Discourse Analysis in Ethnographic Research

1990 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 42-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Poole
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Distinct Form ◽  
Speech Event ◽  
Units Of Analysis ◽  
Valid Data ◽  
Ethnographic Data

The discourse analysis typical of language-oriented ethnographic research is distinct form the that which is more linguistically driven. From a linguistic perspective, ethnographic data may seem impressionistic, and the units of analysis (e.g., clarification, shaming, or visiting ritual) too ill-defined for rigorous or detailed investigation. The perspective taken in this review, however, is that ethnographic research has greatly expanded understanding of what can consitute both valid data and appropriate analytical units. Through focus on categories such as speech event or genre, a large number of previously unexamined discourse phenomena have emerged as appropriate and significant domains of inquiry.

Relationship to Place for Older Adults in a New York City Neighborhood Undergoing Gentrification: A Discourse Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1267-1286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce Weil
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Older Persons ◽  
Neighborhood Change ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Social Connectivity ◽  
Power Differentials ◽  
Ethnographic Data

While many older adults live in neighborhoods undergoing gentrification, research rarely explores their narratives about the gentrification process and their relationships with gentrifiers. This study uses discourse analysis of ethnographic data in Queens, NY, to identify repertoires in older adults’ narratives about the meaning of place and gentrification. Five distinct repertoires emerged: (1) gentrification brings a discussion of losses; (2) talk of the insider versus outsider claim to space; (3) social connectivity phrased as a strength during gentrification; (4) statements about adaptation strategies used to buffer change; and (5) language about neighborhood change as good—even during gentrification. These repertoires show older residents seek to understand and validate their role in a changing place. Their individual dialogues echo discussions and power differentials in their larger social worlds. Older persons’ repertoires illustrate the struggle to contextualize gentrification and not simply homogenize the process or create only limited, stereotypical insider–outsider arguments.

Discourse Analysis Beyond the Speech Event

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanton Wortham ◽  
Angela Reyes
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Speech Event

Critical Approaches to the Study of Terrorism

2019 ◽  
pp. 223-237
Author(s):  
Charlotte Heath-Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Distinct Form ◽  
Critical Method ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
And Linguistics ◽  
Terrorist Violence

Critical approaches to the study of terrorism do not inquire into the causation of political violence. Rather, the umbrella term “critical” encompasses a large variety of methodologies which reject the positivist philosophy of science. This chapter explores the meaning of “critique” as an epistemological alternative to positivist models of knowledge. It shows how “critical” approaches do not ask “what causes terrorist violence,” but rather how societies have come to a point where they identify “terrorism” as a distinct form of violence, separate from “war” and “crime.” What makes terrorism “sensible”? How do we “know” terrorism as a concept or form? Drawing from long philosophical traditions, critical approaches explore how power, culture, and linguistics have constituted the concept of “terrorism”—creating a reality which is not “obvious” or common-sense, but contingent and arbitrary. The chapter then outlines the critical method of “discourse analysis” and its use in constructivist analyses of the War on Terror.

scholarly journals ‘Pra homem, menino e mulher’? Problematizing the gender inclusivity discourse in capoeira

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 691-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Owen ◽  
Nicola De Martini Ugolotti
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Intangible Cultural Heritage ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
United Nations Educational ◽  
The World ◽  
Ethnographic Data

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian bodily discipline that has now become a global phenomenon. In 2014 the cultural significance of capoeira was recognized on the world stage when it was awarded the special protected status of an ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’ by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. In the application to this organisation, and in wider advertising material and practitioner literature, capoeira is celebrated as a practice that promotes social cohesion, inclusivity, integration, racial equality and resistance to all forms of oppression. This paper seeks to problematize this inclusive discourse, exploring the extent to which it is both supported and contradicted in the gendered discourses and practices of specific capoeira groups in Europe. Drawing upon ethnographic data, produced through two sets of ethnographic research and the researchers’ 24 years of combined experience as capoeira players, this paper documents the complex and contradictory contexts in which discourses and practices of gender inclusivity are at once promoted and undermined.

Procedures without borders: The language-ideological anchorage of legal-administrative procedures in translocal institutional settings

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrijn Maryns
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Institutional Discourse ◽  
Institutional Practice ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Communicative Practice ◽  
Administrative Procedures ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Asylum Procedure ◽  
Procedural Outcomes

AbstractTheoretical and applied research in the field of institutional discourse analysis calls for an increasing awareness of the constitutive nature of discourse in the representation and the assessment of social identities (Sarangi & Roberts 1999; Blommaert 2010; Eades 2010). The staunchly textualist accounts surviving institutional practice, however, tend to obscure complex multidiscursive and language ideologically anchored processes that mold procedural outcomes. On the basis of first-hand ethnographic data collected across legal-administrative procedures in Belgium, this article aims at revealing some meaningful contexts that have been erased in the case of an asylum seeker who became a murder victim and whose asylum file was used in the assize trial as a resource to sketch his social identity. The analysis explores the ideological functioning of textuality in the situated details of communicative practice, thereby aiming for a better understanding of the intricacies of multidiscursive identity construction in translocal procedural settings. (Institutional discourse analysis, multidiscursivity, language ideology and identity, sociolinguistic mobility, asylum procedure, assize court procedure)*

scholarly journals Udmurt woman headwear ayshon in descriptions and graphics of the XVI–XVIII centuries

