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This paper employs digital ethnographic methods to explore the Facebook fan group for the popular podcast My Favorite Murder. We argue that the My Favorite Murder podcast and Facebook group, while providing a potentially unique feminist online space for its members in its early days, quickly devolved into a toxic space rife with conflict and ultimately destroyed by white-centred feminism and white supremacy. We explore failed gatekeeping practices in relation to other Facebook podcast fan groups that have met a similar demise. Finally, we question whether truly inclusive anti-racist feminist spaces can exist in capitalistic models of media production and consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Axel Sommerfelt's paper for the symposium organized by Fredrik Barth ahead of the publication of Ethnic Groups and Boundaries is given a broader readership in this issue. This biography provides some background to the perspectival differences between Axel Sommerfelt and Barth, that revolve around issues of political inequality, experience and historicity. Axel Sommerfelt shared Barth's anti-essentialist view on ethnicity, but did not fully embrace the instrumentalist underpinnings of Barth's perspective. He was theoretically influenced by the Manchester school, and directed attention to political domination from the point of view of the dominated, a focus that grew out of his ethnography from Ruwenzori in Uganda. Judicial institutions constituted an important arena for the negotiation of ethnic boundaries, and specifically, Toro-Konzo relations were partly shaped in judicial contexts that Toro controlled, under British protectorate supervision. His interest in resistance was also influenced by his upbringing in Norway during Nazi occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography has issued a call for papers on the topic of ethnographies of infrastructure. The aim is to examine how infrastructure has been studied ethnographically, exploring its visible and invisible elements, material and non-material dimensions, geopolitical and economic implications, and its relationship to other structures. The special issue seeks papers that offer theoretical perspectives and methodological treatments of infrastructure, grounded in empirical case studies or critical reviews of existing ethnographies. The deadline for submissions is October 1, 2024. [Extracted from the article]

Paper Kinship: Law, Power and Resistance in an Ethnographic Scene with Foreign Migrants starts from an "ethnographic scene" with foreign migrants in a lawyer's office to discuss the role that migratory documents play on kinship in the transnational movement. By doing this, it highlights how the state and the Law discipline these relations and how migrants themselves, using the legal logic of documentary production, elaborate themselves as persons, in resistance to state power. Based on this experience, named here as paper kinship, a reelaboration of the concept of document is proposed, encompassing both the bureaucratic agency and that of the subjects of documentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 2018, three academics employed what they referred to as "reflective ethnography" to examine the hypothesis that many disciplines (e.g., sociology, educational philosophy, and critical race theory) are motivated by extreme ideologies, as opposed to generating knowledge. The authors published, or had accepted, seven "hoax" articles in a number of peer-reviewed journals. When the story broke in the Wall Street Journal, the authors stated that the articles advocated a number of ludicrous, inhumane, and appalling ideas. For example, one argued that men should be trained like dogs with shock collars. Their acceptance for publication was therefore taken as evidence for the kind of ideas that many academic disciplines will advocate. In the present article, I will show that the central aspects of the hoax articles do not match with how they were later described by the hoax authors and many other commentators (e.g., journalists). Despite the vast amount of media coverage, this has (virtually) gone unnoticed. I will suggest that the widely accepted narrative of the so-called Grievance Studies affair is incorrect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the impact of the book People's Law and State Law: the Bellagio Papers, edited by Anthony Allott and Gordon Woodman, published in 1985. It sets out why I consider this publication to be a seminal text in establishing and developing the field of legal pluralism, which had a great impact on both the development of the Journal of Legal Pluralism and on my own development as a young legal scholar. In looking beyond the text, I consider the ways in which scholars have engaged with the book's call for legal and social science to "work from a new map". In doing so I explore a recent arena of scholarship involving international intervention. The article highlights the important contribution that empirical studies can make to research on legal pluralism, by moving beyond the binaries of state and non-state actors, as well as through pursuing how scholars are adopting a more integrated and relational approach to law, one that may involve breaking down traditional disciplinary boundaries. In particular, I explore how concepts such as space and time contribute to a multi-dimensional, scalar perception of law at odds with a formalist, state-centred view of legal pluralism. This allows new insights to be generated into the operation of plural legal structures and constellations in which people operate allowing for a view of law that involves multiple networks of relations cutting across international, national and local boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection: By Jason M. Gibson. The collection in question in Gibson's study is that assembled by linguist and ethnographer T.G.H. ("Ted") Strehlow, now housed at the purpose-built Strehlow Research Centre in Alice Springs. This brings me to the second innovation that Gibson makes in approaching Strehlow's archive: his decision to focus on the work that Strehlow did with the Anmatyerr. [Extracted from the article]

