Ethnographic Research Techniques Research Articles

THE EFFECTS OF MODERN POLITICAL MOVEMENTS ON CULTURAL IDENTITY: THE CASE OF RITES OF PASSAGE IN TÜRKİYE

An analogy is often established between the concepts of cultural change and cultural transformation. The forms represented by innovations that allow a concrete follow-up of culture in folk life can arise through change and transformation. The connection established between these two concepts is limited to new representation forms. Apart from this limited cooperation, cultural change often takes place in a balanced and harmonious manner without any obligations. Cultural transformation refers to a fragile process in which the individual or the community is forced to accept, often through the manipulation of the powerful, the elements such as history, origins, and sense of belonging in order to create an identity. Political identities and ideologies that affect the natural course of social and cultural change in Turkish sociology and culture have become dominant since the 2000s. The rich diversity of birth, marriage and funeral ceremonies contains important findings for understanding the arguments that affect the transformation of folk life and culture. This article discusses the impact of Islamist and secular ideologies and groups on the structural and functional transformations observed in rites of passage in Turkish folk life. The study argues that the roles of conflicting socio-political identities in the processes of reinterpretation and representation of folkloric knowledge are more pronounced than in the past. Data obtained with ethnographic research techniques also support this claim. The qualitative field research was conducted within the constraints of ritualistic traditional ceremonies of birth, marriage and death in urban and rural communities in western Türkiye.

An investigation into the financial challenges affecting the success of entrepreneurs in South Africa

The object of this study is the financial difficulties that impacted the success of business owners in Hatfield, Gauteng province, South Africa. Compared to a global failure rate of 50 %, five out of every seven entrepreneurs in Hatfield, South Africa fail during the first year of operation. This study aimed at looking into the relationship between entrepreneur failure and financial literacy. The methodology employed in this study is interpretive philosophy-based qualitative research. An ethnographic research technique was also used to analyze the current economic condition of business owners in Hatfield. The population was sampled using non-probability purposive sampling techniques. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather the study's leading source of data. The primary research results are thematically examined while also considering the secondary sources. Eliminating financial and liquidity constraints was listed as a goal of financial literacy. Findings garnered revealed that financial, liquidity and credit restrictions are the primary causes of business failures in Hatfield. The lack of financial resources for new businesses in Hatfield, as revealed, prompted several liquidity issues in Hatfield, and further lowers the growth rate of Hatfield businesses. It was discovered that Hatfield's entrepreneurs usually experienced premature failure due to inadequate financial education and training. Impliedly, Hatfield business owners possessed poor cash management, defaulting on loan payments due to lack of financial education. Conversely, only few entrepreneurs and business owners in Hatfield, South Africa possess financial literacy competence with the necessary skills needed to better analyze their financial statements appropriately and increase profitability of their business. The practical implication of this finding is that, most entrepreneurs have high possibility to experience premature business liquidity when they have low or no financial literacy.

THE EFFECTS OF MODERN POLITICAL MOVEMENTS ON CULTURAL IDENTITY: THE CASE OF RITES OF PASSAGE IN TÜRKİYE

An analogy is often established between the concepts of cultural change and cultural transformation. The forms represented by innovations that allow a concrete follow-up of culture in folk life can arise through change and transformation. The connection established between these two concepts is limited to new representation forms. Apart from this limited cooperation, cultural change often takes place in a balanced and harmonious manner without any obligations. Cultural transformation refers to a fragile process in which the individual or the community is forced to accept, often through the manipulation of the powerful, the elements such as history, origins, and sense of belonging in order to create an identity. Political identities and ideologies that affect the natural course of social and cultural change in Turkish sociology and culture have become dominant since the 2000s. The rich diversity of birth, marriage and funeral ceremonies contains important findings for understanding the arguments that affect the transformation of folk life and culture. This article discusses the impact of Islamist and secular ideologies and groups on the structural and functional transformations observed in rites of passage in Turkish folk life. The study argues that the roles of conflicting socio-political identities in the processes of reinterpretation and representation of folkloric knowledge are more pronounced than in the past. Data obtained with ethnographic research techniques also support this claim. The qualitative field research was conducted within the constraints of ritualistic traditional ceremonies of birth, marriage and death in urban and rural communities in western Türkiye.

