? What will they do right after the interview?
What did they do right before the interview? A
thorough understanding of the interview subject
prior to the interview allows the researcher to
structure a productive research environment.
After collecting my interview data and engrossing myself in Ambers relationship to food,
I began to feel overwhelmed with the amount of
information I had. I was losing perspective, seeing my friend and her life as opposed to an ethnographic inquiry. While being very involved in
my topic gave me great insight, I quickly realized
that it was also something that could potentially
hold me back. Could being Ambers friend and
knowing all of these things about her life be giving me a bias too significant to notice from the
inside? It was time to get out.
I got out of it by focusing my research on
the larger context of the issue. I read news articles and academic essays about food assistance
programs, as well as reports by public health officials and other public health data. Though none
of these resources directly addressed my specific
topic, they helped me craft a new set of interview
questions and also helped me compare Ambers
situation to other cases. This process of reviewing the literature also afforded me a chance to
consider how this performance ethnography
could reach a variety of audiences by including a
wider range of themes. One of the best lessons I

Interviews can be very informative when

the researcher pays attention to the
circumstance in general: What is the
interviewee doing? Where are they?
What time is it? What will they do right
after the interview? What did they do
right before the interview?

Tim Carlin

learned from this project was the importance of

being deeply involved and connected to your research but also being able to disconnect and look
objectively at the data to see how they connect to
other research.

WHY IS THAT?
Another influence on my ethnography was the
framework for Understanding Social Life with
Dr. Paul Colomy, which I took in my spring quarter while enrolled in WRIT 1133. In this class,
we consistently considered the question: Why
is that? Though simple in theory, this question
forces you to figure out the essence of the subject. For example, I had noticed that many of my
friends who were on food stamps had been on
them for their whole lives. I noticed that their
parents and siblings remained a part of the program throughout their whole lives as well. I
didnt understand why assistance programs were
somehow not giving people the aid they needed to get themselves back to stability. Starting
with this simple questionwhy is that?led
me to many more questions than answers: questions about social power, food access, and food
quality.
Analyzing the function of power in society
is, for me, one of the most important roles of
research. The essence of my research in this ethnography, like Smiths, is questioning inequity
and injustice to understand how the world works
and find solutions to better the human condition. In life, as well as in research, the key is to
question everything and always dig deeper, never
falling into dogma or bias.

I encourage you to read and watch this performance ethnography to better understand life
on food stamps from my friend Ambers perspective.

ETHNOGRAPHY TRANSCRIPT
The scene opens in a dilapidated kitchen in Northeast
Philadelphia, an old row home from the Frankford
neighborhood. The home seems as if it could have been
worth something at some point but has been abandoned
or forgotten; the whole neighborhood has. The paint is
peeled everywhere, the floor is aged and dirty, and messages written in pen by children can be seen on the wall.
The hardwood floor is cut up; on the right, the cabinets
and the countertops are yellow. There is a microwave
with an old coffee maker and a dirty coffee pot that sit
on top; the sink is filled with dishes, and the gas stove is
covered in dirty dishes. To the left is a pantry with white
and green cabinets that are peeling off paint; the panty
has shopping bags on it from Wal-Mart. On the back
wall is a fridge and freezer; there is also a staircase on
the left and a door to the back yard on the right. It is
a humid May night; Amber enters fighting the desire to
go straight to bed. She unpacks groceries as she speaks.
Amber: I guess it really all started (puts bags down
on floor and takes a breath)...I guess when I was
10 (pause, plays with hair) or maybe 12? I can remember problems with food and money starting
around then. Somewhere in between there, uh
(loses train of thought)...I mean it hasnt been forever. Once we were on, though, weve had them
ever since. (silently puts groceries away for a moment).
Ohh! We get $529 a month from our food
stamps now though. People tell me how much
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(left and right) Tim Carlin