This special issue offers a substantial contribution to the field, outlining how materiality and embodiment offer insights into science learning with respect to argumentation, use of diagrams and gestures to understand abstract concepts, the role of materiality in digital learning and the importance of material and embodied interactions in investigations, plurilingual settings and in the positioning and identities of learners of science. This paper responds to the special issue by outlining a distinctive theoretical framework for understanding materiality and embodiment in science education: a conceptualisation of material-dialogic space. Contrasting this framework with the multimodal, social semiotic and narrative ethnographic frames used in the studies in this special issue, this paper argues that by examining materiality as voices within a material-dialogic space, new insights into dialogic learning and 'becoming' in science are possible. In this paper, I discuss the papers in this special issue using the conceptualisation of material-dialogic space, grouped according to three areas of interest in science education: methods of analysing materiality, meaning-making in science through 'doing' and 'thinking' science, and science identities. A means by which material-dialogic space might be examined empirically is proposed, and how this enables an approach to think about thinking and doing science that focuses on the relationality of materials, bodies and language in science meaning-making is explored. The notion of becoming, changing and being changed through participation in a material-dialogic relational space is proposed as an approach to thinking about 'being' in science and science identities. The role of material-dialogic space with respect to spaces of science learning is raised as a key question. This paper highlights the lively open questions in the field of materiality and embodiment in science education, whilst offering the concept of material-dialogic space as an important avenue for studying these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In African Public Administration, this article considers the subject of rethinking identity for indigenous public administration. It seeks to determine whether the lack of indigenous traditions as a foundation for current Public Administration will actually fulfil the essential knowledge demands of government by solving challenges that cannot be answered by public officials. This epistemic discrimination of indigenous public administration in Public Administration has been widely disseminated without taking into account the value systems of African societies that have established their own distinct administrative structures within their respective cultural settings. This has resulted in a plethora of misunderstandings and contradictions in contemporary public administration practices. This is due to P[p]ublic A[a]dministration modulating the influence of Africans, their processes and institutions in the development of the discipline. In light of this realization, this paper discusses how rethinking the issue of identity for indigenous public administration can and should serve as a foundational tool for promoting Africa's Public Administration. This paper employs Afrocentricity as an avant-garde to untangle this discourse based on the above-mentioned breakdown. The paper is conceptual in nature and is based on a review of literature from a variety of sources, including policies, popular media statements, and academic publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a synthesis of existing literature on ethnomodeling and the ways in which it extends mathematical modeling research in mathematics teacher education. We also call on the field to consider ways to connect and value culture and content in teaching mathematics. There have been increasing calls for integration of a culturally responsive mathematics curriculum. Additionally, mathematics teacher educators and researchers have also emphasized the critical role of deep and meaningful mathematical content within curricular efforts that focus on culture and student identity. In this paper, we present how ethnomodeling connects to and extends current literature to apply mathematical modeling to shift toward culturally relevant and sustaining teaching practices while maintaining a focus on deep and meaningful mathematical content. We start by describing the various existing calls, present a synthesis of the literature supporting the components of ethnomodeling, and conclude by proposing a new call to action for the field to deepen existing efforts and plan for actionable steps for using an ethnomodeling approach to impact teacher education programs.

Teach for Australia was announced by the Australian Government in 2008, at a corporate dinner sponsored by Swiss multinational investment bank UBS, hosting New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. Conceptualising Teach for Australia as a polycentric policy network anchored in venture philanthropy, this paper examines how networks mobilise major government reform, drawing upon both market and state. As an organisation founded, staffed and registered by a major global consultancy firm (Boston Consultancy Group), the paper critiques and questions representation, divisibility and immutability. By drawing upon network ethnography, following people and policy, the paper traces the beginnings of Teach for Australia through inaugural founders, focusing upon co-affiliations. Mapping a heterarchical and polycentric network of non-state and state actors, it highlights indivisible flows of people, money and policy. Thus, this paper seeks to indicate how policy networks embedded in venture philanthropy mobilise policy, whilst being reliant upon formal bureaucracies. This is governance with government. Teach for Australia highlights the nexus between private and public, and fuses together critical connections between market and state, bolstering a major venture philanthropic network that chiefly impacts public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to offer a reflection on the alliance between accounting theory and social research in general, focussing on the conjunction of accounting theory and ethnography in particular. Design/methodology/approach: The author builds on Stefan Hirschauer's methodological reflections on ethnography and the "silence of the social" to briefly re-articulate some of the ideas the author had associated, in an earlier piece, with the investigation of tacit coordination in accounting. Findings: Ethnography is an intrinsically theoretical practice and also a particular form of accounting. As such, it presents a paradigm case for how accounting theory builds on, and emerges from, social research in joint efforts of breaking the silence of the social. Ethnographic research, like the practice of accounting and social research more generally, is associated with a stewardship of silence and an "ethics of mattering" (Karen Barad), and accounting theory is an invitation to reflect on the underlying practices of (dis-)articulation. Originality/value: The paper invites readers to engage with accounting practice as a topic of systematic theoretical interest in exploring how we put the world on the record, understand the choices we make in the process and the silences we let lie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects upon calls for "open data" in ethnography, drawing on our experiences doing research on sexual violence. The