Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Behind The Seams: An Ethnographic Study Of The Performative Nature Of Theatrical Costumes, Emily M. Lindholm

Student Publications

Actors are said to bring a play to life, but what about the garments that they wear? Like set production, light design, and direction, the role of the costume plays an important part in informing and enchanting the audience. However, this is not all that they do. This paper acts as an in-depth examination of the culture of costume creation and destruction at Gettysburg College, researching their roles as garments, as well as how the garments themselves "act" around others. Imbued with their own set of responsibilities, the costumes are expected to behave certain ways, perform specific functions, and put …

Practicing The Four Seasons Of Ethnography Methodology While Searching For Identity In Mexico, Margaret Jane Pitts

The Qualitative Report

This narrative is an account of my field experiences and challenges practicing González’s (2000) Four Seasons of Ethnography methodology in Mexico City. I describe the complexities and tensions inherent in managing two scientific paradigms: Western scientific logic vs. a more organic ontology. The experiential knowledge produced in this text is useful to ethnographers who face questions of identity and ethics in the field. To evoke a sense of experience, I represent the ethnography for the reader in the way it unfolded for me—sometimes painful, other times insightful, oftentimes both. This dual text exposes my struggles as emergent ethnographer grappling with …

Foundations Of Unlimited, Anna Azulai

The Qualitative Report

Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (3rd ed.) is an informative, engaging and user-friendly book by J. W. Creswell (2012) that is focused on practical application of qualitative research methods in social inquiry. The author provided a useful comparison of the five types of qualitative inquiry (narrative, phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory, and case study) and discussed foundational and methodological aspects of the five traditional approaches. Creswell also effectively demonstrated how the type of the approach of qualitative inquiry shaped the design or procedures of a study. This book could be particularly useful to novice researchers and graduate …

Women And Wasta: The Use Of Focus Groups For Understanding Social Capital And Middle Eastern Women, Deborah C. Bailey

The Qualitative Report

Social capital is the use of informal networking to secure access to resources and opportunities. Often identified as an asset for offsetting deficiencies in societies, research on the phenomena is limited. This paper describes a qualitative study using focus groups with young adult Emeriti women representing three social-economic groups who were interviewed by the author in order to explore the topic of social capital, specifically a form of social capital defined by the Arabic term “wasta”. The women discussed their experiences of how wasta persists regardless of social and religious laws forbidding its practice and how they might use it …

Finding A Way Out Of The Ethnographic Paradigm Jungle, Subhadip Roy, Pratyush Banerjee

The Qualitative Report

In this paper, an attempt has been made to develop a hybrid ethnographic paradigm, taking the best points from the different approaches of ethnographic research. The pioneering proponents of ethnography differed in their conceptualization of the method, resulting in the development of three distinct schools of thought-holistic, semiotic and behavioristic. These three ethnographic paradigms have their respective benefits and shortcomings. Following any one of these approaches may lead to only partial comprehension of the phenomenon by the ethnographer. This study wished to address this issue by developing a best practice approach, which will have the virtues of all the three …

Making Markets And Constructing Crises: A Review Of Ho’S Liquidated, Alexandra B. Cox

The Qualitative Report

This book review is a beginning academic researcher’s interpretation of the robust methods and rich data Ho presents in her study of investment banking culture and the market in Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street (2009). A unique contribution of the text is Ho’s combining of ethnographic methods in order to practice polymorphous engagement in her study. A weakness of the text is Ho’s lacking autoethnographic analysis of her experience as an Asian American woman on Wall Street. The book will be helpful for a scholarly audience interested in studying rigorous ethnographic methodologies and exploring the culture of Wall Street.

Chapter 4, My Life, In Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

A description of my life living with and learning from the Sikaiana people of the Solomon Islands, 1980-1993. The discussion includes how I established relationships and adjusted to life, and how I conducted ethnographic research.

A related website in www.sikaianaarchives.com

Chapter 1, Another Perspective, In Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

This chapter serves as an introduction to cultural anthropology as an enterprise and this ethnography of the Sikaiana people. It discusses why learning about other cultures is important to for understanding human diversity across the globe and also provided another perspective for examining and understanding my own culture.

Chapter 2, Getting There In Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

This chapter describes how I got to do ethnographic research on Sikaiana, how I decided to go there and the logistics of setting up my research including funding, traveling and my initial meetings of Sikaiana people.

A related website is at www.sikaianaarchives.com

Visual Approaches And Photography For The Study Of Immediate Information Space, Jenna K. Hartel, Leslie Thomson

Jenna Hartel

This methods-oriented paper introduces visual methods and specifically photography to study immediate information space (Lee, 2003); that is, information-rich settings such as offices or homes. It draws upon the authors’ firsthand ethnographic field experiences, a review of relevant theoretical and methodological literature, and an analysis of cases within information studies that have made use of visual and photographic techniques. To begin, the traditions of visual research within anthropology and sociology are traced and major epistemological, methodological, and disciplinary debates associated with visual scholarship are presented. Then, investigations of immediate information space that utilize photography are analyzed, including examples from the …

Manufacturing Change, Una Ruddock

The Qualitative Report

This is a highly accessible presentation of organisational research, which demonstrates how ethnography can elicit a holistic understanding of across section of employees and thereby reveal a workplace culture. It suggests that change efforts fail if culture is ignored and offers a detailed account of how critical incidents translate into tools for change. The data analysis reveals the weakness in working relationships and how blame functions to prevent change. The Ideal Plant project emerges, which validates transformation tools to create cooperative workplace interactions and collaborative problem solving. The past and future, metaphorically represented as two different places, are connected by …