The Ethical Dilemmas and Social Scientific Trade-offs of Masking in Ethnography

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 801-827 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Jerolmack ◽  
Alexandra K. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Neutral Position ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Sense Of Security ◽  
False Sense ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The One

Masking, the practice of hiding or distorting identifying information about people, places, and organizations, is usually considered a requisite feature of ethnographic research and writing. This is justified both as an ethical obligation to one’s subjects and as a scientifically neutral position (as readers are enjoined to treat a case’s idiosyncrasies as sociologically insignificant). We question both justifications, highlighting potential ethical dilemmas and obstacles to constructing cumulative social science that can arise through masking. Regarding ethics, we show, on the one hand, how masking may give subjects a false sense of security because it implies a promise of confidentiality that it often cannot guarantee and, on the other hand, how naming may sometimes be what subjects want and expect. Regarding scientific tradeoffs, we argue that masking can reify ethnographic authority, exaggerate the universality of the case (e.g., “Middletown”), and inhibit replicability (or “revisits”) and sociological comparison. While some degree of masking is ethically and practically warranted in many cases and the value of disclosure varies across ethnographies, we conclude that masking should no longer be the default option that ethnographers unquestioningly choose.

scholarly journals Depression: Giver diagnosens tilgang mening?

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (25) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Ulrich
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Diagnostic Approaches ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The One

Videnskabens forståelse af depression kan deles ind i to forskellige tilgange. Den ene finder vi i psykiatrien, den anden i samfundsvidenskaben. I udgangspunktet fungerer begge tilgange som moddiskurs til hinanden. Hvor psykiatrien søger forklaringer i biologiske vilkår, søger samfundsvidenskaben svar i det kulturelle og sociale. Parallelt med videnskabens diskussioner af depression kan der desuden iagttages en ’hverdagsdiskurs’, som på afgørende punkter synes at adskille sig både fra psykiatriens og samfundsvidenskabens. I ’hverdagsdiskurser’ synes depression ikke alene eller først og fremmest at være forbundet med ’det sygelige’, men det kan også henvise til ’det raske’. ’Hverdagsdiskursers’ lægforståelse af depression synes på den måde at kunne tilbyde perspektiver, som rækker ud over psykiatriens og samfundsvidenskabens gennemgående tilgange til depression. Depression: Do diagnostic approaches make sense?Scientific understanding of depression can be divided into two different approaches. The one can be found in psychiatry, the other within social science. At the outset, the two approaches function as counter discourses. Whereas psychiatry seeks explanations in biology, the social scientific approach seeks explanations in culture and society. Alongside scientific discussions of depression a ‘commonplace’ discourse can be delineated which at decisive points seems to differ from both psychiatry and social science. In ‘commonplace’ discourse 174 Tidsskrift for Forskning i Sygdom og Samfund, nr. 25, 173-182 depression seems neither solely nor foremost associated with ‘illness’, but can also signify ‘the healthy’. Laymen understandings of depression in ‘commonplace’ discourse therefore allow for the inclusion of perspectives that transcend standard approaches to depression within psychiatry and social science.

Human Rights between Jurisprudence and Social Science

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDRA HUNEEUS
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Social Science Theory ◽  
Science Theory ◽  
The One

AbstractThis article argues that human rights law – which mediates between claims about universal human nature, on the one hand, and hard-fought political battles, on the other – is in particular need of a richer exchange between jurisprudential approaches and social science theory and methods. Using the example of the Inter-American Human Rights System, the article calls for more human rights scholarship with a new realist sensibility. It demonstrates in what ways legal and social science scholarship on human rights law both stand to improve through sustained, thoughtful exchange.

scholarly journals The Theory of Democratic Antinomies and the Identification of Value Trade-Offs in Political Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 264-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Hidalgo
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Relevant Issue ◽  
General Argument ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The One ◽  
Existence Of Value

