Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Ethnology And Ethnography'

Recent critiques of both the subject and method of anthropology have caused the discipline to reexamine its process of representation. This thesis provides an exploration of approaches to representation in visual anthropology, with specific emphasis on collaborative visual ethnography. Both theoretical and practical issues are considered. The first chapter traces the history of ethnographic film and discusses various approaches to subject participation in literature and films. The second chapter presents a theoretical basis for collaborative visual ethnography, primarily from "postmodern" critiques of anthropology and recent visual anthropology literature. The third chapter consists of an analysis of a video resulting from a collaborative project I facilitated, in order to illustrate ideas of collaborative visual ethnography in a practical setting. The fourth, and final, chapter examines the few examples of collaborative film and video that are documented in order to construct a framework for approaching collaborative projects.

In recent years the separation between ethnographic research and the ethnographic text have continued to collapse. No longer is the anthropologist the sole authority on determining the native's point of view. Anthropologists are now writing within newer collaborative frameworks-newer frameworks that continue to challenge who has the right to speak for whom. This shift in ethnographic writing allows us to explore culture even more deeply through the process of obtaining narratives that focus on dialoguing the encounter between ethnographer and consultant. With this developing ethnographic moment in mind, this thesis explored through the use of collaboratively-constructed ethnographic narratives the juxtaposition of a family's identity and its place within the context of a larger community identity. In the final analysis, the narratives brought to light a symbiotic connection that exists between family, community, and the larger world.
Department of Anthropology

viii, 71 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.
Ethnographic accounts of religious practice offer rich and compelling access to the details of lived religion in local sites. Insights from the phenomenological tradition have become increasingly influential in thinking about what etlulOgraphies accomplish. Although etlmographies of religion do well to pay attention to phenomenological concems, ethnographic research and analysis cannot do the same work as phenomenological analysis in studying religion. Etlmographies of religion pay attention to diverse narratives and ways of storytelling, which are important aspects of members' lived religious practice but are unavailable in phenomenological analysis. Storytelling is a fragile research practice that involves inherent ambiguities for ethnographers. These ambiguities call for a persistent and critical reflexivity to be inscribed in ethnographic writing. This reflexivity implies a fundamentally ethical way of thinking about ethnographic research and writing, one that pays attention to the care that is required for good ethnographies of religious practice.
Committee in Charge: Dr. Marion Goldman, Sociology; Dr. Mark Unno, Religious Studies; Dr. Ted Toadvine, Philosophy

Using contemporary paradigms from Native American, African American, feminist, and post-colonial critical theories, as well the debates around what constitutes anthropology, this dissertation examines the ways in which Native American written literary production and European American ethnography converge in the social production and construction of the "raced" categories of "red" and "white." The questions of how discourses of power and subjectivity operate are asked of texts by Paula Gunn Allen, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Elsie Clews Parsons, all of whom have lived and worked in and around Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. The matrix in their texts of location (Laguna Pueblo), discourses (fiction and ethnography), "races" (Laguna and White), and gender (female), facilitates an examination of the scripting of "Indian-ness" and "White-ness" and how these categories sustain each other, and how each "contains" and "represents" the other, based in relative domination and subordination. What is posited here is a practice of guerilla ethnography, a practice which reflects "white" back upon itself, creating a picture of what it means to be culturally "white" by one who is "other than white." Texts are examined in terms of a racial and ethnic "whiteness" as a socially constructed category, upsetting the underlying assumption of whiteness as the given or natural center, rather than as another socially constructed category.

Based on a long-term ethnography inside a block of flats in Piatra-Neamt, Romania, this thesis explores how individuals, through everyday creative engagements with their apartments, try to come to terms with the uncertainties of a rapidly changing society - one caught between the vulnerabilities of both socialism and capitalism. It examines the inhabitants' capacity for self-organization, with a focus on the daily life of a block administrator overseeing the maintenance and repair of his ageing building. By paying close attention to a range of infrastructural elements often taken for granted - from water taps and boilers, to balconies and windows - my research offers new insights into how people negotiate complex relationships of trust and suspicion in the light of degrading infrastructure. Within the context of increasingly decentralized resources, I also demonstrate various difficulties involved in sustaining day-to-day practices of energy-saving, and discuss the block inhabitants' multifaceted understanding of the 'common good'. Finally, I emphasize how apartment renovations are fuelled by motivations that are at once aesthetic and functional, and thus problematize the distinction between these two categories that has dominated anthropological studies of the built environment to this day. My thesis contrasts the well-established literature about the home - that pays attention to aesthetics and identity at the micro-scale of the domestic space - with recent studies about infrastructure that typically examine macro-scale, functional reasons for urban transformations. Overall, I argue for a more prominent role for the study of home infrastructures in anthropology, while also contributing to debates about housing and energy policies.

Anthropological classics such as E. H. Man's On the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands (1883) and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown's The Andaman Islanders (1922) are generally regarded as products of an emergent nineteenth century social science. These anthropological classics were accepted by contemporaries as authoritative statements in their authors' fields of competence, and the ethnographic 'pictures' of the aborigines they presented were accepted as accurate descriptions of indigenous life. The following thesis argues for an alternative approach to the history of the production of anthropological knowledge. It begins by exploring the gradual codification of observational practices in the nineteenth century British anthropology. The codification of ethnographic observation is examined in the case of anthropological manuals published between 1840 and 1892, and their methodological impact on the possibilities of data collection are discussed. Ethnographic observation is then approached from the point of view of media use, and the relationship between drawing and photography is discussed in relation to nineteenth century physical and cultural anthropology. The codification of ethnographic observation and the anthropological use of various representational media are the problematic for an intensive exploration of the production of anthropological knowledge in the Andaman Islands. The approach adopted focuses on unacknowledged strategies and marginalized knowledge which were nevertheless directly implicated in the production of ethnographic texts. Following this approach, the discipline of Anthropology comes to seem less an isolated intellectual activity, and more a residue of broad social, cultural, and political processes. Drawing on this perspective, the works of Man and Radcliffe-Brown on the Andaman Islanders are treated as the culmination of a history of representation that is built on and incorporates administrative strategies, representational media and s

