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  And are you familiar with Facebook marketplace 

What is life like in a commoditized world? What difference does life during a pandemic make? This assignment asks you to answer the following question: what is the relationship between commodities, money, and work as we encounter them when we go shopping? Your answer is to be based on a small bit of virtual fieldwork.    ** Note From The Person who hired you — I want my assignment to be about how people have changed the way they exchange goods and services post pandemic — via ZOOM, Facebook Marketplace, DoorDash, Etc... If there is a topic you would prefer to write about, rather than this one... Please feel free to use that as your topic — just PLEASE do a GOOD job as this is 40% of my final Grade... THANK YOU!!! 

Find some area of consumerism that is available to you under pandemic conditions. We encourage you to do this research online, although other strategies, such as "drive-by pickup" transactions are possible. If you can safely do your fieldwork in the face-to-face world, you are welcome to do so. An hour or so of observation would probably be sufficient (and participation as well as observation is permissible). Be attentive, observe carefully, note details.  Keep in mind basic fieldwork ethics: deception and violations of normal expectations of privacy are off limits. Orient your observations around the ideas of commodities, money, work, and incomeas discussed in the lectures and readings. Some questions you might bear in mind as you observe:  In what ways is the work (of the producer, of the seller, of the consumer) made visible or invisible? What kinds of things, of persons, of transactions, are involved? How is money obtained, handled, and transacted, depicted, mentioned, celebrated, disguised, or hidden? How are commodities advertised, displayed, packaged, wrapped; how are purchases and sales carried out? Recalling Adam Smith’s account of all the kinds of work that go into making a woolen coat, ask what are the distinctive origins and potential destinies of the goods before and after the moment of sale? (You may need to do a bit of research into the sources of the commodity in question). How do customers and salespersons go about their business? Why do they carry out their jobs in the way they do? You will not have space to deal with allof these questions with care, so you will need to make some choices and make it clear to the reader what those choices are and why you have made them. The most important thing is that you develop insightful links between your observations and the concepts in question. In addition to the concepts of commodity, money, and work, discuss at least twoadditional concepts from this list: fetishism, naturalization, value, alienation, abstraction, cosmology, desires, needs, time/temporality. Show how each of the concepts you are working with might help illuminate your observations. In the process, demonstrate your own grasp of those concepts. We ask you to be observant, thoughtful, and imaginative. You will be graded on the ambition and acuteness of your ethnographic observations, the quality of your written presentation, and your understanding of the theoretical concepts you deploy.  This paper is to be between 2000 and 2500 words long.  Be succinct, direct, and to the point.  Use specific and concrete examples, but link them insightfully to the theoretical questions.