core claim of this paper is not that open data is undesirable; it is that there is a lot we must know before we presume its benefits apply to ethnographic research. The epistemic and ontological foundation of open data is grounded in a logic that is not always consistent with that of ethnographic practice. We begin by identifying three logics of open data--epistemic, political-economic, and regulatory--which each address a perceived problem with knowledge production and point to open science as the solution. We then evaluate these logics in the context of the practice of ethnographic research. Claims that open data would improve data quality are, in our assessment, potentially reversed: in our own ethnographic work, open data practices would likely have compromised our data quality. And protecting subject identities would have meant creating accessible data that would not allow for replication. For ethnographic work, open data would be like having the data set without the codebook. Before we adopt open data to improve the quality of science, we need to answer a series of questions about what open data does to data quality. Rather than blindly make a normative commitment to a principle, we need empirical work on the impact of such practices - work which must be done with respect to the different epistemic cultures' modes of inquiry. Ethnographers, as well as the institutions that fund and regulate ethnographic research, should only embrace open data after the subject has been researched and evaluated within our own epistemic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits discussions about the pursuit of a singular location for ethnographic research. Citing challenges to the fixity of location, from circulation of people to the impossibility of containing digital worlds, scholars have proposed multi-sited, multi-scalar, multi-modal and multi-sensorial ethnographies, advocating that the researcher 'follow the actor'. Drawing upon these innovations, this paper traces the affects generated in the process of following the actors as well as the consequent blurring of the division between the researcher and the researched so that they together constitute the category of 'actors' who co-produce the field. Using the example of an ethnography with young lower middle class women in Delhi, this paper deploys the researcher's experience of dislocation or unexpected shuttling in the field to develop 'dislocation' as a methodological and analytical strategy for studying marginalisation in the context of socio-economic change by embracing intersubjective relations, affects and partiality of knowledge in ethnographic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue gathers empirical papers that develop and employ digital ethnographic methods to answer core sociological questions related to community, culture, urban life, violence, activism, professional identity, health, and sociality. Each paper, in its own right, offers key sociological insights, and as a collection, this special issue demonstrates the need to bring ethnographic methods to digital communities, interactions, practices, and tools. Both as a topic and a methodological approach, "the digital" points us to the need to update, rethink, and grow qualitative sociology. The exemplary papers comprising this special issue exhibit this curiosity and expansiveness, with lessons and implications for an interdisciplinary set of fields and research problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we are interested in how ethnographic research can contribute to the promotion of public deliberation. We do not use ethnography only to study deliberative processes but rather we intend to interpret ethnographic research as a social practice, and we research conditions under which ethnographic research might have deliberative consequences. The paper summarizes the results of the multidisciplinary research project Stories of Drought, which combines natural and social sciences in its approach. The project aims to understand how people in Czech rural areas respond to localized effects of climate change, especially drought. Following a systemic approach to deliberative democracy, we study how ethnography contributes to fulfilling three deliberative functions: (1) the epistemic function; (2) the ethical function and (3) the democratic function. In the context of irrigation disputes in South Moravia, we map the arguments of main actors and critical tensions in local discourses. We conclude that ethnographic research, due to its hybrid position between different sources of knowledge, its institutionally recognized expertise and its ability to establish an ethnographer as a trustworthy actor, can outweigh local critical power imbalances blocking deliberative capacity in local policy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Research on migrant youth's school transitions has focused on the country of residence, ignoring migrant youth's pre-migration lives in the country of origin. Drawing on 14 months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork between Ghana and Germany, this paper instead analyses school transitions through migrant youth's mobility trajectories, encompassing all geographic moves and concurrent family constellations over time and space, both before and after migration. A mobility lens shows how resources gained in the country of origin – including confidence, discipline, respect, and adaptability – help migrant youth navigate their school transitions in the country of residence, thus becoming forms of transnational cultural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographic researchers have long relied upon observation as a powerful means to learn about social relations. This paper discusses research observation that was conducted as a part of an institutional ethnography (IE) investigating how people use the language and ideas of neurodiversity across different settings. While our research protocol initially called for ethnographic observation to take place at in-person events in Southern Ontario, our approach needed to be re-formulated with the switch to online events during the COVID-19 pandemic. After the shift to online-only spaces, a total of 52 sessions at 7 online events related to neurodiversity or autism were observed by a team of 5 researchers: these events were no longer geographically restricted but were officially "hosted" by institutions in Canada, the US, and the UK. This paper reflects upon the challenges and opportunities we encountered as we conducted observations in digital spaces, including our experiences of navigating the "chat" feature. We discuss the need to analyze the format as well as the content of online events, and present findings on how neurodiversity appeared in these social spaces. Finally, we consider the implications of this research for people who are conducting