Inclusive ethnographies

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamás Péter Szabó ◽  
Robert A. Troyer

Abstract In ethnographically oriented linguistic landscape studies, social spaces are studied in co-operation with research participants, many times through mobile encounters such as walking. Talking, walking, photographing and video recording as well as writing the fieldwork diary are activities that result in the accumulation of heterogeneous, multimodal corpora. We analyze data from a Hungarian school ethnography project to reconstruct fieldwork encounters and analyze embodiment, the handling of devices (e.g. the photo camera) and verbal interaction in exploratory, participant-led walking tours. Our analysis shows that situated practices of embodied conduct and verbal interaction blur the boundaries between observation and observers, and thus LL research is not only about space- and place-making and sense-making routines, but the fieldwork encounters are also transformative and contribute to space- and place-making themselves. Our findings provide insight for ethnographic researchers and enrich the already robust qualitative and quantitative strategies employed in the field.

2017 ◽  
Vol 85 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Petkova

This article explores the linguistic landscapes of four towns in Central Switzerland. The analysis focuses on linguistic features such as words written in dialect or toponyms and on some features from other semiotic codes like heraldic signs or arrangements in shop windows which include language, pictures, flags etc. The main interest lies in the way the mental concepts of “space” and “place” are displayed in the linguistic landscape. Which geographical categories are relevant? Which features tend to express a sense of belonging? The analysis shows that the linguistic landscape of the four towns contains features that represent several different mental concepts of “space” and “place”. The most significant ones are those that represent the close environment, i. e. the part of the world that tends to be felt as being a “place”. Thus, the linguistic landscape also reflects the effects of “place-making”-activities and at the same time visualizes the relationship between physical localities, mental concepts of “space” or “place” and human activities.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Zhan Xu ◽  
Wei Wang

Abstract This paper investigates the Linguistic Landscape of Chinese restaurants in Hurstville, a Chinese-concentrated suburb in Sydney, Australia. It draws on Blommaert and Maly’s (2016) Ethnographic Linguistic Landscape Analysis (ELLA) and Scollon and Scollon’s geosemiotics (2003). Our data set consists of photographs, Google Street View archives, and ethnographic fieldwork, in particular in-depth interviews with restaurant owners. This paper adopts a diachronic perspective to compare the restaurant scape between 2009 and 2019 and presents an ELLA case study of a long-standing Chinese restaurant. It aims to unveil the temporal and spatial relationships between signs, agents, and place, that demonstrate how a social and historical perspective in Linguistic Landscape studies of diasporic communities can shed light on the changes in the broader social context.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Daniel Matlin

Harlem loomed large in the imagination of Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, one of the twentieth century's most significant composers and an important theorist of the condition of being black and American. This article provides insights into Ellington's social thought by foregrounding his evocations of Harlem and his efforts to interpolate that neighborhood into the physical, cultural, and imaginative spaces of US national life. In doing so, it also situates Ellington's ideas in relation to the competing intellectual currents of the Harlem Renaissance movement that had inspired his project of racial vindication. More broadly, the article argues that understanding of the history of African American ideas of race and nation benefits from analysis of discursive place-making and the spatial practices of artistic and intellectual work. Attending to space and place recuperates the complexity and multiplicity of such ideas, which are often concealed by abstracted discussion of concepts such as “integration.”


Author(s):  
Ulrich Schmitz ◽  
Evelyn Ziegler

AbstractThis paper aims to investigate the occurrences and characteristics of visual dialogues in urban spaces. In order to systematically examine the specific elements of visual dialogues the analysis draws on a corpus of more than 25.500 digital photographs taken in selected neighbourhoods in the cities of Essen, Bochum, Duisburg and Dortmund. The article discusses several approaches to the concept of “dialogue” and “dialogism” and distinguishes between a “narrow”, i. e. interactional approach and a “wide”, i. e. more fundamental approach to utterances and texts. In this more fundamental perspective on dialogism, utterances and texts are not the sole product of one individual speaker but full of references to pre-utterances and pre-texts, recontextualiations, polyphony as well as invitations for responses. The analysis reveals that the majority of visual dialogues in urban spaces are best explained within the framework of the latter approach, a previously inaccessible point of view in linguistic landscape studies.


