scholarly journals Intersubjective Sensibilities: Memory, Experience, and Meaning in Natural History Interpretation

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Early Memories ◽  
Western State ◽  
Memory Experience ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Outdoor Educators

This ethnographic account examines the perceptions of a group of outdoor educators or naturalists in a mid-western state park in regards to memory construction and how early memories impact their practice of interpretation. Findings show that early personal memories are not only fundamental to their eventual life as a naturalist but further; these memories motivate their work within the park. Of primary focus is highlighting the intersubjective continuity between the memories of naturalists and what they hope for others and the eventual goal of meaning making by way of affective memories. By describing and interpreting their perceptions of experience and memory we can examine how these processes are invested with significance and what role this plays in their subsequent practice. Since there is little ethnographic research concerning naturalists, this form of cultural analysis provides an important lens that permits an intimate account of naturalists’ own awareness as a way to understand their unique contributions as educators.

Ethnography Is an Option

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacey Philbrick Yadav
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Opportunities For Learning

Reflecting on her own uneven experience carrying out fieldwork in Yemen, Stacey Philbrick Yadav highlights the advantages of ethnography and interpretative methods when working in settings or on questions related to meaning-making. The chapter argues that the tools of ethnographic research can help to reframe what positivists might regard as mistakes into opportunities for learning and reassessment.

scholarly journals Becoming a complementary health practitioner: The construction of alternative medical knowledge

2020 ◽  
pp. 136345932094646
Author(s):  
Maayan Roichman
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Health Practitioner ◽  
Medical College ◽  
The Core ◽  
Practitioner Training ◽  
Experience Of Illness ◽  
Complementary And Alternative

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has become widely popular in many countries, yet little is known about the actual training of CAM practitioners. This article employs ethnographic research methods to closely examine the meaning-making processes used in such training at a complementary and alternative medical college. It delineates how CAM practitioners in training, specialising in naturopathy, make sense of alternative medical knowledge and transform it into medical truth. The study indicates that the core of CAM training rests on overturning the biomedical epistemological hierarchy between the objectification of disease and the experience of illness through extended intersubjective sharing by instructors and students. This study therefore adds to the extensive CAM literature by carefully examining the way naturopathic knowledge is inculcated during practitioner training. The emerging insight is that introspection and the search for authenticity, a central narrative of modernity, have become powerful resources in CAM’s construction of alternative medical truth.

scholarly journals Meaning-making of a group of South Africans in their experience of living with HIV: a phenomenological study

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
H G Pretorius ◽  
N Goldstein ◽  
A D Stuart
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Full Text ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Living With Hiv ◽  
Disease Specific ◽  
Hiv Aids

With the primary focus of disease specific studies on the medical and biological transmission and progression of HIV/AIDS, the lived experience and meaning-making of individuals who live with this disease, is a literary scarcity. Opsomming Met die primêre fokus van siektespesifieke studies op die mediese en ook biologiese oordrag en progressie van MIV/VIGS, is daar ‘n literêre skaarste oor die geleefde ondervinding en betekenisgewing van individue wat met hierdie siekte leef. *Please note: This is a reduced version of the abstract. Please refer to PDF for full text.

Towards a Cultural Analysis: The Need for Ethnography in Interpretation Research

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua E. Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Prominent Component ◽  
Social Act

The author examines a decade of interpretation research and focuses on the limited amount of qualitative research available, especially ethnographic. This highlights a trend in which there is a substantial absence of work derived from qualitative perspectives and even when studies are considered qualitative they are overwhelmingly geared towards individual visitor outcomes and large-scale studies and surveys. Drawing upon anthropological insights ethnography as both method and substance is explored. An argument is presented that ethnography, in its attention to context, making connections, shared social interactions, and holism is keenly suited to the study of interpretation and perhaps the best way of exploring meaning making, a prominent component of the field. Interpretation research is missing an important cultural analysis of the practice of interpretation, and ethnography offers a unique and invaluable lens by which to study interpretation as a cultural and social act.

scholarly journals Fit to Print: A Natural History of Obesity Research in the Canadian News Media

2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephannie C Roy ◽  
Guy Faulkner ◽  
Sara-Jane Finlay
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
News Media ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Telephone Interviews ◽  
Obesity Research ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
History Approach ◽  
History Of Obesity

Abstract: This natural-history approach to investigating media reports concerning health can reveal the complex process whereby health research becomes news. Using television and newspaper reports of a press event taken from a larger project, this article examines the inception and mediation of obesity research in the Canadian news media. By exploring questionnaire data, a media release, telephone interviews with journalists, and news reports, we can better understand the meaning making that occurs at all levels in the communications process. We conclude that there is an interdependent and possibly problematic relationship between health sources and journalists that shapes the inception and mediation of obesity research and the translation of health research to the public. Résumé : Cette approche, qui a recours à l’histoire naturelle pour investiguer les reportages sur la santé, peut révéler le processus complexe selon lequel la recherche dans le domaine de la santé devient une nouvelle. En utilisant des reportages de télévision et de journaux sur un événement de presse provenant d’un plus grand projet, cet article examine l’origine et la médiation de la recherche sur l’obésité dans les médias canadiens. Au moyen de données de questionnaire, d’un communiqué de presse, d’entrevues téléphoniques avec des journalistes et de rapports de nouvelles, nous pouvons mieux comprendre la création de sens qui a lieu à tous les niveaux du processus de communication. Nous concluons qu’il y a un rapport d’interdépendance peut-être problématique entre les experts en santé et les journalistes qui influence l’orientation et la médiation de la recherche sur l’obésité et la présentation au public de la recherche dans le domaine de la santé.

Qualitative semiotics: Can we research consumer meaning-making?

