Ethnographic Field Research Articles

Designing sensory and cognitive stimulation activities with and for people living with moderate to late-stage dementia

This study addresses a participatory design project involving a researcher in the field of design and dementia, undergraduate design students, people living with moderate to late-stage dementia from a Day Centre run by Alzheimer Portugal and care workers. The project was held during four months as part of the research REMIND, and is grounded on the concept of personhood, emphasizing the importance of considering biographical features, values, interests, and culture of people with and for whom design projects are being developed. Considering the profile of the Centre’s users, the stage, and manifestations of dementia in each one, it was necessary to combine qualitative methods, which were systematically adapted according to each situation. Methods included: sensory ethnography, participatory observation, walking interviews, ethnographic field notes and interviewing. The strategies adopted in the participatory design process were designed according to the users’ aspirations and interests, prioritizing playfulness, enjoyment, and wellbeing in the moment. Sensory and cognitive stimulation games were designed with these people living with dementia and made available at the Centre for their use. The results of this project provide a basis for reflection on the ongoing research and inform future practices in this area.

From Annihilation to Revitalization in Guatemala: Uses and Misuses of the Ixil Mayan Language in a Post-genocidal Justice Court

Guatemala experienced a brutal internal armed conflict between 1960 and 1996. The conflict took on genocidal overtones in several autochthon regions, including the Maya Ixil area, where the author of this article conducted a year-long ethnographic field study as part of her doctoral thesis in social anthropology. The policies put in place as part of the counterinsurgency struggle undermined both the Ixil culture and its language, the use of which was banned in certain areas controlled by the army. Following the conflict, several associations sought justice for these various acts, and in 2013, a trial was opened against the country's former genocidal dictator. As part of this trial, witnesses were assisted by interpreters who simultaneously translated their accounts from Ixil into Spanish. Based on the testimony of a woman who was raped during the armed conflict, this author examines the linguistic negotiations that take place in a transitional justice tribunal and analyzes the effects of these negotiations on the memory of individual traumatic episodes and on their dissemination as narratives of a collective traumatic memory. Finally, by analyzing the different ways in which the experience of rape is expressed, this article sheds light on the changes in language that take place in the context of a trial, thus provoking broader questions about the way in which cultural differences are included in this type of space.

Creating a sense of place when implementing a new emergency department in Denmark: a qualitative study

BackgroundPhysical locations play an essential yet often overlooked role in healthcare implementation processes. Implementation Science frameworks such as the Theoretical Domains Framework, the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, and the Implementation in Context framework acknowledge the importance of the physical environment, but they often treat it as a passive backdrop for change. However, from a cultural geographic perspective, spaces and places are dynamic, influencing behavior, social structures, and the acceptance of new practices. This study aims to explore how managers and emloyees develop a sense of place in a new emergency department (ED) and how these spatial dynamics influence the implementation process.MethodsThis study used a multi-sited ethnographic design, tracking the implementation process across multiple hospital locations from 2019 to 2023. Fieldwork was conducted in settings such as management meetings, micro-simulation training, and tours of the new ED construction site. A total of 53 participants, including managers, nurses, and physicians from 12 specialized departments, were purposively selected. Data were collected through ethnographic field notes (750 single-spaced pages) and semi-structured interviews averaging 39 min. Analysis was guided by situational analysis and cultural geography, integrating human and nonhuman elements. An overall inductive approach was used to develop theory from observations through analysis, applying a coding system to identify key themes related to spaces, places, traces, and sense of place.ResultsFive themes emerged regarding the development of a sense of place: (1) comfort, influenced by physical elements such as daylight and indoor climate; (2) spatial organization, affecting collaboration, workflow, and professional identity; (3) familiarity, highlighting cultural practices and equipment in fostering belonging; (4) time, where construction delays enabled deeper emotional engagement; and (5) involvement, showing that initial criticism transformed into stronger ownership through increased engagement.ConclusionThis study highlights the importance of a sense of place during pre-implementation of new physical locations in healthcare. Factors such as comfort, spatial organization, familiarity, time, and involvement are key to participants’ development of a strong sense of place in the new ED. These insights are crucial for designing implementation processes that address both physical and emotional needs, influencing outcomes such as acceptability, adoption, and sustainability.

