Anthropological Ethnography Research Articles

“I’m a Monster, but I’m Not a Monster”: Symbolic and Social Identity Work Among Child Sexual Exploitation Material Users

Child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) users elicit strong negative reactions from society and people within their networks. There are symbolic and social boundaries that these individuals have transgressed, and subsequent identity work involves the negotiation of self and self-presentation. This article combines results from two studies to explore negotiation of identity, symbolic and social boundaries, and associated narratives among 103 CSEM users. One study was an anthropological ethnography with 17 months of UK fieldwork in community-based group programs, and the other involved four months of interviews in sexual offense treatment units of a US prison. Participants’ identity work had commonalities: distinguishing between acts vs identities; differentiating crimes from identities; comparing offenses to others viewed as worse; framing childhood experiences as influencing offending; and situating both offending and post-offending identities within larger society. Results are discussed in the context of debates about risk, treatment, prevention, harm, denial/downplay/minimization, and reintegration. Furthermore, we highlight how identity work occurs within potentially competing/contrasting personal, judicial, treatment, media, and societal reactions to and expectations of individuals who have committed sexual offenses. Finally, we demonstrate the methodological and analytical value of cross-disciplinary comparative qualitative research by showing similarities across participants from different countries, settings, timeframes, and interventions.

Which Ethnography? Whose Ethnography? Medical anthropology's Epistemic Sensibilities Among Health Ethnographies.

Medical anthropologists working in interdisciplinary teams often articulate expertise with respect to ethnography. Yet increasingly, health scientists utilize ethnographic methods. Through a comparative review of health ethnographies, and autoethnographic observations from interdisciplinary research, we find that anthropological ethnographies and health science ethnographies are founded on different epistemic sensibilities. Differences center on temporalities of research, writing processes, sites of social intervention, uses of theory, and analytic processes. Understanding what distinguishes anthropological ethnography from health science ethnography enables medical anthropologists - who sometimes straddle these two ethnographic modes - to better articulate their epistemic positionality and facilitate interdisciplinary research collaborations.

Causal inference in ethnographic research: Refining explanations with abductive logic, strength of evidence assessments, and graphical models.

In their classic accounts, anthropological ethnographers developed causal arguments for how specific sociocultural structures and processes shaped human thought, behavior, and experience in particular settings. Despite this history, many contemporary ethnographers avoid establishing in their work direct causal relationships between key variables in the way that, for example, quantitative research relying on experimental or longitudinal data might. As a result, ethnographers in anthropology and other fields have not advanced understandings of how to derive causal explanations from their data, which contrasts with a vibrant "causal revolution" unfolding in the broader social and behavioral sciences. Given this gap in understanding, we aim in the current article to clarify the potential ethnography has for illuminating causal processes related to the cultural influence on human knowledge and practice. We do so by drawing on our ongoing mixed methods ethnographic study of games, play, and avatar identities. In our ethnographic illustrations, we clarify points often left unsaid in both classic anthropological ethnographies and in more contemporary interdisciplinary theorizing on qualitative research methodologies. More specifically, we argue that for ethnographic studies to illuminate causal processes, it is helpful, first, to state the implicit strengths and logic of ethnography and, second, to connect ethnographic practice more fully to now well-developed interdisciplinary approaches to causal inference. In relation to the first point, we highlight the abductive inferential logic of ethnography. Regarding the second point, we connect the ethnographic logic of abduction to what Judea Pearl has called the ladder of causality, where moving from association to intervention to what he calls counterfactual reasoning produces stronger evidence for causal processes. Further, we show how graphical modeling approaches to causal explanation can help ethnographers clarify their thinking. Overall, we offer an alternative vision of ethnography, which contrasts, but nevertheless remains consistent with, currently more dominant interpretive approaches.

When ethnography meets scientific aspiration: a comparative exploration of ethnography in anthropology and accounting

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing methodological discussions surrounding the adoption of ethnographic approaches in accounting by undertaking a comparative analysis of ethnography in anthropology and ethnography in qualitative accounting research. By doing so, it abductively speculates on the factors influencing the distinct characteristics of ethnography in accounting and explores their implications. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a comparative approach, organizing the comparison using Van Maanen’s (2011a, 2011b) framework of field-, head- and text-work phases in ethnography. Furthermore, it draws on the author’s experience as a qualitative researcher who has conducted ethnographic research for more than a decade across the disciplines of anthropology and accounting, as well as for non-academic organizations, to provide illustrative examples for the comparison. Findings This paper finds that ethnography in accounting, when compared to its counterpart in anthropology, demonstrates a stronger inclination towards scientific aspirations. This is evidenced by its prevalence of realist tales, a high emphasis on “methodological rigour”, a focus on high-level theorization and other similar characteristics. Furthermore, the scientific aspiration and hegemony of the positivist paradigm in accounting research, when leading to a change of the evaluation criteria of non-positivist research, generate an impoverishment of interpretive and ethnographic research in accounting. Originality/value This paper provides critical insights from a comparative perspective, highlighting the marginalized position of ethnography in accounting research. By understanding the mechanisms of marginalization, the paper commits to reflexivity and advocates for meaningful changes within the field.

