scholarly journals Multiple Possibilities: The Multi-literate Lives of Three Children

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Wood
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Multiple Literacies ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Literate Identity

This paper presents findings from an eleven-year ethnographic study which describes how three children used different sign systems to become literate, to define who they are and to construct their literate identity. They each engaged with literacies in powerful and life transforming ways. Each child used multiple literacies to learn, understand and create meaning more fully; using their motivated interest in a preferred literacy to scaffold their learning of another literacy.In analysing this rich literacies use I have come to understand that literacies are complex in their conception and use and that all sign systems (e.g. art, dance, reading, writing, videogaming, etc.) operate using common semiotic principles.  Sign systems as literacies are multimodal, meaning-focused and motivated; they involve specific social and cultural practices which differ depending on site and community. During every literate act the children in this study made extensive use of the semantic, sensory, syntactic and pragmatic cuing systems to make meaning, regardless of the literacies used. 

scholarly journals Forensic evidence: Materializing bodies, materializing crimes

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinna Kruse
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Forensic Evidence ◽  
Dna Evidence ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Point Of Departure

Based on an ethnographic study of fingerprint and DNA evidence practices in the Swedish judicial system, this article analyses the materialization of forensic evidence. It argues that forensic evidence, while popularly understood as firmly rooted in materiality, is inseparably technoscientific and cultural. Its roots in the material world are entangled threads of matter, technoscience and culture that produce particular bodily constellations within and together with a particular sociocultural context. Forensic evidence, it argues further, is co-materialized with crimes as well as with particular bodily and social constellations. Consequently, the article suggests that an analysis of how forensic evidence is produced can contribute to feminist understandings of the inseparability of sex and gender: understanding bodies as ongoing technoscientific-material-cultural practices of materialization may be a fruitful approach to analysing their complexity, and the relationships in which they are placed, without surrendering to either cultural or biological determinism. Taking a theoretical point of departure not only in an STS-informed approach, but also in material feminist theorizations, the article also underlines that the suggested theoretical conversations across borders of feminist theory and STS should be understood as a two-way-communication where the two fields contribute mutually to each other.

scholarly journals Cultural Beliefs and Practices of Ethnic Filipinos: An Ethnographic Study

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyn J. Grey
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Traditional Beliefs ◽  
Beliefs And Practices

<div><p><em>The study was to determine the cultural beliefs and practices of the ethnic Filipinos. This is a qualitative study and the focus is the Aetas living in Central Philippines. The informants were the 9 prominent Aetas, 6 of them were Aeta women who have experienced pregnancy or pregnant during the time this study was conducted. The findings revealed that during pregnancy their most  beliefs and practices are observed by the Aetas.  Some of the traditional beliefs and practices of Aetas  have been influenced by many factors. They have also retained some of their traditional beliefs and practices on pregnancy, childbirth, marriage, death and burial despite the effects of the factors mentioned. All throughout the life stages of the Aetas in the rural communities, their old beliefs and practices had been influenced by modernization.  It simply shows that the Aetas , are also susceptible to accept changes that may affect their way of life. Their traditional cultural practices that deeply rooted in their beliefs were difficult to neglect since it has already been part of their tradition for years.</em></p></div>

scholarly journals Paradoxes of Mentoring: An Ethnographic Study of a Mentoring Programme for Highly-educated Women with Migrant Backgrounds

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-297
Author(s):  
Tytti Steel ◽  
Anna-Maija Lämsä ◽  
Marjut Jyrkinen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Highly Educated

This article explores paradoxes that emerge in the mentoring of highly-educated, female, foreign-born job-seekers in Finland. Theoretically, the study is linked to the growing body of research scrutinising the integration or discrimination of migrants in working life. It analyses cultural practices and ideas that are visible and affect the mentoring interaction. On a more practical level, the paper determines how the mentors and mentees experience the mentoring, and how intercultural mentoring could be improved in order to promote mentees’ employment. The article is based on ethnography and 11 semi-structured interviews. Two major paradoxes and their links to cultural meanings were identified: the over-emphasised focus on Finnish language (the language paradox), and the myth of the strong Finnish woman (the support paradox). These can be seen as having aspects of both cultural awareness and situation-specific awareness. Using situation-specific awareness, some mentors understood the best way forward was to break the rules of the mentoring programme and not to use Finnish in all communication. This enabled a more equal setting for professional discussions. In some rare cases, when the mentors did not use situation-specific awareness, a vicious circle emerged and mentees felt even worse about their abilities and working life opportunities. Similarly, although the myth of the strong Finnish woman can be an empowering and positive model for the mentee, it can have a negative impact on the mentor, enabling undercurrents in the mentoring discussions which can be experienced as harsh and even hostile. This, instead of encouraging and supporting, can result in the undermining and ‘othering’ of the mentee.

