Ethnographic Research Articles

An ethnographic study on the traces of Georgian culture in the cuisine of Ordu (Türkiye)

Migration caused by various factors such as war, natural disasters, and famine, significantly influences cultural elements. The tangible and intangible elements acquired from past generations and passed down to subsequent generations can be called cultural heritage. Cuisine is a significant component of the cultural heritage, as earlier migrations have closely influenced culinary culture. Following the wars towards the end of the Ottoman Empire, Georgians who migrated from the Caucasus brought their culinary culture to Türkiye. Ordu was one of the cities where Georgians settled the most during this period. The main objective of this study is to identify and examine traces of Georgian culture in the Ordu cuisine. The research utilized an ethnographic design and a purposive sampling technique. Data were obtained through interviews with eight individuals familiar with Georgian culinary culture and whose families had been in the region for five generations. The obtained data were subjected to content analysis. These findings indicate that prominent elements of Georgian culture in the cuisine of Ordu include the widespread use of spices and sauces, the significant use of walnuts in dishes, limited consumption of oil, frequent preference for medicinal and aromatic plants, changing traditional methods, the preparation of unique dishes on specific occasions, and the resemblance of culturally used materials. Georgian cuisine includes both vary vegetables such as kale, eggplant, corn, leeks, grapes, beans and vary meals such as pepeçura, khachapuri (haçapuri), hinkali, and papa. Common cooking methods include roasting, baking, boiling, and frying. It was also determined that characteristic kitchen utensils such as bileki stone (stone-made bread pan), gobi (wooden dough boat), sanakveli (small wooden bowl for crushing garlic etc.), and laperay (cabbage mashing board) were used in Georgian cuisine. The significant presence of Georgian culture in the cuisine of Ordu is a crucial gastronomic heritage feature that holds considerable value for the region.

Making organ donation after circulatory death routine: Preserving patienthood and reproducing ways of dying in the intensive care unit.

Controlled organ donation after circulatory death (DCD) was re-introduced in the UK in 2008, in efforts to increase rates of organs for transplant. Following reintroduction, there were debates about the ethics of DCD, including whether potential DCD donors receive end-of-life care which is in their best interests. Since this time, DCD has become a routine donor pathway in the NHS. In this article, we present findings from an ethnographic study examining the everyday practices of DCD in two English Trusts. Drawing on the concept of death brokering and Bea's (2020) call to consider organ donation as embedded and routine practice within health care, we look at how DCD is integrated into end-of-life care in intensive care units. We show how DCD is made routine at the end-of-life via the practices of health professionals who create an active separation between discussions about death and donation; reproduce usual ways of doing things in end-of-life care; and respect the distinction between patient/donor, dying and death. In doing so, we argue these function to preserve the patienthood of the potential donor, ensuring DCD operates as an integrated part, and culturally accepted form of, good end-of-life care for potential donors, their relatives, and health professionals alike.

Solastalgia as Disruption of Biocultural Identity. The Mount Amiata Geothermal Conflict

Some residents of Mount Amiata in Tuscany, Italy, are experiencing emotional distress and solastalgia due to changes in their beloved land. Mount Amiata is witnessing protests by citizens’ associations and activists who criticize the alleged social, economic, and environmental sustainability of geothermal energy. The analysis of the environmental conflict around geothermal energy on Mount Amiata contributes to the empirical use of the concept of "solastalgia” as affective rupture of biocultural relationships and identities. In the area surrounding Mount Amiata, the production of geothermal energy is experienced as an attack on the biodiversity of the "Mother Mountain," as a loss of the sense of home, and as part of a "predatory philosophy" employed by ENEL (Ente Nazionale per l’Energia Elettrica, National Electricity Board). This ethnographic study aims to analyze how the transformation of places influences the affective and biocultural identity of their inhabitants.