In theory, the idea of democracy consists of several insoluble contradictions, aporias, and conflicts. In practice, democracy demands an effective balancing of its essentially opposing principles and values in order to preserve an authentic character as well as to avoid its inherent self-destructive tendencies. In this regard, the concept of value trade-offs promises a heuristic tool to grasp both the analytical and normative impact of a political theory which takes the complexity of democracy seriously. Proceeding from this, the contribution will demonstrate to what extent the conceptualisation of democratic antinomies and the notion of value trade-offs can be seen as a kind of communicating vessel. The article’s general argument is that democracy is defined by several antinomies that are irreducible in theory and therefore require trade-offs in political practice. Moreover, it will discuss three relevant issue areas to suggest the approach’s empirical relevance and to prove the existence of value trade-offs as an operating benchmark for the legitimacy and consolidation of democratic processes on the one hand but also for their shortcomings and risks on the other. Correspondingly, the article concerns the antinomic relationships between freedom and security, economic growth and sustainability, and finally, democracy and populism to underpin the general perception that the success of democratic institutions first and foremost depends on the balance of the necessarily conflicting principles of democracy.

Traditional authority and bargaining for legitimacy in dual legitimacy systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Mershon ◽  
Olga Shvetsova
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
The Other ◽  
Traditional Authority ◽  
Traditional Leaders ◽  
Traditional Authorities ◽  
The One ◽  
Authority Structures

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the quest for legitimacy conducted by hereditary, traditional leaders in dual legitimacy systems. We theorise that traditional leaders engage in meta-constitutional bargaining, i.e. bargaining among constitutionally and traditionally defined actors within the meta-constitutional space. This process resembles constitutional bargaining in federations over the institutional balance between the members and centre, and among members. We thus propose a parallel between the theory of federal bargaining, on the one hand, and, on the other, the process of institutional balancing between agents in constitutional and traditional authority structures in dual legitimacy systems. Evidence from narratives of institutional balancing between constitutional and traditional authorities in Southern Africa suggests that actors’ strategies in dual legitimacy systems accord with the framework here. The narratives also disclose that both constitutional and traditional authorities rely on the state's courts for adjudication. The paper enriches social science scholarship on traditional authority, political economy and federalism.

Transglossic language practices

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaila Sultana
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Language Practices ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
The One

This paper contributes to a recent development in Applied Linguistics that encourages research from trans- approaches. Drawing on the results of an ethnographic research project carried out in a university of Bangladesh. It is illustrated how young adults actively and reflexively use a mixture of codes, modes, genres, and popular cultural texts in their language practices within the historical and spatial realities of their lives. The paper shows that the interpretive capacity of heteroglossia increases when complemented by an understanding derived from transgressive approaches to language. The paper proposes a reconceptualised version of heteroglossia, namely transglossia, which explores the fixity and fluidity of language in the 21th Century. On the one hand, transglossia is a theoretical framework that addresses the transcendence and transformation of meaning in heteroglossic voices. On the other hand, a transglossic framework untangles the social, historical, political, ideological, and spatial realities within which voices emerge. Overall, it is suggested that transglossia and a transglossic framework can provide us with an understanding of language that notions such as code-mixing or code-switching or any language-centric analysis fail to unveil.

scholarly journals The politics of embedding and the right to remain in post-Brexit Britain

Ethnicities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146879682091341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiina Sotkasiira ◽  
Anna Gawlewicz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Sense Of Security ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

The European Union membership referendum (i.e. the Brexit referendum) in the United Kingdom in 2016 triggered a process of introspection among non-British European Union citizens with respect to their right to remain in the United Kingdom, including their right to entry, permanent residence, and access to work and social welfare. Drawing on interview data collected from 42 European Union nationals, namely Finnish and Polish migrants living in Scotland, we explore how European Union migrants’ decision-making and strategies for extending their stay in the United Kingdom, or returning to their country of origin, are shaped by and, in turn, shape their belonging and ties to their current place of residence and across state borders. In particular, we draw on the concept of embedding, which is used in migration studies to explain migration trajectories and decision-making. Our key argument is that more attention needs to be paid to the socio-political context within which migrants negotiate their embedding. To this end, we employ the term ‘politics of embedding’ to highlight the ways in which the embedding of non-British European Union citizens has been politicized and hierarchically structured in the United Kingdom after the Brexit referendum. By illustrating how the context of Brexit has changed how people evaluate their social and other attachments, and how their embedding is differentiated into ‘ties that bind’ and ‘ties that count’, we contribute to the emerging work on migration and Brexit, and specifically to the debate on how the politicization of migration shapes the sense of security on the one hand, and belonging, on the other.

