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Gene Drives, Nature, Governance: An Ethnographic Perspective, Irus Braverman

Contributions to Books

Published as chapter 3 in Gene Editing, Law, and the Environment, Irus Braverman, ed.

Synthetic gene drives raise ethical, ecological, and legal questions that are sometimes difficult to grasp. What is clear, however, is that the power to directly alter not just a singular form of life but the genetics of entire populations and species are currently both under-regulated and under-theorized. In place of state regulations, what seems to be emerging is a form of self-regulation by the gene drive scientists themselves. My chapter draws on in-depth interviews with several prominent gene drive scientists to explore their approach toward nature, …

Texas-Mexico Border Cultural Production: Ethnographic Aesthetics And Modernity In Folklore, Literature, And Film, Margie Montañez

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation develops the trope of an ethnographic aesthetic to dissect the cultural production of Jovita González, Américo Paredes, and more recent works by Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Lourdes Portillo. The dissertation argues that Texas-Mexican cultural production actively produces knowledge. In other words, when understood within the framework of ethnographic aesthetics, Texas-Mexican border cultural anticipates and imagines local futures in a constant shifting colonial space. Texas-Mexico border cultural production is not passive or residual but is in fact active and emergent.

The dissertation situates Texas-Mexico border cultural production as responding to and within post-national American Studies discourse that “stresses …

Zora Neale Hurston: Scientist, Folklorist, Storyteller, Mary Catherine Russell

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

This paper examines the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston and her contribution to American literature in the 20th Century. While previous critical analysis of Hurston’s work has focused primarily on her most popular novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, this paper examines Hurston’s career by taking a holistic approach to the body of her literary works. Hurston’s early career as an anthropologist is shown to provide a foundation for her later interest in folklore. In turn, her connection and participation in the Harlem Renaissance gave Hurston’s writing a nuanced and individualized style as part of the American modernist …

Etnologia Brasileira: Behind The Scenes, Vanessa R. Lea

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This text reflects on the changing role of anthropologists carrying out research with indigenous peoples in Brazil and on the increasing constraints that they are subjected to, both in terms of the legislation they must comply with and in terms of the way they are envisioned by contemporary indigenous peoples and non-anthropologists. At the time of this writing, sixty-seven people in Brazil who have acted in defense of the rights of indigenous peoples and Maroon descendants (Quilombolas) face bogus criminal charges. Frequently anthropologists are denigrated and accused of using the knowledge acquired during their research for personal enrichment …

An Anthropological Study Of Security Operations Centers To Improve Operational Efficiency, Sathya Chandran Sundaramurthy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Security Operation Centers (SOCs) have become an integral component of business organizations all over the world. The concept of a SOC has existed for a few years now yet there is no systematic study documenting the occurrences of their operations. A lack of documented operational knowledge makes it a challenge for security researchers interested in improving operational efficiency through algorithms, tools, and processes.

SOC environments operate under a secrecy culture as a result of which researchers are not trusted by analysts and their managers. This lack of trust leads to only superficial information through methods such as interviews. Moreover, security …

Initiating Research On Igniting Fires In The Blue Ridge Mountains During The Autumn 2016 Conflagration, Cynthia Twyford Fowler, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

An unprecedented moment in the fire ecology of the Blue Ridge Mountains occurred in Autumn 2016 when severe drought, frequent anthropogenic ignitions, and seasonality in disturbed deciduous forests fueled widespread burning. As the wildfires burned, wildland firefighters from around the U.S. temporarily moved into the region to assist local land managers. As wildfire risks increased and air quality decreased, local residents became increasingly interested in fire ecology. The community shifted continuously as wildfires were extinguished, wildland firefighters returned home, and local residents disengaged. In conducting research during the conflagration, obtaining consent from community members varied depending on whether or not …

Mother Goddesses And Subversive Witches: Competing Narratives Of Gender Essentialism, Heteronormativity, Feminism, And Queerness In Wiccan Theology And Ritual, Carly B. Floyd

Honors Projects

Wicca has typically been viewed as an empowering alternative to institutionalized and patriarchal religions, and women especially have been drawn to this religion because of its inclusion of women as goddesses and priestesses. It is also seen as a sex-positive religion, and many LGBTQ+ people embrace Wicca due to its lack of concepts such as sin and shame, especially around sex and sexuality. This research, however, troubles the claim that Wicca is a feminist, woman-friendly, queer-friendly religion. While women are celebrated and valued, I argue that women’s positive portrayal as mothers, nurturers, emotional, and intuitive portrays women’s nature in a …

