Ethnographic Research Research Articles

Beyond “Pressure”: Peer Influences on e-Cigarette Use in Young Australian Narratives of Vaping

Background In the early 2020s, Australian media and public health organizations described the rapid rise in youth e-cigarette uptake, portraying this as a “peer pressure” problem wherein vulnerable young people were being led or bullied into vaping by the “cool” kids. Yet, the peer pressure framing of vaping fails to account for young people's rituals of nicotine consumption and ways social drug economies are organized. Methods In 2023, we conducted qualitative interviews and ethnographic research with 24 young people ages 17 to 25, both vapers and nonvapers, in New South Wales, Australia. We investigated their embodied experiences of vaping, observations of peers’ vaping practices, and beliefs about vaping policy. We analyzed their accounts for themes and here report our findings, illustrated with participants’ quotes and an ethnographic portrait of a Sydney high school vape seller. Results The notion that young people are “pressured” into vaping lacked emic meaning for our participants. Their accounts reveal three ways that vaping is social beyond “pressure.” First, social vape market offers entrepreneurial teens money-earning opportunities, mediated by social networks and markers of peer esteem, prestige, and trust. Second, vapes are exchanged as both gifts and commodities in sharing economies, offering social opportunities and scripts for recreational interactions. Third, e-cigarettes as material objects provide esthetic and gustatory pleasures that are both individually enjoyed and socially performed in rituals of taste and display. Discussion These three perspectives on the sociality of vaping help nuance our understanding of how and why young people vape, and also suggest why public health outreach efforts may not be effective when they reduce youth vaping uptake to peer pressure. As youth vape use is on the rise in Australia, these perspectives matter for understanding this important social phenomenon and may help policy development move beyond simplifications of youth cultural motivations.

Islanding as a vernacular creative response to crisis: Emotional geographies of pandemic musicianship

Emotional geographies of creativity during disruptive crises have received scant attention yet are deeply entwined with unfolding spatial reconfigurations. Drawing upon ethnographic research on the shifting geographies of creative work in the post-pandemic city, we highlight and discuss one distinctive emotional-geographic experience: what Wakefield (2021) calls ‘islanding’, a ‘retreat’ among creative workers to home spaces, consolidating activities and finding ways to inhabit upheaval. Describing the case of four male musicians who play together regularly in Sydney, Australia, we show how, in response to forced lockdowns, collaboration shifted from dispersed networks to home spaces of rehearsal, composition, production and performance. Within these reworked home spaces, creativity and sociality were reassembled. The emotional dimensions of music-making, support from family and friends, gender nuances, and bonds of collective creativity, acquired heightened significance. Pandemic upheaval afforded unforeseen opportunities to experiment, while ‘islanded’ spaces proved vital, socially, as the musicians faced multiple health, employment, and psychological challenges. Transcending masculine tropes, gathering at home to play music proved an avenue to perform care work, share the joys of music, express love and admit vulnerability. We conclude that emotional, gendered, and spatial dimensions must figure more prominently within analyses of creative responses to crisis, including post-pandemic discussions of the creative sectors.

Ethnography in the clinic: Reflections on two examples of clinical–ethnographic research.

Ethnography in the clinic: Reflections on two examples of clinical–ethnographic research.

From the state’s development promise to the uncertain lives of farmers in eastern Thailand

This research paper aims to examine the state's development promise in relation to the Eastern Economic Corridor development (EEC) project and its impact on people's livelihoods. The study utilized a qualitative approach and ethnographic research to collect data on the operation of the EEC project and its impact on people's livelihoods. The key informants, who were actively involved in the movement for farm safety, were 25 farmers from a farmers network in Kabinburi district, Prachinburi province, and Phanom Sarakham district, Chachoengsao province. The study found that the EEC project has been a crucial development undertaking in Thailand since 2017. The Thai state has promised that the EEC project will provide a better future for the people, stating that the operation of the project will focus on investing in infrastructure, providing investment privileges, eliminating investment barriers, and establishing a centralized authority. However, the local people's experiences with the EEC project demonstrate the formation of unequal power relations that have led to an uneven distribution of the project's benefits. Although local communities are hopeful that the EEC project will provide access to new markets, they still fear the uncertainty of their lives due to various state mechanisms established in the project, which prevent them from participating in the local decision-making process. Some local farmers have experienced an expansion of factories and waste disposal plants, causing fear of pollution on farms, and other non-agricultural land use activities in the EEC backyard, or peripheral areas of the EEC project.

