scholarly journals Collective Forgetting in a Changing Organization: When memories become unusable and uprooted

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Foroughi ◽  
Ismael Al-Amoudi
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Organizational Changes ◽  
Charitable Organization ◽  
The Past ◽  
Practical Usefulness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Memory Power ◽  
Collective Remembering ◽  
Sense Of Identity

How is collective remembering inhibited by organizational changes which were not intended to manipulate it? And how does collective forgetting affect workers’ power and sense of identity? We rely on an ethnographic study of a charitable organization that went through recent organizational changes to study two processes constitutive of collective forgetting. The first process consists in the past becoming unusable because once-useful memories lost their practical usefulness for participants’ new activities. The second process consists in the past becoming uprooted because the social relations through which memories used to be shared had changed beyond recognition. Our findings provide insights into the organizational processes through which memories cease to circulate. They also help understand the complex relations between memory, power relations and participants’ sense of identity.

‘It ain’t nothing like America with the Bloods and the Crips’: Gang narratives inside two English prisons

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coretta Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
Narrative Interviews ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Male Prisoners

This article explores recent concerns about the emergence of gangs in prisons in England and Wales. Using narrative interviews with male prisoners as part of an ethnographic study of ethnicity and social relations, the social meaning of ‘the gang’ inside prison is interrogated. A formally organized gang presence was categorically denied by prisoners. However, the term ‘gang’ was sometimes elided with loose collectives of prisoners who find mutual support in prison based on a neighbourhood territorial identification. Gangs were also discussed as racialized groups, most often symbolized in the motif of the ‘Muslim gang’. This racializing discourse hinted at an envy of prisoner solidarity and cohesion which upsets the idea of a universal prisoner identity. The broader conceptual, empirical and political implications of these findings are considered.

scholarly journals Client or Volunteer? Understanding Neoliberalism and Neocolonialism Within International Volunteer Health Work

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 233339361879295
Author(s):  
Oona St-Amant ◽  
Catherine Ward-Griffin ◽  
Helene Berman ◽  
Arja Vainio-Mattila
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Health Work ◽  
Social Organizations ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Volunteer

As international volunteer health work increases globally, research pertaining to the social organizations that coordinate the volunteer experience in the Global South has severely lagged. The purpose of this ethnographic study was to critically examine the social organizations within Canadian NGOs in the provision of health work in Tanzania. Multiple, concurrent data collection methods, including text analysis, participant observation and in-depth interviews were utilized. Data collection occurred in Tanzania and Canada. Neoliberalism and neocolonialism were pervasive in international volunteer health work. In this study, the social relations—“volunteer as client,” “experience as commodity,” and “free market evaluation”—coordinated the volunteer experience, whereby the volunteers became “the client” over the local community and resulting in an asymmetrical relationship. These findings illuminate the need to generate additional awareness and response related to social inequities embedded in international volunteer health work.

Risking Debt for Honor

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-71
Author(s):  
Jennifer R. Cash
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rural Urban Migration ◽  
The Republic

Research on godparenthood has traditionally emphasized its stabilizing effect on social structure. This article, however, focuses attention on how the practices and discourses associated with marital sponsorship in the Republic of Moldova ascribe value to the risks and uncertainties of social life. Moldova has experienced substantial economic, social, and political upheaval during the past two decades of postsocialism, following a longer period of Soviet-era modernization, secularization, and rural–urban migration. In this context, godparenthood has not contributed to the long-term stability of class structure or social relations, but people continue to seek honor and social respect by taking the social and economic risks involved in sponsoring new marriages.

scholarly journals Srebrenica is not a Metaphor

2021 ◽  
pp. 54-64
Author(s):  
Sarina Bakić
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Temporal Dimensions ◽  
Further Development

The author will emphasize the importance of both the existence and the further development of the Srebrenica - Potočari Memorial Center, in the context of the continued need to understand the genocide that took place in and around Srebrenica, from the aspect of building a culture of remembrance throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). This is necessary in order to continue fighting the ongoing genocide denial. At first glance, a culture of remembrance presupposes immobility and focus on the past to some, but it is essentially dynamic, and connects three temporal dimensions: it evokes the present, refers to the past but always deliberates over the future. In this paper, the emphasis is placed on the concept of the place of remembrance, the lieu de memoire as introduced by the historian Pierre Nora. In this sense, a place of remembrance such as the Srebrenica - Potočari Memorial Center is an expression of a process in which people are no longer just immersed in their past but read and analyze it in the present. Furthermore, looking to the future, they also become mediators of relations between people and communities, which in sociological theory is an important issue of social relations. The author of this paper emphasizes that collective memory in the specific case of genocide in and around Srebrenica is only possible when the social relations around the building (Srebrenica - Potočari Memorial Center) crystallize, which is then much more than just the content of the culture of remembrance.