Gender Dimensions of Aging Among Indigenous People

2018 ◽  
pp. 142-158
Author(s):  
Faisal Ahmmed
Keyword(s):  
Family Relationships ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Family System ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Elderly Women ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Living Situation ◽  
Elderly Males

Researchers view older people as a homogenous group where age is a leveler of characteristics. But factors such as gender, socio-economic background, family relationships and support, living situation, physical condition, cultural practices, etc. severely influence how a person will enjoy their later life. In Khasi Indigenous community women enjoy higher status than their counterparts. Due to a strong matriarchical family system, women become the owner of property inherently and husbands stay in wives' houses. This empowers women economically and family members show their loyalty to the head of the family who is a woman. During old age, women are well cared for by family members, and elderly males are sometimes neglected, which is totally opposite to the majority people of Bangladesh. Based on an ethnographic study, this chapter explains how customs work in the creation of a special later life experience among elderly women. It also explains the challenges faced by Khasi elderly people in getting access to modern medical facilities and other government supports as citizen of Bangladesh.

scholarly journals An Ethnographic study of unhealthy alcohol use in a Danish Emergency Department

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ditte Maria Sivertsen ◽  
Ulrik Becker ◽  
Ove Andersen ◽  
Jeanette Wassar Kirk
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Use ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Unhealthy Alcohol Use ◽  
Unhealthy Alcohol

Abstract Background Emergency Departments (EDs) are important arenas for the detection of unhealthy substance use. Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) for unhealthy alcohol use has been used in some ED settings with funding support from external sources. However, widespread sustained implementation is uncommon, and research aimed at understanding culture as a determinant for implementation is lacking. This study aims to explore cultural practices concerning the handling of patients with unhealthy alcohol use admitted to an ED. Methods An ethnographic study was conducted in an ED in the Capital Region of Denmark. The data consists of participant observations of Health Care Professionals (HCPs) and semi-structured interviews with nurses. Data was collected from July 2018 to February 2020. A cultural analysis was performed by using Qualitative Content Analysis as an analytic tool. Results 150 h of observation and 11 interviews were conducted. Three themes emerged from the analysis: (1) Setting the scene describes how subthemes “flow,” “risky environment,” and “physical spaces and artefacts” are a part of the contextual environment of an ED, and their implications for patients with unhealthy alcohol use, such as placement in certain rooms; (2) The encounter presents how patients’ and HCPs’ encounters unfold in everyday practice. Subtheme “Professional differences” showcases how nurses and doctors address patients’ alcohol habits differently, and how they do not necessarily act on the information provided, due to several factors. These factors are shown in remaining sub-themes “gut-feeling vs. clinical parameters,” “ethical reasoning,” and “from compliance to zero-tolerance”; and (3) Collective repertoires shows how language shapes the perception of patients with unhealthy alcohol use, which may cause stigma and stereotyping. Subthemes are “occupiers” and “alcoholic or party animal?”. Conclusions Unhealthy alcohol use in the ED is entangled in complex cultural networks. Patients with severe and easily recognizable unhealthy alcohol use—characterized by an alcohol diagnosis in the electronic medical record, intoxication, or unwanted behavior—shape the general approach and attitude to unhealthy alcohol use. Consequently, from a prevention perspective, this means that patients with less apparent unhealthy alcohol use tend to be overlooked or neglected, which calls for a systematic screening approach.

Share wars: Sharing, theft, and the everyday production of Web 2.0 on DeviantArt

First Monday ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Perkel
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
New Era ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Human Creativity ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
New Generation ◽  
The Web

The development of Web 2.0 led to celebratory accounts about its potential to unleash human creativity. A consensus emerged that described Web 2.0 creative production as universal, democratic, communal, non-commercial, and thoroughly revolutionary. This consensus viewed young, web-savvy media makers as Web 2.0 creativity’s avant-garde: a new generation of producers, born digital, who had upended Romantic notions of creativity, authorship, ownership and related cultural practices. In this paper I draw from a multi-year ethnographic study of young creators’ use of the web from 2007 through 2010 and examine the practice and rhetoric of theft and sharing on DeviantArt, a self-described social network and community of artists. I argue that rather than overturning traditional notions of creativity, participating in DeviantArt helped young creators reaffirm traditional notions of creativity tied to the moral rights of authors to control the distribution of their work. I also demonstrate how these young media makers in turn shaped Web 2.0 ideology and technologies in practice. Seemingly well-established features for “sharing” content were actually uneasy compromises that supported multiple interpretations rather than epitomize the new era of creativity promised by the creativity consensus. These compromises reproduced Web 2.0 in everyday practice.

