Declaring Kinship – Some Remarks on the Indeterminate Relation between Commensality and Kinship in Western Kenya

Sociologus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-158
Author(s):  
Sebastian Schellhaas ◽  
Mario Schmidt ◽  
Gilbert Francis Odhiambo
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Western Kenya ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Marriage Customs

Based upon ethnographic fieldwork in Western Kenya, this article re-evaluates the widespread assumption that commensality constructs or, at least, earmarks kin or kin-like relations. In contrast to such generalizations, our ethnographic data suggests that the relation between kinship and social practices such as eating together is culturally not predetermined in Western Kenya. This understanding of the relation between social practices and kinship as indeterminate allows the inhabitants of Kaleko, a small marketplace in Western Kenya, to use different and conflicting strategies of ‘declaring kin’. These conflicting strategies include assertions of biological kinship, refusals to clarify the specific kin-relation and evocations of love and care. Understanding kinship as an effect of strategic practices of individuals and not of cultural norms or social practices has analytical repercussions for an analysis of marriage customs and infertility.

Transnational moral economies: The value of monetary and social remittances in transnational families

2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 760-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cinzia D Solari
Keyword(s):  
Moral Economy ◽  
State Building ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Migrant Children ◽  
Transnational Families ◽  
Social Remittances ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
Moral Economies ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Building Project

Although migration scholars have called for studying both ends of migration, few studies have empirically done so. In this article the author analyzes ethnographic data conducted with migrant careworkers in Italy, many undocumented, and their non-migrant children in Ukraine to uncover the meanings they assign to monetary and also social remittances defined as the transfer of ideas, behaviors, and values between sending and receiving countries. The author argues that migrants and non-migrant children within transnational families produce a transnational moral economy or a set of social norms based on a shared migration discourse – in this case, either poverty or European aspirations – which governs economic and social practices in both sending and receiving sites. The author found that these contrasting transnational moral economies resulted in the production of ‘Soviet’ versus ‘capitalist’ subjectivities with consequences for migrant practices of integration in Italy, consumption practices for migrants and their non-migrant children, and for Ukraine’s nation-state building project.

scholarly journals Stepping-up: ‘Urban’ and ‘queer’ cultural capital in LGBT and queer communities in Kansai, Japan

Sexualities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 666-682
Author(s):  
Jane Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Sexuality And Gender ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Hierarchical Nature ◽  
Queer Communities ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Successful Transfer

This article argues that the Bourdieusian concepts of field, habitus and cultural capital open up theoretical space in which to analyse the hierarchical nature of LGBT and queer communities living in the Kansai region of Japan. Drawing upon data collected during ethnographic fieldwork, this article will show how ‘urban’ and ‘queer’ forms of LGBT-activist practice acted as a kind of cultural capital (in the form of symbolic capital) within the groups studied. The possession of and ability to engage in specific ways with these cultural capitals determined the respondents’ positions in the field. However, access is not universal, and is determined by context. Furthermore, the processes involved in a renegotiation of an individual’s position in the field can bring multiple habitus into contact, resulting not only in instances of successful transfer, but also tension and rupture. This article provides an original and timely contribution to sexuality and gender studies of Japan, by adding a detailed analysis of the ways in which cultural capital plays out in the field using ethnographic data.

scholarly journals Defining Peruvians as a Problem: Ethnic Projects and Resistance at a Japanese Elementary School

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Moorehead
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Host Country ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Central Japan ◽  
School Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Loyalty Oath ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Japanese Descent

I argue that some Japanese elementary school practices, such as having foreign parents sign a loyalty oath and repeatedly questioning the parents about their migration plans, constitute an ethnic project that defines these parents as disloyal aliens who are unwilling to adapt to Japanese cultural norms. In response, the foreign parents limit their willingness to assimilate. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at a public elementary school in central Japan that has more than 50 foreign children, the majority of whom are Peruvians of Japanese descent, I explore the context of reception in the school, including teacher-parent relations, teachers’ expectations, their complaints, and their questions about the parents’ commitment to living in the host country. I ask what is the nature of the relationship between Japanese teachers and foreign parents? How are school practices influencing the context of reception, and how is that context impacting foreign parents’ sense of belonging in Japan? I conclude by discussing potential impacts, including the reproduction of existing inequalities in this immigrant population.

scholarly journals The significance of cultural norms and clinical logics for the perception of possible relapse in rural Northern Norway – sensing symptoms of cancer

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Skowronski ◽  
Mette Bech Risør ◽  
Nina Foss
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Northern Norway ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Primary Health ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
The Common ◽  
One Year ◽  
Key Participants ◽  
The Village

Little is known about the process from experiencing indeterminate bodily sensations to perceiving them as possible symptoms of cancer relapse. We explore how such processes are related to local values and to clinical practice in rural Northern Norway. One-year ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in a coastal village involving ten key participants residing in the village who had undergone cancer treatment from six months to five years earlier. The village has instability in primary health care staffing, which influences how and when indeterminate bodily sensations are presented to shifting GPs. The participants feel that they have to present clear symptoms, so they hesitate to see the doctor for such bodily sensations. Moreover, the personal evaluation of bodily sensations is embedded in local values in the village. Core values are to contribute to the common good, not be a burden, be positive and avoid focusing on difficult things. Participants’ inner dialogues with co-villagers and health personnel lead to not sharing concerns about bodily sensations, even though they might be symptoms of relapse. We suggest a rethinking and relocation of Hay’s analysis of social legitimation in sense-tosymptom processes in order to grasp the experiences of cancer in rural Northern Norway.

