scholarly journals Fieldwork through the Zoomiverse

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-78
Author(s):  
Richard Vokes ◽  
Gertrude Atukunda

We have been conducting collaborative ethnographic research together for over 20 years. Over the past 12 months, this collaboration has included face-to-face encounters, both in Kampala, Uganda, and in Perth, Australia. However, since the advent of COVID-19-related ‘lockdowns’ in our respective countries, our engagements have been conducted exclusively over online platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook and – increasingly – Zoom. In this article, we reflect upon our shared experience of conducting ethnography through this platform as a tool for understanding the effects of the pandemic in Uganda. We argue that, despite all kinds of material constraints (at both ends), Zoom has much to off er the ethnographer particularly because it can generate an intimate understanding of experience and time. However, against this advantage, some aspects of social life remain beyond the range of its channels, for which an assemblage of additional methods are required. We finish by reflecting upon what these methods have contributed to our long-term study of emergent cultures of mobility in Uganda – a study which is now being conducted in an ostensible context of immobility.

2013 ◽  
Vol 95 (9) ◽  
pp. 299-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hani J Marcus ◽  
Ara Darzi ◽  
Dipankar Nandi

The safety and effectiveness of surgical devices have come under considerable scrutiny over the past two decades.1 New surgical tools are being introduced into the operating theatre at an increasing rate, and are often rapidly adopted with minimal evidence to support their use. while the IDEAL (idea, development, exploration, assessment, long-term study) framework provides clear recommendations for the clinical evaluation of surgical innovations,2 there is undoubtedly also a role for preclinical studies early in the product development cycle.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Alonso González

The discovery of a rock art site in 2008 by an amateur archaeologist spurred a wave of public interest in archaeology in Maragatería, Spain. As new discoveries took place, alternative archaeological discourses thrived facing the inaction of institutional and academic archaeologists. A long-term study of Maragatería carried out by the author serves to explore the construction of archaeological epistemic authority in a context where various social actors compete for dominance. Gieryn’s notion of ‘boundary-work’ serves to analyse the different strategies employed by academic and institutional archaeologists, amateurs and pseudoarchaeologists to build epistemic authority. This article draws on Latour’s affirmation that the legitimisation of scientific objectivity should rely on ‘trust’ rather than on ‘certainty’. Ethnographic research showed that the more archaeologists attempted to legitimise their authority by reclaiming certainty, the more pseudoarchaeology proliferated. In contrast, the work of amateurs restrained the growth of pseudoarchaeology by creating networks of trust.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-237
Author(s):  
N.Yu. Ivanova

The opinions of systematists about the classification and evolution of burrowing sea anemones have repeatedly changed over the long-term study of Actiniaria. Four stages can be distinguished over the course of the classification history. Each system was characterized by the use of mainly one particular feature. These features were: (1) characters of the external morphology, (2) arrangement of the mesenteries, (3) presence or absence of the basilar muscles and (4) molecular markers. The views on the origin and the evolution of the burrowing sea anemones were also altered more than once, that led to the emergence of several hypotheses. The burrowing sea anemones were considered as a primitive group or, on the contrary, as more advanced descendants of large hexamerous actinians.


2007 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
DAMIAN MCNAMARA
Keyword(s):  

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