The bequest ofIlegalja: contested memories and moralities in contemporary Kosovo

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 953-970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers
Keyword(s):  
Local System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Self Organisation ◽  
The One

In this essay I explore the ways in which the internal Albanian politics of memory in Kosovo rely on a longer, lived history of militant self-organisation than the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) war period alone. On the basis of recent ethnographic research, I argue that the memory of prewar militant activism is symbolically codified, ritually formalized, and put on the public stage in Kosovo today. Not only has this process effectively rehabilitated and consolidated the personal, social, and political status of specific former activists, it also has produced a hegemonic morality against which the actions of those in power are judged internally. On the one hand, this process reproduces shared cultural references which idealise ethnonational solidarity, unity and pride and which have served militant mobilisation already before the 1990s. On the other, it provides the arguments through which rival representatives of the former militant underground groups (known asIlegalja)compete both socially and politically still today. Although this process demarcates some lines of social and political friction within society, it also suggests that international efforts to introduce an identity which breaks with Kosovo's past and some of its associated values, face a local system of signification that is historically even deeper entrenched than is usually assumed.

scholarly journals Memory and Alterity in Zar: Religious Contact and Change in the Sudan

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M Kenyon
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Life History Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Ninteenth Century ◽  
Dynamic Interplay

Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in the Blue Nile town of Sennar, supported by archival and historical documentation, this article explores the history of Zar spirit possession in Sudan, and the light this throws on the interplay of religions over the past 150 years. Life history data supports the argument that contemporary Zar is grounded in forms and rituals derived from the ranks of the ninteenth-century Ottoman army, and these remain the basis of ritual events, even as they accommodate ongoing changes in this part of Africa. Many of these changes are linked to the dynamic interplay of Zar with forms of Islam, on the one hand, and Christianity, on the other. In the former colonial periods, political power resided with the British, and Khawaja (European) Christian Zar spirits are remembered as far more important. Today that authority in Zar has shifted to spirits of foreign Muslims and local holy men, on the one hand, and to subaltern Blacks, on the other. These speak to concerns of new generations of adepts even as changes in the larger political and religious landscapes continue to transform the context of Zar.

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 La genesi del nuovo nella storia della chirurgia tra desiderio di conoscenza e conflitti etici

2012 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Giardina ◽  
Antonio G. Spagnolo
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Community ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of Surgery ◽  
The Past ◽  
Salient Points ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Ideological Resistance

L’articolo delinea i momenti salienti nella storia della chirurgia, quali la scoperta dell’anestesia, dell’asepsi e antisepsi che ne hanno consentito l’ascesa dopo secoli di oscurità. Il desiderio di conoscenza appagato da tali scoperte si è spesso accompagnato a dilemmi etici da un lato e a resistenze ideologiche, da parte della comunità scientifica (spesso ostile alla genesi del nuovo nella medicina) dall’altro. È questo uno dei più forti ostacoli che i grandi del passato, coloro che hanno avuto il coraggio di andare controcorrente (rompendo i paradigmi esistenti), hanno dovuto superare. Questi uomini rappresentano uno stimolo per ricondurre il sapere scientifico ad un confronto attivo con l’etica al fine di sanare una dicotomia che ha radici antiche. L’antico, dunque, non è semplicemente passato ma rivive attraverso la narrazione storica di vite esemplari di medici. ---------- This article traces salient points in the history of surgery, such as the discovery of anesthesia, asepsis and antisepsis, which permitted surgery’s ascendancy after centuries of unimportance. Encouraged by such breakthroughs, the yearning to learn was often accompanied by ethical dilemmas on the one hand and on the other by ideological resistance on the part of the scientific community, which was often hostile to new medical findings. This was one of the greatest obstacles of the past for the distinguished individuals who had the courage to go against the tide, to break with existing paradigms, to overcome opposition to innovation. These men functioned as a stimulus to bring scientific knowledge head to head with ethics with the goal of healing ancient irreconcilable differences. The past is not simply the past; it lives on through the historical narrative of exemplary lives of certain physicians.

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