scholarly journals Materializing Memory, Mood, and Agency: The Emotional Geographies of the Modern Kitchen

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Meah
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
Emotional Geographies ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The Uk

Drawing upon narrative and visual ethnographic data collected from households in the UK, this article explores the material and emotional geographies of the domestic kitchen. Acknowledging that emotions are dynamically related and co-constitutive of place, rather than presenting the kitchen as a simple backdrop against which domestic life is played out, the article illustrates how decisions regarding the design and layout of the kitchen and the consumption of material artefacts are central to the negotiation and doing of relationships and accomplishment of domestic life. Based on fieldwork in northern England, the article examines the affective potential of domestic space and its material culture, exploring how individuals are embodied in the fabric and layout of domestic space, and how memories may be materialized in their absence.

Narrative Exchange as Knowledge Transfer: The Rhetorical Construction of Opposition to GM Crops in SW England

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Downing
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Food Chain ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Culturally Appropriate ◽  
Rhetorical Construction ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The Uk

The release of genetically modified organisms into the environment and food chain in the UK has produced one of the most visible and enduring controversies of recent times. Amid ongoing claim and counter-claim by actors on either side of the GM ‘debate’ over the salient ‘facts’ or balance of risks and benefits associated with the technology, this controversy can be fruitfully seen as a struggle between contested networks of knowledge. Drawing on ethnographic data collected during recent PhD fieldwork, I focus on those, loosely defined as members of ‘local food networks’ in SW England, who perceive their values and cultural projects to be at risk from the deployment of this technology. In scrutinizing how distinctly ‘oppositional’ knowledge is created, exchanged and transformed particularly in relation to the construction and maintenance of cultural and historical boundaries, I suggest that in this arena a key vehicle of knowledge transfer is the narrative or story. A successfully deployed narrative can resolve uncertainties, or equally, dissolve undesirable certainties. Knowledge transfer thus becomes a matter of rhetoric, of persuasion, whereby skilfully deployed narratives can be viewed as analogical networks of associations - enrolling culturally appropriate characters, values and concepts - to move the targeted audience in the desired manner. I argue that such transfers must be seen not only as exchanges of networks of knowledge but also of networks of ignorance, for as the ethnographic data reveals, when the stakes are perceived to be so high, ideological coherence often outweighs empirical evidence and logical consistency. This raises a critical dilemma for the ethnographer. What should he/she do when confronted in the field by exaggerated claims or misinformation?

Anthropology, Class and the ‘Big Heads’: An Ethnography of Distinctions between ‘Rough’ and ‘Posh’ amongst Women Workers in the UK Pottery Industry

2005 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 710-728 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Hart
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Pottery Industry ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Global Corporation ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Working Class Women ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Sociological Studies ◽  
The Way

In the context of the take-over by a global corporation (Royal Doulton) of a family-owned and run pottery factory in Longton Stoke-on-Trent, known as ‘Beswick’, and the subsequent re-structuring of production, this paper explores the way in which women pottery workers make social distinctions between the ‘rough’ and ‘posh’, ‘proper paintresses’ and ‘big heads’ which cut into and across abstract sociological notions of class. Drawing on ethnographic data I show that for these working class women, class as lived is inherently ambiguous and contradictory and reveal the ways in which class is gendered. I build on historical and sociological studies of the pottery industry, and anthropological and related debates on class, as well as Frankenberg's study of a Welsh village, to develop my argument and draw analogies between factory and village at a number of levels. My findings support the view that class is best understood not as an abstract generalising category, but in the local and specific contexts of women's working lives. I was the first one in our family to go in decorating end and they thought I was a bit stuck-up. My sister was in clay end as a cup-handler and I had used to walk off factory without her, or wait for her to leave before I left, though she said, ‘If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have anything to paint!’ They were much freer in the clay end – had more to do with men – we thought we were one up. 1

Creativity in Action

2013 ◽  
pp. 65-78
Author(s):  
David Calvey
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Organisational Learning ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Professional Obligations ◽  
Work Settings ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Multi Media ◽  
Collaborative Negotiations ◽  
The Uk