In 1840 Captain William Hobson established the colony of New Zealand under an umbrella of humanitarianism and with an agenda for the protection of Maori rights. This thesis examines this project through the work of Dr Edward Shortland (1812-1893). Although Shortland�s reports and publications have been frequently cited, there has been no detailed historical analysis of his work. Shortland arrived in New Zealand in 1841 as the private secretary of Governor Hobson. In 1842 he was appointed Protector of Aborigines for the Eastern Districts. One of his tasks was to study Maori language and customs in order to mediate between Maori and government. He was one of the earliest European experts on Maori traditions, customary practices, religious attitudes and relationships with land. After his return to England in 1846, he lobbied the British government on behalf of Maori and published two books on New Zealand, in which he addressed prospective colonists and disputed some of the propaganda of colonising companies. Shortland came back to New Zealand in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s, during which periods he worked as Civil Commissioner in the Hauraki area, as Native Secretary, and as adviser to the government on Native affairs. Shortland was part of a network of concerned Christian humanitarians who were intent on bringing government and law and order to New Zealand in a manner that facilitated peaceful European settlement, without serious injury to the Maori population. Humanitarians were not opposed to colonisation or settlement and in this respect may be seen as part of the imperial enterprise. In the framework of political and philosophical thought in the nineteenth century, humanitarians expected no more than to mitigate the effects of colonisation. This study explores these issues in the context of Shortland�s interaction with and ethnography about Maori over a period of forty years. I begin by placing the concept of aboriginal protection in context. The core of this thesis is an examination of Shortland�s work as Protector of Aborigines. He had three tasks: to mediate in disputes between Europeans and Maori; to accustom Maori to English law; and to protect Maori land rights against claims from settlers. The first of these tasks proved the most straightforward. Shortland�s attempts to fulfil the second task highlighted the complex relationship between religion and law and the role of Christianity. The land question proved the most complicated, as a result of the tension between government attempts to protect Maori land rights, the pressure from settlers for land, and European lack of understanding of Maori customs. Maori desire to sell land to attract settlers further complicated relationships. Shortland�s contribution to our understanding of these issues and of Maori traditions of land tenure is considerable. While the course of colonisation may have been inevitable, I suggest that Shortland and likeminded contemporaries laid the foundation for later recognition of Maori rights, as exemplified today by the work of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Bibliography: pages 177-190.
This ethnographic study of Nieu Bethesda, a village in the Eastern Cape district of South Africa, is the product of a total of five months of fieldwork. The research was conducted between 1993 and 1995, a period that spanned the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994. The ethnography explores the effects of apartheid on life in Nieu Bethesda. It traces the dynamic interactions between social life and worldviews as these were manifested in the village. Geographically isolated, and to a large extent cut off from mainstream politics, the processes and effects of apartheid in this village have taken an idiosyncratic form. The research suggests that racial stratification has been remarkably resilient throughout the history of the village. Such stratification must be understood in terms of ideas shaped both during and before the apartheid era, rather than solely in terms of state action or the violence of apartheid. Ideologies of segregation have found their expression in paternalistic practices on the part of Whites, and the relations of dependence thus generated may account for the apparent lack .of overt opposition to apartheid. However, the thesis acknowledges the multiplicity of voices in the village, and negates the notion of a shared set of ideas and values sanctioned by the population of Nieu Bethesda. Subtle change has taken place in the 1990s, only some of which is attributable to the demise of apartheid. In addition, factors such as the provision of electricity and a dramatic increase in tourism have reduced the isolation of the village, and networks of mutual support link the people of Nieu Bethesda with other parts of South Africa. It is suggested that change in the foreseeable future is more likely to originate from the increased communication that such networks make possible, than from changes in legislation, or improvements in material conditions, resulting from development projects.

In this thesis I investigate collaborative ethnography through creative arts as a growing global field of practice, based on common influences from anthropology and contemporary art. I seek to understand the nature of this field and to critically examine some of the assumptions that we make as collaborative ethnography/art practitioners about our work as forms of collaboration and social change. Practices of collaborative ethnography through creative arts occur in diverse settings around the world and produce different creative forms such as books, films, photography and theatre. Despite this diversity they share similar ways of working, relationship dynamics and socio-political motivations. I examine the range of social and political agendas that are being furthered using collaborative ethno/art practices and consider the ways in which the motivations of project facilitators shape these agendas and the social relations surrounding projects. The original contribution that this thesis makes is a critical examination of notions of authorship in collaborative ethnographic/arts practice and the flow of benefits from this kind of work over time. I use the recent history of conflict surrounding control of materials from the Archivo Fotogr{u1EA5}fico lnd{u1E2F}gena and the Chiapas Photography Project in Mexico as a major case study. This case illustrates that the social, organisational and economic dynamics surrounding collaborative production, and the reception of resulting works by audiences and markets, shape the ways in which authorship and creativity are being understood within collaborative ethnographic/art projects over time. I argue that although collaborative ethno/art practices are acts of co-creation the nature of co-creativity in these projects is frequently obscured by modernist preoccupations with individual authorship. The complexities and potential of co-creativity as a growing form of contemporary cultural creation risks being obscured and misunderstood by the focus on this concern. Examining the social and organisational structures surrounding collaborative ethnographic/art projects, with a focus on the New Orleans based Neighborhood Story Project another major case study in my research, I argue that there is a professionalization of collaborative ethno/art practice occurring. The recent experiences of the Archivo Fotogr{u1EA5}fico lnd{u1E2F}gena reveal the institutional and organisational structures accompanying the professionalization of this kind of work risk reinforcing the very social and economic inequities that motivated the practices in the first place. The ways in which dynamics of control and flow of benefits from works created in collaborative ethno/art projects play out over time can inadvertently yet directly contradict the socio-political goals which motivated their original establishment. My research methods included participatory research with a number of projects in Australia, the USA and Mexico; interviews with twenty-five project facilitators from a range of international projects; and examination of the works and histories of a number of long running projects, including the twenty-year history of Chiapas Photography Project in Mexico.