Ancestral Waters: Material Culture, Notion of Transformation and Shamanism in the Stilt Villages in Eastern Amazonia

This work aims to apply the theories of new materialities to the study of the material culture of the Formoso stilt village, a pre-colonial settlement from the ninth–tenth centuriesad, located in the Baixada Maranhense. Appliqués of the pottery bowls at this archaeological site present cosmological information regarding the transformation or metamorphosis of bodies, aspects that are fertile for the discussion of shamanism in the lowlands of South America, especially the Amazon. Classic concepts of anthropological ethnography applied to archaeology are used, contributing to the discussion on the diversity of ways to manufacture the body in the Amazon in its easternmost portion, such as that of theMaster of Animals, a supernatural entity metamorphosed by the shaman and who could also have been part of the cosmology of the lake peoples of Maranhão, Brazil. Two artifacts depicting beings that have their feet turned backwards may be associated with the Curupira, thus evidencing a long-lasting history of this supernatural being that was recorded both in colonial documentation and in indigenous ethnography.

Tradition Multicultural Society Religion in Serang City

This article examines the characteristics and cultural identity, as well as the socio-religious rituals of the people of Serang city. The research used is anthropological ethnography method. In analyzing the data, the researcher used a functional-structural approach. The results showed that although the people in Serang city were categorized as multicultural society, they still carried out their religious traditions. There are several things that affect this harmony, including the factor of religious understanding of each individual, educational background and social relations of the community. For the residents of Serang city, the distinctive characteristics wrapped in tradition have a positive meaning as local wisdom and have religious values ​​that are still maintained today.
 Keywords: Local Belief, Multicultural, Modern, Tradition .

"It was in Control of Me": Notions of Addiction and Online Child Sexual Exploitation Material Offending.

This paper focuses on notions of "addiction" among users of online child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) through a comparative analysis of two qualitative studies. The first is a 17-month anthropological ethnography (participant observation, interviews, and focus groups) in UK group programs for CSEM users, and the second is based on interviews with individuals in sexual offense treatment units of a US prison. We thematically analyze the narratives of 103 CSEM users at different timepoints and settings from pre-trial to incarceration. Those citing "addiction" focused on three areas. First was pornography progression. Second were perceived indicators of "addiction" and alignment/analogy to other addictions, including ideas about losing control; ignoring detrimental consequences and continuing; physiological signs similar to withdrawal; likening to substances; and progression from "softer" to "harder" material. Third, less common was rejecting the "addiction" label, citing choice and responsibility. We situate these results within debates and literature regarding pornography and Internet "addiction"; implications of the label; societal conceptions of sexual offending; harms of CSEM; and treatment/prevention considerations. Lastly, highlighting the merit of interdisciplinary comparative qualitative analysis, we demonstrate similarities in narratives despite differences in location, timeframe, setting, conviction status, intervention programming, and research methods.

The Necessity of Ethnographic Studies of Countries along the "One Belt and One Road" from the Perspective of Anthropology

Anthropological ethnography research is based on the perspective of groups, from the perspectives of macro and micro level to record and study, the different aspects of the traditional western ethnographic study was conducted based on the perspective of the colonists to record, and China in the context of the "area" initiative, "area" all the way along the country must be fully understand, Ethnographic research from an anthropological perspective is a detailed record of every detail. If Chinese scholars can go abroad to conduct systematic research on "The Belt and Road", their cultural understanding of the countries along the Belt and Road will be greatly strengthened, which will make the implementation of the Belt and Road policy more oriented and achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Fuzzy Bounds

Working on topics where the object of study routinely transgresses what are assumed to be the normative physical and affective boundaries of non-human and human, the concept of “network” and the marker “animal” have proven to be both essential and problematic. They are especially problematic when one conducts research that is largely rooted in anthropological ethnography; a mode of inquiry dependent not only upon the observation of lives, but on long-term participation in and with those lives. In short, to do anthropological ethnography is it is to live it and to focus on the micro level of interaction first and foremost. This paper argues for the utility of conceptualizing the historical and particular over the timeless and bracketed; re-thinking networks as Ingoldian “meshworks” and not referring to agents or “actants” by abstract categories but through accounting for their specific, historically situated and developed capacities, embodiments and potentials.