‘Plastic addicts’: troubling consumer tropes in Thailand’s neoliberal waste environment

ABSTRACT Amidst mounting alarm over plastic waste’s impact on ecosystems and health, Thailand has gained global attention as one of the top six contributors to marine plastic debris. Narratives that Thai people are ‘addicted to plastic’ circulate widely in local and international media. This article unpacks this and related tropes by investigating their historical development and everyday usage. Based on ethnographic research among regulators, activists, plastic industry members, and recyclers in Bangkok, and a media analysis, I demonstrate how co-constructed civic epistemologies frame plastic waste solutions in Thailand. As public knowledge-ways that inform decision-making, these epistemologies drive plastic pollution by perpetuating neoliberal ideologies of personal responsibility and deregulation. In doing so, they reframe Thailand’s plastic waste challenges as a question of individual morality that requires consumer-based solutions rather than a question of structural production that requires a regulatory response. While scholars have addressed plastic pollution from technical, governance, and new materialist perspectives, this article offers a socio-cultural geography approach that accounts for the cultural narratives that mediate plastic pollution debates and drive plastic production and policy in Thailand and beyond.

Dziedzictwo kulturowe w procesie rozwoju lokalnego na obszarach niezurbanizowanych

The aim of this article is to show how cultural heritage can be used for local development. The article takes the form of a case study, focusing on the rural commune of Stegna located in the Pomeranian Voivodship. The empirical material was provided by ethnographic research carried out in 2019, its subject-matter being cultural heritage understood according to the constructivist approach. The ethnographic study included desk research, observations of local initiatives, and individual interviews with representatives of the local community. The material thus gathered was interpreted using Gregory Ashworth’s concept of heritage planning. The article emphasised the fluid nature of heritage as a resource that can be used to initiate processes of local development. A particular situation is the presence of so-called “dissonant heritage”, the specific nature of which has a significant impact on its use in development processes.

“We’re no longer the senzala”: Race, space, and difference in the Ethnic Capital of Brazil

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Ijuí, a small rural city in Rio Grande do Sul, this work examines how history, race, and power over space articulate in the construction of a multiethnic heritage tourism festival. Ijuí has recently garnered significant national and international heritage recognition based on its unique history of multiethnic European colonization and the metanarrative that this produced an exceptionally tolerant and harmonious society. Contrasting with this narrative, the reality for the city’s Black, indigenous, and mixed residents reveals how tourism is often situated within a zone of ambivalence, serving both as an enduring source of precarity and a critical site of hope. Drawing from Michel De Certeau’s theories of strategies and tactics, along with Susan Gal and Judith Irvine’s work on rhematization, this article aims to (1) trace the precarity involved when colorblind multiethnic tourism operates within contexts of marked racial inequality, (2) interrogate the ideological, material, and semiotic processes by which these precarities become recursively inscribed within the space of tourism, and (3) show how the space of tourism can be reappropriated and utilized through tactics that defy categorization as tourism, serving ends that threaten the very basis of the precarities themselves. Thus, even as the multiethnic tourism landscape has been a source of ongoing marginalization, I argue in this work that it can also be reimagined as a space of potential where new communities, relations, visibilities, and histories can circulate and take root.

“Our Children Are Dead”: Past and Anticipated Adversity Shaping Caregiving and Cultural Reproduction among Banyamulenge Refugee Families in Rwanda

It is well known that experiences of extreme adversity strongly impact caregiving and family dynamics. In this study, we explore how caregiving is shaped by experiences of war and displacement among a community experiencing protracted, ongoing conflict and displacement, namely, Congolese Banyamulenge refugee families in Rwanda. The findings are based on six months of ethnographic team research with Banyamulenge refugee families living in semi-urban southern Rwanda. Among the caregivers, including people who arrived several years ago and others who have lived in Rwanda for over two decades, we found a strong longing for home and past cattle-herding life. We also found that caregivers emphasized the transmission of “survival tactics” as well as Banyamulenge identity and culture. We argue that these caregiving objectives and practices speak to the community’s experiences of material and existential losses in the past, as well as those anticipated in the unknown future. Second, parental caregiving efforts appear to lead to increased intergenerational dissonance, with children wishing to integrate into their host community. While this finding appears in line with much of the migration literature about intergenerational family relationships and conflict, we find that children’s orientation is not only informed by the host environment but also stems from a desire to relieve their parents’ suffering from loss and help them invest in more optimistic futures. Finally, while our findings suggest profound changes in social and cultural reproduction in the long term, we argue for caution, as ongoing changes in war dynamics in DR Congo may inform shifts in ideas on belonging among the children. The findings provide new insights for understanding how caregiving may be affected by war and displacement while effecting change in war-affected, displaced communities.