Het zakenevenement als veldwerkplek?De auteur bedankt Tessel Jonquière, Geert de Vries en Fred Wester voor commentaar op dit essay. De eerste aanzetten ervoor kwamen tot stand tijdens de colleges kwalitatieve methodologie die de auteur doceert aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.

KWALON ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joost Beuving
Keyword(s):  
International Business ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Business Economics ◽  
Business Elites ◽  
Direct Observations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Study Programs ◽  
Business Events ◽  
Field Schools

Business event as fieldwork site? A major methodological problem in the ethnographic study of international business elites is to make visible the social relations they draw and depend on. Business elites constitute a highly mobile social category and they mediate a growing portion of everyday social interaction via online, digital means. They are elusive, therefore, and that compromises the possibility of making direct observations of their social practices, which erodes the scope to ethnographically study this important group in the world economy. The essay shows how fieldwork on business events, such as conferences, expositions, and trade fairs, can help to overcome this problem. Such events constitute focal points and moments of crystallization in globally operating social networks, making visible a part of the international business ‘theatre’ that normally lags hidden. By presenting excerpts from recent fieldwork carried out in Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands, I give an impression of observables in this theatre, aiming especially at fostering an awareness of social behavior ‘backstage’ with a view to formulating further questions. The essay concludes with a plea to include business events as ‘field schools’ in study programs looking at international business elites, such as business schools and/or business economics.

Jaziret Fadel

2021 ◽  
pp. 104-126
Author(s):  
Amal Adel Abdrabo
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Mutual Interaction ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Preliminary Research ◽  
The Village ◽  
Key Questions

The plight of refugees fleeing from Palestine in 1948 raises several key questions regarding their historical fragmentation as a nation and their future. From a social anthropological point of view, the existing literature seems to tackle the Palestinian case from different perspectives influenced by the mass exodus of Palestinians from their homeland. Such perceptions took for granted the recognition of the state of “refugeeness” of the exiled Palestinians around the globe, while, in reality, it is a mutual interaction between people, place, and time. In the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli War at the beginning of the year 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes in Palestine to the nearby Arab countries, among them was Egypt. Some thousands settled in different areas all over Egypt. Based on a preliminary research on the literature, the author can argue that this is the first ethnographic study of the social life of the village of Jaziret Fadel and its Palestinian inhabitants in Egypt. The chapter is about tackling the historical trajectories, genealogies, memories, and present of the inhabitants of this village who seemed to be torn between two nostalgic pasts. The author's emphasis within this chapter is about how the narratives of the past memories could reveal a lot about the present time of the human societies and their future.

scholarly journals Filmic witness to the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder

Urban History ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 642-642
Author(s):  
CARRIE RENTSCHLER
Keyword(s):  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Gender Violence ◽  
Male Violence ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
High Rise ◽  
The Past ◽  
City Street ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

ABSTRACTThis essay examines a body of films that represent and re-enact the infamous 1964 Catherine Genovese rape and murder, helping to define the crime as a problem of bystander non-intervention exacerbated by urban living conditions and the ‘high rise anxieties’ of apartment dwellers. The moving image culture around the Genovese case tells a story about male violence against women in the city through the perspective of urban apartment dwellers, who are portrayed as bystander witnesses to both the city and to the social relations of stranger sociability in the city. Films depict the killing of Kitty Genovese, sometimes through fictional analogues to her and the crime, as an outcome of failed witnessing, explicating those failures around changing ideas about urban social relations between strangers, and ways of surveilling the city street from apartment windows. By portraying urban bystanders as primarily non-interventionist spectators of the Genovese rape and murder, films locate the conditions of femicide and responsibility for it in detached modes of seeing and encountering strangers. By analysing film as forms of historic documentation and imagination, as artifacts of historically and contextually different ways of telling and revising the story of the Genovese murder as one of bystander non-intervention in gender violence in the city, the essay conceptualizes film and filmic re-enactments as a mode of paying witness to the past.