(goes and puts things in the fridge) they got and Id be

like, (expressive) Thats it? Like only a tiny bit
(comes up and leans against the open fridge). Who was
it? Who was(trails off). Carlina! Carlina and her
family only get $170 a month! I was surprised,
but I do believe for the four of usme, Mommy,
Lilly, and Alex that is(trails off, continues putting
groceries away). I want to say that we get more for
Lilly (beat) probably...maybe; its hard to say with
WIC stuff too. I mean Im not working but Lee
is at Home Depot (stops, thinks), ummm, on like
a MET team or something (short pause followed by
excitement). I uhhh dont really know what it is,
but I can get back to you on that one! I just know
hes like building and fixing stuff. We tried to
add Lee to the case once (sits on the counter while
she takes a break); it was crazy! They cut us off...
not for a whole month, but (expressive) he makes
enough. We had to say he lives somewhere else
before theyd give us our benefits back; same
thing with Uncle Johns retirement money. Its
just too much, and (beat, she looks around and half
whispers) Id also never add Phil to the case, not
stable or anything (she sighs, and returns to her work
at a slower pace). I mean, its just a lot of people.
Its always veryyyyy (searches for the right word)
interesting splitting the cost of food right in half
with the stamps and everything, so me and Lee
just buy some stuff for ourselves and hide it in our
room (suddenly offput, seemingly by her own words). But
yeah, we have some separate foods because theyre
stupid with their money! They eat too much and
waste everything; we manage our money, or at
least we try to, and they just waste so much on
Wawa and the corner store (suddenly upset). Like,
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you dont need that! I just cant depend on them

to save for the whole month. And poor Alex at
the end of the month (pause. beat. she takes a deep
breath and continues). It just makes me mad. Wawa
trips and the corner store and theyre out of money, scrounging for food around the 20th.
But Lee and I, like I said, we can get by. Like
today, we just spent $50 at Bottom Dollar, got
some stuff for the house and stuff for us. We buy
a lot of deli stuffs (references the still open fridge without really looking but becomes more excited and dreamlike
as she talks about her purchases): American cheese
and ham and turkey, like good deli stuffs for
the house. Kraft Mac and Cheese, if that counts
(smiles, gets distracted then continues). Brand name
cereals! Thats for me and Lee. Tyson chicken
nuggets for Lilly, and her little apple pieces to go
(realizes she forgot the most important thing, stops dead
in her tracks and looks down at the gift in her very hand,
she turns from the pantry). Campbells Mothafuckin
Soup. Ohhh with some flavored Doritos and a
glass of milk(holds can to her heart and contemplates
for a moment, she places the can by the microwave instead
of in the pantry). Haha and Lee and I get lots of soda
(with a wink)brand name soda! I can get this
all now from Bottom Dollar or the Wal-Mart on
Aramingo (begins putting food in a separate bin).
We used to, like two months ago, we used to
go to the ghetto Wal-Mart up the block from my
house with Lillys stroller. It goes some much easier now that we have Lees pay, now we have the
car. (Exaggerated) Soooo much better. We can get
more stuff like cases of water and bulk and heavy
stuff, and were not limited to stroller capacity
(takes a moment of pride for her newfound independence).

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I love shopping trips now, like knowing everything will be here and how much money we can
spend. Were happier now as a family, and a couple. We can afford to eat and now its easier to get
food (smiles and begins discarding bags). I mean, I can
enjoy the foods more now that I can worry less
about getting them and affording them. I think
thats why weve been buying things completely
based on how they taste; we buy food that makes
us happy now that Im not running around trying to add everything up or putting yummy stuff
back because its expensive (returns to her soup and

begins to make it).

Its kinda weird to think that Im still on food
stamps; I mean, there are people who abuse it and
people who cant get off it, like my mom but
(long pause, the microwave beeps). Its weird to think
that Im not everyone. Things are different now
with Lee and the baby here; were not insecure,
and were happier now (beat. pause. she looks at her
soup and smiles). I love soup. Its sad, and I dont
know why, but I just do. Soup makes me happy.
Amber grabs her soup and her food and heads upstairs.

Watch Carlins performance ethnography online: http://www.vimeo.com/97675017

WORKS CITED
Smith, Anna Deveare. Four American Characters. TED Talk. TED Conferences. 21 Dec. 2010. Web. 18 Nov.
2014.
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