MITOS DAN RITUAL DIBALIK TRADISI ZIARAH WALI: STUDI KASUS DI MAKAM SYAIKHONA KHOLIL BANGKALAN

The Indonesian Muslim community continues to uphold its religious traditions to this day. One of the religious traditions carried out is the pilgrimage of saints. Religious traditions are practiced as a basic moral against the influence of modernization. The existence of the Wali pilgrimage is inseparable from the growing faith among the Indonesian Muslim community. The purpose of this study is to explore the phenomenon of religious tradition, namely the pilgrimage of saints. In particular, it examines the myths that have evolved in the Muslim community to continue the Wali pilgrimage tradition to this day. In addition, the study also aims to examine whether the rituals performed by pilgrims are based on cultural or religious values. The location of the Guardian Tomb that is the subject of this investigation is the tomb of Syaikhona Kholil in Bangkalan, Madura. This study is a field survey using descriptive and qualitative ethnographic research techniques. The results of this research show that a myth has developed in which pilgrims believe that if they pray at a saint's tomb, their prayers will be easily answered. Apart from that, pilgrims believe that if they pray at the tomb of a saint, they will easily overcome all difficulties in life. It's a ritual. These rituals include: ablution, praying, reading greetings, praying, reading Yasin and tahlil, reading dhikr and sholawat, reading prayers and listening to lectures.

THE SCENARIO OF ADMINISTRATION DEVELOPMENT FOR TEMPLE CHARITY SCHOOL IN BUDDHISM

The objectives of this research were 1) to study the components of administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism, 2) to analyze the components of administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism, and 3) to propose the scenario of administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism using the Ethnographic Delphi Future Research (EDFR) technique. The research used purposive sampling for selecting 17 experts. The instruments for collecting the data were the semi-structured interview form, rating scale questionnaire and focus group discussion of 9 experts. Analyze data with content analysis and analysis of statistical values such as frequency, percentage, median, mode, interquartile range, and standard deviation. Results were shown as follows: 1. The components of administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism consisted of 1) components of administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism consisted of 4 main components, 20 sub-components, 2) Iddhipada IV in the administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism consisted of 4 main components, and 12 sub-components, and 3) administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism according to the PDCA consisted of 4 main components, and 12 sub-components. 2.The analysis of the components of administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism, experts have a consensus. In overall, the experts agreed at the highest level in all aspects except for the budget that they agreed at a high level. Consider the mean in overall opinions were at the highest level in all aspects. 3.The scenario of administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism obtained from the Ethnographic Delphi Future Research (EDFR) technique can be summarized about the scenario of administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism consisted of 1) components of administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism which were (1) Academic aspect; freedom, flexibility and rapidity, curriculum development based on students center, creating modern educational media and innovations, educational quality assurance, coordinating cooperation from stakeholders, (2) Budgeting aspect; preparation of strategic plans, generating income and resources for education, preparing financial reports, preparing asset databases, auditing and monitoring reports on budget usage, (3) Personnel aspect; enhancing personnel efficiency, preventing disciplinary action, training modern technology, personnel planning, promoting personnel to have knowledge and conscience, (4) General aspect; coordinating in educational institutions, publicizing information dissemination, developing administrative networks, taking care of learning resources, promoting faith. 2) Iddhipada IV in the administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism consisted of (1) Passion (doing with love); rejoicing in the success of others, performing administrative duties with willingness, loving the work, (2) Diligence (perseverance); diligence, effort to seek knowledge, meeting together, (3) Mind or Consciousness (remembering the mind); steady, responsible for work, being a moral and ethical example, (4) Investigation (analysis, reflection); manage work in a timely manner, use intelligence in work, stimulate subordinates to think rationally. 3) administration development for Temple Charity School in Buddhism according to the PDCA consisted of (1) Plan; setting goals according to the policy, vision and mission of the school, clearly specifying responsible persons, operating according to standard criteria, (2) Do; implementation of the plan, collecting data systematically, building cooperation, (3) Check; performance inspection, evaluation and monitoring, measures to prevent mistakes, and (4) Act; fixing work when is not as specified, improving the integrity and quality, and finding truly cause of problem for preventing recurrence.