Using video diaries in educational ethnography: what being alone with a camera does for self-representation, trust, and affording a participant perspective

ABSTRACT Video diaries are an innovative tool for ethnographic research, contributing to the quality of fieldwork and ethnographic data by giving additional attention to participant voices. Grounded in two fieldwork periods in secondary and higher education, this paper illustrates three key qualities through which video diaries contributed to ethnographic research: (1) Building trusting relationships with participants, (2) providing a space for participant autonomy, and (3) being a medium of self-explication and truth-telling. In video diaries, participants exercised free speech, providing a widely unmediated, personal perspective on their professional identity, roles, and relationships. This personal perspective allowed participants to contribute to trusting on their own terms, which mitigated face-work – especially when talking about conflicts and challenges – and provided additional entry points for conversations, enabling deep dialogue and understanding. Ultimately, the use of video diaries significantly strengthened the researcher-participant relationship and enriched the ethnographic data and the quality of interactions.

Basi a Nakaisigudan: Axiological Relevance of Basi in the Present-day lives of Piddigeños

Basi is a fermented wine extracted from sugarcane that is prominent in the province of Ilocos Norte. The product is particularly known in Piddig, the town where Basi Revolt started during the Spanish Regime. This study focused into the axiological relevance of basi in the present-day lives of Piddigeños. This ethnographic research also aimed to explore the historical evolution of basi in Piddig; understand and identify the challenges or threats to the tradition of basi in Piddig, and obtain insights from the Piddigeños about the future of basi. The research instrument revolved around (1) the production and evolution basi; (2) life events where basi is being served; (3) the relevance of basi in the future; (4) threats and challenges to basi; (5) perception of the young generation to the traditional alcoholic beverage; (6) values that can be derived personal experiences with basi. Using the thematic method of analysing data, results revealed that the axiological relevance of basi for Piddigeños are manifested in different dimensions of the society that includes (1) intergenerational transmission; (2) production process continuation; (3) cultural identity; (4) social cohesion; and (5) economic livelihood. Basi, being a cultural symbol, should be given importance such that the government and local should initiate its continuation through collaboration.

Syndemic Connections: Overdose Death Crisis, Gender-Based Violence and COVID-19

This article will use syndemic theory to identify and analyze overlapping health and social conditions, focusing specifically on how gender-based violence is systemically interconnected with contemporary public health issues. The overdose death crisis that continues to afflict Canadian populations is not an isolated health issue. Across Canada, it is intertwined with mental health, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 and structural violence—the chronic and systemic disadvantages affecting those living in poverty and oppressive circumstances. Opioid use is an often-avoidant coping strategy for many experiencing the effects of trauma, relentless fear, pain, ill health and social exclusion. In particular, Indigenous and non-Indigenous women’s experiences with opioid addiction are entangled with encounters with gender based-violence, poverty and chronic ailments within structurally imposed processes and stressors shaped by a history of colonialism, ruptured lifeways and Western ways of knowing and doing, leading to disproportionate harms and occurrences of illness. While biomedical models of comorbidity and mortality approach substance misuse, gender-based violence and major infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 as distinct yet compounding realities, this article argues that these conditions are synergistically interrelated via the critical/reflexive lens of syndemic frameworks. Through secondary research using academic, media and policy sources from the past decade in Canada, complemented by prior ethnographic research, the synergistic connections among opioid addiction, gender-based violence and the effects of the COVID pandemic on diverse women will be shown to be driven by socio-structural determinants of health including poverty, intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism and Western optics. Together, they embody a contemporary Canadian syndemic necessitating coordinated responses.

