Resilience and Ritual: Marriage and Divorce during the Pandemic

Although ethnographic studies of marriage in 20th century Hungary have reckoned with the impact of socio-cultural transformations on getting married, nonetheless they primarily emphasized the normative aspects and permanence of the ritual; they stressed that marriage preserved “traditions”, or even that folk tradition acting as an ethno-folk-national “matrix” preserved and maintained the wedding rituals. Even if they touched upon the transformation of rituals, they primarily highlighted the modernization, simplification, fragmentation of the act of getting married and the marginalization of original meanings, traditional community norms, ideologies, and roles. Could this static and normative image depicting marriage not as a changing but rather as a decaying, diminished institution be in fact the result and consequence of an epistemological tradition, a methodological-theoretical focus that hides the process of the emergence of a new conception of marriage based on free choice, improvisation and on the idea of the individual breaking free of the yoke of normative traditions? The purpose of my paper is twofold. I will examine what the earlier Hungarian ethnographic studies understood by constancy, normativity, traditional or modern of wedding rituals. On the other hand, based on my current anthropological research (2019-2022, during the Covid–2019 pandemic) I will analyze the contemporary marriage rituals: and using the results of my research I also undertake a different kind of rereading of 20th century ethnographic descriptions. My paper based on the results of my digital anthropological research carried out between 2019 and 2022 (online questionnaires, digital ethnography, and in-depth interviews). I argue that the earlier Hungarian ethnographic approaches to weddings at the time may have been significantly influenced by prevailing Hungarian and international normative conceptualizations and theories of tradition and modernity.

The rise of digital technologies has the potential to open new directions in ethnography. Despite the ubiquity of these technologies, their infiltration into popular sociological research methods is still limited compared to the insatiable uptake of online scholarly research portals. This article argues that social researchers cannot afford to continue this trend. Building upon pioneering work in `digital ethnography', I critically examine the possibilities and problems of four new technologies — online questionnaires, digital video, social networking websites, and blogs — and their potential impacts on the research relationship. The article concludes that a balanced combination of physical and digital ethnography not only gives researchers a larger and more exciting array of methods, but also enables them to demarginalize the voice of respondents. However, access to these technologies remains stratified by class, race, and gender of both researchers and respondents.

In just over a decade, the transnational expansion of Turkish media industry reached regions geographically and culturally distant from Turkey, thus establishing Turkish dramas as a prominent media contra-flow. In Brazil, the rise of Turkish dramas is supported by informal distribution: many online fan communities translate, add subtitles, and distribute episodes without monetary profit, which is a practice known as fansubbing. In this research, I focus on the biggest Brazilian fansubbing community of Turkish dramas to investigate the complexity behind this practice from the perspectives of distribution and reception. Through online questionnaires, a virtual ethnography, and in-depth interviews, I explore how these communities operate and impact the daily lives of audiences. Findings point out that by making Turkish content more accessible, they are reshaping media practices taking the place of national broadcasters and subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services in the popularization of Turkish dramas in Brazil.

In 1966, a new homelessness charity, Shelter, set out to redefine the homeless as impoverished families enduring poor or insecure housing rather than single men living on the street. Through a series of ‘hard-hitting’ reports and adverts, the group highlighted the destructiveness of poor housing on young families and gained a prominent national voice. This article examines Shelter’s campaigns in the 1960s to examine how debates about homes and homelessness can reframe the development of discourses of ‘crisis’ that defined the 1970s and provided a key narrative of Thatcherism. It focuses on how Shelter deployed ideas of childhood, family, and the family home, often echoing theories of leading child psychiatrists of the post-war period, to warn of the profound and acute danger that the housing crisis represented to British society. Shelter’s prominent and successful adverts and campaigns drew on growing anxieties about social and economic crisis, but did not discuss key issues of unemployment, racial discrimination, and deindustrialization. Instead, Shelter’s campaigns focused on the damage poor housing did to family life and the education and life chances of individual children. Discourses of crisis in this period are often associated with ‘inner cities’ and failing reconstruction schemes, but Shelter presented an image of social crisis that was centred in the family and the family home. By analysing how Shelter drew on fears about the coming social crisis, the article suggests that the family home and the life chances of individuals were central to popular understandings and perceptions of crisis before the 1970s.

The purpose of this research was to explore the dynamics of love language and the nature of interpersonal communication in encouraging healthy communication in marriage. The research employed a mixed-methods approach to investigate the love languages of newlywed and long-married couples. The sample used is nonprobability sampling, where the population consists of married individuals. Thus, a purposive sampling strategy was employed. For this reason, 64 married individuals from the Bone area were included in the research, divided into 32 newlyweds and 32 long-married couples, each in the Tanete Riattang Barat sub-district, where three of each marital length willingly participated in an in-depth interview. Descriptive and thematic analysis were the types of analysis employed. The findings revealed several key points. Firstly, there is a wide spectrum of love language expressions. Second, "physical touch" was found to be the primary love language among newlyweds. In contrast, long-married couples expressed love primarily through "acts of service. Third, the research further revealed a significant correlation between the duration of marriage (whether newlyweds or long-married couples) and their primary love language, revealing that the duration of marriage may change the way couples express their feelings. Finally, it is worth noting that the findings were limited by a lack of awareness of the sociolinguistic nature of the research population.