Competing Communities: Ethnic Unity and Ethnic Boundaries on China's North-West Frontier

Inner Asia ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-25 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
North West ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Chinese Nation ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Party State

AbstractThis paper aims to explore the interface between Benedict Anderson's (1991) imagined, conceptual communities linking people who have never met and what Vered Amit (2002) called face to face communities of groups based on social practices. Communities are imagined from above but communities also negotiate their own social and spatial boundaries, often in response to these imaginations. What is imagined can only be felt if it can be socially realised. This paper will compare findings from discourse analysis of official texts with ethnographic data collected through informal interviews with over 100 Han Chinese and Uyghurs in Urumchi, the capital city of Xinjiang. It asks how these face-to-face communities are framed by the party-state and how they understand their place within the Chinese nation themselves. Specific reference to the party's concept of ethnic unity will be used to explore the relationship between ethnicity and nationhood in China. This aims to contribute to our understanding of the variety of competing self-understandings in China and how national identities are formed and negotiated at a local face-to-face level.

scholarly journals Cross-fading the City

Resonance ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-88
Author(s):  
Joella Bitter
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Urban Street ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The City

Widely discussed among scholars of cities in Africa is the need to conceive these cities as relational formations, but rarely is the sensory addressed. Scholarship on urban soundscapes has tended to emphasize aesthetic and technological practices without grappling with their aural political import. This article brings together these conversations in order to address the intersections of urban sound and politics in a small Ugandan city. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the city of Gulu, the author examines how young Acoli men use aural, expressive social practices to sonically rework the city and their place in it. Referencing the work of ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, and critical theorists concerned with sound, the author argues that practices of “expressive sociability” elaborate a relational politics of city-making vis-à-vis their intimate exchanges that cross-fade with urban street soundscapes. This work aims to amplify the importance of ordinary aural practices to conceiving political valences of relational life in global south cities.

scholarly journals From field sites to field events

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Ahlin ◽  
Fangfang Li
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Transnational Families ◽  
Field Site ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Mobile Ict

The incorporation of various information and communication technologies (ICTs) in ethnographic methods mandates a reconsideration of the understanding and practice of fieldwork. In this article, we explore how the ‘field site’ may be reimagined in today’s highly mobile, ICT-facilitated world. Based on our research among Indian transnational families and young migrant workers from Malaysia, we argue that the field may be conceived as a collection of ‘field events’ that are co-created by ethnographers, their study participants, and ICTs. As ICTs are increasingly intertwined with people’s lives and thereby feature importantly in ethnographic fieldwork, we encourage ethnographers to carefully consider how these devices and platforms actively shape their ethnographic data as well as their relations with study participants.

scholarly journals Negotiating languages of suffering in northern Uganda

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-157
Author(s):  
Lars Hedegaard Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Intervention Programs ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Social

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in northern Uganda, I argue that psychiatric notions of suffering brought into the region by humanitarian intervention programs interact with local concepts of suffering (based in spirit-idioms) in two ways: In some cases, the diagnostic notion of PTSD and its vernacular counterpart “trauma” psychologize the local cosmology, transforming local spirit concepts from social or moral categories, to psychological ones. In other cases, psychiatric discourses hinged around “trauma” become spiritualized or enchanted, where the concept of trauma becomes usurped by and part of local cosmology. In an attempt to understand these processes, I suggest understanding concepts of suffering through their use in social practice and based on pragmatist epistemology. If viewed as a pragmatist concepts, I argue, it becomes possible to understand the social life of concepts of suffering (such as “trauma”) when they become globalized and negotiated in new contexts and social practices.

Why Did You Choose to Become a Teacher?

2018 ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Sharon L. Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Future Goals ◽  
Experience Teaching ◽  
Cultural Experiences ◽  
Teaching Chinese ◽  
Insight Into

In this chapter, the author shares her experience teaching Chinese English teachers in China for four weeks. At the beginning of the training program she asked, “Why did you choose to be a teacher?” The question had no purpose other than to start a conversation that might give some insight into the Chinese teachers' motivation to teach so she might find some common ground with them. She was quite surprised by their answers; they uniformly replied that they had not chosen the teaching profession. In fact, several expressed dissatisfaction with the profession and wished they could choose another one. Their responses caused the author to ask herself what it meant to have no voice in choices about profession, future goals, or even having children. What part did cultural norms and social structures have in self-determination? How did cultural norms and social practices impact a sense of purpose? How have our own cultural experiences influenced our perceptions of and reactions to their responses? Her reflections on this experience are the basis for this case study.

Revisiting individualization: The transitions to marriage and motherhood in Chile

2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (5) ◽  
pp. 748-768 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Yopo Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Family Formation ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Female Population ◽  
The Past ◽  
Empirical Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Life Course

The life course of Chilean women has experienced profound transformations in the past decades. It has been argued that transitions to marriage and motherhood are being postponed as they are experienced by women at an older age and are becoming events that characterize an increasingly smaller part of the female population. These changes have been often interpreted as part of a process of individualization that would have reconfigured the cultural norms and social practices regarding gender roles and family formation in Chilean society. Nevertheless, the prevalence and diversification of the practices and norms that shape the transitions to marriage and motherhood at an empirical level remain unexplored. This article aims to assess the individualization of the life course of women in Chile by empirically analysing the destandardization of the practices and norms that shape the transitions to marriage and motherhood. By analysing data from the Encuesta Nacional Bicentenario Universidad Católica – Adimark (2009), it demonstrates that changes in the prevalence of the transitions to marriage and motherhood and the diversification of the practices and norms that shape their timing are ambivalent regarding destandardization. These results suggest that the life course of women in Chile is becoming individualized to some extent, but that this trend of cultural and social change is not consistent and uniform, but rather partial and fragmented, non-linear, and significantly conditioned by the social structure.

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