On Atmospheric Turn in Social Sciences

The article introduces a special theme of the issue onthe “Anthropology of Affective Atmospheres”, featuring contributions by S.V. Sokolovskiy,D.A. Radchenko, S. Runkel, and an interview withT. Griffero.Readers of this thematic issue are acquainted with the new area of philosophical and socialresearch, which until now has practically not attracted the attentionof Russian anthropologists, despite the fact that the so-called “atmosphericturn” has deeply influenced quite a wide range of socialsciences and humanities, including anthropology. The main goal of thisissue of the journal is to familiarize Russian anthropologists andethnologists with theoretical and methodological foundations of (affective) atmospheres researchand specific case studies in this field. The main taskof this introduction to the topic is to review relevantconcepts, to recommend the most influential publications, the familiarity withwhich is expected to facilitate the introduction of these subjectsinto field ethnography programs, and to provide a brief overviewof the current “atmospheric” research in the country.

Inclusive Public Toilets: A Universal Design Enquiry for Indian Context.

Public toilets fulfil an essential need for all human beings. In the context of India, the diversity of population implies a diverse set of complex barriers in the public toilet experience. Inclusion and the contextual translation of universal design becomes crucial, considering the distinct socio-cultural dimensions. This study intends to enquire the above-mentioned perspective and contribute towards an understanding of inclusion and universal design in public toilets. The methodology is a three-part process including literature review, experiential case reflections and ethnographic field perspectives. The gathered data is mapped thematically and assessed qualitatively, based on the existing principles of universal design. The insights from the assessment highlight the need for contextualization of existing universal design principles, bringing out a multi-dimensional complexity of inclusion across human needs, behaviour, physical, planning and service aspects. This study paves a way forward for evolving design directions by raising further questions through fresh perspectives on inclusion & accessibility in public toilets. The raised questions contribute to a dilemma of standardisation versus contextual customisation around the understanding of inclusion and universal design, focusing on the scenario of Indian public toilets.

The staff perspectives of facilitators and barriers to implementing virtual reality for people living with dementia in long-term care.

One emerging technology in long-term care (LTC) is virtual reality (VR), an innovative tool that uses head-mounted devices to provide the viewer with an immersive experience. It has been shown that VR has a positive impact on the well-being of residents living with dementia, and staff are essential in the implementation and sustainable use of technology. Currently, there is a lack of inclusion and focus on direct staff perspectives on VR implementation in LTC. This paper aims to report staff perspectives on VR adoption in a 2-year study on a virtual reality program at three Canadian LTC homes. Our interdisciplinary team (clinicians, people living with dementia and family partners, trainees, and researchers) explored the facilitators and barriers to implementing VR in LTC, guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) and intersectionality supplemented CFIR. Twenty-one participants were recruited, including recreation staff, care aides, nurses, screeners, and leadership team members. The team collected data through staff interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic observation field notes. Reflexive thematic analysis was performed to identify themes reporting the facilitators and barriers for VR implementation in LTC from staff perspectives. The data analysis resulted in three facilitators and four barriers. Facilitators are (1) perceived VR benefits, (2) integrate VR into workflow and routines, and (3) partner with skillful VR champions. Barriers include (1) staff concerns about VR use, (2) financial burden and competing priorities, (3) lack of infrastructure and physical spaces, and (4) staff workload and limited leadership support. This study contributes to the field with staff perspectives on facilitators and barriers to VR implementation. It underscores the rarely discussed aspects of VR implementation, such as funding prioritization and implementation timing. We offer practical strategies to inform future practices and research. Future studies should further explore long-term VR implementation, the involvement of family members as VR facilitators, and the use of VR in LTC.

Proxies and partial connections in an anthropologist's archive.