This thesis draws on over eighteen months of multi-sited fieldwork carried out in London and Dhaka, among geologists, lawyers, fund managers, engineers, and private sector development consultants intent on securing profitable extractive opportunities in new ‘frontier' markets, and among public intellectuals and politicians in Dhaka who oppose the development of Bangladesh's energy resources by foreign corporations. The thesis contributes to a recently revitalized anthropological political economy and engages critically with the actor–network theory-inspired ‘social studies of finance'. By tracing ethnographically the production of extractive industry capitalism, I show that capital is not merely free–flowing or reproduced by its own inevitable logic. Rather, the movement and accumulation of capital is facilitated by distinct forms of knowledge production, such as political risk analysis and the emergent field of Corporate Diplomacy, and by historically constituted legal norms, most notably those of investor–state arbitration. Equally, I show that the calculative capacities exercised by financial analysts and fund managers have material consequences far beyond those normally considered by scholars in the social studies of finance, who tend to confine their analyses to the ‘bounded fieldsites' provided by bank dealing rooms or stock exchange trading floors. Methodologically, this thesis defends the notion that ethnographically tracing the generation of extractive industry capitalism demands a rejection of the recent ‘post–critical' turn in the ethnography of experts and elite groups. Ultimately, I argue that what allows extractive industry capitalism to be generated is the subordination of the sovereignty of ‘frontier' states to the sovereignty of transnational extractive corporations. This subordination is supported by the norms of international arbitration, and is the source of the perceived ‘investment climate' stability that ultimately allows extractive industry capitalists to attract speculative investment for resource exploration in new ‘frontiers'.

Collaborative ethnography is an innovative outgrowth of the postmodern debate and is defined as a "...co-conceived and/or co-written text (with local collaborators) that consider[s] multiple audiences outside the confines of academic discourse, including local constituencies..." (Lassiter n.d.:11). As a research and writing method, collaborative ethnographies seek to address ethical issues of authority, ownership, audience, relevance, reciprocity and representation. In this respect, I document and critically reflect on the collaborative process of the Other Side of Middletown project (OSM)—a collaboratively based ethnographic venture which involved local experts (community advisors), ethnographers and BSU students. I present the OSM project as a case study that adds to the existing data on the approaches to collaborative ethnography and explore how collaborative ethnography is useful to the negotiation of current postmodern debates. Furthermore, I track and document the collaborative process, and then synthesize the ways that collaboration was both effective, and not effective through data collected via structured and semi-structured informal interviews, focus groups and participant observation of the project collaborators.The significance of my thesis rests in documenting the collaborative process to reflect on the political, moral and ethical intricacies of present-day ethnography and to offer criticism, suggestions and/or techniques for better and more clearly articulated collaborative research and epistemology. Morespecifically, the value of this thesis is supported by the critical reflection of how the black community was represented by the OSM project. The OSM project is an interdisciplinary, intercultural, collaborative response to the debate of Western historical thinking. The collaborative approach used in the OSM project is an experimental method from the postmodern reflections and critiques that aim to resolve our ethical trepidations.While the collaborative approach is not relevant to all ethnographic research, the results of my research will be vital to the continuation of ethnography for academic purposes, and more importantly, for communities and consultants.
Department of Anthropology

This thesis investigates how families in northern Senegal negotiate between state and Islamic schools. Studies of education strategies within anthropology of education predominantly employ Bourdieu's concept of capital. These studies are useful for illuminating the role of education within people's strategies of social mobility, but tend to render invisible preferences based on non-material considerations like spiritual benefits. To overcome this challenge, this thesis uses economic theory which acknowledges both intrinsic and material factors informing school choice. It draws on fifteen months' ethnographic fieldwork comprising life histories, informal interviews and participant observation. The thesis contributes to several debates in anthropology of development and education. Findings reveal the importance of a caste-like social hierarchy in shaping education strategies, and challenge simplistic predictions common in development discourse about how gender or being Muslim influence educational trajectories. Results also show how education preferences reflect context-specific routes to social mobility. In northern Senegal, lack of formal sector employment makes the secular state school's promises of economic advancement largely inaccessible. Qur'anic schools present a more certain investment for men of privileged social groups who monopolise access to this education, for the prestige of Islamic knowledge and insertion into trade and migration networks. Intrinsic benefits of Qur'anic schooling, like blessing and moral education, also inform school preference. These factors are neglected in development discourse and state education provision - including recent reforms to engage Islamic knowledge to meet Education For All and the Millennium Development Goal – due to secularist and rationalist biases. This undermines families' access to affordable schooling that combines the intrinsic and material benefits which they prioritise, and privileges those who can afford private alternatives. Inspired by applied anthropology committed to social justice, this thesis draws on people's strategies to overcome these challenges to recommend non-formal alternatives to enable education provision compatible with popular worldviews.

Magister Artium - MA
This mini-thesis explores the role of photography in the mainstream and dissident tradition of Afrikaner ethnology (volkekunde) from the time of its establishment at Stellenbosch University in the 1920s through to its development at Pretoria University in the 1950s to 1970s, to its period of decline in the era of dissidence from the 1970s to the 2010s. I use a biographical approach, tracing the career biographies and photographic portfolios of three volkekundiges: the German-trained government ethnologist Nicolaas J. van Warmelo; little known dissident volkekundige Frans Hendrik Boot (1939-2010) who founded the Volkekunde Department at the University of the Western Cape in 1972 and for whom fieldwork photography was an expression of his humanist digression from the racialised mainstream volkekunde tradition; and Cornelis Seakle “Kees” van der Waal (1949-) whose ‘Long Walk from Volkekunde to Anthropology’ has been textually demonstrated but also takes on visual expressions in his use of photography. My thesis seeks to demonstrate that photography and visuality was important in displaying the different traditions of volkekunde. The central argument in this thesis postulates that fieldwork photographs, read in relation to the ethnographers intellectual focus offers us insight into an individual’s orientation. Furthermore this thesis explores the degree of a photographers technicality and aesthetics skill