ethnographic observation in an increasingly online world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article further systematizes the existential body, contributing to the ethnographic model of embodied objectivity. It situates embodiment as the foundation of knowledge, demonstrating its underdevelopment in anthropological literature. The paper explores the philosophical relationship between being-in-the-world and Merleau-Ponty's body-proper, emphasizing the central role of embodied pre-objective signification in representational ethnographic knowing. This aspect is often insufficiently addressed, particularly in light of certain ethnographic applications of the epoché. The paper concludes that, given the oscillatory apprehension of embodiment, the use of terms like "systematizing" and "inter-objectivity" adequately enhances its portrayal as a pre-objective phenomenon rather than an objective one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a common German sociological methodology, the documentary method has rarely been received outside the German-speaking region or in the field of criminology in general. Additionally, while ethnographic semantics is a recognized means of analysis in the field of ethnography, it is less known in criminological research. This paper proposes that the approaches in themselves but especially a combination of both allow for a deeper understanding of the cultural practices, everyday routines, and implicit knowledge of security actors. While the police are a constant focus of criminological and social science research, the study of Municipal Law Enforcement Services (MLES), particularly qualitative approaches, have been largely neglected, despite the increasing number of municipalities implementing their own security personnel. Consequently, their increased presence in public space warrants further investigation. The added value of linking two reconstructive approaches to analysis is demonstrated using MLES as an example. Thereby, both the advantages of such a combination for criminological research and new insights regarding the ways MLES interact with people in public space are illustrated. The research follows an ethnomethodological design and is based on expert interviews and participant observation. The paper addresses peripheral issues on three levels: the use of a previously geographically limited method of data analysis, an innovative triangulation of approaches to analysis that has not yet been applied in international criminological research as well as the presentation of German MLES as an under-researched subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to unveil the experience of rural women in a disaster cycle. The paper contains the ethnographic accounts of the women affected by cyclone 'Fani', which hit the coasts of Odisha on 3rd May 2019. The study concentrated on the village 'Kaliakera' of Puri, Odisha and spanned three months just after the cyclone. Adopting an exploratory design with an intersectionality approach, the study covered 60 women respondents drawn through stratified sampling from diverse caste groups. With an emic perspective and ethnographic tools, the accounts of these women have been captured. The study concluded that risk perception is low among women, reducing their disaster preparedness ability. Family members' concerns and decisions played a crucial role in the disaster preparedness of women. Low disaster preparedness makes risk management difficult for them during and after a disaster. Livelihood, health and food insecurities were the most common risk encountered by rural women. Past experience with disaster, caste dynamics, and socio-economic conditions affect women's effective handling of the disaster. Understanding rural women's experiences can help devise targeted interventions at the community level for a sustainable and resilient recovery in the post-disaster period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that Ecuadorians are one of the largest groups of Hispanics living in New York, they have become a tight community that they now call little Ecuador. Although Ecuadorians living in the diaspora in NYC come from different parts of the country (mostly from the Andean region), they share the same cultural practices they performed in Ecuador that give them the sense of being in their country without bearing the instability and turmoil their country experiences. This shows how the group has fostered a sense of a multifaceted, multidimensional simultaneity between the host country and the motherland. The goal of this paper is to analyze the strategies Ecuadorian migrants use to validate their language and cultural practices to negotiate their identity as a group. Data for this paper come from ethnographic observations, semi-spontaneous conversations, oral interviews with members of the group, along with pictures taken while walking the community and participating in some of their events. Our study reveals that participants hold varying perceptions regarding their linguistic and cultural practices. However, it is noteworthy that they recognize these practices as a manifestation of Ecuadorianness, signifying a sense of solidarity among community members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I question how a researcher might fulfil the unique adequacy requirement when studying novices in a setting in which the researcher is already a member. Since novices by definition lack the expected competencies in a setting, having unique adequacy for novice methods may appear oxymoronic. However, this paper suggests that unique adequacy requires enacting specific ways of 'seeing' as part of accomplishing local order; once one is competent, it becomes difficult to enact incompetent action in a locally adequate way, suggesting one can actually lose unique adequacy. Furthermore, as any given situated involves a multifaceted set of competencies, exactly which or whose competencies are relevant is both an analysts' and members' issue to solve. With reference to examples, I discuss how analysts and members delimit the 'provinces of meaning' in the process of finding what is locally adequate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that power promised to England's teachers by the 2010 'Importance of Teaching' white paper has rather played out as a reformulation of methods of policymaking to more indirect modes of government control. I trace the growth of government control in English schools, promised front-line power in 2010 and a rise in non-statutory guidance after this point. Taking an actor–network theory approach to ethnographic data I then describe how a school takes up one such non-statutory educational initiative – 'Maths Mastery'. Focusing on early stages of the school's adoption of the initiative, I trace associations of actors which problematize existing practices for the