This article examines the role of primary ethnographic materials - of field notes, letters and photographs - and even of the shelves and bookcases - in building accounts of the human condition. We trace the lives of incomplete and not-yet-found manuscripts, which have been treated as representative of whole archives, as well as closely held convictions and ideas in the history of anthropology. In so doing, we employ the notion of a 'proxy', or a set of signs and images which point the audience in particular directions, without determining their overall destination. Our research is based on a few episodes from the histories of paper and digital copies of manuscripts and photographs of the anthropological couple Sergei and Elizabeth Shirokogoroff, who conducted ethnographic, linguistic and some archaeological research, first on the borderlands between China and Russia, and then later within China. We aim to show the complexity and social and intellectual vibrancy of their ethnographic field archives, which have been scattered across countries, institutions and personal collections. We conclude by suggesting that engaging anthropologically with field archives enables us to approach existing perspectives on archives in a new way, viewing them not as containers of catalogued information, but as entanglements reflecting social relations in local communities, the trajectories of ethnographers, and the aspirations of scholars asking questions today.

Rapid Assessment Amid an Injection Drug Use-Driven HIV Outbreak in Massachusetts' Merrimack Valley: Highlights from a Case Study.

Illicitly manufactured fentanyl within the drug supply has substantially increased opioid-related overdose deaths and driven infectious disease outbreaks among people who use drugs (PWUD). Local jurisdictions often lack the data and tools necessary to detect and translate such moments into actionable and effective responses. Informed by a risk environment framework, this case study adopted a mixed-methods design spanning two rapid assessment studies with PWUD in Lowell (n = 90) and Lawrence (n = 40), Massachusetts, during an HIV outbreak (2017, Study 1) and following the outbreak (2019, Study 2). Survey responses (n = 130) were summarized by computing descriptive statistics, ethnographic field notes were reviewed, and qualitative interviews (n = 34) were thematically analyzed to contextualize quantitative findings. Study 1 participants reported constrained syringe access, high injecting frequency, syringe reuse, and unsafe syringe disposal practices, and uncovered entrenched social and structural factors exacerbating existing substance use and HIV risks: housing instability, limited harm reduction supplies and services (e.g., MOUD access), and tensions between law enforcement and PWUD. Following the outbreak and substantial local investments in harm reduction and treatment infrastructures, Study 2 participants indicated lower injection risk reporting fewer syringe reuse episodes, improved syringe disposal practices, high frequency of naloxone administration at recent overdoses, frequent testing for HIV and HCV, and greater engagement with syringe services programs. A rapid assessment approach to fentanyl's emergence and a concomitant HIV outbreak provided time-sensitive, critical insights and identified needed and local response strategies. However, unless social and structural risk factors are also addressed, community vulnerability to future HIV outbreaks remains.

Perception of the Urban Space of the Waorani Nationality in Shell Township, Pastaza, Ecuador

The township of Shell in the Province of Pastaza, Ecuador was initially an exploration base and later, a missionary base for evangelization of the peoples and nationalities of the Amazon. It plays an important role in the Waorani nationality and its social, cultural and economic dynamics, especially in the Nuevo Amanecer neighborhood, which is home to approximately 43 Waorani families whose epicenter has become a strategic space for their territorial dynamics. The research, through ethnographic methodologies and field work, has allowed to establish the perception from the Waorani nationality to the urban space. During the development of this study two sources of information were applied: methodological bibliography and thematic content reference. The study of 120 members of 43 Waorani families of the Ecuadorian Amazon and a process of direct observation, as a participant observer during the years 2019-2020-2021-2022, resulted in a conceptual model Bailey (1996), where the Waorani use preferences of displacement, economic attributes of the area, location of residence, representation of the spatial-urban structure, space-action, time of stay, activity space and objective spatial structure of the urban environment; and a transect as a very effective method to recognize population movements, sectoral differences, topographic slopes and social dynamics presented in the territory from a plan and elevation view. Human beings adapt easily to new spaces, in spite of cultural and social differences, their assimilation processes will depend on their capacity to approach and accept the environment. The Nuevo Amanecer settlement has motivated families to move to peri-urban or urban spaces in intermediary cities, which has provoked a forced adaptation and assimilation due to the same processes involved in rural-urban relations. Received: 30 May 2024 / Accepted: 21 October 2024 / Published: 05 November 2024