Money is the Root of All Evil – Or Is It? Recreating Culture through Everyday Neutralizing Practices

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 775-793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carine Farias
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Organizational Cultures ◽  
Intentional Community ◽  
Alternative Organizations

Alternative organizations exist within the prevalent social order which they simultaneously attempt to resist. To construct and maintain alternative cultural practices, they must continuously deal with symbolic threats. By illuminating processes of cultural creation stemming from the day-to-day neutralization of threats associated with money, this ethnographic study of an intentional community moves the question of boundaries beyond issues of exclusion/inclusion. Instead, it argues for a full appreciation of the role of transgression and disorder in the shaping of organizational cultures. Two sets of everyday neutralizing practices – distancing and re-appropriating – have been identified as factors that facilitate the emergence of a relational and politicized culture of exchange.

scholarly journals The cultural practices of Bamar diabetic patients: An ethnographic study

Heliyon ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. e03267
Author(s):  
Htet Shwe Wah Oo ◽  
Kaw Nau ◽  
Khin Mar Kyi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Diabetic Patients

Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities. By Melissa J. Brown. [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 333 pp. $24.95. ISBN 0-520-23182-1.]

2004 ◽  
Vol 179 ◽  
pp. 830-831
Author(s):  
J. Megan Greene
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Identity Shift ◽  
Taiwan Chinese ◽  
Identity Shifts ◽  
Han Culture ◽  
The Impact

Taiwan's identity has been constructed and described in a variety of ways by politicians seeking to demonstrate that Taiwan either is or is not Chinese. Those who wish to prove Taiwan's Chineseness emphasize the dominance of Han culture and the lengthy relationship between China and Taiwan. Those who argue that Taiwan's identity is distinctly un-Chinese tend to focus on the influence of Aborigine culture and ancestry on the Han population, the influence of Japanese culture, and the fact that Taiwan has been politically separate from China for most of the 20th century. Melissa Brown's Is Taiwan Chinese? investigates the merits of these claims through ethnographic study. She offers an excellent analysis of the shifting identity of Taiwan's plains Aborigines, which she supplements with a comparative analysis of Tujia identity in China's Hubei province that demonstrates that Taiwan's identity shifts are not unique.Through ethnographic case studies and analysis of historical data, Brown concludes that Taiwan's plains Aborigines have undergone three identity shifts, from plains Aborigine to Han, in the first two cases, and from Han back to Aborigine in the last instance. Brown studies three foothills villages that by the early 1990s identified themselves as Han, but that had previously been Aborigine. She finds that because Qing economic and social policies had eroded boundaries between Han and plains Aborigines, these two groups already shared numerous cultural practices in the early 20th century. However, it was not until the Japanese banned footbinding, thus opening a range of new marriage options, that plains Aborigines began to take on Han identity, and to claim it on the basis of cultural similarity, rather than ancestry. Brown further finds that the impact of Aborigine culture on Han culture during this period was minimal, and that Han cultural practices supplanted Aborigine practices among those people who underwent the identity shift. In the late 20th century these same people underwent a second identity shift from Han back to Aborigine, one that was again spurred by changes in the political environment and one that, Brown argues, has been counter-productive to Taiwan's claims to uniqueness.

The Great American Football Ritual: Reproducing Race, Class, and Gender Inequality

1990 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas E. Foley
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
American Football ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
High School Football ◽  
Community Sport ◽  
And Gender

An ethnographic study of one football season in a small South Texas town is presented to explore the extent that community sport is, as various critical theorists have suggested, a potential site for counterhegemonic cultural practices. Football is conceptualized as a major community ritual that socializes future generations of youth. This broad, holistic description of socialization also notes various moments of ethnic resistance engendered by the Chicano civil rights movement. Other moments of class and gender resistance to the football ritual are also noted. Finally, the way players generally resisted attempts to thoroughly rationalize their sport is also described. In spite of these moments of resistance, this study ultimately shows how deeply implicated community sport—in this case high school football—is in the reproduction of class, gender, and racial inequality. The white ruling class and the town’s patriarchal system of gender relations are preserved in spite of concessions to the new ethnic challenges. When seen from a historical community perspective, sport may be less a site for progressive, counterhegemonic practices than critical sport theorists hope.

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