Blog #7: Reflection
Address the following questions:
a. What challenges did you overcome throughout this inquiry project? How did you go about
overcoming these challenges?
Throughout my inquiry project, I had two main struggles that I had to overcome while researching. Firstly, my topic of choice for my inquiry research is a very specific question on a very abstract topic hence it was hard to find relevant information that answered my question specifically. For example, though I was researching the relationship between nostalgia and the reoccurrence of trends, I was getting research that was correlating between nostalgia and marketing and how to use it to one’s advantage. Though this was helpful information and something I ultimately incorporated into my research and previous blog posts, I found that It took away from the basis of my research and the merit of nostalgia and made it more of a capitalistic ploy as opposed to a cultural thing. To overcome this challenge, I focused on combining the information I was learning from sources that were more focused on capitalistic ideals, and then on other sources that were more focused on the mechanisms of nostalgia, and then finding a middle ground between the two ideas and incorporating both of them into my research because at the end of the day as much as we would like to admit, society is a mix of both ideals. Secondly, I also found most of the information to be revolved around fashion, as it seems in today’s generation it seems that trend and fashion are synonyms, however, I wanted the word trend to symbolize a bigger umbrella term. For example, though low-waist jeans are a trend that is back from the early 2000s, so are film cameras and the usage of digital cameras, however, it seems that most articles and research that I have come upon settle more on the fashion aspect as opposed to other trends. To overcome this challenge, I decided to utilize the same approach I was already doing with my first challenge and instead take the idea behind what the research articles about fashion were talking about and try and find certain trends I have seen coming back and narrow my search for that. Though I had to overcome these challenges, I was also able to learn some new things about my topic that I hadn’t come up with myself and I am forever grateful for that.
b. How did this inquiry change the way you think?
This inquiry changes the way I think and approach fashion, trends, and society. Through my research, I was able to confirm some of my own opinions about these topics for example the close relationship between time, society, and trend-setting, however, I was also able to disprove some of the things I also believed in which turned out to be myths. For example, when I was researching about nostalgia I had a preconceived idea of nostalgia being happy memories we look back at. however, I learned that there are two types of nostalgia and though we think about restorative nostalgia which is the one with happy memories like birthdays, there is reflective nostalgia which can be dangerous in large amounts and is associated with grieving feelings. Hence, this inquiry made me change how I see the world and the trends that we have and makes me think more about where those trends came from.
c. How did this investigation impact your future decisions?
This investigation gave me new insight into the things that impact me directly and indirectly. For example, the things we see on social media, the trends we partake in no matter how big or small, and the memories we make and what it means to us. Specifically, I was able to learn a lot about the roles of capitalism and marketing and how it affects us as a society. Learning that sometimes a lot of our memories and the things that make us human can be taken advantage of by trends, made me more reflective of how I could have been partaking in this as well. By learning these things through my research I have become more aware of the decisions I make in my day-to-day life and have become better at discerning whether I want to allocate my time by accepting a decision or declining a decision and whether it contributes to society or not.
d. What impact will this investigation have on others locally and/or globally?
Locally, this gives those in my community a chance to understand more things about how our society affects them on a larger scale or even on a local scale. For example, by educating those in my community about why we have certain trends and why they resurface most of the time, those around me can gain a deeper understanding of how the things around them have come to be and what it means for them moving forward. Globally, I believe that by gaining more awareness of the decisions and things that bring back trends, as people we will be able to actively participate in what kind of trends resurface and will have more of a say on what doesn’t. For example, a lot of the trends that keep coming back in society are doing so at such a fast pace that it is hard to keep up but also debilitating because as people we aren’t able to make memories and appreciate a specific trend or an idea because there is a plethora and oversaturated amount of them out there.
Thanks for reading these past couple of years! signing out – Sanam M.