Strategies for Conserving Military Heritage for Tourism: The Case of Ghana Navy

This study explores the heritage of Ghana since its inception after the Second World War (WW II). It identifies and examines tangible and intangible assets that comprise this heritage in relation to various strategies adopted by Ghana Navy to protect and conserve these heritage assets for posterity. Research on military heritage in Ghana is very scanty due to the peculiar character, rules, regulations and professional activities of the Armed Forces particularly the Ghana navy. The restrictive nature of the naval installations coupled with inadequate technical knowhow in conservation practices prevents the Ghana from fully availing themselves to other sources and forms of conservation strategies and practices. Furthermore, there is a limit to the extent members of the public engage with them to learn about their heritage. Qualitative method was used to gather primary and secondary data. Using ethnographic and other anthropological research methods and techniques, primary data was gathered from active naval personnel and naval veterans while secondary information was obtained from archival, library and other literary sources. The study discovered that Ghana Navy has been built through many years of experience, customs and traditions of the state to achieve an objective of providing protection at the sea and inland water bodies. The Ghana navy’s heritage encompasses tangible attributes and intangible attributes which constitute the bedrock around which the institution revolves. This study contends that documenting naval heritage is one of the important strategies to promote heritage tourism in Ghana.

Are Micro-credentials the Netflix of the tertiary education industry? And how do we ensure they are ‘bingeworthy’?

When Netflix revealed its trailblazing subscription video streaming service, it was both a game changer and disruptor in the digital entertainment industry. Are micro-credentials set to do the same? Certainly, micro-credentials are both disrupting and paving the way to a new tertiary & professional education landscape. Like Netflix, Micro-credentials offer flexibility, can be ‘on-demand’ and can represent a range of topics or themes that can be personalised to individual choices and needs. However, in a learning context, there is much more to ensuring they are ‘bingeworthy’ for both learners and industries. By ‘bingeworthy’, we mean engaging and meaningful enough to motivate the learner to want to complete more and for industry to be convinced of their value. With the rush toward micro-credentials, there is ambiguity about what it takes to make these verifiable learning achievements high value to institutions, learners and employers. Ensuring a strong value proposition for all stakeholders and a great experience are critical in determining whether they will be ‘bingeworthy’ and worthy of investment. Our team uses a combination of Design Thinking (Liedtka & Ogilvies, 2011; Liedtka, 2018) and ‘Participatory Co-Design’ (PCD) (Kristiansen & Bloch-Poulsen, 2013), to conceptualise, design, pilot, learn and iterate micro-credentials. Design thinking offers a systematic way of problem solving and solution-finding that is people-centred and iterative and uses a variety of ethnographic research techniques as well as other sense-making tools (Liedtka, 2018). The ‘intellectual roots’ of design theory are steeped in a design process that is learning-focused and hypothesis-driven (Schon, 1982). Defining attributes include ‘problem centredness, nonlinearity, optionality and the presence of uncertainty and ambiguity’ (Liedtka, 2015, p.926). The concept ‘Participatory Co-Design’ is derived from Sociocultural Theory and represents a theoretical commitment to learning from, and designing for, local contexts’ (Gomez, Kya and Mancevice, 2018, p.403). For us, it offers a powerful pathway to productive partnerships that combine educational and industry expertise and insights to assess the current state, reimagine the future state and find solutions that work and are meaningful for all stakeholders. This is key to the stakeholder value chain and fundamental in designing the micro-credential experience. Our poster follows our process for getting started with micro-credentials and what comprises micro-credential experiences that are ‘bingeworthy’.

Water, land and memory in the “gerais” of the São Francisco River: Cabeceirinha, in Januária, Minas Gerais

Over several decades, farming families moved to the "gerais" region of the Upper-Middle São Francisco River in northern Minas Gerais. With free access to land and water, the “geralistas” adapted management techniques that ensured abundant production until the end of the twentieth century, when the seizure of common lands in the name of “agricultural modernization” was followed by the implementation of conservation units. These changes were fundamental to the experiences of the rural population, and their narratives illustrate a combination of assessing changes in access to resources and territory with creating forms of resistance and adaptation to new ways of living, doing, and producing. Memory supports this assessment and confrontation. This article analyzes the relationships between population, land, and water in the Cabeceirinha community, on the banks of the Pandeiros River, one of the last living rivers in this region. Ethnographic and social research techniques are used to discuss from stories and memories how land, legal, and environmental restrictions have changed customs while simultaneously forming the foundation of the daily recreation of living conditions.elocation-id: e2230111Recebido: 11.15.2021 • Aceito: 04.07.2022 • Publicado: 05.20.2022Original article / Blind peer review / Open access