This dissertation draws upon local aesthetic attitudes held by members of the elder generation of first-language Scottish Gaelic speakers in Cape Breton Island, Canada towards various forms of communally-based cultural expression as conceived through metaphor. Through such engagement one begins to sense the central role of emplaced identity alongside embodied experience in describing these forms. In many ways, to the ethnographic fieldworker, this is uncharted territory. Here fieldwork functions within emic models of the cèilidh (visit) through collective social engagement in seanchas, an intracultural form of metalinguistic and metacultural discourse. Such a methodological approach facilitates in unveiling an intersubjective understanding of past, present and future acts, the forging of collective identity in the social world and finding meaning in cultural expression. In the context of this dissertation, what began as a seanchas-based exploration into local ethnoaesthetic attitudes revealed a wealth of metaphor in various abstractions arising out of our shared discourse. Such organically yet creatively conceived metaphors function between that which is symbolic and habitual, capable of crossing the boundaries of genre and breaking-down the partitions of that which is at once deemed abstract and concrete. Through the conceptual metaphor theories of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson among others, this works employs a dynamic system of interpretation that, when working in this ethnolinguistic context, makes full use of the available body of cultural and linguistic knowledge both synchronically and diachronically. This ethnography of metaphor, therefore, follows a pathway arising out of a sequential understanding of sensory experience in interpreting both identity and aesthetic thought as expressed by these Scottish Gaels. Beginning with individual orientation in time and space through cultural, social and emotional engagement with both the physical and cognitive landscape, the ethnography goes on to explore both a synaesthetic and kinaesthetic awareness of the various ways in which we conceive expressive sound in its flow. Within this conceptual metaphor framework a system is unveiled in which the expression of communal tradition is seen as emanating from a shared cridhe (heart/centre). Subsequently, the transmission of this knowledge is conceptualised among encultured individuals as capable of being metaphorically eaten and, therefore, (re)internalised in the body. Such an understanding is intrinsically linked to the mutual aesthetic appreciation of language and music through their blas (taste). Ultimately, these metaphors are rooted in an integrated system oriented towards the collective attainment of social wellbeing and a principal desire to sustain that which they serve to describe.

Thesis (doctoral)--Vrije Universiteit te Amsterdam, 1993.
Basic text in English; partial t.p. in Dutch; summaries in English, Dutch, and Una. "Stellingen" laid in. Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-164) and index. Also issued online.

This thesis is an anthropological exploration of the envy of Aguabuena people, a small rural community of potters in the village of Ráquira, in the Boyacá region of Andean Colombia. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among these potters, I propose an understanding of envy in Aguabuena as an existential experience, shaping relationships between the self and others in the world, crosscutting metaphysical and physical spheres, and balancing between corrosive and more empathetic ways of co-existence. Disclosing the multipresence of envy in Aguabuena's world, its effects on people (including the ethnographer), and the way envy is embodied, performed, reciprocated and circumvented by the potters, I locate envy in various contexts where it is said to be manifested. Furthermore, I discuss the complex spectrum of envy and its multivalent meanings, or oscillations, in the life of Aguabuena people. I also present interactions with people surrounding potters, such as Augustinian monks, crafts middlemen, and municipal authorities, all of whom recount the envy of potters. My research challenges previous anthropological interpretations on envy and provides an alternative reading of this phenomenon. Moving away from labelling and regulatory explanations of envy, performative models, or pathological interpretations of the subject, I analyse the lived experience of envy and how it encompasses different realms of experience as well as flows of social relations. While focusing on the tensions and entanglements that envy brings to potters, as it constrains social life but also activates and reinforces social bonds, I examine the channels through which envy circulates and how it is put into motion by potters. Additionally, my thesis intends to contribute to anthropological studies of rural pottery communities in Andean Colombia. I present my unfolding understanding of envy by using both the potters' concept and material detail, punto, location, referring to a spot from where Aguabuena people enter different vistas of the world, or denoting a precise time when things or materials change their physical qualities. Through this device, I disclose realms of envy, while seeking to immerse the reader in the lived experience of envy.

Les trois millions immigrés afghans en Iran vivent temporairement ou non, légalement ou clandestinement, en situation d’isolement, de groupe, de famille et dans des zones permises. Ce problème migratoire nous amène à nous poser les questions suivantes: 1.Quels sont ces facteurs attractifs en Iran qui provoquent donc l’un des plus grands mouvements migratoires contemporains, malgré des difficultés du voyage et des restrictions existantes sur la terre d’accueil? 2.A quels changements aspirent-t-ils dans leur déplacement ? Comment parviennent-ils à réaliser leurs rêves? 3.Et quelles étapes concrètes et mentales ont-ils traversées pour réaliser leur but ? C’est pour répondre à toutes ces questions que nous avons mené une enquête anthropologique à la suite d’une étude ethnographique pour ensuite en tirer des conclusions. Le premier volet de cette enquête concerne les quatre histoires de vie dont une intégrale. Ainsi, cette partie descriptive va porter sur la migration des Afghans. La deuxième partie va traiter du mode de vie matérielle, au travers de cinq chapitres : L’espace de vie, De l'hygiène corporelle au bien-être psychologique, L’alimentation, L’habillement, L’emploi. Et une troisième partie qui au travers de quatre chapitres va couvrir les liens socio-culturels de cette population : La langue, l’identité et la hiérarchie sociale, Les relations de parenté, Faire des études, Les activités du temps libre. En effet, ces deux parties, vont porter sur les deux volets principaux de la vie de toute immigration où qu’elle ait lieu : à savoir d’une part, les problèmes de « survie » et d’autre part, les aspects relationnels et communicationnels de la « vie »
Afghan immigrants in Iran represent about 4 % of the population, live temporarily or not, legally or illegally, in isolation, group, family and allowable and more urban than rural areas.This migration problem leads us to ask the following questions:1. What are these pull factors in Iran thus cause one of the biggest contemporary migratory movements, despite the difficulties of travel and existing restrictions on home soil?2. What changes do they aspire in their movement? How do they manage to achieve their dreams?3. And what concrete steps have mental and they crossed to reach their goal?To answer to these questions we have to conduct an anthropological investigation following by an ethnographic study of long then draw conclusions. The first part concerns the life story of four with an integral. Thus, the descriptive part will focus on the migration of Afghans.The second part will deal with the mode of material life of immigrants, through five chapters : The living space, From personal hygiene to the psychological well-being, Food, The cleverly, Employment.And a third party through four chapters will cover the socio- cultural ties of the population: Language, identity and the social hierarchy, Kinship, Studying, The activities of free time.Indeed, both parties will be focused on two main aspects of the life of any immigration where it takes place: namely the one hand, the problems of "survival" and secondly, the relational aspects communicational and "life.”

