Sociology of Culture Commons^™

How I Obtained My Phd Admission Letter: A Reflective Interaction-Based Autoethnography, Qing Xu, Kei Wei Chia

The Qualitative Report

This account utilises autoethnography to explore how the “one-child generation’s” cultural context influences behaviours and character traits, focusing on the first author’s experiences during a 5-month doctoral program application. It examines interactions with the employer, unacquainted individuals, intermediaries, and family, encapsulated in three Episodes, to analyse the personality traits of this generation. The findings reveal that, though deeply rooted in traditional culture, character traits such as risk aversion, caution, and family dependency are not immutable. It highlights the potential for personal transformation through inward growth, proactive external engagement, and the support of families who challenge traditional norms. In terms of …

Exploring Alternative Approaches To Peace: Traditions, Beliefs And Memories In The Democratic Republic Of Congo, Yvon Muya Cimanga

Peace and Conflict Studies Journal Conference

The paper discusses alternative conflict resolution mechanisms that researchers, conflict management practitioners and policy makers could consider. In countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, political agreements reached in recent years to the sound of drums have continued to show their limits (Autesserre, 2006; Kibisswa, 2015). In addition to the ongoing wars, tensions remain high between some ethnic communities. How can these traditional peace agreements be strengthened, and sustainable peace fostered for the benefit of society as a whole? The research draws on the richness of social and cultural practices within Congolese communities and suggests original models of …

A Grounded Theory Of Enterprising Mothers: Work-Life Balancing Of Women In Fiji, Candauda Arachchige Saliya

The Qualitative Report

Gender equality is recognized as crucial for firms’ growth. This paper attempts to investigate how and why do certain sociocultural and structural factors influence sustained gender inequality in Fiji? And then, using Grounded Theory (GT) method, it attempts to conceptualise how are Fijian working mothers striving to promote equality and diversity in the workplace, society, and family-life? By employing Grounded theory (GT) method, semi-structured interviews (32) were used to collect data from high-ranked officers in private and public sectors and, the interview transcripts were analysed using GT techniques: iterative and recursive processes of coding, categorising, theoretical sampling and constant comparison. …

Tiempo Y Gubernamentalidad: Aproximaciones Al Gobierno Del Tiempo En El Neoliberalismo, Edwin Alexander Hernández Zapata, Mauricio Hernando Bedoya Hernández

The Qualitative Report

En este trabajo problematizamos los diagnósticos sobre gubernamentalidad neoliberal, analizando las formas en que hoy son dirigidas las conductas de los sujetos con base en ritmos caracterizados por la velocidad, el presentismo y la competencia. Estudiar estas formas marcan un precedente para el abordaje de los procesos de subjetivación contemporánea a partir de la analítica de la temporalidad. Así, la pregunta de investigación que guía este trabajo es la siguiente: ¿Cómo los diagnósticos sobre la racionalidad neoliberal describen la experiencia del tiempo que tienen los sujetos contemporáneos? Utilizamos el método histórico crítico, específicamente lo que Foucault denominó ontología del presente, …

Entramados Discursivos De Las Maternidades Contemporáneas A Través De Los Contextos Digitales, Catalina Echeverri Gallo, Nicolasa M. Durán Palacio

The Qualitative Report

Las narrativas sobre las maternidades heteronormativas son cada vez más debatidas en la contemporaneidad desde los escenarios digitales. A través de blogs en diferentes plataformas y sitios web, las mujeres comparten sus experiencias sobre, avatares, encuentros y desencuentros frente a una de las instituciones insignias del patriarcado: la maternidad. En estos espacios digitales, las madres blogueras y sus seguidoras crean redes de apoyo para tejer y entretejer sus sentidos, saberes, sentires y prácticas sobre las maternidades, más allá de la dominación patriarcal. Este texto deriva de una investigación doctoral que se sirvió de una etnografía digital con siete blogueras colombianas …