Practical Theology In An Interpretive Community: An Ethnography Of Talk, Texts And Video In A Mediated Women's Bible Study, Nancie Hudson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study of social interaction in a small religious group used ethnography of communication as a research method to collect and analyze data from 20 months of fieldwork. As a long-term participant-observer in a women-only interdenominational Bible study, I investigated the group’s patterned ways of speaking, how print and electronic learning materials influenced the practical application of Scripture to daily life, and how the contemporary format for women’s Bible study alters the traditional Bible study experience. Patterned ways of speaking in this setting included group discussions and conversational narratives about religion, motherhood and lack of time. Using affirmations of faith, …

Guided By The Spirits: The Meanings Of Life, Death And Youth Suicide In An Ojibwa Community, Seth Allard

Masters Theses

Suicide is a leading cause of death amongst indigenous North American youth. The majority of studies on indigenous youth suicide focus on quantitative data collection and analysis. Qualitative and collaborative methods provide the cultural and historical contexts necessary for a critical understanding of youth suicide in indigenous communities. Through classic ethnographic methods (structured interviews, participant observation) and descriptive analysis, this work highlights the value of qualitative data. Medical anthropology informs an ethnomedical approach toward youth suicide, death, life, health and related concepts. Analyzing the semantics of prevention and intervention aids a critical-interpretive approach to current research and prevention-intervention frameworks and …

How To Conduct A Mini-Ethnographic Case Study: A Guide For Novice Researchers, Patricia I. Fusch Ph.D., Gene E. Fusch, Lawrence R. Ness

The Qualitative Report

The authors present how to construct a mini-ethnographic case study design with the benefit of an ethnographic approach bounded within a case study protocol that is more feasible for a student researcher with limited time and finances. The novice researcher should choose a design that enables one to best answer the research question. Secondly, one should choose the design that assists the researcher in reaching data saturation. Finally, the novice researcher must choose the design in which one can complete the study within a reasonable time frame with minimal cost. This is particularly important for student researchers. One can blend …

"Speaking Back" To The Self: A Call For "Voice Notes" As Reflexive Practice For Feminist Ethnographers, Fawzia Haeri Mazanderani

Journal of International Women's Studies

While what comprises “feminist research methods” is subject to debate, research with a feminist orientation is often characterised by heightened reflexivity and a recognition of the subjective nature of knowledge claims (Ryan-Flood and Gill, 2010). By drawing upon ethnographic research conducted among young people in post-apartheid South Africa, this paper interrogates the potential value of audio recordings or “voice notes” during fieldwork, in conjunction with the more traditional form of the fieldwork diary. I argue that, by providing an additional means through which to articulate the inevitable messiness of fieldwork, the recording of “voice notes” enables the researcher to “speak …

Teacher Empowerment: A Focused Ethnographic Study In Brunei Darussalam, Shanthi Thomas

The Qualitative Report

Teacher empowerment, as a process that enables teachers’ intrinsic motivation and brings out their innate potential, is of critical importance in modern times. However, the teacher empowerment construct in existing education literature originated in the west, and its dimensions are aligned to the western cultural scenario. The purpose of this study was to understand the behaviours of school leaders, teacher colleagues, students as well as their parents, and themselves, that teachers perceived as empowerment-facilitating and/or empowerment impeding. This study took place in a secondary school in Brunei Darussalam, a private secondary school. This study was designed as a ‘focused ethnography’, …

The Cosmological Liveliness Of Terril Calder's The Lodge: Animating Our Relations And Unsettling Our Cinematic Spaces, Salma Monani

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

I first saw Métis artist Terril Calder's 2014 stop-frame feature, The Lodge, an independently made, relatively small- budget film, at its premiere at the ImagineNative Film + Media Arts festival, held annually in Toronto, Canada. The feature-length animation played to a full house at the Light-box Theater downtown. Many were there to attend the five-day festival, which is dedicated to Indigenous media made by and for Indigenous people. Others were there because as members of Toronto's general public they wanted to catch a movie during a night out in the city. Since then The Lodge has shown at various other …

“Culture Shock”: An Ethnographic Account Of A Small Business In The Face Of Change, Alexia Maggos