Cashlessness and scalable multi-pay practices: Capturing the everyday financial transactions in local contexts

While macro-level volume growth in India's move towards cashless payment systems is captured relentlessly, most often what gets ignored is a realization that everyday financial transactional practices are socially and culturally embedded in the local contexts. This paper drawn from an anthropological ethnography explores how people use and hierarchically order different payment systems in their everyday financial transactions for products and services. It explores how aspects such as trust, economic and social values, demographic differentials and scalable multi-pay practices influence such ordering and usage of the payment systems within their everyday local contexts.

Dynamic embodied positionalities: The politics of class and nature through a critical ethnography of homelessness

Researchers’ subjective positionalities are often presented as explanatory factors in the interpretation and analyses of ethnographic experiences. In geographic and anthropological ethnographies, positionalities are often benignly disclosed to readers under the auspices of being better able to understand specific subjective backgrounds, or the lenses, through which researchers engage with participants, places, and the overall subject matter. While positionality statements have become standard in qualitative research, there is not sustained development of the dynamic nature of positionality as way to better understand, analyze, and theorize through a research project. To contextualize this methodological argument, I draw from ethnographic engagement with a community of individuals facing homelessness who reside in tents and other rudimentary structures in a public municipal park. My own dynamic positionalities are positioned as both a lens through which I understand the “Hillside residents” and also evolving analytical tools that complicate assumed understandings of class and relationships to nature.

Ethnographic studies in international human resource management: Types and usefulness

This article provides a first conceptual discussion of the usefulness of ethnography for International Human Resource Management. In line with its original anthropological meaning, ethnography is understood as a multi-paradigmatic mindset involving five interrelated strands, all of which have the potential to contribute to International Human Resource Management studies. Structural-functionalist ethnography enables deep comparison and can thus contribute, for instance, to meeting the structural and institutional integration challenges of International Human Resource Management. Interpretive ethnography sheds light onto the hidden realities of International Human Resource Management and can thus help, for example, to acknowledge the diversity of employee and stakeholder experiences. Critical, postmodern, and postcolonial ethnography reveal the power-inequalities associated with diverse frameworks, practices, and work experiences in a global context. They can thus help overcome the inherent power-inequalities of International Human Resource Management and might utilize previously marginalized knowledge for the development of alternative International Human Resource Management strategies and practices. Yet, leveraging the full potential of ethnography for International Human Resource Management studies requires International Human Resource Management scholars not to borrow pre-selected ethnographic approaches, such as interpretive ethnography, from related disciplines, such as International Business and Cross-Cultural Management, because these might not fit the specific needs of International Human Resource Management. For facilitating this goal, this article provides a first multi-paradigmatic discussion of the development and principles of ethnography in anthropology, and its present and potential contributions to International Human Resource Management studies. It is not a guide of how to do ethnography, but a roadmap enabling future International Human Resource Management researchers to choose their ethnographic research strategy consciously, reflexively, and as their research interest demands for.

Taking the Long Route

This article introduces “ethnographic metacommentary,” an experiential, processual, and protracted approach to ethnography. My proposed method goes beyond stating complexity as the defining characteristic of an anthropological project, visual or otherwise. To demonstrate the method, I write an ethnographic metacommentary of my 3-minute film Performing Naturalness (2008), which is about the surveillance of foreigners in Tokyo. A number of contexts on the film are explored—the political situation from which it arose, the background of the experiment chosen for the project, and genealogies of art practice. The method includes the process of “furtherings”—self-reflexive explorations that unpack aspects of the project that often retreat from anthropological ethnography. Overall, in the process of writing this ethnographic metacommentary, this article explores the nuanced experiences of Filipinos in transnational migration, contributes to the conversation on contemporary Philippine conceptual art and its relationship with anthropology and film/art practice, and fleshes out difficulties of representation in collaborative projects due to differences in intentions and locatedness. I show how ethnographic metacommentary is a productive thought process that fleshes out ruptures in the filmmaking process that are often concealed from the audience, and even from the filmmakers.

Los niños y el patrimonio. Los guardianes en el pueblo mágico de Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosí, México

Con el objetivo de analizar el funcionamiento del patrimonio infantil en un caso de patrimonialización en coexistencia con la creatividad y la innovación, se utiliza la etnografía antropológica, el trabajo de campo de larga duración y el examen de las formas de transmisión. Pese a que las diferencias de un patrimonio institucionalizado y el dinamismo que los niños proporcionan a este implican el cuestionamiento de las definiciones universales, en esta investigación se reafirma que hablar del patrimonio de los niños supone la integración de estos en su mundo en el aquí y ahora, además de concebirlos como seres futuros del patrimonio. Así, los niños evidencian que la transmisión no es solo vertical en un proyecto institucional, sino también es horizontal entre los niños y entre los niños y los adultos. Por lo tanto, la sensibilidad es parte de la interpretación, explicación y creatividad que los niños desarrollan en un proceso de patrimonialización.