This chapter explores the concept of communities of practice (CoP), with reference to ethnographic data from a range of creative multi-media SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) in Manchester in the UK. The central argument is that many of these communities are profoundly mediated by the interplay of competitive commercial imperatives with professional obligations and constructions of identity. Hence, the concept of community is a more fragmented and fractured one. Ultimately, CoP is a robust metaphor to analysis organisational life but more descriptive detail of situated lived practices and mundane realities of various work settings is called for. Ethnographic data is drawn on to demonstrate the participant’s accounts of their lived experiences, which include reflections on the process of creativity, collaborative negotiations with clients and organisational learning. Ethnomethodology, a form of sociological analysis, is then used to suggest alternative ways to analyse the situated nature of practice, learning and community.

Styles of Illusion

2001 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Theory Method ◽  
Contemporary Sociology ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The Uk

This paper argues that one of the most prevalent styles in contemporary sociology – style referring to a complex of theory, method and treatment of the literature – systematically allows space for the misrepresentation of reality. The theoretical core of the style in question is a view of identity as formed through the active consumption of discourse, its preferred methodology is that of qualitative fieldwork whilst a largely impressionistic literature is treated as a source of authoritative commentary on the influence of specific discourses. The theoretical and methodological elements of this style interact so that its treatment of ethnographic data functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy for whatever presuppositions can be constructed from its treatment of the literature. This thesis is illustrated through an analysis of the claims made by Paul du Gay (1996), and Musson and Cohen (1997) that enterprise discourse had achieved hegemonic status in the UK during the last decade of the Twentieth Century.

scholarly journals Food, Waste and Safety: Negotiating Conflicting Social Anxieties into the Practices of Domestic Provisioning

2012 ◽  
Vol 60 (2_suppl) ◽  
pp. 102-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Watson ◽  
Angela Meah
Keyword(s):  
Food Waste ◽  
Food Poisoning ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Domestic Practices ◽  
Social Anxieties ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Culinary Uses ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk

Two significant realms of social anxiety, visible in the discourses of media and public policy, potentially pull practices of home food provisioning in conflicting directions. On the one hand, campaigns to reduce the astonishing levels of food waste generated in the UK moralize acts of both food saving (such as keeping and finding creative culinary uses for leftovers) and food disposal. On the other hand, agencies concerned with food safety, including food-poisoning, problematize common practices of thrift, saving and reuse around provisioning. The tensions that arise as these public discourses are negotiated together into domestic practices open up moments in which ‘stuff’ crosses the line from being food to being waste. This paper pursues this through the lens of qualitative and ethnographic data collected as part of a four-year European research programme concerned with consumer anxieties about food. Through focus groups, life-history interviews and observations, data emerged which give critical insights into processes from which food waste results. With a particular focus on how research participants negotiate use-by dates, we argue that interventions to reduce food waste can be enhanced by appreciating how food becomes waste through everyday practices.

Review Feature: A review of An Archaeology of Socialism, by Victor Buchli. (Materializing Culture.) Oxford & New York (NY): Berg Publishers, 2000; ISBN 1-85973-212-7 hardback £44.99; ISBN 1-85973-426-X paperback £14.99; 256 pp., 26 figs.

2002 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Buchli ◽  
Mark P. Leone ◽  
Michael Shanks ◽  
Laurent Olivier ◽  
Julian Thomas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Natural Response