Investigating gender stereotypes and musicality in Esan, Edo State, Nigeria

This article examines the Ijieleghe and Igbabonelimin acrobatic dances for female and male ensembles. The data was obtained through ethnographic research techniques which include research in the library, interviews, focus group discussions, the use of interlocutors and participant observation. We found that both genres stem from the same source and are similar in dance patterns, repertory and musical instruments. While Ijieleghe performers wear light costumes, those of Igbabonelimin are heavy and sometimes accompanied by male and female masquerades. In Igbabonelimin, however, women are not admitted into any of its departments; while in Ijieleghe, male participants are confined to drumming and singing. Only the female participants perform the dance. This paper asks: Why is it that women cannot be admitted into the membership of the sonic space of men in the Igbabonelimin? What will happen if these ensembles admit members of the opposite sexes into gender restricted areas? These questions are what this paper intends to answer. However, while we are aware that there are gender-based restrictions that are not conducive to integration in this day and age, it is our view that in the light of present-day realities in Nigeria, gender restrictions should be challenged to lengthen and enhance the longevity of these ensembles.

Scenario of Educational Management for Unity and Peace in ASEAN Community: Research Utilization

Educational management for unity and peace of countries in ASEAN community was focused on this researcharticle. The purpose was to propose scenario and strategy of educational management for unity and peace in ASEANcommunity. Ethnographic Delphi Future Research (EDFR) was used for research design, and the target group was educationalpersonnel from ten ASEAN countries. Research tools were interview schedule and questionnaires. Qualitative data wereanalyzed using content analysis and analytic induction, and quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Resultsindicated that six strategies of educational management were set for unity and peace of countries in ASEAN community whichwere to develop teachers and administrators, to collaborate curriculum and assessment, to enhance teaching and instruction, toencourage educational research, to facilitate educational opportunity, and to develop educational management. The analyzedresult from Ethnographic Delphi Future Research technique showed that 6 strategies and 26 goals have been accepted with theconsensus from experts all items. Each item showed the median of strategies and goals were between 4.00 to 5.00, the absoluteof median and mode difference was 0 in all items, interquartile range were between 0.00 – 1.00 which can be explained that theexpert group had correlated agreement on ASEAN education strategic plan. Research results for scenario of educationalmanagement for unity and peace in ASEAN Community was being used for the speech at two international conference as akeynote speech

Study of Edible Spontaneous Herbs in the Republic of Moldova for Ensuring a Sustainable Food System

Recent studies have shown that food systems fail to provide a healthy diet and are unfair and ecologically unsustainable. Sustainable food production will require multidisciplinary approaches, in which human, animal, and environmental health, are inextricably linked. There are various researches that make edible spontaneous herbs (ESP) the protagonists of a new trend in food approach, focused more on health, food safety, and connection with nature. The research consisted of the analysis and capitalization of (ESH) from the territory of the Republic of Moldova (RM) by reviewing their traditional use in local gastronomy and describing the nutritional characteristics. Ethnographic research techniques, such as conversations and interviews, were used to identify knowledge about the use of ESH in the RM. The use, phytochemical profile, and curative effects of the analyzed ESH were taken from the online database Plants For A Future (PFAF) and the phytochemical and ethnobotanical database of the US Department of Agriculture and Agricultural Research. The analysis of the specialized literature on ESH consumption in the world showed that their culinary application in the RM could still be diversified. Some of their properties could possibly be used in the design of new products for people with special diets.