Going with the food flow: The contribution of urban agriculture to a growing African city

ABSTRACT Sub-Saharan Africa's rapid urban growth is causing a decline in urban agricultural land, reducing access to healthy local food for citizens. This paper quantitatively and spatially describes the contribution of urban and peri-urban producers to the availability and accessibility of fresh leafy vegetables in the growing city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Based on over 700 surveys with food vendors and consumers, as well as ethnographic research with farmers, we show how a total of 70 per cent of all amaranth consumed in Dar es Salaam was found to be produced within the city. With an average distance travelled from farm to fork of 11 km, leafy vegetables have a strongly localised foodshed. The results show the ongoing significance of urban areas in meeting their own food demands, emphasising the necessity to explicitly integrate food provisioning in the planning of growing African cities.

Challenges in Making Inclusive and Comprehensive Public Policy on Ethno-educational Processes

This article presents the results of intercultural processes stemming from challenges in making inclusive and comprehensive public policies on ethno-educational matters based on the current public policies in Latin American countries, particularly Colombia. This qualitative, ethnographic research examined the perceptions of Indigenous educators vis-à-vis (sustituir por: in face of) the contemporary public policies on aboriginal communities. In doing so, this study employed individual and focus-group interviews and drew on a descriptive, analytical design that also considered a systematic review of antecedents to such policies. The findings evidence that the realities of Indigenous classroom practices and approaches are distant from those of urban settings and the principles and norms established in Colombia’s legislation and other countries. Lastly, the study highlights the need for constructing public policies that benefit Indigenous communities in Latin America and Colombia.

Hidden conflicts? Revealing power mechanisms in collaborative governance for redeveloping heritage districts: The case of Dashilar, Beijing, China

ABSTRACT The redevelopment of Chinese heritage districts increasingly adopts collaborative approaches, raising concerns about power dynamics in these processes and their potential impact on resolving conflicts of interest through collaboration. This study establishes a multi-dimensional framework, examining arenas and sources of power to uncover power mechanisms and their impact on collaborative governance in the redevelopment of Dashilar, Beijing, China. Through ethnographic research, we found that institutionalized collaborative decision-making empowers participants to have the final say on relocation and renovation decisions. However, biased mobilization and discursive practices, with different sources of power utilized, affect collaborative processes and outcomes. Over time, collaborative decision-making results in elite control of Dashilar’s historic fabric and its subsequent gentrification. The government consolidates its power by controlling economic resources and influencing land use decisions. Crucial conflicts remain obscured, weakening the interests of residents and market actors. To understand power in collaborative governance, analysis must encompass both sources and arenas of power, transcending observable interactions within formal institutions to include informal practices.

Bringing water values into play in the Atacama desert water crisis

The current water crisis in the Atacama Desert is explained by extractivist models based on the overexploitation of this resource. Extensive mega-mining is devastating water reserves and causing inequities in access for local indigenous communities. In the present work, through ethnographic research in the community of Mamiña, we show how the water values of different local actors come into conflict. Through a positioned analysis model, we observe two types of water-related values, some determined by worldviews and others created by socio-environmental relationships throughout history. Along these two axes, we observe the emergence of new pragmatic values that make an adequate collective response to the water crisis challenging to implement. We argue that this paradox can be better understood through an approach focused on the sociocultural analysis of water values, deriving from the context of their emergence, as well as their complementarities and dynamics.

Cultural heritage re-search: Reimagining the collective memory of Copándaro de Galeana, Michoacán

The author reconnects with the ongoing struggles of her parents’ hometown, Copándaro de Galeana, located in Michoacán, Mexico, in this ethnographic critical research. Employing critical survey methods and analyzing the community’s identity reclamation through two festivals, El Carnaval and El Festival de las Almas y las Flores, the author collaborates with family members and friends to create a collective memory of Copándaro de Galeana’s intangible cultural heritage, underscoring the community’s self-expressed Resistant Knowledges. As a critical cultural heritage study, this article addresses the dichotomy of exploitation vs empowerment present in archival aspects of cultural heritage preservation methods. It also examines how the author’s position as a Chicana/Mestiza, attempting to reconnect with her indigenous roots and the duality of Indigenismo, aids or counters the empowerment of Copándaro de Galeana. Situated within the broader theme of “Resistant Knowledges: Unmasking Coloniality through the re-search of local to global communities,” the study addresses specific subtopics, emphasizing autonomous movements, identity and representation, and community resilience. Recognizing the important role that oral history has played in recording Copándaro de Galeana’s memory, the author similarly includes community members’ recollections and personal experiences to form a decolonized re-search article.