This is the story of how four people invented a whole new world and way of life - and how they attempted to establish it across the globe. Copass, a Parisian startup consisting of four cofounders, aimed to connect hundreds of the world's shared workspaces under their new global federation. But the main objective of this startup, in contrast to most, was not to build capital. It was to build a universe: a future where white-collar workers would be liberated from the shackles of office life to work anywhere in the world, to meet exciting people and to have amazing experiences. Here, workdays were permanently mixed with holidays. Work was fun, workplaces were play-places and workers were adventurers. The ambition of these four cofounders was to turn the way they wanted things to be for them into the way things ought to be for everyone else. To turn their desired lifestyle into a global social movement that enrolled, as they saw it, hundreds of cities and thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of people. In short, they created a company to fulfil a dream. This is an ethnography of that one startup's dream, analysed at length to demonstrate innovative ways of worldmaking employed by an ambitious tech company seeking success. A company dissatisfied with the world that, instead of changing it, decided to create a new one.

The Urban Center Plaza at Portland State University is a high profile place situated in downtown Portland, Oregon. In some ways it is the ideal university plaza providing space for eating, conversing, or limited recreational activity. It is a place that has been studied before, but not in a more in-depth method incorporating quantitative and qualitative analyses. It is also a place that has gone through several stages of development and is the target of many opinions based on casual observations, at times due to these changes. This thesis focuses on an ethnography of place in this particular plaza in an effort to more thoroughly analyze how people use the space and how it came together to become the plaza known by Portlanders today. This is done through the use of random video observations, direct observations, and in-depth interviews with those who were involved in the creation of the plaza. Analysis of the video recordings includes pedestrian counts, behavioral maps, and common routes taken through the plaza. Direct observations provide more insight into the day-to-day activities of the plaza and the phenomenological perspective of the design elements. Interviews allow for a more complete timeline of events in order to assess the plaza properly. By combining these methods based on other plaza-based ethnographies, it is concluded that the plaza is a well-used and successful space and even suggest possible areas of improvement. Methods are also assessed for future use on other city parks and plazas, possibly in a comparative context.

Discussions of hope and the imagined future have thus far focussed on grand ambitions at the expense of the more mundane, modest wants that are the preoccupation of everyday life. Studies of the home have demonstrated the role of material culture in embodying memory and household pasts but little has been said of household futures and their impact on household presents. This ethnographic study of the lives of three middle class households in south-east London addresses these gaps through an exploration of the role of imagined futures in orienting everyday life in the household. The ways in which householders work to make household life what they want it to be, and to secure the longer-term futures they imagine for their children, are explored through the frustrations, disappointments and anxieties that stem from the frequent failures of these efforts. Objects are demonstrated to be both the means through which householders attempt to make household life what they want it to be - their potentiality shaping and enabling imagined futures - and the means through which these imagined futures are reconfigured or derailed. The period of maternity leave, that all three of my women participants were in the midst of, is shown to be one in which the work of bringing the household's imagined futures, and children's imagined futures to fruition falls disproportionately to mothers, often at the expense of their own wants. Finally, a broader lens is used to explore how middle class householders' efforts to live the life they want contributes to and shapes the processes of gentrification credited with bringing dramatic change to south-east London.

In february 2017 the maternity ward in Sollefteå was shut down. The citizens of the surrounding area, Ådalen, thus have more than two hours - with private transportation on narrow roads without phone connection - to the nearest maternity ward. The shutdown is a result of various developments in society, connected to larger structures of power that present these changes as natural and inevitable. This qualitative study explores the relationship between individual and structure by examining the area of Ådalen and its inhabitants’ access to maternity care. The emphasis lay on power dynamics within - and between - different structures and how these come to influence people’s everyday life. With ethnographic material collected through in depth-interviews and observations, the impact of these power structures are exemplified and discussed from the perspectives of a few individuals. The relevant structures are examined through three norms; a male norm, a neoliberal norm and an urban norm. The analysis problematize how the norms, through the conceptions of women, rurality and human values they reproduce, influence access to maternity care and limit the agency of the study’s participants. The analysis is based on power theories of both Foucault and Bourdieu. Foucault’s theories of subject and resistance are used to examine structural exercise of power and the informants’ collective actions and experiences. While Bourdieu’s theories of habitus, capital and field are used to analyze the informants’ individual perceptions of power. The power structures discussed are tied together by an intersectional framework, which enables a broader analysis of how these structures cooperate and strengthen each other. The study shows the complexity of power where the local movements challenge prevailing structures through mobilization and resistance.
I februari 2017 stängdes Sollefteå BB. Invånarna i det omgivande området, Ådalen, har därmed över två timmars bilfärd - med privat transport på smala vägar utan telefontäckning - till närmaste förlossningsvård. Nedstängningen av Sollefteå BB kan förstås som en konsekvens av olika samhälleliga förändringar, vilka är kopplade till större maktstrukturer som får denna utveckling att framstå som naturlig och oundviklig. Denna kvalitativa studie utforskar relationen mellan individ och struktur genom att undersöka Ådalen och dess invånares tillgång till förlossningsvård. Fokus ligger på makt-dynamiken inom, liksom mellan, olika strukturer och hur dessa påverkar människors villkor. Maktstrukturerna exemplifieras och diskuteras utifrån ett antal individers perspektiv, med etnografiskt material insamlat genom djupintervjuer och observationer. De för studien relevanta strukturerna undersöks genom tre normer; en manlig norm, en neoliberal norm och en urban norm. Utifrån dessa normer diskuteras hur informanterna relaterar till makt i kontexten av nedstängningen av Sollefteå BB. Analysen problematiserar hur de olika normerna genom den uppfattning om kvinnor, landsbygd och mänskliga värden som reproduceras påverkar tillgången till förlossningsvård, liksom handlingsutrymmet för studiens deltagare. Analysen utgår från teorier om makt av både Foucault och Bourdieu. Foucaults teorier om bl. a. subjekt och motmakt används för att analysera strukturellt maktutövande och informanternas kollektiva handlingar och upplevelser. Medan Bourdieus teorier om habitus, kapital och fält används för att förstå informanternas individuella erfarenheter av och uppfattningar om makt. De maktstrukturer som diskuteras knyts samman genom ett övergripande intersektionellt ramverk, vilket möjliggör en bredare analys av hur dessa strukturer samarbetar och stärker varandra. Studien visar en komplex bild av makt och maktutövning där de lokala rörelserna i Ådalen utmanar rådande maktstrukturer genom mobilisering och motstånd.