Ethnographic Case-Study Design For Discovering Identities In Russian Post-Industrial Neighbourhoods, Elizaveta Polukhina

The Qualitative Report

In the 20th century of industrialization, case-study research design was related to organizations, however in the 21st century of deindustrialization the post-industrial neighborhoods could serves as an indicator of neo-liberal policies and as a reference space for identity studies. However, the instruments of these studies are still poorly described, which limits this type of research design and the comparative analysis of similar neighborhoods in the global context. This paper describes the methodology and insights from three ethnographic case-studies of neighbourhoods—a type of field research focused on detailed inquiry with multiple methods of data collection. This paper follows the Chicago School …

Puhi In The Tree And Other Stories: Unlocking The Metaphor In Native And Indigenous Hawaiian Storytelling, Renuka M. De Silva, Joshua E. Hunter

The Qualitative Report

Human beings live and tell stories for many reasons, and it is a way to not only understand one another but to give a time and place to events and experiences. Therefore, a narrational approach within the context of this research offers a frame of reference and a way to reflect during the entire process of gathering data and writing. This study examines the importance of storytelling among Native (Kānaka ‘Ōiwi) and Indigenous (Kānaka Maoli) women of Hawai ̒ i and their interconnectedness to land and spirituality through accessing [k]new knowledge. The main focus of this article is to illustrate …

Safety In Numbers? A Qualitative Analysis Of The 1999 National Firearms Survey, Zachary T. Carlisle, Michelle L. Estes

The Qualitative Report

Firearms and their place in American society have been under heavy scrutiny for the past several decades. Previous academic research typically focused on the firearm as a weapon that needs to be regulated, controlled, and the relative fight between various parties concerning second amendment and constitutional rights. However, inadequate scholarly research focuses on the firearm as an abstract, symbolic entity in American culture, and what the firearm represents to Americans in a more complex, abstruse way. This research utilizes the National Firearms Survey (NFS), conducted in 1999, as a mechanism of secondary qualitative analysis to examine the ways in which …

Madurese Fishing Community Cultural Perception Of Coastal Litter, Habibi Habibi, I Gusti Putu Suryadarma, Insih Wilujeng

The Qualitative Report

Piles of litter on the beach polluting the sea have become one of the global problems at this time. Indonesia is an archipelago country whose coastline is inhabited by tribes who have been living as fishermen for hundreds of years. Therefore, it is important to understand what the cultural perception of the fishing community is regarding the litter problem. This study aimed to figure out the perception of the fishing community in Madurese culture regarding the litter on the beach. By adhering to the phenomenological paradigm, the researchers chose four fishing families in Madura, conducted semi-structured interviews and observations, as …

Kiss Of Love Campaign: Contesting Public Morality To Counter Collective Violence, Sonia Krishna Kurup Miss

Peace and Conflict Studies

The paper studies the immense opposition to a nonviolent campaign against the practice of moral policing in Kerala to understand the dominant spaces, collective identities, and discourses that give shape to the outrage of public morality in India. The campaign through its politics specifically targeted rightwing and political groups as well as socially embedded familial and institutional structures that exercise control over individuals through patriarchal regimes. The adverse reaction to the campaign revealed that collective aggression or violence can be used to impose majoritarian values and exert social control through the authority of public morality and everyday acts of moral …

Defying Dementia: An Exploration Of Recovery, Deb Miller, Corey W. Johnson

The Qualitative Report

Exploring the human side of dementia helps put a face on this fast-growing affliction. This study reflects one elderly woman’s story of recovery from dementia that arose following a stroke. Painting a portrait of life with dementia can help us conceptualize the experience, how people live and how they would like to live. The woman is Marcia, my mom, and this is a qualitative inquiry with a collaborative narrative design to explore her experiences and to document my own. This study may help dementia patients and their support teams better understand the process of living with dementia and can perhaps …