From side‐work to main task: Housing, status, and Tibetan labour migration in Qinghai, China

AbstractAcross China, as in other parts of the world, urbanisation has accelerated at an unprecedented scale over the past 15 years. In farming areas of Qinghai in western China, large‐scale rural–urban movement of Tibetan villagers began around 2010 – a time when state‐led housing subsidy projects were launched. Drawing on ethnographic field research and focusing on the older cohort of rural Tibetan migrants to Xining, the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau, this article explores the complexities and linkages between state‐led housing subsidy projects, status, and Tibetan labour migration. It examines how housing and family status intersect to shape patterns of Tibetan labour migration and gendered divisions of labour. This study highlights an important but less explored factor in migration studies: in my research sites, the recent large‐scale Tibetan labour migration to cities has been driven by the desire to build new houses to secure family status as a result of the motives and social pressure created by state‐led housing subsidy projects.

Making Administrative Work Matter in Public Service Delivery: A Lens for Linking Practice with the Purpose of Office

Abstract Among the general public as well as in the scientific literature, administrative work is widely associated with heavy bureaucratic procedures that are disconnected from serving clients. Less is said and written about the importance of administrative work in delivering public service. Drawing on a relational theoretical approach and based on an ethnographic field study in two municipal child welfare units in Denmark (including 38 days of observations and 30 interviews), this study shows how administrative work plays three key functions in various accountability relations, and that these functions aid street-level bureaucrats in mastering the complexities of their work. The study offers a theoretical framework that delineates the functions of administrative work in complex street-level practice. By demonstrating how administrative work may contribute positively to fulfilling the purposes of street-level work, this study contributes to developing our understanding of administrative work as an invaluable part of street-level work and provides a more nuanced foundation for future studies on the virtues and issues of administrative work.

Shaping reflective political leaders

ABSTRACT Unlike many other countries, in Sweden there are more significant paths to political leadership than the university degree. Most Swedish political parties offer leadership training programmes that include practical and ideological content and several have a design rooted in the popular education movement. This article explores how party political training for leaders happens in practice, using data from interviews, surveys, text files and ethnographic field notes. Using reflection and ideology as theoretical concepts, the study shows how reflection is used for different aims, and how it can shape participants ideologically. Ideology, in terms of describing what is good, is communicated from the top down in these courses in a general way. In terms of showing what is possible and desirable to either legitimise or challenge, these programmes leave that open to negotiation among the participants, which implies a confidence in their competence by virtue of being elected. Allowing different interpretations risks undermining the party's ideological core; however, since popular education methods are not negotiated, participants are required to reflect deliberately and listen to each others views on the issues under discussion. This can be understood as a safety line as it most likely leads to self-sanitation from the party's perspective.

Observations from the field: On the body, gender, and Al wehdat camp in Amman, Jordan

Coming as a collection of observations from the field, I used this article to reflect on 9 months of fieldwork in Al Wehdat camp in Amman, Jordan. Using feminist research methodologies that make transparent the process of knowledge production, primarily ethnographic field visits and focus group discussions, I relied on the bodies of the camp inhabitants as sites of knowledge to learn more about life in the camp, with all what their embodied knowledge encompasses of ambiguity and the messiness of everyday life, aiming to challenge some of the power structures that otherwise control the process of knowledge production about and in the camp. I also brought myself into the frame of inquiry and used my own body as a tool of investigation, reflecting on my own position as a female researcher that is both an outsider and an insider to the camp context.

Developing a Comprehensive Inventory to Define Harm Reduction Housing.