This study sought to understand the culture-sharing group of people working within the shelter area of a Pacific Northwest animal shelter through the Ethnography of Communication. About 63% of households in the United States live with a companion animal (Risley-Curtis et al., 2006). Recently, there has been a shift toward closer examination into the ways in which humans interact with animals, particularly companion animals. The guiding questions of this study were: RQ1: What are the cultural communication forms performed in the context of the humane society? RQ2: How do shelter workers communicate about companion animals? RQ3: What cultural meanings are instantiated through communication in this context? This qualitative research approach included 40 hours of participant observation, individual interviews and an analysis of a set of documents and artifacts. Utilizing the Ethnography of Communication components, thematic and pattern analysis, findings revealed use of three main communication forms within the shelter: verbal, written and nonverbal communication and the overarching key theme of relational bonding occurring within an animal-centric organization among 4 relational categories: A. Shelter animals and shelter animals, B. Shelter animals and shelter workers, C. Shelter workers and shelter workers and D. Shelter workers and the public. Processes leading to relational bonding are delineated including detailed speech as well as aspects of "broken bonds" and euthanasia and it's effects within a "no-kill" organization.

This thesis is based upon fieldwork carried out in the island of Apiao, in the archipelago of Chiloé, southern Chile. It is an ethnographic exploration of the way the small community of Apiao conceive of communication and interaction with both fellow human beings and supernatural creatures. The thesis describes details of every day life, with an emphasis on visiting as the main mode of social interaction. Through reciprocal hospitality the islanders enact balanced reciprocal exchange. Food and drink is offered and received; this is always returned in equal measure with a return visit. Visits between friends or neighbours are articulated according to a formal ritualistic etiquette based on asking. Balance is temporarily interrupted and small debts incurred when favors are asked. These must be reciprocated promptly. Momentary interruption of equilibrium perpetuates relations among people who describe themselves as being 'all the same'. Marriage equates to forming an independent, productive unit with a focus on inhabitants of households rather than on family in terms of decent or blood ties. Kinship terms are limited to the word mama and this refers to the grandmother, the focal role in raising children. Active memory as expression of love and care is what makes people related to each other. Kin ties must be kept active by constant love and care. Forgetful kin are in turn forgotten and slowly erased from memory. The thesis shows that religious beliefs are centered on exchange relationships with powerful entities that belong to the supernatural world. The dead and the miraculous San Antonio are powerful and ambivalent: they protect and help the living but can be revengeful and harmful if neglected by the living. Novenas are offered to the dead and the San Antonio in exchange for protection and miracles. Novenas represent a public and powerful ritual display of hospitality, enacting values of memory, solidarity and exchange.

This is an ethnographic study of discourses and experiences concerning sexual exchanges among kin “who are too closely related to marry each other” (OED), or what in lay language is called “incest”. I investigate the ways in which a certain kind of incest, that between older men and younger women, primarily from different generations, is experienced by women of predominantly rural origin, who have been hospitalized in the major public psychiatric hospital in Bolivia, in Sucre. In this sense, this research is as much a study of incest as it is of psychiatric institutionalization. These experiences will be considered in the context of a wider field of ethnic, class and gender discourses that are produced by medical staff, community organizations, as well as national judicial institutions. The category of 'incest' is problematized in terms of how kinship is constructed, not only as a series of dynamic discourses (as practices whose effect is the production of events) but also as mobile experiences, however socially regulated. With this in mind, I present an account of Andean concepts and treatment of incest, as well as of legal and medical categories. Specifically, I focus on the play between discourses in the context of the psychiatric hospital, the judicial court and the communities of selected inmates. I show how the inmates' experiences of intergenerational incest and sexual violence in general are related to the dominant ethnic, class and gender narratives produced by medical staff, community organizations, and judicial institutions.