teaching of maths and how the initiative is imbued with authority in relation to these. I argue that the ways in which certain actors – statutory education policy and government funding – associate with the 'optional' initiative reveals a 'back door' control of teacher agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the necessity of proposing an epistemological approach that focuses on both essential and empirical features of culture. Phenomenology, as we find in Edmund Husserl, is introduced as the main methodology enabling us to establish invariant or essential principles of human culture. We explain how phenomenology analyzes consciousness and its structures, showing a different approach from empirical studies of culture, such as cultural anthropology. Despite these epistemological divergencies, we argue that phenomenology and anthropology should collaborate, and we illustrate this through an analysis of particular Jewish rituals, as an instance of anthropological descriptions and phenomenological analysis. In the first part of the paper, we provide a brief introduction to phenomenology, by outlining the most important concepts to understand this methodology, such as intentionality, constitution, and experiential layers. In the second part, we will use the previous essential analysis of culture as guidelines to analyze a concrete culture, like Judaism, with a focus on specific rituals. While analyzing Judaism unavoidably requires empirical observations in their various forms, phenomenology provides us with a method through which enucleating universal principles underlying contextual and historical elements, which need to be considered as invariant in each human group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing is an activity to which many qualitative researchers still attach a very limited and, to a considerable extent, subordinate importance to the collection and analysis of data. The paper challenges this tendency and reminds us that many of the great ethnographic masterpieces of the past (from Street Corner Society to Asylum, to name but two) displayed a very effective narrative tone that echoed many stylistic elements prevalent in literature and investigative journalism, without abandoning analytical rigour. It is the thesis of this article that if qualitative sociologists are to play a public role and thus reach a wider audience than just the academic community, they must work on their writing and rediscover the power and beauty of an effective narrative style. Giving research data a narrative form, e.g., avoiding the inclusion in a paper or book of numerous interview excerpts that are merely transcribed from recordings, or inserting clearly delineated and recognisable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural race-based inequalities in Mexico cannot be denied. Anthropologists and social scientists have thoroughly documented racism at both personal and systemic levels. Following I.M. Young's framework, this paper identifies two possible pathways for the anti-racist movement in Mexico: the liability and the social connection models. The former uses guilt to assign responsibility —it requires an agent to be voluntarily and causally connected to injustice; the latter does not isolate perpetrators but assigns responsibility to all agents who contribute (voluntarily or not) by their actions to the structural processes that produce injustice. After examining the trajectory of the Mexican anti-racist movement, this paper demonstrates that activists are relying too heavily on the liability model. Furthermore, drawing from ethnographic material from Brazil and the United States, the paper suggests that this model is not only unnecessarily confrontational and ineffectual, but potentially counterproductive for the anti-racist movement, as it is prone to provoke a defensive response. In turn, this paper suggests focusing on the structural nature of racism in Mexico and developing ways to communicate this effectively, in order to foster the positive prospects of successful anti-racist activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to outline the motivation for this Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ) Special Issue, providing an overview of the six selected papers. This study seeks to inspire further ethnographic research on accountability. Design/methodology/approach: The authors reflect on why ethnographic investigation is essential to accountability research and the boundaries that constrained and enabled both this Special Issue and which occur in ethnographic research. Findings: The contents of this issue do not merely describe or analyse one or more "accounts", but also consider how the accounted for reflects its surroundings and its role in the social world. The authors argue that such research should progress from ethnographic descriptive data to infer meaningful conclusions and move from the everyday natural settings of behaviour to examine inter-relatedness. This requires the researcher to maintain their intra-relatedness. These boundaries, inherent to human existence, are actively created and operate at different aggregation levels to include and exclude. Research limitations/implications: In this introduction and the papers selected for this AAAJ special issue, with few exceptions, accountability shifts from the researched to the researcher as research accounts are produced. Yet, ethnographies of accountability are epistemologically and ontologically weighted towards accepting the possibility of shared social meaning requiring researchers to manage the interactions, relationalities and presuppositions between these places. The authors urge future researchers to experiment more explicitly than has often been the case with published accounts of these demands. Originality/value: This AAAJ Special Issue provides a set of original empirical and theoretical contributions to support and advance further ethnographic research into accountability which acknowledges the boundaries that may include and exclude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Derived from an ethnography of working cultures and practices at a bike shop in the North of England, this paper rests on a critical application of social practice theories of literacy (Literacy Studies) in order to explore the complex and heterogeneous literacy practices of cycle technicians. Drawing on a series of vignettes constructed from the ethnographic data, the paper demonstrates the variety of experiences of both formal and informal learning that underpin the literacy practices of the cycle workshop. In addition to providing an account of a qualified and specialist workforce that is under-represented in extant research literature, the paper also provides an exemplar for ethnographic research as a vehicle for exploring literacy practices. The paper also suggests that ongoing