Prostitusi dan Narkoba: Studi Etnografi Pariwisata Kelab Malam di Seminyak

This research aims to provide a description of prostitution and drugs in nightclubs in Seminyak. Honesty, thus research  not to find out who is right or wrong, precisely to emphasize understanding the tourism phenomenon from a different side. The research paradigm is qualitative with ethnographic methods, field research and qualitative techniques. The results showed that sex workers and drug users in Seminyak were not simple problems. Related to the development of the tourism sector, on the one hand, the pursuit of economic growth and the welfare of the community. But on the other hand, it triggers a lot of intrigue and strategies of actors or agent to remain, survive or get stronger in tourism practices in nightclubs. The field research finding controlled abandonment concept have strength evidence that prostitution and drugs exist but are needed according to the agent's interests. 
 Keywords: drugs, etnography, nigthclubs, prostitution, tourism

Why is Germany less entrepreneurial? A behavioral reasoning perspective

This study uses empirical data collected from the entrepreneurial working environments to examine and reason the effect of entrepreneurial behaviors on the stagnation of entrepreneurship in Germany and how these behaviors are influenced by the national cultural characteristics, practices and values. Using ethnographic research techniques and Grounded Theory method, we observe that the entrepreneurial behaviors—in the context of managing adversities for the first time—are impacted by the German cultural practices and characteristics: (1) “Do-it-Yourself” culture, (2) perfectionism and (3) social trust issues. Consequently, we suggest that these practices reflect the relevance of the behaviors’ reasoning to uncertainty avoidance and risk aversion as cultural values in Germany. This study describes and reasons the behaviors of entrepreneurs in their early venturing stage, and contributes to the new area of research that seeks more links between the entrepreneurial behaviors and the cultural values, and how both impact the entrepreneurial growth and success.

Fi Ra Wali: Revitalisasi Folklor “Saguku Hidupku” Sebagai Identitas Kultural dalam Kosmologi Masyarakat Sentani-Papua

This article aims to describe and explain how the philosophy of fi ra wali (in English: my sago my life) shapes the identity of Sentani people. The objective is to explain this notion (fi ra wali) features as the cultural identity of the Sentani people whichconstructed in everyday engagement (daily interactions) of the Sentani communities. Data for the study was obtained through  ethnographic research and phenomenology techniques including participant observation, interviews and literature study. Identity is usually constructed institutionally based on juridical and normative agreements collectively. This article reveals that identity can be constructed narratively, in daily interactions in society. Everyday angagement (daily life) gives birth to authentic experiences that are sacred in social relations, both in physical space and spiritual space of the Sentani people. Identity shapedfrom cosmic-cultural reality that exists in cosmology, is able to integrate society in sui generis (clans), in order to face modernization, which has caused social changes in Sentani society. This article concludes that the fi ra wali as a cultural identity has important contribution to deal with multicultural contexts.

Contribution à l’étude clinique des institutions de soins. Le fantasme de l’institution malfaisante

In France, the lens with which clinical psychology gazes through institutional matters seems limited to what happens between patients and professionals. It pays little interest to the interactions between the administration of the institution, i.e. organizational matters, and the daily clinical setting of mental health care. Unconscious institutional dynamics seem to receive much more attention from management sciences, which sometimes use psychoanalytical concepts to shed light on managerial and organizational problems. This article, based on an action-research study in a French university hospital, aims to shed light on one of the unconscious mental constructs which could be at the root of what several authors in psychiatry have identified as “institutional paranoia”: the fantasy of a malicious institution. We hypothesize that this fantasy, which attributes harmful intentions towards its agents to the institution, is a recurrent avatar of the typical problem institutional psychology deals with. It is therefore even more specific to hospitals, due to the abundantly documented tensions which they have been faced during the last two decades. We were initially appointed to conduct a “cooperative action research” project in a French University Hospital Centre between October 2018 and September 2019, in order to write a preliminary research report on the quality of working life as experienced by its personnel. Four ethnographic qualitative research techniques were used to assess the needs of healthcare professionals: individual and group interviews with teams from all departments (health care, administrative, logistical and technical), on formal or informal times, participant observations in services which were later recorded in a written logbook, interprofessional working groups called “thematic commissions” that met for five sessions of 3 hours each and the creation of a digital “suggestion box” accessible on the hospital's intranet. Our results show the fantasy of the malicious institution deserves to be isolated due to its three constitutive elements: 1) a blurry institutional governance and incarnation of the hospital's leadership; 2) the recognition of the symbolic power of the institution, including its coercive power; and 3) the attribution of negative intentions to the institution by aggressive projections, which in turn transform it into a persecuting object. We discuss the link between the feeling of belonging to the institution and the feeling of abandonment as experienced by staff in regards to the religious past of French hospitals, and indicate the necessity but also the caution with which research can and must investigate the weight of the personal history and vulnerability of each individual in his or her sensitivity to the representation of the malicious institution.