The Meaning Of Javanese Adolescents' Involvement In Youth Gangs During The Discoveries Of Youth Identity: A Phenomenological Study, Enung Hasanah, Supardi Supardi

The Qualitative Report

Yogyakarta is a part of Javanese society. Javanese culture, which always enforces moral values, has a practical implication toward adolescents' views about their self-identity. Yogyakarta adolescents are well known to have positive self-identity, good behavior, and tend to become successful persons in their youth. In the past years, a phenomenon of youth gangs that often conduct irresponsible acts such as brawls, stabbing terror, and even murder has emerged. The question of the research is how adolescent members of a youth gang give meaning to their involvement in a youth gang. To answer the question, we used a phenomenological research method. …

Young In University-Work Transition: The Views Of Undergraduates In Southern Italy, Cristiano Felaco Phd, Anna Parola

The Qualitative Report

In the last few years, economic and social changes have made the path from university to work long and twisted, in particular in Southern Italy, an area with the highest rate of unemployment. This contribution aims to exploring the experiences of university-work transition of undergraduates. Using an open-ended interview, the authors obtained narrative data from 150 undergraduates from Southern Italy. Textual Analysis and Text Network Analysis were carried out to identify the thematic clusters and obtain the network pattern of lemmas in order to understand process of meaning construction of students. The analysis shows four clusters: “Awareness of one’s own …

Al-Shabaab And Boko Haram: Recruitment Strategies, J. Tochukwu Omenma, Cheryl Hendricks, Nnamdi C. Ajaebili

Peace and Conflict Studies

This paper is an examination of the membership recruitment strategies of two violent extremist organizations (VEOs), namely al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. The majority of the literature on VEOs concentrates on the conceptualization of terrorism, motivations for terrorism and counter-terrorism strategies, as well as a focus on the frequency of VEO attacks, number of fatalities and funding sources. The literature tends to portray poverty as the main driver of recruitment. The focus on recruitment strategies has been relatively recent. There is therefore still a lack of in-depth analyses on the processes of recruitment of specific extremist groups, and this impacts on …

Conflict Between Religious Beliefs And Sexuality: An Autoethnography, Carlos E. Gerena

The Qualitative Report

Despite the shift in attitudes in religious institutions toward homosexuals in the United States, there are some religions that continue to view same-sex behavior as a deviant and damning sin. For many, religious beliefs and values provide meaning and impact personal identity. Using autoethnography, I will explicate my own experiences with religious institutions and the ongoing conflict between religious beliefs and sexuality. I will discuss messages received from the Pentecostal church, family, and Latino community, and how these messages influenced my human development and emotional well-being. I show that internalization of the principles taught by the Pentecostal Church triggered a …

Watching “Insidious” – On The Social Construction Of Fear, Charlotte D. Renda

The Qualitative Report

As mass media are an integral part of our everyday lives, their role in constituting emotions and feeling rules receives heightened attention. However, content analyses and psychoanalytical/reaction analyses focus on a film-viewer-relation that does not consider the group character of media consumption. This article deals with the question of how fear is socially constructed and interactively negotiated by taking an ethnomethodological look at videos that teenagers have taken of themselves while watching the horror movie Insidious. It puts forward two inter-related forms of ambiguity: the ambiguity of what emotions are appropriate, that is, the ways in which feeling rules are …

Developing Interactive Elicitation: Social Desirability Bias And Capturing Play, Matthew Spokes, Jack Denham

The Qualitative Report

Drawing on research from a mixed-methods project on gaming we argue for a qualitative methodological approach called “interactive elicitation,” a form of data collection that combines elements of photo elicitation, interviewing and vignettes. After situating our broader research project exploring young people’s experiences of violent open-world video games, we outline the process of conducting interactive elicitation, arguing for a mixed-methods approach where participants are observed and interviewed both during and immediately after interacting with particular cultural artefacts, in this case the game GTA V. We reflect on the initial design of the research methodology, the problematic aspects of conducting the …