debates concerning transferable workplace skills can be enriched through considering situated, contextualised literacy events. The paper concludes by arguing that for cycle technicians, and perhaps other occupations as well, Literacy Studies can generate rich and complex accounts that unpack the textual practices found alongside the occupational expertise and competence being observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In seeking to explore the meaning of chronic and chronicity, the association with infertility is neither immediate nor evident. However, this paper explores this relationship by analyzing the idea of infertility in relation to chronicity. In the linkages that come forth the idea of chronic lifestyle emerging from certain ways of being and living, as well the imaginings associated with the chronic body become important nodes of exploring the relationship between infertility and chronicity. Most importantly, the role that time plays in marking the chronic state is seen to be especially potent in the practice of infertility treatment, and the narratives that emerge around its temporal inevitability. The rhetoric that marks the diagnosis and prescription of treatment is often based on the identification of the body as susceptible to reproductive decline and failure, due to the contingencies of modern living. This often translates into a more sustained involvement with ARTs, which may or may not fulfil the required desire for a child. In this paper I seek to analyse the ways in which practitioners of infertility medicine create an image of an affliction that borders on chronicity. In the process, I question the idea of both chronic diseases and chronicity by looking at how illness is imagined in narratives that IVF specialists create in public, and through the idea of a cure for infertility. By analysing data collected through ethnographic fieldwork, this paper aims to build on the idea of the chronic as inevitable within clinical discourse and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a translation lens, we explore templates for writing ethnography in organization studies and their evolution over time through the analysis of all ethnographic papers published in the premier journal Administrative Science Quarterly, 1956-2018. We found three templates of ethnographic writing. Few early ethnographic papers resemble travelogues, as they use theory to explain a unique case based on firsthand experiences of the author. Most studies read like detective stories, using extensive, quantified data from a case and systematically analyzing it to advance theory. This template has remained predominant over time. Finally, some ethnographic papers read like postmodern detective stories, in that they attempt to create knowledge from lived experience, while also hinting at the partiality of this knowledge. This template appeared around the turn of the century but is today rare. The overall low number of ethnographies and the lasting hegemony of the ethnography as detective story template reflect the strict disciplining of ethnography into the emulation of positivist research, constraining knowledge creation in organization studies. We conclude by offering researchers some strategies to recover the strengths of templates available in the past to broaden the boundaries of existing norms for writing ethnography today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethical considerations are increasingly important because new online techniques of research such as online ethnography often have novel ethical challenges. Our research aims to help online ethnographers by providing a moral/philosophical framework to be used in making ethical decisions and guiding them to reflect on how these decisions affect and justify their methodological choices. We draw upon prior research on ethics and online ethnography, and utilize five key dimensions of moral and philosophical principles (autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, justice and trust, explicability) for our framework. Our research highlights essential ethical questions such as selecting a philosophical basis as your ethical frame and coming to terms with ambiguity, and related methodological guidelines such as avoiding personal prejudice, assumptions and bias, research site entry strategy, researcher's communication with the participants, protection of data, research site exit strategy and communicating online research findings. This paper contributes to the existing literature by identifying how moral and philosophical guidelines impact our ethical and methodological choices when engaging in online ethnography and what this means in terms of research practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand how the digitalization of higher education influences the inter-relationship between students, teachers, and their broader contexts, research must account for the social, cultural, political, and embodied aspects of teaching and learning in digital environments. Digital ethnography is a research method that can generate rich contextual knowledge of online experiences. However, how this methodology translates to higher education is less clear. In order to explore the opportunities that digital ethnography can provide in higher education research, this paper presents a methodological review of previous research, and discusses the implications for future practice. Through a systematic search of five research databases, we found 20 papers that report using digital ethnographies to explore teaching and learning in higher education. The review synthesizes and discusses how data collection, rigour, and ethics are handled in this body of research, with a focus on the specific methodological challenges that emerge when doing digital ethnographic research in a higher education setting. The review also identifies opportunities for improvement—especially related to participant observation from the student perspective, researcher reflexivity in relation to the dual teacher-researcher role, and increased diversity of data types. This leads us to conclude that higher education research, tasked with understanding an explosion of new digital practices, could benefit from a more rigorous and expanded use of digital ethnography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from a year-long network ethnography into the strategies, networks, and outcomes of More Than a Score (MTAS)—a campaign against standardised testing in UK primary schools. Focusing specifically on the parent-based groups of the organisation, we use theorisations of symbolic capital to challenge traditional understandings of how capital can be leveraged for group advancement. We argue that MTAS frames itself as a grassroots organisation, using this image to promote its agenda amongst possible allies. Parent groups serve a critical role in accentuating