Media Ethnography: Demands Alternative

The heart and soul of ethnography lies in anthropological study within specific caste, ethnicity, and gender. In mass media research, the anthropological ethnography dominates through some of the aspects that focuses on geographical locations and ethnicity which is not relevant in the age of media and technology. The mass media has gained its own gravity, uniqueness, and distinctiveness at present as it fulfills the need and interest of individuals/society. As such fieldwork, participants, and positioning a debate within the realm of “anthropological ethnography” is not sufficient to understand the subjectivities of mass media. In such a context, this article analyzes and presents field, fieldwork strategies, participants’ and researchers’ roles that demands wideness in mass media research.

Recent methodological approaches in ethnographies of human and non-human Amerindian collectives

I examine recent ethnographic attempts to address alterity among Amerindian worlds—attempts that produce a critique of indigenous relationships with external or foreign agents. While some of them are concerned with describing what there is in those worlds, others illustrate different forms to approach it. The former studies carry out their descriptions through two contrasted types of fieldwork data: abstract indigenous concepts and material things. The latter studies are examined as illustrations of differentiated methodological advances: on the one hand, a writing experiment proposing an avant-garde engaged unruly ethnography; and on the other hand, what seems to be a mere accommodation of academic theoretical trends. The final picture of these current anthropological ethnographies depicts the contrasted contents and forms that are nowadays present in Amerindian studies.

Police and Policing

The anthropology of policing draws from a range of intellectual traditions to generate new understandings of the police as an institution and policing as a social practice. This article reviews recent anthropological work on police, situating it in longer-term disciplinary concerns. I begin with the connection between policing and personhood, exploring how the subject–object dynamics of police domination are related to anthropological conceptions of kinship, law, and social control. I then turn to the contribution that anthropological ethnography makes to a critical theory of the relationship between sovereignty, violence, and police power. I conclude by reflecting on the situation of scholarship in our current political environment, suggesting that the anthropological turn to policing is animated, in part, by hope for a better understanding of the nature of moral agency under difficult conditions.

Ethnographic Advocacy Against the Death Penalty

SUMMARYThis article develops the concept of “ethnographic advocacy” to make sense of the humanizing, open‐ended knowledge practices involved in the defense of criminal defendants charged with capital murder. Drawing from anthropological fieldwork with well‐respected figures in the American capital defense bar, as well as my own professional experience as an investigator specializing in death penalty sentencing mitigation, I argue that effective advocacy for life occurs through qualitative knowledge practices that share notable methodological affinities with contemporary anthropological ethnography. The article concludes with a preliminary exploration of what the concept of ethnographic advocacy might reveal about academic anthropology's own advocative engagements.

How critical can critical be? Contesting security in Indonesia

ABSTRACTThis paper examines discourses and practices of security in Indonesia. It does so in order to explore tensions between ethnographically generated accounts of security spaces and the broader security focus of international relations scholars. Looking at securitisation theory in relation to Indonesian security dynamics, it suggests that a model of security contestation better explains the ways in which political communities are constituted through the politicisation of security in Indonesia. The paper argues that there is a need to engage with and understand complex security dynamics on their own terms. It outlines a possible approach to achieving this aim by aggregating the reflexive inclinations of both the practice of ethnography in anthropology and critical security approaches to securitisation in international relations. It then shows how this approach can be utilised to engage critically with processes of contestation implicit to Indonesian security dynamics. In conclusion, it proposes ethnographic engagement as the basis for political critique central to securitisation as an interventionist project.

From ethnographic knowledge to anthropological intelligence: An anthropologist in the office of strategic services in Second World War Africa

ABSTRACTThis article explores the overlapping modalities and practical purposes of anthropological ethnographic knowledge and political–military intelligence gathering – the commonalities as well as the boundaries between them – through an analysis of the career of the anthropologist Jack Sargent Harris (1912–2008), a secret operative for the United States’ Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War in Nigeria and South Africa. Calling upon archival and oral historical sources, the article relates Harris’s training in Boasian cultural anthropology and as a professional ethnographer of African societies and cultures to the ways he recruited informants, conducted surveillance, related to foreign Allied officials, utilized documentary evidence, and worked to establish authority and credibility in his wartime intelligence reporting. The article argues that political purpose is a central artefact of anthropological ethnography as it is in other ethnographic modalities even if the justifications for these endeavours remain distinct.