Gender Identity And Facebook: Social Conservatism And Saving Face, Nastaran Khoshsabk, Jane Southcott

The Qualitative Report

People increasingly log on to Social Networking Websites to remain updated with the latest News and to share their thoughts and their significant life events. Their perception of their own and others’ identities influences their self-presentation on social media. There is a mental image of the audience on the mind of online users when they share content. The extent to which individuals reveal or conceal aspects of their identities within a socio-cultural context affects the presentation of their digital gender identity. We have explored Internet accessibility and use of social media relating to adult users for both Iranians living in …

On The Discursive Appropriation Of The Antinatalist Ideology In Social Media, George Rossolatos

The Qualitative Report

Antinatalism, a relatively recent moral philosophical perspective and ideology that avows “it is better not to have ever existed,” has spawned a new social movement with an active presence in social media. This study draws on the discourse historical approach (DHA) to critical discourse analysis for offering a firm understanding as to how the collective identity of the Facebook antinatalist NSM is formed. The findings from the analysis of the situated interaction among the NSM’s members demonstrate that collective identity is far from a knitty-gritty concept, but a dynamic schema that includes a plethora of micro-interactions. Individuals constantly negotiate its …

Cultural Variations And Socio-Ecocultural Understanding On Cross-Cultural Adaptation, Awang Rozaimie

The Qualitative Report

Cross-cultural adaptation is a challenging process while sojourning abroad. The inability to understand cultural variation triggers psychological, physical or behavioral difficulties and maladjustment or misunderstanding. Socio-ecocultural underestimation is the root of intercultural resistance, stereotyping, ethnocentrism and racist sentiments among sojourners. Most of the cross-cultural adjustment studies have quantitatively demonstrated factors and predictors of adaptation success. However, the specific forms of cultural variation that impacted sojourning adaptability is blindly explained. Hence, this phenomenological paper autoethnographically observed the socio-ecocultural environment while sojourning in New Zealand. The findings highlighted that cultural awareness and sensitivity assist sojourner’s cross-cultural adaptability due to the socio-ecocultural variation.

Different Choices: A Public School Community’S Responses To School Choice Reforms, Amanda U. Potterton

The Qualitative Report

In the United States, state and federal reforms increasingly encourage the expansion of school choice policies. Debates about school choice contrast various concepts of freedom and equality with concerns about equity, justice, achievement, democratic accountability, profiting management organizations, and racial and class segregation. Arizona’s “market”-based school choice programs include over 600 charter schools, and the state’s open enrollment practices, public and private school tax credit allowances, and Empowerment Scholarships, (closely related to vouchers), flourish. This qualitative analysis explores one district-run public school and its surrounding community, and I discuss socio-political and cultural tensions related to school choice reforms that exist …

Treating Resistance As Data In Qualitative Interviews, Dimitra Kizlari, Kalliopi Fouseki

The Qualitative Report

Scientific interviews provide a useful resource for qualitative researchers studying people’s perceptions on contemporary phenomena. This article contributes to the large body of literature on qualitative interviews by investigating a rather common but under-reported pattern in interviews, that of resistance. Resistance is a form of power that the participant maintains and can exercise at any moment. The phenomenon knows various expressions from a refusal on the side of the participant to sign the consent form to question dodging or embellished accounts. Two case studies are used to underpin the basic argument that resistance in interviews may be a valuable finding …

A 3-Level Model Of Insider Ethnography, Andreas Giazitzoglu, Geoff Payne

The Qualitative Report

This article discusses ethnographic insiderness. After juxtaposing insider and outsider ethnography, we suggest insider-ethnography requires a more nuanced and complete discussion for it to be better understood, theoretically and practically. Accordingly, we propose a model of insider-ethnography that suggests three relative levels of ethnographic insiderness exist. We use examples from extant ethnography to substantiate our model theoretically and empirically. Our analysis occurs at a time when calls for a more reflexive understanding of ethnography exist, but reflexive analysis of insider ethnography is sparse.