The City of Boston has faced unprecedented challenges with substance use amidst changes to the illicit drug supply and increased visibility of homelessness. Among its responses, Boston developed six low threshold harm reduction housing (HRH) sites geared towards supporting the housing needs of people who use drugs (PWUD) and addressing health and safety concerns around geographically concentrated tent encampments. HRH sites are transitional supportive housing that adhere to a "housing first" approach where abstinence is not required and harm reduction services and supports are co-located. Despite the importance of HRH, the specific characteristics and operations of these sites are not well understood. This study sought to address this gap by cataloging the common features of Boston's HRH sites to generate a comprehensive inventory tool for evaluating implementation of harm reduction strategies at transitional housing locations. We collected data between June and September 2023 and included semi-structured qualitative interviews with HRH staff (n = 19), ethnographic observations and photos at six HRH sites. Candidate inventory components were derived through triangulation of the data. Two expert medical staff unaffiliated with data collection reviewed a draft inventory measuring awareness and utility of HRH inventory components. We then pilot tested the inventory with 3 HRH residents across two sites for readability and reliability. Inventory performance was further tested in a survey of 106 residents. HRH staff identified best practices, resources, and policies in HRH sites that were further contextualized with ethnographic field notes. Common to all were overdose prevention protocols, behavioral policies, security measures, and harm reduction supplies distribution. The initial 44-item inventory of services, policies and site best practices was further refined with expert and participant feedback and application, then finalized to generate a 32-item inventory. Residents identified and valued harm reduction services; medical supports were highly valued but less utilized. The HRH inventory comprehensively assesses harm reduction provision and residents' awareness and perceived helpfulness of HRH operational components. Characterizing the critical components of HRH through this tool will aid in standardizing the concept and practice of HRH for PWUD and may assist other cities in planning and implementing HRH.

Temporal curation: curating life in the anticipation of cancer

This paper explores cancer as a ‘total social fact’, considering it both a specific material entity and an immaterial phenomenon with social, political, and legal implications. Based on long-term ethnographic field studies on cancer as anticipation in the Danish welfare state, specifically within lung cancer diagnostics and the surveillance for ‘tissue changes’, the paper explores how cancer is constituted and experienced. Analyzing this new and rising cancer phenomenon, the paper attends to scale by focusing analytically on three levels (national, institutional, and intersubjective) and conceptualizes how cancer manifests at these different levels through practices of temporal curation. Temporal curation is conceptually directed at understanding both how past, present, and future exist concurrently in the diagnostic space, and how cancer is produced, preserved, and brought into the future. Hence, this paper contributes to understandings of the modern in healthcare systems, specifically arguing for a shift in discussions on diagnostics beyond a narrow focus on classificatory processes to comprise how a diagnostic phenomenon becomes temporal and sociopolitical.

The Spaces In Between: Understanding Children’s Creative Expression in Temporary Shelters for Asylum Seekers

On arrival in a host country, asylum‐seeking children face uncertainty and stress that may compound past traumatic experiences of war and violence. This article is based on a participatory action research project, Welcome Haven, that aims to promote the wellbeing and mental health of asylum‐seeking families in Montreal, Canada, through psychosocial workshops. Since 2023, our interdisciplinary team has conducted arts‐based workshops to support asylum‐seeking children lodged in hotels that function as temporary accommodations, funded by the federal government. This study examines the drawings and narratives of participating children (ages 5–17) to understand how children communicate and make sense of their experiences through artmaking. Following a participatory action research framework using arts‐based approaches, we use narrative and thematic analysis to analyze our (a) ethnographic field notes, (b) notes from our intervention team meetings, which functioned as peer supervision for facilitators, and (c) photographs of children’s artwork. Our findings suggest that children use drawings to share and externalize their personal stories and to express fears and hopes for the future. Importantly, children’s expression happened not only on the page and through stories, but in the space between facilitators and children, and in their manner of sharing or protecting their art. The challenges of conducting research and creating therapeutic alliances in these spaces are explored. This research has important implications for understanding children affected by war and those in humanitarian crisis settings, including reception centers and shelters in high‐income countries.