Author(s):  
Anita Lundberg

This special issue of eTropic  concerns living cities in the tropics and how they are conceived through the imagination. The collection of papers reminds us that urban environments are both created and creative spaces concerned with peopled and lived experiences and their interaction with material, cultural and natural environments. The issue is interested in processes of tropical space and place-making, with an emphasis on key areas that make up lived cities in the tropics: architecture, design, creative industries and economies, circular economy, neoliberalism, displacement, heritage, urban myths, narratives, cultural and natural landscapes, sustainable practices, and everyday life.


Author(s):  
E. A. Kartushina

The article presents the results of analysing the elements of the linguistic landscape (LL) i. e. ergonyms, inscriptions and signs of two capital cities – Moscow and Helsinki. The main objective of the study is to track the elements from other languages in the linguistic landscape of these cities. Another task of the study involves reviewing of the methods of linguistic landscape studies and considering the reasons for the penetration of foreign language elements into the LL of a certain city. The LL research methods include observation and contextual analysis. Comparative studies of LL are presented fragmentarily, which determined the purpose of this work: to compare LL of two cities – Moscow and Helsinki, and to analyze foreign language elements in the LL of these two capital cities. Focusing on foreign language elements allows to determine which languages play a more or less significant role in the LL of a certain city. The relevance of the research topic is undeniable as the linguistic landscape of capital cities is constantly changing, and the importance of a comparative research in this area can hardly be overestimated. Research materials include 204 contexts (ergonyms, advertisements) from public places of Moscow and 198 examples of similar linguistic functioning in the urban environment of Helsinki. The contexts were selected using a continuous sample method. The author examines the main approaches to defining the concept of a linguistic landscape, which confirms the theoretical significance of the work. As a result of the study, conclusions are drawn about the foreign language elements which are present in the linguistic landscapes of both capital cities. The degree of spreading some foreign language elements from a specific source language is also considered, as well as the ways of representing foreign language elements in the linguistic landscapes of the cities under study.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 225
Author(s):  
Rosângela Guedêlha da Silva ◽  
Márcia Manir Miguel Feitosa ◽  
Claudia Letícia Gonçalves Moraes

