Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

An Ethnographic Case Study Of A Deaf Workforce Collective, Peter Shane Butler

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This ethnographic study seeks to increase our understanding of the individual and shared experiences of five members of a Deaf United States Postal Service (USPS) collective employment cohort in regards to their early learning experiences, how these experiences led to collective employment, and how the collective employment opportunity led them to establish a new Strong Deaf Community in Houston. The data collected through semi structured interviews will be used to increase our understanding about how Strong Deaf Communities form, and what purpose they serve for grassroots members.

This study also seeks to shed light on why it is critical for …

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.

Hard Work, Overcoming, And Masculinity: An Ethnographic Account Of High School Wrestlers' Bodies And Cultural Worlds, Bryan Snyder

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The dissertation explores the cultural worlds of high school wrestlers at an inner-city school in the Mountain West region of the United States. The data upon which this dissertation is based come from a ten-month ethnography, where I conducted “observant participation” (Wacquant 2011) and semi-structured, open-ended interviews with members of this school’s wrestling team. I approached both my data collection and analysis through cultural-sociological frames. Although I intend to contribute to a number of areas of specialization, in this dissertation I use high school wrestling as a site to ask basic questions about key sociological themes such as meaning, identity, …

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 7, Gender, In Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

An ethnographic description of gender roles on Sikaiana, Solomon Islands from 1980-1993.

A related website can be found at 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

Chapter 3, Daily Life In Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

This chapter is a discussion of daily life on Sikaiana in the Solomon Islands , 980-1993. It describes daily routines, work and events.

A related website can be found at www.sikaianaarchives.com

Chapter 6, Family, In Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

A discussion of the importance of kinship, descent, marriage and family among the Sikaiana people of the Solomon Islands, 1980-1993.

A related website is www.sikaianaarchives.com

Chapter 9 Interaction, In Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

Concepts of person and expectations for interaction among the Sikaiana people of the Solomon Islands from 1980-1993.

Related material at www.Sikaianaarchives.com

Chapter 5, History, In Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

This chapter is a discussion of the legendary and the more recent recorded history of the Sikaiana people from the Solomon Islands.

A related website can be found 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 …

Critical Bifocality And Circuits Of Privilege: Expanding Critical Ethnographic Theory And Design, Lois Weis, Michelle Fine

Publications and Research

Almost 10 years ago, in Working Method (2004), we argued for a critical theory of method for educational studies, which would analyze lives in the context of history, structure, and institutions, across the power lines of privilege and marginalization.

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 …

Cape Crusaders : An Ethnography Investigating The Surfing Subculture Of Cape Naturaliste, Western Australia, Robert Anthony Holt

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Surfing is a byzantine phenomenon. With a global army surpassing 30 million participants, the wave riding culture has escalated from an underground lifestyle into a mainstream colossus. This thesis investigates a unique population of the surfing culture, the Cape Naturaliste surfing subculture. Located in the South West of Western Australia, Cape Naturaliste is home to the Cape Crusaders.

Recipes Of Resolve: Food And Meaning In Post-Diluvian New Orleans, Jessica Claire Menck

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

In 2005 the city of New Orleans experienced catastrophic flooding as a result of the failure of the federal levee system following Hurricane Katrina. This was an immediate disaster that evolved into a longer-term crisis as the city, state, and national government struggled to respond to the event. This study focuses on one part of managing crisis: meaning making. Specifically, the study investigates meaning making within the food community of New Orleans, asking the questions: is food a way for individuals and groups to make meaning following critical change events such as the failure of the federal levee system in …