“Students Really Benefited From That Hybridization”: Facilitated Sensemaking in a No‐Excuses Charter Network

ABSTRACTThis ethnographic cross‐case study examines five teachers' year‐long efforts to implement practice‐based physics instruction within the unique organizational context of a no‐excuses charter network. The teachers were attempting to adapt their didactic, rigid, and compliance‐based instructional approach to include more opportunities for students to figure out disciplinary concepts through evidence and consensus. To assist in these efforts, teachers partnered with a university‐based physics education program to redesign the network's coherent instructional infrastructure. The program provided curricular materials aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards, facilitated professional learning sessions, and assisted with instructional coaching before and during the 2018–2019 school year. Researchers collected ethnographic field notes and artifacts during professional learning sessions, partnership meetings, and bi‐weekly lesson observations of case teachers. They also conducted interviews with teachers and students. An organizational sensemaking lens was used to analyze data and informed the production of ethnographic case profiles, vignettes, and cross‐case comparisons. Findings included the constraints and affordances of a coherent instructional infrastructure for facilitating teacher sensemaking. Hybridized instructional practices also emerged across case teachers' classrooms as products of facilitated sensemaking. Implications for supporting teachers in fitting novel instructional approaches to their organizational contexts are discussed. This paper is part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Organizational Contexts.

For the archive yet to come

Abstract This article explores the promises and pitfalls of the colonial archives for the study of seeing and knowing contemporary violence. As an ethnographic field and a site of decolonial struggles, the colonial archive is increasingly mobilised in scholarship that seeks to historicise and disrupt conventional, Western-centric knowledge production. While using the colonial archives might reproduce asymmetrical power relations, they also hold the potential to unsettle the ‘toxic imperial debris’ of our time. How can the colonial archives challenge the post-colonial politics of erasing imperial violence and contribute to decolonial futures? Drawing on research in the African Archives in Belgium and fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), this paper complicates problematic portrayals of the post-colonial state in the DRC and Congolese women as always already violated or silenced. We argue that the logics of the African Archives reveal a set of destabilising state anxieties that reflect the duality and instability of colonial rule itself and that infuse contemporary (international) politics. This recounting of the violence contained in the archives both narrates the concrete, violent manifestations of our ‘global coloniality’ and works towards its own demise as part of a broader ‘anticolonial archive’.

Linguistic Strategies for Identity and World Building

Over the past decade, the medium of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons has risen exponentially in popularity thanks to shows like Stranger Things and The Legend of Vox Machina as well as actual-play shows like The Adventure Zone, Critical Role and Dimension 20. Unlike video games and board games, the primary vehicle through which these games are played is language, making TTRPGs an enormous and as of yet rarely explored area of research for linguists and linguistic anthropologists. Participants must play, tell stories and build secondary worlds and selves all through interaction and conversation. Using tools from ethnographic field work, I investigate the features of the register as well as the conscious and unconscious linguistic strategies that are necessary to the function of TTRPGs. I observe and record three TTRPG sessions from pre-established recreational groups both in person and online and broadly transcribe relevant sections for linguistic anthropological analysis. Examination of these real-time improvised conversations reveals their performative nature as well as the conditions required for all players to agree that something takes place in the story that they are building. This paper outlines how players navigate the inevitable messiness and ambiguity that comes with multiple people trying to play a game and tell a story together and how they negotiate agency and control over that reality. Essentially, it considers how adults enact pretend play through language. It also describes the unique participation framework of TTRPG players as writers, characters and audience simultaneously. All of these elements serve to provide insight into this increasingly popular way of using language for entertainment and reveal some of why people find TTRPGs entertaining in the first place.

An ecological approach to understanding transitions and tensions in complex learning contexts

The move away from transmission-based lecturing toward a more student-centred active learning approach is well evidenced in STEM higher education. However, the examination of active learning has generally remained confined to formal timetabled contexts, with assumptions made that students independently manage the transition between timetabled and non-timetabled learning. This paper introduces research findings from a mixed methods study that used an ecological approach when investigating student transitions between a formal lecture theatre and adjacent informal breakout space in a UK STEM university. Using quantitative occupancy monitoring data to analyse usage patterns of both spaces, in combination with qualitative ethnographic observations and field interviews, permitted a purposeful exploration of student engagement with transitions within and between the two learning spaces. The ecological approach aided the discovery of spatial, pedagogic and agentic transitions and tensions, which subsequently informed strategic modification of space across the institution to facilitate the adoption of active learning pedagogy.