This thesis investigates the narrated experiences of a number of individuals that migrated to Argentina from Russia and Ukraine in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union. The over-arching aim of this thesis is to study the ways in which these migrants navigated the social reality in Argentina, with regards to available physical, material, and socioeconomic positions as well as with regards to their narrated self-understandings and identifications. The empirical data consists of ethnographic in-depth interviews and participatory observation from Buenos Aires between the years 2011 and 2014. Through the theoretical frameworks of political discourse theory, critical race studies, auto-ethnography, and theories on coloniality, the author examines questions of migration, mobility, race, class, and gender in the processes of re-establishing a life in a new context. The interviewees were not only directly affected by the collapse of the USSR in the sense that it drastically changed their terrain of possible futures as well as retroactive understandings of their pasts, but they also began their lives in Argentina during the turmoil of the economic crisis that culminated in 2001. Central to this thesis is how these dislocatory events impacted the interviewees’ possibilities and limitations for living the life they had expected, and thus how discursive structures affect subject positions and identifications, and thereby create specific conditions for different relocatory trajectories. By focusing on how these individuals narrate their reasons for migration and their integration into Argentine labor and housing markets, the author demonstrates the role Argentine and East European history, as well as the neoliberal restructuring of the postsocialist region and Argentina in the 1990’s, had for self-understandings, subject positions, identities, and mobility. Various intersections of power, and particularly the making of race and whiteness, are important for the way that the interviewees negotiated subject positions and identifications. The author addresses how affect and hope played a part in these processes and how downward mobility was articulated and made meaningful. She also examines how participants’ ideas about a “good life” were related to understandings of the past, questions of race, social inequality, and a logic of coloniality.
Den här avhandlingen undersöker hur ett antal individer som migrerade från Ryssland och Ukraina till Argentina efter Sovjetunionens fall berättar om sin erfarenhet. Det övergripande syftet är att studera hur dessa migranter navigerade i den sociala verkligheten i Argentina, särskilt vad det gäller kroppsliga, materiella och socioekonomiska positioner, såväl som hur detta påverkat deras berättade självförståelse och identifikationer. Det empiriska materialet består av etnografiska djupintervjuer och deltagande observationer gjorda i Buenos Aires mellan åren 2011 och 2014. Författaren använder sig av ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av politisk diskursteori, kritiska ras- och vithetsstudier, autoetnografi och teorier om kolonialitet för att undersöka frågor om migration, mobilitet, rasialisering, klass och kön i en kontext av återetablering av ett liv i ett nytt samhälle. De som intervjuas i denna avhandling påverkades inte bara av Sovjetunionens kollaps, på så sätt att det påverkade deras förståelse av möjlig framtid samt deras retroaktiva förståelser av det förflutna, utan de påbörjade även sina nya liv i Argentina under den ekonomiska krisen som kulminerade år 2001. Centralt i avhandlingen är hur dessa dislokatoriska händelser inverkade på de intervjuades möjligheter och begränsningar för att kunna leva det liv som de hade förväntat sig, och därmed hur diskursiva strukturer påverkar subjektspositioner och identifikationer och därmed skapar specifika villkor för olika vägar för återetablering. Genom fokus på hur dessa individer berättar om sina anledningar för migrationen och om deras väg in i den argentinska arbets- och bostadsmarknaden visar författaren vilken roll argentinsk och östeuropeisk historia, såväl som 1990-talets nyliberala omstrukturering av den postsovjetiska regionen och Argentina, hade för deras självförståelse, subjektspositioner, identitet och mobilitet. Viktigt för hur de intervjuade förhandlade om olika subjektspositioner och identifikationer är intersektionella maktordningar och särskilt skapandet av ras och vithet. Författaren analyserar hur affekt och hopp spelade en roll i dessa processer och hur social deklassering artikulerades och gjordes meningsfull. Här undersöks även hur de intervjuades idéer om möjligheten att leva ett ”gott liv” var sammanflätade med förståelser av det förflutna, rasialisering, social ojämlikhet och en logik som präglades av kolonialitet.
Тема этой диссертации – это личный опыт ряда индивидуумов, переехавших в Аргентину вскоре после распада Советского Союза, на основе их собственных повествований. Основная цель работы заключается в исследовании того, как мигранты-участники вписывались в общественную реальность Аргентины на фоне её превалирующих физических,  материальных и социо-экономических позиций, а также по отношению к тому, как согласно их рассказам, эти люди сами себя воспринимали и идентифицировали. Эмпирическая компонента диссертации включает в себя комплекс углубленных этнографических интервью и включенного наблюдения, проводимых в Буэнос Айрес в 2011 -2014 гг. Автор изучает вопросы миграции, класса, социальной мобильности, расы и гендера в процессе переустановки жизни в новых условиях, руководствуясь теоретическими посылами теорий политического дискурса, критических расовых исследований (critical race studies), автоэтнографии и теорий колониальности. В дополнение к тому факту, что на интервьюируемых оказал непосредственное влияние распад Советского Союза, который кардинальным образом изменил как возможные сценарии их будущего, так и ретроактивные интерпретации их прошлого, эти люди начали свою новую жизнь в Аргентине сразу после сумятицы экономического кризиса, достигшего кульминации в 2001 г. Центральным аспектом диссертации является изучение воздействия, которое имели эти дислоцирующие обстоятельства на спектр естественных возможностей и преград на пути реализации жизненного проекта участников исследования, как они себе его представляли, а также какое влияние оказывают соответствующие дискурсивные структуры на позиции и идентификации субъектов, обуславливая определенные условия реализации различных траекторий их жизни в эмиграции. Фокусируя внимание на том, как эти индивидуумы повествуют о том, что побудило их к эмиграции в Аргентину и интеграции в местные рынки труда и жилья, автор подчеркивает ту роль, которую сыграли в этом особенности как аргентинской, так и восточноевропейской истории, наряду с более поздними структурными изменениями 90х гг., происходившими как на постсоветском, так и аргентинском пространствах в эпоху неолиберализма. Это касается в равной степени аспектов самовосприятия, позиций субъектов, а также вопросов их идентификации и мобильности. Важной составляющей того, каким образом интервьюируемые устанавливали рамки своей субъективной идентификации и позиции, являлись различные грани концепции власти; в частности того, как возникают понятия расы и ‘белизны’ (whiteness). Автор обращается к вопросу, какую роль в этих процессах сыграли аффект и надежда, и как субъекты исследования артикулировали и находили смысл в своей нисходящей мобильности. Параллельно автор анализирует то, как представления участников о "хорошей жизни" ставились ими в зависимость от их собственной интерпретации прошлого, наряду с вопросами расы, общественного неравенства и колониальной логики.
Esta tesis investiga las experiencias narradas por una serie de individuos que emigraron a Argentina desde Rusia y Ucrania a raíz de la caída de la Unión Soviética. Su objetivo general es estudiar el modo en que estos inmigrantes transitaron la realidad social argentina en lo que se refiere a las posiciones físicas, materiales y socioeconómicas disponibles, así como también a su auto-comprensión y a las identidades construidas desde sus narraciones. La autora examina cuestiones de migración, movilidad, raza, clase y género en los procesos de restablecimiento de la vida de estos sujetos a través del marco de la teoría política del discurso, los estudios críticos de la raza, la auto-etnografía y teorías sobre la colonialidad. Los datos empíricos consisten en entrevistas etnográficas en profundidad y observación participante realizadas en Buenos Aires entre los años 2011 y 2014. Los entrevistados no sólo se vieron directamente afectados por el colapso de la URSS en el sentido de que éste cambió drásticamente su terreno de futuros posibles y la comprensión retroactiva de su pasado, sino que también comenzaron sus vidas en Argentina durante las turbulencias de la crisis económica que estalló en el año 2001. En esta tesis, es central la indagación sobre cómo estos eventos dislocatorios impactaron en las posibilidades y limitaciones de los entrevistados para vivir la vida que esperaban y cómo las estructuras discursivas afectan las posiciones y las identificaciones de los sujetos, creando condiciones específicas para diferentes trayectorias de reubicación. Al enfocarse en cómo estos individuos narran sus razones para la migración y su integración en los mercados laborales y de la vivienda en Argentina, la autora demuestra el papel que tienen en las auto-comprensiones, posiciones de sujeto, identidades y movilidad, tanto la historia argentina y de Europa del Este, así como también la reestructuración neoliberal de la región postsocialista y de la Argentina en los años 90. Diversas intersecciones de poder, y particularmente la raza y la blancura son importantes para la manera en que los entrevistados negociaron posiciones subjetivas e identificaciones. La autora aborda cómo el afecto y la esperanza desempeñaron un papel en estos procesos y cómo la movilidad descendente se articuló y se hizo significativa. También examina cómo las ideas de los participantes acerca de una "buena vida" se relacionan con la comprensión del pasado, las cuestiones de raza, desigualdad social y una lógica colonial.