Este artigo objetiva refletir acerca da configuração teórica e prática da pesquisa interdisciplinar desenvolvida no âmbito do Grupo de Estudos de Paisagem em Literatura (GEPLIT), da Universidade Federal do Maranhão (UFMA), uma vez que a interdisciplinaridade ainda se configura, quase sempre, um caminho rico e desafiador. Esses trabalhos voltam-se a obras literárias cujo espaço narrativo ficcional articula-se à subjetividade da experiência humana, compondo a paisagem existencial portadora de significados do que o ser humano vivencia e é enquanto ser-no-mundo. Essa é uma perspectiva fenomenológica de abordagem do espaço literário que aproxima a Literatura a áreas do conhecimento com as quais não tradicionalmente dialogava, como a Geografia Humanista Cultural. Na fundamentação, contou-se com as contribuições teóricas de Morin (2005), Santos (2010), Fazenda (1994, 2008), Tuan (2012; 2013), Dardel (2015), Relph (2014), Feitosa (2012; 2016), Marandola Jr; Gratão (2010), dentre outros. Esta é uma pesquisa qualitativa, bibliográfica e de caráter analítico. Como resultados, pode-se evidenciar a viabilidade da abordagem interdisciplinar entre a arte literária e a ciência geográfica na vertente humanista e que tal prática amplia a perspectiva analítica de textos literários ao fomentar leituras a partir da constituição estética das obras em articulação às experiências humanas de espaço e lugar, o que representa um enriquecimento à formação acadêmica dos estudiosos e uma significativa contribuição para sua atuação como pesquisadores e como docentes. Palavras-chave: Interdisciplinaridade. Literatura. Geografia humanista cultural. Paisagem. GEPLIT.INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH IN LANDSCAPE STUDIES: phenomenological intersections between Literature and Cultural Humanist Geography within the scope of GEPLITAbstractThis paper aims to reflect on the theoretical and practical configuration of the interdisciplinary research developed within the Landscape Studies Group in Literature (GEPLIT), Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA), since interdisciplinarity is almost always a rich and challenging road. These works turn to literary works whose fictional narrative space articulates with the subjectivity of human experience, composing the existential landscape bearing meanings of what the human being experiences and is as being-in-the-world. This is a phenomenological perspective of approach to literary space that brings Literature closer to areas of knowledge with which it has not traditionally spoken, such as Cultural Humanist Geography. In the rationale, the theoretical contributions of Morin (2005), Santos (2010), Fazenda (1994, 2008), Tuan (2012; 2013), Dardel (2015), Relph (2014), Marandola Jr; Gratão (2010), among others. This is a qualitative, bibliographical and analytical research. As a result, the viability of the interdisciplinary approach between literary art and geographic science in the humanist field can be evidenced, and that such practice extends the analytical perspective of literary texts by fostering readings from the aesthetic constitution of works in articulation with the human experiences of space and place, which represents an enrichment to the academic formation of scholars and a significant contribution to their performance as researchers and as teachers.Keywords: Interdisciplinarity. Literature. Cultural humanist geography. Landscape. GEPLIT. LA INVESTIGACIÓN INTERDISCIPLINAR EN ESTUDIOS DE PAISAJE: intersecciones fenomenológicas entre la Literatura y la Geografía Humanista Cultural en el ámbito del GEPLITResumenEste artículo objetiva reflexionar acerca de la configuración teórica y práctica de la investigación interdisciplinaria desarrollada en el marco del Grupo de Estudios de Paisaje en Literatura (GEPLIT), de la Universidad Federal de Maranhão (UFMA), ya que la interdisciplinaridad aún se configura, casi siempre, camino rico y desafiante. Estos trabajos se vuelven a obras literarias cuyo espacio narrativo ficcional se articula a la subjetividad de la experiencia humana, componiendo el paisaje existencial portadora de significados de lo que el ser humano vive y es en cuanto ser-en-mundo. Esta es una perspectiva fenomenológica de abordaje del espacio literario que aproxima la Literatura a áreas del conocimiento con las que no tradicionalmente dialogaba, como la Geografía Humanista Cultural. En la fundamentación, se contó con las contribuciones teóricas de Morin (2005), Santos (2010), Hacienda (1994, 2008), Tuan (2012, 2013), Dardel (2015), Relph (2014), Feitosa (2012; 2016) ), Marandola Jr; (En el caso de las mujeres). Esta es una investigación cualitativa, bibliográfica y de carácter analítico. Como resultados, se puede evidenciar la viabilidad del abordaje interdisciplinario entre el arte literario y la ciencia geográfica en la vertiente humanista y que tal práctica amplía la perspectiva analítica de textos literarios al fomentar lecturas a partir de la constitución estética de las obras en articulación a las experiencias humanas espacio y lugar, lo que representa un enriquecimiento a la formación académica de los estudiosos y una significativa contribución para su actuación como investigadores y como docentes.Palabras clave: Interdisciplinariedad. La literatura. Geografía humanista cultural. Paisaje. GEPLIT.


2019 ◽  
pp. 147035721988752
Author(s):  
Mia Halonen ◽  
Petteri Laihonen

Signs in public space reflect ‘normalcy’ in a community. The authors ask what restricting signs tell us about a society? In order to explore the system and variation in the ways dog signs manifest different norms and control, they compare two different data sets: dog signs in a Northern European town, Jyväskylä in Finland, and two Eastern European villages in Romania. They apply a qualitative methodology based on visual communication, geosemiotics and linguistic landscape studies. The focus of the article is on the resources of addressing and the visual semiotics of the image. The investigated communities seem to create a complementary distribution of what they regulate that is also displayed through their semiotics: the Jyväskylä examples are prohibitions for dogs ‘being’ while the Romanian cases consist of warnings or threats. Both prohibitions and warnings implicate the norms and normalities in the communities, showing where they stand in terms of a continuum between a ‘dog as a pet’ and a ‘dog as a (co-)worker’. As images, the urban signs in Jyväskylä can be characterized as icons of a small collared pet, placed as a part of top-down communication in ‘tight’ public spaces. In contrast, the photographs of big dogs in the open and private Romanian village spaces refer to some specific guard dog, through which their owners communicate a benevolent warning or an intimidating threat.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document