the 'grassroots' image, as they bring a level of credibility to this claim. At the same time, the individuals who run these groups also bring technical skills, professional experiences, and connections that provide logistical and expert capital to the range of MTAS's strategies and agendas. In doing so, their political and social capital as 'parents' provide a sort of legitimising capital to MTAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decades, Nigerian migrant women in the European sex market, described as victims of trafficking, have generated consistent concern and outrage. This article analyzes data from an ethnographic study of more than 800 Nigerian sex workers in southern Spain, describing the networks used by these women to carry out their migration projects and the relationships they establish with their agents. Thus, it contributes to refuting the hegemonic narrative about trafficking and its victims by contrasting it with data collected and systematized over almost a decade of participant observation and informal conversation. This paper argues that the stereotypical image of the Nigerian migrant women as victims of abuse and violence by transnational trafficking networks functions to justify strict migration-control policies and the denial of labor rights to sex workers. As an antidote to the dominance of narratives based on stereotypes and pseudoscientific claims, this paper underscores the urgent need for ethnographic research and its focus on emic (participant) perspectives. The goal is to develop tailored and effective policies and practices for the prevention of and intervention in migrant women's experience of exploitation, abuse, and violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choosing an appropriate qualitative methodology in nursing research is a researcher's first step before beginning a study. Such a step is critical as the selected qualitative methodology should be congruent with the research questions, study assumptions, data gathering and analysis to promote the utility of such research in enhancing nursing knowledge. In this paper, we compare focused ethnography by Roper and Shapira and interpretive phenomenology by Benner. Though these methodologies are naturalistic and appear similar, both have different methodological underpinnings. The historical, ontological, epistemological, and axiological philosophy guiding each methodology are described. In addition, the methodological underpinnings of both methodologies and a justification for use in nursing research are provided. This paper will assist future researchers who aim to employ these methodologies in nursing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I examine the complex question of evading the state or negotiating the everyday state from the perspective of the lived experiences of the highland people of Tripura, Northeast India. From dominant perspectives, the highland people are perceived as living in isolation or being inclined to want to keep the state at distance. Contrary to such perceptions, anthropologists now posit that people imagine and perceive the state differently, what they refer to as local manifestations of the state. Building on such literature, this paper unravels how highland people of Tripura perceive and negotiate the (everyday) state for their own advantage. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it argues that despite knowing that the everyday state is frustrating, the highland people of Tripura nevertheless regard it as their resource and, as active citizens, create strategies in negotiating what best they can extract from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural identity is of great significance to the formation of group consensus and the establishment of cultural self-confidence. In order to understand the history, current situation and trend, and provide theoretical support for future research, this paper makes a quantitative analysis of knowledge map including annual publication volume, trend, distribution of authors and institutions, cooccurrence, clustering and timeline of keywords as well as emergent keywords on the literature concerning ethnic cultural identity published in "Web of Science" database for a period from 2012 to 2022, with CiteSpace software as a tool. The results show an overall upward trend with diversified ethnic and regional characteristics; major institutions including universities of the U.S., the U.K., Australia, China and other countries and regions engage in their research from different disciplines such as psychology, sociology, ethnology and education; the researchers have not formed a core group of authors despite their accumulating number; research hotspots are indicated by keywords such as national identity, identity, ethnic identity and attitude; specifically, keyword clusters fall into three categories: emotional perception, multicultural identity process and ethnic cultural adaptability; researchers probe into various issues at different stages with direct relation to international situations and regional cultures. This study has positive implications for understanding and mastering the current research hotspots and development trends of ethnic cultural identity in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the becoming of neoliberal cities, consumption can play an important role in the process of marking who is human, that is, fit for consumption, and who is not. This paper explores such processes as affective becomings and focuses on the workings of comfort and discomfort to highlight how some bodies are delegitimized in order for others to become legitimatized. Using an ethnographic approach with affective methodologies, I trace the process of erasing activism collectives that were resisting gentrification in São Paulo and advocating the 'right to the city'. The contribution of this paper is threefold. Firstly, it highlights how the becoming of the neoliberal city follows a neoliberal normativity in tandem with a colonial one. By exploring how spaces, bodies, and norms are always related to one another in this process, I highlight how 'the consumer' has become the body who counts (i.e. the human). Secondly, this paper shows how activism work refracts the dynamics of the neoliberal-colonial normativity, as it (re)acts to its mechanisms for sorting out bodies. Thirdly, this paper highlights the political dimensions of (dis)comfort that mark the splitting of legitimate and illegitimatebodies in a social reproduction for consumption. Consequently, it explores how discomfort has been used as a political-affective tool of delegitimization, subjugation, and oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undertaking research involving vulnerable groups, such as those requiring resuscitation involves careful analysis during the ethical review process. When a person lacks the