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (5) ◽  
pp. 478-491
Author(s):  
Chris Barnham
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Concept Formation ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Semiotic Model ◽  
Meaning Creation ◽  
Consumer Cognition ◽  
Marketing Profession ◽  
Peircean Semiotics

The notion of “meaning” is central to marketing because it is only through the making of meaning that “added value” can be created. The marketing profession has several models of how such meaning is created, but Peircean semiotics can shed further light on the activity of meaning-making itself and the stages that are involved in this process. This article explores the differences between Peircean and Saussurian semiotics and discusses how these two semiotic traditions construe meaning creation. In particular, it applies the Peircean semiotic model of meaning-making to the notion of concept formation, and the classificatory aspects of this process. This enables convergences to be identified between qualitative research methodologies and semiotics. This, in turn, opens up the possibility of a new kind of qualitative research that understands, and explores, how individual consumers form their concepts. It does this by identifying the semiotic structures that are involved in this process. It will be argued that the resulting framework of “Qualitative Semiotics” has the potential to take semiotics beyond the remit of cultural analysis and to refocus it on processes of individual consumer cognition.

Ethnographic Methods

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-211
Author(s):  
Tatjana Thelen
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Short Overview ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Critical Questioning

This chapter describes the impact of ethnographic methods on the study of transformation. Ethnographic methods comprise a bundle of tools, the most important of which remains participant observation. In general, ethnographic methods aim at insights into processes of meaning making by actors in everyday life. They focus on the plurality of experiences within processes of change and ambivalences in specific contexts, as well as on historical depth. The openness of ethnographic research design allows for unexpected results and critical questioning of taken-for-granted theoretical concepts. The chapter starts with a short overview of the historical development of ethnographic methods in relation to shifting paradigms of transformation. Examples of ethnographic research of (post-)socialist transformations substantiate the potential (and pitfalls) of ethnographic methods. One important insight is that the great diversity of socialist as well as post-socialist transformations do not follow a modernization blueprint, demonstrating the potential of ethnography in generating innovative theoretical approaches.

Emotions in community research

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zanib Rasool
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Women's Writing ◽  
Community Research ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Emotions ◽  
Women’S Writing ◽  
Academic Social Science

This chapter argues that emotions help people with ‘meaning making’, and offer different experiences of the world through a different lens. It does so in the context of women's writing, as writing connects ordinary women and gives them the opportunity to articulate feelings not expressed or shared before. In academic social science, emotions have historically been associated with the irrational and quite opposed to the objective scientific search for knowledge. However, in the last decade or so, sociologists have recognised that ethnographic research cannot be clinical and detached from human emotions. We can say ‘emotions do things’ — they move us but also connect us with others.

Decision-making as performative struggle

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sander Merkus ◽  
Jaap De Heer ◽  
Marcel Veenswijk
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Strategic Decision Making ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The World

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of performative struggle through the use of an interpretative case story focussed on a strategic decision-making process concerning infrastructural development. Performativity is about “world-making” (Carter et al., 2010), based on the assumption that conceptual schemes are not only prescriptions of the world, for the practices flowing from these abstract ideas bring into being the world they are describing. The focus on agency and multiplicity in the academic debate on performativity in organizational settings are combined, resulting in the conceptualization of a multitude of performative agents struggling to make the world. Design/methodology/approach – The methodological approach of this paper is based on an interpretative analysis of contrasting narratives that are told by political-executives in a strategic decision-making process. These narratives are based on in-depth interviews and participant observation. The interpretative case story, exhibiting the strategic decision-making practices of Aldermen, Delegates and Ministers – focusses on the moments of performative struggle based on strategic narrative practices. Findings – The interpretative case story will exhibit the way in which a multiplicity of agents reflects on the performative dimension of the decision-making process, anticipates on its performative effects and attempts to manipulate the strategic vision that is actualized into reality. Moreover, the agents are not primarily concerned with the actualization of a specific infrastructural project; they are more concerned with the consequences of decision making for their more comprehensive strategic visions on reality. Research limitations/implications – The notion of performative struggle has not yet been explicitly studied by scholars focussing on performativity. However, the concept can be used as an appropriate lens for studying meaning making within ethnographic studies on organizational processes such as for instance culture change intervention and strategy formation. The concept of performative struggle is especially useful for understanding the political dimension of meaning making when studying an organizational life-world through the use of ethnographic research. Originality/value – The originality of this paper lies in the innovative conceptualization of struggle between a multiplicity of reflexive agents in the debate on performative world-making. Moreover, the incorporation of the perspective of performative struggle within organizational ethnographic research is valuable for the development of organizational ethnographic methodology.

scholarly journals Listening for culture: Using interviews to understand identity in context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
leoandra onnie rogers ◽  
Ursula Moffitt ◽  
Courtney Meiling Jones
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
The Other ◽  
Subjective Meaning ◽  
Identity Processes ◽  
Methodological Tool

There is an inextricable link between humans and their cultural environments, as each reciprocally creates and is created by the other. This chapter discusses interviewing as a critical methodological tool for understanding culture as intricately intertwined with subjective meaning-making and identity processes. We start from the premise that the stories gathered through research-based interviews serve as repositories of shared cultural knowledge as experienced and interpreted by individuals. After briefly examining the historical position of interviewing in the field of psychology, the chapter will draw on examples from the authors’ own research in the United States and Germany to offer guidance on (1) designing interview protocols that allow for cultural analysis, and (2) conducting analysis to see culture through interview data. Empirically-guided suggestions for fostering researcher reflexivity, acknowledging power, and dismantling hierarchies are provided throughout the chapter, all in service of truly “hearing” culture in the stories participants tell

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document