The commendable man: an anthropological experience of self-slimming based on health TV journalism

This article presents the results of an ethnographic research about food, a theme that has gained prominence in Brazilian TV. The author of this work followed feeding tips from the Bem Estar program, Rede Globo; slimmed 25 kg in four months, and noted the sensations he had and the reactions of others. The study considers that Brazilian TV propagates the idea of lean body as "normal" and as a model to be followed. The work uses observant participation. It is an ethnographic research technique in which the researcher not only observes the phenomenon, but also participates in it (in this case, noting changes in the body itself). The manuscript uses an interdisciplinary technique to associate themes from Anthropology to Social Communication. He concludes that the television message in favor of thinness transforms the one who slims into a commendable man.

Introduction

Introduction Vanessa Ochs (bio) No so long ago, I would meet Jewish Studies scholars working on feminist projects face to face in such settings as the Association for Jewish Studies annual conference, the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton and the Oxford Seminars in Advanced Jewish Studies. We shared ideas not just on panels where papers were formally presented, but in hallway conversations, over rushed meals and on stolen walks. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic shifting our lives to Zoom, I replay those treasured encounters, the formal and informal ones, especially those that jump-started precious "long-distance" relationships that merged personal and intellectual selves, with colleagues, junior and senior, from all over the world. In the past few years, I was particularly interested to hear many colleagues—often ones I had just met—describing ethnographic or autoethnographic projects that considered matters of Jewish women's lives and gender from decidedly feminist perspectives. I could see lines of connection between their projects across diverse fields, including anthropology, sociology, folklore, religious studies and other related disciplines. The gracious invitation extended to me to serve as Consulting Editor of this issue of Nashim offered an opportunity to gather exemplars of the new work I had been hearing about, and to ask the authors to specify how they understood the impact of "feminist sensibilities" (a term I take from Michal Kravel-Tovi's article herein) in their choices of topics, research methodologies, modes of interacting with informants, or genres of writing. As you will see, the authors whose work is collected in this issue (which is by no means intended as a representative sampling of the much larger variety of work being done in the field) describe methodologies that are particular to their disciplinary or interdisciplinary training, their topics and their frames of reference. No one single style or even definition of "new Jewish feminist ethnography" emerges, but there are indeed significant overlaps in their work, all of which, by the way, eschew gender essentialism, especially in comparison with much second-wave Jewish feminist scholarship. I do draw your attention to one robust connector: the presence of pressing feminist agendas, expressed in attention, for example, to intersectionality in women's lives, systemic inequalities of power, and the movement from marginalization to empowerment. [End Page 7] In-person fieldwork, long a hallmark of ethnographic research technique, characterizes four of the articles. In "The 'Vulnerable Hero' and His Wife: PTSD and Shifting Dynamics of Gender and Care in Contemporary Israel," Keren Friedman-Peleg chronicles her research as a participant-observer in a support group for Jewish-Israeli women whose husbands had been diagnosed with security-related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Friedman-Peleg discovers that the women's therapists, there in principle to help them, unwittingly turn out to be agents of the state, by enforcing the national expectation that women must care for their husbands who have suffered security-related traumas. But Friedman-Peled discovers a twist—the women use the psychological tools they have learned in the group sessions to analyze their own emotions, to resist gendered national and cultural expectations of caregiving, and even to consider leaving stressed marriages. Complicating her analysis further, Friedman-Peleg examines the taken-for-granted gendered moral/ethical implications of caregiving for victims of trauma. Further still: She brings our attention to political ramifications. As she writes: "The biomedical label of PTSD has been utilized not only as an ideological means to emphasize Jewish-Israeli suffering, while portraying the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories as perpetrators of terror, but also as a tool to valorize sufferers of mental injuries as a result of their active participation in the conflict." Amy K. Milligan draws upon feminist folkloristics in "Creating Jewish Mothers: A Feminist Ethnographic Investigation of the Mothers Circle of Coastal Virginia and the Interfaith Parents Circle." Milligan observed the mutual support generated in peer-facilitated educational groups of non-Jews and Jews-by-choice raising Jewish children in a community in the American South. By focusing her gaze and empathetic listening upon mothers who are transmitting "Jewish identity in ways that...