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This ethnography follows a small business in Indianapolis that was founded on a small business philosophy that embodied family-oriented, close-knit employee relationships. Aside from the small firm finding success in its established company culture, this small business found great financial success within a niche market. However, as part of new expansion plans, management began imposing a more traditional, hierarchical management styles. While this shift is predicted by contemporary management theory, the human effects and cultural costs of this process are worthy of study. This ethnography follows employees’ perceptions and reactions to the change in business philosophy and analyzes the instability …

Book Review: Kirin Narayan, Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses In The Himalayan Foothills (Kirin Narayan), Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Mapping Student Days: Collaborative Ethnography And The Student Experience, Andrew Asher, Jean Amaral, Juliann Couture, Barbara Fister, Donna Lanclos, M. Sara Lowe, Mariana Regalado, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

Research on students’ educational experiences demonstrates the importance of a holistic understanding of the complexity of students’ lives in developing library programs, services, and resources that effectively address undergraduate needs. The “A Day in the Life” (ADITL) Project investigated a typical day for over 200 students at eight diverse higher education institutions in the US. Examining the local and individual expressions of student taskscapes – the ensemble of interrelated social activities across time and space – placed each student’s relationship to their library in a larger description of their academic and personal lives. By exploring the whole student experience, this …

Barbara Sjoholm. Black Fox: A Life Of Emilie Demant Hatt , Artist And Ethnographer, Sandra Laursen

The Bridge

Two young women on vacation, an art student and a teacher, meet a mysterious local man dressed in animal skins who persuades them to climb into his boat. He rows them across a beautiful mountain lake where they begin a wilderness adventure in the land of the midnight sun. It sounds like the start of a fairy tale, but it is a true story from the opening chapters of Black Fox: A Life of Emilie Demant Hatt , Artist and Ethnographer.

Ethnographic Action Research In Missiological Research Design: A Pilot Proposal, E. P.

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"As an integrant part of practical theology, missiology has an advantage of not being confined within the boundaries of social science methods. Although, as an academic discipline missiological research makes use of some social science methods, its interdisciplinary nature and theological perspective should allow for innovative methodologies that not only contribute to academic research but also fulfills the mission of God even while doing research. The pilot proposal introduced in this article presented a suggestion for an innovative methodology in missiological research. The proposed method combined methodologies from two main fields, ethnography and action research, combining their elements in a …

Spiritual Journeys: A Study Of Ifá /Òrìṣà Practitioners In The United States Initiated In Nigeria, Tony Van Der Meer

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study is to understand the culture of one of the newest branches of traditional Yorùbá Ifá/Òrìṣà practice in the United States from practitioners born in the United States that were initiated in Nigeria, West Africa.The epistemology of the Ifá/Òrìṣà belief system in the United States has been based on the history and influence of Regla de Ocha or Santeria that developed out of Cuban innovation and practice.This is an ethnographic and auto-ethnographic study that pulls from participant observation, field notes, interviews, and photos as data.The central question of this dissertation is what are the challenges and …

Ethnographic Insights Into Safety Communication For Frontline Workers, Kelly Jaunzems, Lelia Green, David Leith, Christine Teague

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Recent calls for organisation studies to embrace ‘the practice turn’ (Whittington, 2011) have expanded into an understanding of the potential for ethnographic research in occupational health and safety (OHS) research (Pink et al., 2016). The ethnographic project described here, with fieldwork conducted between 2008 and 2010, is one element of this growing appreciation of the potential for qualitative research in industrial settings. Ethnographies have not often been used in OHS settings, and ‘much practicebased knowledge remains undocumented, informal, unspoken and thus unaccounted for’ (Pink et al., 2016, p. 27). This study was motivated by an aim to make explicit the …

Pro-Islamic State Twitter Users In A Post-Suspension Era, Colby Grace

Theses and Dissertations

Twitters efforts to silence pro-IS users has been largely unsuccessful. I apply discourse analysis techniques to better understand why that is. The findings demonstrate that Twitter’s account suspension campaign is outmatched by a community that now values account suspensions as a right of passage. I propose a new method.

Individual Thought Patterns: Women In New York's Extreme Metal Music Scene, Joan M. Jocson-Singh

Theses and Dissertations

Extreme metal music (EMM) is both an umbrella term and a sub-category of heavy metal. Although women have a small but steady presence in heavy metal, this number shrinks when applied to the EMM scene. Using ethnographic research, participant-observation and interviews, this study surveys women in New York's EMM scene to address participation, gender performativity and feminist musicology.