Archaeology, defined as the study of material culture, extends from the first preserved human artefacts up to the present day, and in recent years the ‘Archaeology of the Present’ has become a particular focus of research. On one hand are the conservationists seeking to preserve significant materials and structures of recent decades in the face of redevelopment and abandonment. On the other are those inspired by social theory who see in the contemporary world the opportunity to explore aspects of material culture in new and revealing ways, and perhaps above all the central question of the extent to which material culture — be it in the form of objects or buildings — actively defines the human experience. Victor Buchli's An Archaeology of Socialism takes as its subject a twentieth-century building — the Narkofim Communal House in Moscow — and seeks to understand it in terms of domestic life and changing policies of the Soviet state during the 70 or so years since its construction. Thus Buchli's study not only concerns the meaning of material culture in a modern context, but focuses specifically on the household — or more accurately on a series of households within a single Russian apartment block. A particular interest attaches to the way in which the building was planned to encourage communal living, during a pre-Stalinist phase when the State sought to intervene directly in domestic life through architectural design and the manipulation of material culture. Subsequent political changes brought a revision of modes of living within the Narkofim apartment block, as the residents adjusted and responded to changing political and social pressures and demands. The significance of Buchli's study goes far beyond the confines of Soviet-era Moscow or indeed the archaeology of the modern world. He questions the role and potential danger of social and archaeological theory of the totalizing kind: a natural response perhaps to the experience of the Narkofim Communal House as an exercise in Soviet social engineering. He poses fascinating questions about the relation between individual households and the state ideology, and he emphasizes the role of material culture studies in reaching an understanding of these processes. In the brief essay that opens this Review Feature, Victor Buchli outlines the principal aims and conclusions of An Archaeology of Socialism. The diversity of issues that the book generates is revealed in the series of reviews which follows, touching in particular upon the ways in which routines of daily life — archaeologically visible, perhaps, through the analysis of domestic space — relate to structures of authority in society as a whole.

scholarly journals Statistical Predictions of Electric Load Profiles in the UK Domestic Buildings

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-156
Author(s):  
A. M. Ihbal ◽  
H. S. Rajamani ◽  
R.A. Abd-Alhameed ◽  
M. K. Jalboub
Keyword(s):  
Hot Water ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Electric Load ◽  
Model Concept ◽  
Load Profile ◽  
Electricity Load ◽  
Data Elements ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Daily Load

This paper presents a method of generating realistic electricity load profile data for the UK domestic buildings. The domestic space features have been investigated excluding the heating and hot water systems. A questionnaire survey was conducted and the feedback were collected from a number of occupants at different intervals of times on daily bases in order to establish the probabilistic record of the estimated use of electrical appliances. The model concept of this study also considers the results of previous investigations such as that available in public reports and statistics as input data elements to predict the global domestic energy consumption. In addition, the daily load profile from individual dwelling to community can be predicted using this method. The result of the present method was compared to available published data and has shown reasonable agreement.

scholarly journals The Polish Ethnographic Atlas: Research Achievements and Prospects

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-94
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Pieńczak
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
National Scale ◽  
Government Organizations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The University ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Source Materials

Abstract In 1998, the source materials of the Polish Ethnographic Atlas - collected over many decades with the participation of the Institute of History of Material Culture (a unit of the Polish Academy of Sciences) and several leading ethnological centres - were moved to the Cieszyn Branch of the University of Silesia (currently the Faculty of Ethnology and Education). It was then that Z. Kłodnicki, the editor of the PEA, came up with the idea to continue and finish the atlas studies. However, the work on fulfilling the PEA, the biggest project in the history of Polish ethnology, is still going on. Nowadays, the materials of the Polish Ethnographic Atlas constitute a precious, unique in the national scale, documentary base. For several years, a lively cooperation has taken place between the PEA staff (representing the Faculty of Ethnology and Education of the University of Silesia) and various cultural institutions, government and non-government organizations. The discussed projects are usually aimed at the preservation and protection of the cultural heritage of the Polish village as well as the broadly related promotion actions for activating local communities. The workers of the Polish Ethnographic Atlas since 2014 have been also implementing the Ministry grant entitled The Polish Ethnographic Atlas - scientific elaboration, electronic database, publication of the sources in the Internet, stage I (scientific supervision: Ph.D. Agnieszka Pieńczak). What is an integral assumption of the discussed project is the scientific elaboration of three electronic catalogues, presenting the PEA resources: 1) field photographs (1955-1971) 2) the questionnaires concerning folk collecting (1948-1952), 3. the published maps (1958-2013). These materials have been selected due to their documentary value. The undertaking has brought about some measurable effects, mostly the special digital platform www.archiwumpae.us.edu.pl. This material database of ethnographic data might become the basis for designing various non-material activities aimed at preserving the cultural heritage of the Polish village.

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