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 728-738
Author(s):  
E. E. Nechvaloda ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Xviii Century ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Source Studies ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The One ◽  
First Time

Introduction: the article is devoted to the analysis of the early sources on the Udmurt ancient woman headwear. The chronological framework of the study is limited, on the one hand, by the very first confirmation of the ayshon (XVI century), and on the other hand, by the era of the first expeditions in Russia (XVIII century), which laid the foundation for future ethnographic research. Objective: to determine the degree of reliability and informativity of descriptions and images of the Udmurt headwear of the XVI–XVIII centuries. Research materials: works of travelers of the XVI–XVIII centuries, containing data about ayshon. Results and novelty of the research: the article provides a comparative analysis of materials about ayshon in the sources of the XVI–XVIII centuries. Texts, engravings with texts, and early sources with ethnographic materials of the end of the XIX – beginning XX centuries are compared. For the first time, all original graphic images and descriptions of this headwear related to the specified time period are published together. The characteristics of the ayshon in the descriptions generally correspond to each other, as well as its known images and later ethnographic data. The materials of the article can be used in ethnographic and source studies.

scholarly journals Semantic Social Networks: A Mixed Methods Approach to Digital Ethnography

Field Methods ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-290
Author(s):  
Alberto Cottica ◽  
Amelia Hassoun ◽  
Marco Manca ◽  
Jason Vallet ◽  
Guy Melançon
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Online Conversation ◽  
Network Form

We propose a mixed methods approach to digital ethnographic research. Treating online conversational environments as communities that ethnographers engage with as in traditional fieldwork, we represent those conversations and the codes made by researchers thereon in network form. We call these networks “semantic social networks” (SSNs), as they incorporate information on social interaction and their meaning as perceived by informants as a group and use methods from network science to visualize these ethnographic data. We present an application of this method to a large online conversation about community provision of health and social care and discuss its potential for mobilizing collective intelligence.

The seven deadly sins and ethnography

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caio Coelho ◽  
Carlos Eduardo de Lima
Keyword(s):  
Research Process ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Seven Deadly Sins ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Single Piece ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Organizational Ethnography ◽  
Ethnographic Data

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to conduct a general review of the ethnographic method. It uses metaphors to read several pieces of ethnographic research and discuss the different issues encountered during the research process. The review consisted of new articles but also important books that helped to construct and maintain the field of organizational ethnography.Design/methodology/approachThe paper aims to discuss the ethnography research process through the metaphor of the Christian Seven Sins. It proposes a reflection on planning and conducting ethnographic research. The seven sins are used as a metaphor that can lead to more reflexive research for educational and explanatory purposes. Ultimately, the authors encourage organizational scholars to conduct ethnographic research.FindingsThe metaphors of the Christian seven sins represent issues that may arise during an ethnographic research. Gluttony is the dive in all topics that may appear; Greed is to lose yourself in the amount of data; Lust is to get too much involved in the field; Wrath is to take the struggles of the subjects as your own; Envy is to judge other's research according to your paradigm; Sloth is to not collect enough ethnographic data and Pride is forgetting to have a critical perspective toward your data. The redemption of these “sins” brings reflexivity to ethnographic research.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper opts to treat ethnography as a methodology that can be utilized with different epistemological and ontological approaches which could diminish the degree of reflection. No metaphor would be able to explain all the details of an ethnographic research project, still the seven sins provided a wide range of ideas to be reflected upon when using the methodology.Practical implicationsAs a paper on ethnography, researchers and especially PhD students and early careers can get to know the issues that can arise during ethnographic research and put them in contact with good examples of ethnography in Organization and Management Studies.Originality/valueThis paper groups different complexities and discussions around ethnographic research that may entail research reflexivity. These ideas were scattered through various ethnographic publications. With the review their highlights can be read in a single piece. With these discussions, the paper aims to encourage researchers to conduct good quality ethnography.

Moral urban citizenship and the youth problem in a Danish ghetto

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Strandholdt Bach ◽  
Nanna Schneidermann
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Valuable Data ◽  
Urban Citizenship ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Real World Problems

PurposeThis article examines the interventions from municipality, state and other actors in the Gellerup estate, a Danish “ghetto” by focusing on the youth problem and its construction, by examining a cross-disciplinary academic workshop intending to “solve the youth problem” of the estate.Design/methodology/approachThe article is based on the two authors' participation in the academic workshop, as well as their continued engagement with the Gellerup estate through separate project employments and ethnographic research projects in the estate, consisting of both participant observation and interviews.FindingsIn the article the authors suggest that the 2015 workshop reproduced particularly the category of idle urban young men as problematic. The authors analyze this as a form of “moral urban citizenship”. The article also analyzes some of the proposed solutions to the problem, particularly architectural transformations, and connects the Danish approach to the problems of the “ghetto” to urban developments historically and on a global scale.Originality/valueCross-disciplinary academic attempts to solve real-world problems are rarely incorporated as ethnographic data. In this article the authors attempt to include part of their own practice as academics as valuable data that opens up new perspectives on a field and their own involvement and analysis of it.

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