Cause For Question: Risk And Postmodern Panic In The Vaccine Safety Debate, Marygrace Trifilio

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the thoughts and feelings of non-vaccinating parents in America and argues that contemporary vaccine refusal results from overwhelming information saturation in the Internet age. Non-vaccinating parents express distrust of competing scientific research and call for a return to a more natural, toxin-free lifestyle.

Pushback: Critical Data Designers And Pollution Politics, Kim Fortun, Lindsay Poirier, Alli Morgan, Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn, Mike Fortun

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

In this paper, we describe how critical data designers have created projects that ‘push back’ against the eclipse of environmental problems by dominant orders: the pioneering pollution database Scorecard, released by the US NGO Environmental Defense Fund in 1997; the US Environmental Protection Agency’s EnviroAtlas that brings together numerous data sets and provides tools for valuing ecosystem services; and the Houston Clean Air Network’s maps of real-time ozone levels in Houston. Drawing on ethnographic observations and interviews, we analyse how critical data designers turn scientific data and findings into claims and visualisations that are meaningful in contemporary political terms. The …

Brothers In Blood: The Significance Of Land And Loss In The Creation Of Jewish And Native American Ethnic And Religious Identity, Michael Eron Chaness

Dissertations - ALL

Volunteering at the Onondaga Nation School and collaborating with Chief Jacobs has exposed me to a new and subversive underbelly of American political and religious life. Working on sovereign Native land also provided valuable on the ground experience in Onondaga language and Haudenosaunee culture - food, humor, lacrosse, art, ceremony, government, education etc. Throughout my tenure at Onondaga I have used comparison as the backdrop for my experiences collaborating with Native peoples as well as the methodological backbone for this dissertation project.

My dissertation project, Brothers in Blood: the Significance of Land and Loss in the Creation of Jewish and …

Lipan Apache Tribe Of Texas: Ethnic And Racial Identity, Ashley S. Leal

Theses and Dissertations

The findings presented in this study are based on a series of semi-structured interviews, focused on racial, ethnic and cultural identity, with 20 registered members of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. Analysis of the interviews show that while members are spread across the country the basic cultural identity still remains the same: they are all cultural and tribal ambassadors to future generations and the world around them. Results indicate that interviewed members share the same aspirations of becoming federally recognized by the United States government, not for any type of benefits but to be seen as real Indians through …

Women In The Shadows : Gender, Puppets, And The Power Of Tradition In Bali, Jennifer Goodlander

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Wayang kulit, or shadow puppetry, connects a mythic past to the present through public ritual performance and is one of most important performance traditions in Bali. The dalang, or puppeteer, is revered in Balinese society as a teacher and spiritual leader. Recently, women have begun to study and perform in this traditionally male role, an innovation that has triggered resistance and controversy.
In Women in the Shadows, Jennifer Goodlander draws on her own experience training as a dalang as well as interviews with early women dalang and leading artists to upend the usual assessments of such gender role shifts. She …

'I Am Rohingya': A Pedagogical Study On The Roles Of Ethnographic Theatre For A Refugee Youth Population, Yusuf Zine

Social Justice and Community Engagement

No abstract provided.

Making The Mark : Gender, Identity, And Genital Cutting, Miroslava Prazak

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Why do female genital cutting practices persist? How does circumcision affect the rights of girls in a culture where initiation forms the lynchpin of the ritual cycle at the core of defining gender, identity, and social and political status? In Making the Mark, Miroslava Prazak follows the practice of female circumcision through the lives and activities of community members in a rural Kenyan farming society as they decide whether or not to participate in the tradition.

In an ethnography twenty years in the making, Prazak weaves multiple Kuria perspectives—those of girls, boys, family members, circumcisers, political and religious leaders—into a …

Waiting For A Place: At Gravedigger’S Pub, Jeffrey Alan Tolbert

Faculty Journal Articles

In this essay I consider how place can defeat our attempts to analyze it by become meaningful to us in ways that exceed the scope of our scholarly interests and methods. Discussing my fieldwork at a Dublin pub, I touch on the concepts of sense of place, nostalgia, and the importance of human relationships that form in places even in the context of what might be considered "failed" research.