Before Allah created human beings, there was a marijuana tree”: marijuana myths and culture in the “Ghettoes” of Maamobi Zongo community, Accra

The objective of my paper is to deploy marijuana etiological myths in the “ghettoes” of Maamobi, Accra, to explain the persistence of the marijuana culture in Ghana. The fact that marijuana is a criminalized herb and yet remains a widely consumed herb by some of the youth leads to what I refer to as the ‘marijuana paradox ’. Consequently, rather than constructing myths as irrational, self-indulgent and relics of a pre-scientific past or antiquated, concocted fairytales, 1 use marijuana myths to explain how it informs the marijuana culture in Maamobi and also betrays the construction of the marijuana culture as a fad and a craze that could be controlled with laws. Using ethnographic research techniques such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, informal conversation, and participant observation, I argue that the over-reliance on external reasons, without digging into how marijuana myths inform the cultogenic and sociogenic of marijuana culture in the “ghettoes” of Maamobi, will continue to frustrate the efforts of stakeholders to stem the t ide against the consumption of the herb in Ghana.

¿Sirven las evaluaciones para aprender? Influencia de las evaluaciones sobre las decisiones de manejo en un Área Natural Protegida

El artículo presenta un análisis de la arquitectura de evaluación de la Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP). La finalidad es reconocer factores que promueven e inhiben el uso de evaluaciones para dirigir la toma de decisiones de los guardaparques que administran un Área Natural Protegida (ANP) en el centro de México. Para acceder a la información se utilizaron técnicas de investigación etnográfica, las cuales facilitaron la interacción con el personal de la dependencia para entender el proceso social que influye en la producción y uso de evaluaciones. Se identificó que los guardaparques interactúan con tres tipos de evaluación. Ninguna es utilizada para identificar el impacto de sus acciones. Aun así, su interacción con las evaluaciones les permite identificar aspectos susceptibles de mejora en su manejo del ANP. Algunas barreras a superar se relacionan con el margen de maniobra de los guardaparques para implementar cambios. Por un lado, debido a limitaciones presupuestales que inciden en su capacidad operativa y, por el otro, por las consecuencias negativas de un enfoque evaluativo que exige demostrar resultados cuantificables en el corto plazo.

The RANI Project: A socio-normative intervention to reduce anemia in Odisha, India: A formative research protocol.

Background: More than half of women of reproductive age in India are anemic. Anemia is associated with increased risk of preterm delivery, higher maternal mortality and contributes to fatigue, which affects women's work productivity. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends daily oral iron and folic acid (IFA) supplements during pregnancy and weekly supplements for women of reproductive age. Government programs and global donors have distributed and promoted IFA supplements in India for over four decades. However, initial intake and compliance remain inadequate. Objectives: This protocol describes the formative research phase of a larger study, called the Reduction in Anemia through Normative Innovations (RANI) Project, which will test, through a randomized controlled trial, the hypothesis that a social norms-based behavioral intervention in Odisha, India will improve uptake of IFA supplements and reduce anemia among reproductive age women as compared to usual care. The focus of this paper is on the formative research required to develop a sound intervention. We will examine socio-normative barriers to and facilitators of IFA supplement uptake. Methods and analysis: Based on the Theory of Normative Social Behavior, we will adopt a mixed-method,multilevel approach. We will collect data using focus groups, in-depth interviews, observations, Rapid Participatory Ethnographic Evaluation and Research (PEER) techniques, and perceptual mapping methods. Our sample includes reproductive age women (pregnant and not pregnant), their husbands, their mothers/in law and key stakeholders. Before collecting the data, and after analyzing the results, we will hold convenings in India to engage key stakeholders in collaborative design. Following the intervention design, we will test components of the intervention, gather user feedback and fine-tune as necessary. Impact: This study will contribute to the social norms and behavioral intervention research and inform policymakers about the value of adopting a socio-normative approach.