The elevated divorce rate in Purwokerto has become a focal point for the local government due to its adverse repercussions. This research has identified five primary factors contributing to divorce, encompassing education, economic status, religion, access to healthcare, and environmental factors. This study employs empirical legal methods analyzed in accordance with Islamic family law theory. In-depth interviews were conducted with informants, as well as literature studies and data collection techniques. The results showed two critical findings. First, Islamic family law makes it clear that although divorce is legal, God views it negatively. Divorce is considered a final option when mediation becomes unfeasible. For a divorce to be valid, it must meet various criteria, such as guidelines for property division and child custody. Additionally, the Qur'an and Hadith discuss the five legitimate reasons for divorce. Secondly, the issue of divorce is regulated by normative positive law. However, no legal regulations are specifically available at the local government level to support efforts to reduce divorce rates based on the five leading causes. In particular, the five causes of divorce are also discussed based on relevant normative regulations and support from previous studies. The two sources of family law and Islamic law have different views regarding the legal requirements of divorce and its scope. However, in terms of similarities, both sources of family law and Islamic law support efforts to protect children and empower women victims of divorce. With national legal regulations, the government is responsible for providing effective rules to resolve the causes of high divorce rates legally.

When COVID-19 health guidelines vastly restricted or shut down in-person ethnographic research in 2020, many researchers pivoted to forms of online qualitative research using platforms such as WeChat, Twitter, and Discord. This growing body of qualitative internet research in sociology is often encapsulated under the umbrella term "digital ethnography." But the question of what makes digital qualitative research ethnographic remains open. In this article, we posit that digital ethnographic research necessitates a negotiation of the ethnographer's self-presentation and co-presence within the field that other forms of qualitative research, such as content or discourse analysis, do not require to satisfy their epistemological stance. To make our case, we provide a brief overview of digital research in sociology and related disciplines. Then, we draw upon our experiences conducting ethnographies in digital communities and in-person communities (what we call here, "analog ethnography") to explore how decisions about self-presentation and co-presence facilitate or block the generation of meaningful ethnographic data. We think through pertinent questions such as: Does the lower barrier for anonymity online justify disguised research? Does anonymity generate thicker data? How should digital ethnographers participate in research environments? What are the possible repercussions of digital participation? We argue that digital and analog ethnographies share a common epistemology that is distinct from non-participatory forms of qualitative digital research-namely the need for the researcher to relationally gather data from the field site over an extended period of time.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), located in the Arabian Gulf, has undergone significant social changes over the last 50 years. In addition to the positive social changes that have occurred since the discovery of oil, there also has been an increase in social problems, including divorce. Divorce rates are on the rise in the UAE, and the government is particularly concerned with the rising divorce rate among its citizens. Using both document analysis and in-depth interviews, this study sought to explore reasons for the increasing divorce rates; we analyzed 367 completed divorce files from four UAE emirates' courts: Sharjah, Ajman, Um Al Quwain, and Fujairah. Additionally, we conducted in-depth interviews with four divorced Emirati women to gain an understanding of unknown aspects of the divorce phenomenon in the UAE and inform government or social programs that are aimed at reducing the divorce rates.

The United Arab Emirates, an oil-wealthy Gulf nation, has undergone significant social changes since the discovery of oil. Although many changes have been positive, there has also been an increase in social problems, including divorce. The rising divorce rate is alarming, considering that divorce is detrimental to Emirati families, where commitment to Islam, strong family ties and a sense of tradition are highly valued. This article presents findings from a qualitative study in which I interviewed 10 divorced Emirati women, using phenomenology as my methodological framework. Data were collected through one-to-one in-depth interviews. Several issues being common to the respondents emerged, including family interference, early marriage, the desire to know more about the partner before marriage, domestic violence, controlling spouses and the social stigma of divorce. Social exchange theory of divorce is presented in an effort to analyse why divorce is an option for some of today’s Emirati women.

To understand how the digitalization of higher education influences the inter-relationship between students, teachers, and their broader contexts, research must account for the social, cultural, political, and embodied aspects of teaching and learning in digital environments. Digital ethnography is a research method that can generate rich contextual knowledge of online experiences. However, how this methodology translates to higher education is less clear. In order to explore the opportunities that digital ethnography can provide in higher education research, this paper presents a methodological review of previous research, and discusses the implications for future practice. Through a systematic search of five research databases, we found 20 papers that report using digital ethnographies to explore teaching and learning in higher education. The review synthesizes and discusses how data collection, rigour, and ethics are handled in this body of research, with a focus on the specific methodological challenges that emerge when doing digital ethnographic research in a higher education setting. The review also identifies opportunities for improvement—especially related to participant observation from the student perspective, researcher reflexivity in relation to the dual teacher-researcher role, and increased diversity of data types. This leads us to conclude that higher education research, tasked with understanding an explosion of new digital practices, could benefit from a more rigorous and expanded use of digital ethnography.