This study focuses on the attitudes of museumgoers toward the exhibition of human remains in modern Swedish museums. More specifically, it deals with how their attitudes toward remains are shaped and informed by museums’ materiality and institutionalized authority, whether they think of remains as humans or objects, as well as how these dead bodies ultimately become culturally meaningful to us who are still alive. Through the use of ethnographic field methods including go-along interviews and participant observation, the behaviors and opinions of museumgoers are recorded. With the help of Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical phenomenology and Annemarie Mol’s theory of multiple ontology, the cultural background against which these attitudes have taken shape is examined. The study shows that museumgoers are generally positive toward the exhibition of human remains in museums—an attitude which is influenced by the history, scientific authority, and carefully designed materiality of the museum. Among the perceived benefits of exhibiting human remains, visitors cite the ability of the remains to arouse their curiosity and serve as links to the past, as well as provide material proof that validates the museum’s claims to knowledge. However, this positive attitude is dependent on whether the remains are treated and displayed with respect. This call to treat the dead respectfully can be seen as a universal reaction to the ”face-to-face encounter” as described by Emmanuel Levinas, but at the same time, museumgoers’ interpretation of respect is culturally contingent and heavily influenced by contemporary values such as individuality, scientific objectivity, and equality. Furthermore, the perceived need to treat remains respectfully is directly tied to the perceived humanity of the remains. This is in turn dependent on how close the remains are to us in terms of appearance and temporal distance. By focusing on museumgoers instead of professionals, and through using ethnographic fieldwork to note opinions and their cultural backgrounds, this study attempts to add a fresh perspective and new knowledge to what is currently one of the hottest debates in museology: whether remains even belong in museums. Further, by recognizing that no opinion is formed in a vacuum, the narrow question of displaying death can tell us something bigger about the norms and values of Sweden today.

The subjects of ‘youth’, ‘substance use’ and ‘homelessness’ are interconnected, but only a relatively small number of studies have examined the relationships between all three components. Literature highlights how homeless substance users are constructed as ‘vulnerable’ – yet ‘deviant’. Furthermore, academics have examined how people manage the ascribed identities of ‘substance user’ and ‘homeless’ as well as that of ‘youth’. According to sociologists, people’s self-identities and actions develop as a consequence of interactions with their socio-spatial worlds. Therefore, it is useful to contextualise the act of substance use within these complex interactions. This thesis explores the meanings and contexts of young, homeless people’s substance use. Data were obtained through an ethnographic study conducted in a homeless hostel over a seven month period in 2013 in which twenty-two young people (aged 16-21) and twenty-seven staff members participated. The majority of data were derived from participant-observation encompassing 200-250 informal interactions with the young people and 100-120 interactions with staff along with observations of people’s actions and descriptions of events and appearances. The field-notes were supplemented by four semi-structured interviews and a focus group, involving a total of eleven young people. Drawing on theories underpinned by symbolic interactionist and phenomenological philosophies, three overarching dimensions of the young people’s experiences were identified as important to their substance use and wider lives. First, the young people engaged in ‘place-making’ actions (including substance use) to personalise spaces within the tightly controlled environment of the hostel. Secondly, substance use was interwoven with the relationships that the young people held with their families, friends and the staff. The ‘pro-drug’ voices of their friends and relatives were arguably stronger than the ‘anti-drug’ voices of the staff. Thirdly, the categories of ‘youth’ and ‘substance user’ were recognised by the participants as pertaining to them, whereas the ‘homeless’ label was relatively meaningless. The thesis concludes that to understand people’s substance use experiences, it is important to consider the socio-spatial contexts within which they are located, particularly when these are temporary.