Complementary schools as ‘breathing spaces’: identity, multilingualism and critical pedagogies in heritage language education

Whilst mainstream schools in England may encourage multilingualism by insisting on the study of foreign languages, multilingual children are not always provided with support for the maintenance of their heritage languages and cultures. In response to this shortcoming, communities organise themselves to support their young members by setting up extra-curricular education institutions or associations, also called complementary schools, which contribute to the cultural and linguistic maintenance of minority communities. Through emblematic extracts from a fourteen-month ethnographic research in an Italian complementary school in London, this article examines how HL learners engage in and reflect on their multilingual practices and how they develop agency in their learning environment. The findings illustrate how critical modes of teaching and learning that make space for multilingualism can provide children with unique opportunities to discover, explore and experiment with their multilingual and multicultural selves, which, in turn, permit them to access linguistic resources and legitimise multilingual learner identities. Expanding on Fishman’s notion of ‘breathing space’, the article suggests that complementary schools represent a space where minority languages but also pedagogical practices can breathe and develop.

Sustainable management of gastronomic tourism in specific destinations: Perspectives and challenges

Gastronomic tourism is a form of travel that has gained relevance today, making it crucial to understand the promotion and management strategies in specific destinations. This systematic review article aims to analyze these strategies, highlighting the importance of cultural authenticity and collaboration between local actors. The methodology used is aligned with a descriptive and correlational approach, using criteria of exhaustiveness and relevance to review ethnographic research and scientific articles. The results reveal the influence of ancestral knowledge on cultural tourism, as well as the challenges of food heritage and food transculturation. In this sense, the need to design promotional strategies that promote traditionality, identity and cultural empowerment in local communities is highlighted. In conclusion, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of gastronomic tourism promotion and management strategies, underscoring the importance of preserving cultural authenticity and promoting local collaboration for the sustainable development of gastronomic tourism.

‘Soft Rebellion’: Flow art, critical play, and wellbeing in the city

This article discusses the intersections between flow art, critical play, and wellbeing in urban contexts in Finland. Flow art as an art form sits at the intersection of several movement-based creative disciplines, including contemporary circus, dance, and the underground electronic music scene. It is based on DIY in terms of making one's own props and choreographies and peer teaching/learning. The flow artists make use of several props familiar to the circus arts, including contact sticks, poi, hula hoops, diabolos, dragon staffs, and fans. The article explores how urban artistic take-overs can be understood as critical play, including the potential for political subversion and changing the meanings of urban spaces. Further, the article discusses how wellbeing is understood holistically, relationally, and interconnected to the concept of flow. The article is a result of ethnographic research conducted with flow art communities in 2021–2023.

The Utility of Swords in Kandyan and Low- country Rituals

The sword, a distinctive weapon used in various countries, holds multiple utilities across cultures. Among them, rituals featuring swords are commonly found. Sword usage is also seen in folk rituals in Sri Lanka, which hold an important place in society. The main objective of this research was to explore how the sword, a destructive weapon with sharp edges, is integrated into local dance rituals in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, the ritualistic offerings and performances involving the sword, the utility, and the purpose of sword usage in folk rituals were examined. The research problem was whether the original intent and the functions of the sword are represented when it is employed as a ritualistic artifact or theatrical prop in rituals. Since the study followed an ethnographic research approach, it relied on field research in identifying the exact perspectives of the community regarding the usage of swords in rituals. Additionally, secondary sources located via library surveys were used to gain further insights to provide a nuanced analysis. Using Kandyan and Low-country traditions as the limitations of the study, direct and indirect observations of targeted rituals were done, and interviews were conducted with expert artisans. The data analysis revealed that in folk rituals, the sword serves multiple roles, i.e., as an ornament of deities; a ritualistic artifact; and theatrical prop. Moreover, evoking heroic sentiment and blessings are some of the purposes of using swords. However, some characters that enact devils also wield swords. It was also revealed that the use of the sword in the Kandyan tradition is relatively minimal compared to the low country tradition. This is because the prevalence of characters enacting gods and devils is high in Low country dance rituals. With the exceptions of ritual performances like Kadupaliya and Wina Kepeema, swords are not commonly used for sacrificial purposes. In conclusion, the use of swords in local dance rituals serves psychotherapeutic purposes in different ways and demonstrates its primary application in unique manners by symbolizing the original weapon.