This chapter explores some of the ethical challenges posed by digital ethnography as an innovative methodology for conducting online research. Digital ethnography shares many of the principles of traditional (offline) ethnography, including an ethnographic commitment to understanding participants’ lives and experiences through observation and active participation (Hine, 2000). One of a number of virtual ethnographic approaches, digital ethnography can be distinguished from other approaches by its focus on the intersection of digital technologies with the Internet. Ease of access to a ready and rich body of data, and an active understanding of the meanings of everyday digital practices for research participants, are some of the key advantages of digital ethnography. However, as we will demonstrate, this convenience also acts as a disadvantage as it entails the negotiation of a number of complex ethical issues. While debates about the ethical aspects of conducting research online have taken place since the development of the first Internet browsers in the mid-90s (Naughton, 2000), a significant shift has occurred in the online practices of Internet users, and the ways in which the Internet itself has shaped these practices in the last decade. In particular, the advent of Web 2.0 has further muddied existing ethical concerns about overt and covert observation, blurred distinctions between the public and the private, complicated the question of informed consent and data protection, and thrown open questions about the authorship and ownership of data (Snee, 2008).

Roused by their experience at the Notting Hill Carnival of 1976, the Clash penned their first single “White Riot” and at an early stage helped to establish the burgeoning punk community’s obsession with violence. In the context of the social and economic crises of the late 1970s and early 1980s, street level disorders and attacks were common place. However, punk’s use of aggression was more than a simple embrace of violence’s banality during the period. It constituted a response to postwar British discourse about youth and the stark rise in divorce rates. Punks used violence to react against cultural isolation and to find individual, masculine empowerment as part of a subcultural community.

The #MeToo movement has emerged as a worldwide phenomenon, revolutionizing conversations about sex and power on social media platforms. This research investigates feminist expressions surrounding #MeToo on Facebook in Israel using virtual ethnography (netnography) and in-depth interviews. Netnography is a qualitative method for the cultural analysis of online community data. The study design included several separate steps: examination of feminist Facebook groups, identification and classification of posts, and analysis and presentation of findings as well as their meanings and empowerment effects in Israel, especially the infusion of militaristic and masculine elements from Israeli culture into local #MeToo feminist social media discourse. This research articulates the varied feminist practices that are made possible and encouraged via the social networking platform of Facebook. This research contributes to the body of knowledge on online feminist discourse by analyzing the expressions and messaging characteristics used by Facebook group members and their affective mediated role as acts of feminism, mainly in the form of broad social meanings that can be inferred from posts.

"Divorce is considered a form of family disintegration that leads to the demolition of the family and family pillars after its construction through the marriage contract and then the termination of all social ties between husband and wife and often between their relatives. Divorce rates have risen to frightening levels that threaten our Islamic societies. Among the most important causes of divorce in our society are the following: The failure of one or both spouses in the process of adapting to the other through the different nature of the spouses and their personalities, the interference of the parents, the lack of harmony and compatibility between the spouses, the bad relationship and the large number of marital problems, the cultural openness, the absence of dialogue within the family. Several parties have sought to develop possible solutions to this dangerous phenomenon in our society, including: Establishment of advisory offices to reduce divorce by social and psychological specialists, and include the issue of divorce within the educational and educational curricula in a more concerned manner that shows the extent of the seriousness of divorce and its negative effects on the individual, family and society, and the development of an integrated policy that ensures the treatment of the causes and motives leading to divorce in the community, as well as holding conferences. Scientific and enlightening seminars and awareness workshops and the need for religious institutions and their media platforms to play a guiding and awareness role of the danger and effects of divorce on family construction and society, and to educate community members about the dangers of divorce and the importance of maintaining the husband’s bond and stability. As well as reviewing some marriage legislation and regulations, such as raising the age of marriage and reconsidering the issue of underage marriage, which is witnessing a rise in divorce rates. Among the proposed solutions is the demand to withdraw the power of divorce from the man's hands and place it in the hands of the judge, to prevent certain harm to women, or as a means to prevent the frequent occurrence of divorce. The last proposition created a problem that contradicts the stereotypical image of divorce in Islamic law, for which conditions and elements have been set, especially since Islamic Sharia is the main source of personal status laws in most Islamic countries. Therefore, the importance of this research is reflected in the study of this solution and its effectiveness as a means to prevent the spread of divorce, and not deviate from the pattern specified for it according to Sharia."

Ethical considerations and challenges for using digital ethnography to research vulnerable populations