Civic Engagement Among Greek University Students: “Passive-Passive-Smokers” And Cultural Power, Luciana Benincasa

The Qualitative Report

This paper, about non-smokers’ civic engagement (or lack thereof) in the context of public venues in Greece, aims to answer the following research questions: How do non-smokers deal with smokers when their cigarette proves annoying? To what extent do non-smokers stand up for their rights? What are the perceived constraints? Smokers’ points of view are included as part of the context in which non-smokers act. Greek university students were interviewed by the author (25) and by two students trained in interviewing (6). Respondents were asked to express judgments and feelings about the smoking “regime” in public venues. Additionally, non-smokers were …

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 …

Transitioning From High School To College: Examining The Sources And Influences Of Social Capital For A First-Generation Latina Student, Randall F. Clemens

The Qualitative Report

This paper uses the life history method to narrate the experiences of Camilla, a 19-year-old, first-year student at a four-year university. Camilla emigrated with her mother from El Salvador to the United States during her freshman year of high school. Based on two years of data collection, the author presents Camilla’s experiences at different stages, including her childhood in El Salvador, first and last year in high school, and her first year in college. The paper explores the sources and influences of social capital for a low-income, first-generation student and highlights its dynamic and contextual nature. The author argues that …

Family Therapist Connecting And Building Relationships With Substance Abusers In The Seminole Tribe Of Florida: An Ethnographic Study, Sunny Nelli Khachatryan

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to examine the process of a family therapist entering and then navigating the cultural system of working with substance abusing Seminole tribal clients. The study also utilized two tribal members sharing their opinions about how Seminoles view therapy. As noted in the interview questions and responses, the research presented guidelines for family therapists to follow when working with tribal members. Because there has been no study conducted with family therapists providing clinical services to tribal members, this study introduced tools for clinicians to keep in mind and utilize when working with tribal clients. …

Perpetrator And Victim Constructions Of Justice, Forgiveness And Trauma Healing: Results Of A Thematic Narrative Study Of Intra-Group Conflict In Colonial Central Kenya, 1952-1962, Daniel Njoroge Karanja

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigated how the Gikuyu people of central Kenya understood justice, forgiveness and trauma healing or their absence during a decade of intra-group reciprocal violence. This qualitative research study employed the narrative research method utilizing the "Williams Model" (Riessman, 2008). Field interviews were guided by a primary research question: What do the narratives of perpetrators and victims in reciprocal violence reveal about their understanding of justice, forgiveness and trauma healing or their absence? Fourteen research participants aged 78 to 92 years shared their full narratives. Current conflict analysis literature overwhelmingly centers on the victims and less on perpetrators. The …

Between Warrior And Helplessness In The Valley Of Azawa - The Struggle Of The Kel Tamashek In The War Of The Sahel, Patrick James Christian

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an Investigation into the Tuareg involvement in violent conflict in the Sahara and the Sahel of North Africa from a sociological psychological perspective of unmet human needs. The research begins by establishing the structure and texture of the sociological, psychological, and emotional life patterns of their existence when not involved in violent conflict. This is followed by an examination of the pathology of Tuareg social structures that are engaged in intra and inter communal violence as perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. The first part of the research establishes normal conditions of the sociological life cycle and highlights natural …

Nation-State Personality Theory: A Qualitative Comparative Historical Analysis Of Russian Behavior, During Social/Political Transition, Mark George Bound

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

The study theorizes that a nation-state can manifest a condition similar to that of personality commonly associated with humans. Through the identification of consistent behaviors, a personality like condition is recognizable, and the underlining motivations dictate national policy independent of any current social/political influence. The research examines Russia during two historical periods examining the conflict events and social/political transitions of the period, to identify common behavioral characteristics, which indicate the existence of any independent personality like trait.

The study focuses on two historical periods: the Monarch Period of Peter I (The Great), and the Post-Soviet Union period of Vladimir Putin, …