scholarly journals Pond Becomes a Lake: Challenges Posed by Climate Change in the Trans-Himalayan Regions of Nepal

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiban Mani Poudel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ecological Relationship ◽  
Change Context ◽  
Past Climate Variability

Satellite images, repeated photography, temperature and precipitation data, and other proxy scientific evidences support the claim that climate is changing rapidly in Nepal, including in the Trans-Himalayan regions of the country. Climate change in the Trans-Himalayan region of Nepal is altering the existing relations of functional socio-ecological system for generations. This ethnographic assessment of Nhāson village looks at the disturbance posed by climate change to the social and ecological relationship in reference to livestock management practices. It focuses on two thematic areas of communities’ verbalisation of issues and challenges faced by the mountain herders in the climate change context. This paper is the product of ethnographic study between the years 2012 and 2014 in Nhāson. The locals’ attachment to environment and witnesses of change is capable of telling the story on the disturbance of climate change in the social and ecological systems, contextually. The stories gathered during walking, herding, travelling, watching and observing of the places are “real stories” with insights into the past climate variability and fluctuation which is critically valuable to understand the environmental phenomena at times when scientific evidences are not sufficient. Ethnographic study can contribute in documenting the place and cultural specific stories as a powerful evidence to climate change and its impact on grounded social and ecological systems.

scholarly journals Socialising tourism after COVID-19: reclaiming tourism as a social force?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Freya Higgins-Desbiolles ◽  
Bobbie Chew Bigby ◽  
Adam Doering
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Force ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ecological Justice ◽  
The Social ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
Practical Implications

PurposeThis article considers the possibilities of and barriers to socialising tourism after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Such an approach allows us to transform tourism and thereby evolve it to be of wider benefit and less damaging to societies and ecologies than has been the case under the corporatised model of tourism.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual analysis draws on the theorisation of “tourism as a social force” and the new concept of “socialising tourism”. Using critical tourism approaches, it seeks to identify the dynamics that are evident in order to assess the possibilities for socialising tourism for social and ecological justice. It employs an Indigenous perspective that the past, present and future are interconnected in its consideration of tourism futures.FindingsCOVID-19 has fundamentally disrupted tourism, travel and affiliated industries. In dealing with the crisis, borders have been shut, lockdowns imposed and international tourism curtailed. The pandemic foregrounded the renewal of social bonds and social capacities as governments acted to prevent economic and social devastation. This disruption of normality has inspired some to envision radical transformations in tourism to address the injustices and unsustainability of tourism. Others remain sceptical of the likelihood of transformation. Indeed, phenomena such as vaccine privilege and vaccine tourism are indicators that transformations must be enabled. The authors look to New Zealand examples as hopeful indications of the ways in which tourism might be transformed for social and ecological justice.Practical implicationsThis conceptualisation could guide the industry to better stakeholder relations and sustainability.Social implicationsSocialising tourism offers a fruitful pathway to rethinking tourism through a reorientation of the social relations it fosters and thereby transforming its social impacts for the better.Originality/valueThis work engages with the novel concept of “socialising tourism”. In connecting this new theory to the older theory of “tourism as a social force”, this paper considers how COVID-19 has offered a possible transformative moment to enable more just and sustainable tourism futures.

scholarly journals The influence of spatial attributes on users’ information behaviour in academic libraries: a case study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Ilako ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Makerere University ◽  
Information Behaviour ◽  
Empirically Supported ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Library Users ◽  
Spatial Attributes

Introduction. Information practices manifest differently among diverse library users, because space influences the different activities that library users engage in. Lefebvre’s spatial triad theory was used to illustrate how library spaces influence spatial activities and hence affect information behaviour of users. Method. A qualitative, ethnographic study method was applied. Participant observations and interviews with library users were conducted from May to December 2019 within Makerere University. Analysis. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results. Information behaviour appears as the central activity within the library spaces, within those spaces and academic and non-academic behaviour manifest as a result of user engagement within the different spaces. It was thus revealed that different attributes support users’ activities such as reading, discussionsamong users and therefore sharping their space preference. Conclusion. Space is both a physical and social object that has a direct influence on its inhabitants’ spatial activities, perceptions and experiences. The concept that space is socially constructed is empirically supported through the social relations that users create as they engage in different activities. The availability of space attributes such as enclosed spaces, noise levels, lighting and space attachment influence the spatial activities and experience of users in a positive or negative way.

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