capacity to make an informed choice about their participation in a research study, a waiver of consent offers an alternative. This paper is based on a doctoral research study using ethnography to explore the resuscitative practices and experiences of rural nurses through observation and interviews. This paper aims to explore the ethical issues raised by the Human Research Ethics Committee relating to consent of vulnerable patients requiring resuscitation within a rural context. In particular, the challenges of addressing risk (privacy) vs benefit (public) associated with a waiver of consent. This paper will consider why the rural context should be championed during the ethical review process, when decisions about public benefit are being deliberated. Utilising a communitarianism approach that advocates for greater rural representation during the ethical review processes will ensure that rural research involving vulnerable groups can be addressed safely and benefit not only the experiences and practices of rural nurses but also the wider rural communities they serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing Sexuality Education among learners in rural schools can be challenging when using traditional designs such as ethnography and phenomenology. This paper introduces Cyclical Longitudinal Ethnography as an innovative design for addressing Sexuality Education in South African rural farm schools. This design was developed as part of an engaged scholarship on HIV prevention in rural farm schools in Soutpansberg North Circuit, Limpopo Province, South Africa. The paper provides an overview of Sexuality Education at schools and the challenges thereof. It further provides the basics of ethnography and its limitation. The paper then introduces and describes cyclical ethnography as an alternative to original ethnography. The design allows researchers to still have a prolonged engagement with the community without gross disruption of other academic responsibilities such as tuition, academic citizenship, leadership, and administration. The design allows the researcher to visit the area several times over the years, enabling the researcher to observe variations of a phenomenon over time. The Cyclical nature of the design allows data collection, analysis, intervention, monitoring, and evaluation to be conducted iteratively. Though there are primary key informants, the findings could lead to other key informants, settings, and interventions which were not part of the initial plan and objectives. In this study, the target population was educators teaching Sexuality Education, but it ended up involving learners, parents, and community members. The Longitudinal nature of the design enables the researchers to see the impact of the interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative researchers experience a myriad of emotions during fieldwork. Yet, a reluctance to display and openly discuss emotions in relation to research practice means little insight on how these can inform the research process exists. In this paper, we explore the researcher's emotions in an organizational ethnography of an emergency department during the COVID-19 pandemic. We identify three emotional triggers (uncertain field access, disrupted research practices, and researcher exposure) and discuss the researcher's embodied experiences and reflexive responses. We present four ways in which the researcher's emotions can be used as a resource for embodied reflexivity: (i) deepening field engagement through a focus on collective experiences, (ii) using the researcher's agency to refocus data collection and enhance creativity, (iii) merging inward and outward focus to reframe the research project, and (iv) visualizing emotions throughout the research process to avoid mind-body dualisms. This paper joins recent discussions on qualitative methods and reflexivity and answers calls for making the researcher's field presence visible in qualitative research. We contribute by delineating ways in which emotions, as a resource for embodied reflexivity, can inform qualitative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racialised bilinguals experience marginalisation all over the world. In South-East Europe, millions of bilingual Roma share this experience alongside emerging aspirations of conviviality, which remain rare. This paper considers marginalisation as a consequence of (in)securitisation. The concept of (in)securitisation addresses discursive techniques of power which advocate the protection of some at the price of excluding others. These discursive techniques are exerted on different levels of social interaction, creating and maintaining uncertainty. The paper discusses individual aspirations to conviviality, or peaceful cohabitation, in (in)securitised local realities in a town in Hungary, where 20 % of the population are bilingual Roma. Furthermore, it explores whether the leveraging of translingual practices can be an effective tool for conviviality. The argument is based on long-term field research, and the data used comes from a series of participatory workshops, attended by academic non-local and local participants. Using the method of Moment Analysis to understand workshop discussions, the article focuses on the ways in which participants negotiate the dependencies of (in)securitisation while trying to forge convivial capabilities. Experience shows that acts of (in)securitisation and racialised social roles define relations even within the research group, and only certain types of capabilities considered convivial are suitable to override them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II many governmental agencies worked with anthropologists to create reports on allied or enemy countries. One of them was the Office of War Information and one of the anthropologists employed was Ruth Benedict. Because the reports were classified and only opened in the 1970s, it is difficult to discover how much these reports influenced policy or military decisions during the war. What this paper discusses is the ethics of long-distance ethnographies, a method used by social scientists during World War II, to write country reports, especially Benedict's study of Romania. Because these reports were made public decades after the war, it is often difficult or impossible to discuss these reports with their authors and collaborators. Further, many of these reports were bibliographical sources for research after the war, especially the report on Romania, which became a definitive reference on the country and its people. This paper argues, if the present researchers are unaware of the conditions in which these reports were written, it is difficult for them to assess many of the ethical, intellectual, and pragmatic issues these studies represent. Yet such exploration is essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]