The Perceptions of Traditional Healers Regarding Cancers in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia: A Qualitative Study

<i>Background:</i> Many cancer patients in low-income countries seek care from traditional healers and use traditional medicines for cancer treatment. However, little is known about the perceptions and influence of traditional healers and the treatment decisions of cancer patients. Thus, we aimed to explore the perceptions of traditional healers regarding cancer, which can help in preventive interventions, thereby reducing morbidity and mortality from cancer. <i>Methods: </i>This ethnographic study was conducted between April and August 2023 in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. Purposive, convenience, and snowball sampling techniques were used to sample participants. In-depth interviews were conducted individually at participants’ homes in quiet places, and in the absence of respondents, between 45 and 55 minutes, using a semi-structured tool aided by a voice recorder and field notes. The interviews were then transcribed verbatim within a week, and thematic qualitative analysis was used to identify themes and subthemes. <i>Results:</i> Seven major themes were identified in traditional healers’ perceptions of cancer: (i) respondents’ perception of cancer; (ii) perceived causes of cancer; (iii) perceived signs of cancer; (iv) perceived transmission of cancer; (v) respondents’ perception of cancer detection; (vi) respondents' perception of cancer treatment; and (vii) respondents’ perception of ‘no modern cure for cancer. <i>Conclusion: </i>Traditional healers have limitations on their perception of cancer, including what cancer it is, its causes, signs, identification, and treatments. Thus, traditional healers need to be provided training and behavioral-changing interventions about cancer in order to improve cancer interventions.

Movement as Environmental Communication: A Heuristic of Embodied Rhetorical Placemaking

ABSTRACT This essay develops the theorization of movement as a mode of environmental communication, offering a heuristic of embodied rhetorical placemaking through the concepts of passage, event, and interval. Adapted from Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy, these concepts respectively identify transition, punctuation, and anticipation as distinct forms of movement that collectively capacitate how people come to know the places they tread. Exploring this heuristic in an ethnographic case study of wilderness trip reporting, this essay examines how a Maine-based outdoors reporter physically traverses nature trails for digital recording purposes. Guided by Whiteheadian thought, this analysis reveals a dynamic confluence of transitions, punctuations, and anticipations, enacted in more-than-human relationships, constitutes placemaking. By emphasizing the diverse materiality and formational quality of movement, this heuristic has implications beyond outdoor recreation for theorizing communication, analyzing placemaking, and practicing fieldwork.

Investigating Interpersonal Dynamics among Researchers and Innovators: An Ethnographic Study of Communication's Role in Fostering Innovation

Investigating Interpersonal Dynamics among Researchers and Innovators: An Ethnographic Study of Communication's Role in Fostering Innovation

Navigating Public Urban (Green) Space – An Analysis of Ethnic “Other” Women’s Walking Activities in Denmark

Globally, walking is the most popular leisure time physical activity (LTPA) among adults. Yet, navigating public spaces might pose distinct challenges for ethnic “Other” women, whose bodies and veiling practices have come under scrutiny in Western societies. Based on an ethnographic study of a walking group with ethnic “Other” women living in a deprived area of a Danish city, this article explores how the women negotiated being physically active in urban (green) space. Drawing on Lefebvre’s spatial theory, we paid particular attention to the boundaries and norms that characterized the social space of the walking group. Contrary to other activities, walking in a group with other women appeared as an accessible form of LTPA during which participants could practice self-care and preserve “embodied respectability.” Our analysis emphasizes women’s agency in appropriating urban green spaces, whilst also revealing how age, (dis)ability and, particularly, gender and cultural norms regulate their leisure practices.

Interpreting parliaments, but how?: Centring parliamentary actors and settings in ethnographic design and practice

Do researchers that use ethnographic methods study parliaments and parliamentary actors in the same way? While parliamentary ethnography is a growing research methodology to study political phenomena, such as informality, political behaviour and interpretations of parliamentary work, less is said about how access to sites and actors may affect analytical foci, strategies and outcomes. This neglects the complexity of parliamentary organisation and distinctive practices of parliamentary actors. We draw attention to this complexity to investigate how different levels and types of access to parliaments, and actors therein, affect ethnographic research. We reflect on this issue through four themes: (1) entry and access, (2) adapting to organisational rhythms, (3) ethnographic capital of researchers and (4) analysis and publication of findings. We argue that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of undertaking ethnographies of parliaments, but emphasise that researchers must explicitly reflect on how their particular strategies may shape ethnographic research on parliaments.

‘The way they treat us reflects how they see us’: Aspects contributing to social inequities in people with visual disability, a qualitative study

People with visual disabilities encounter multiple barriers in their life experiences, placing them at a social disadvantage compared to sighted individuals. These barriers manifest in a limited access to and exercise of their rights, situations perceived as unfair or inequitable. The present research aimed to understand how inequities are configured in people with visual disabilities, based on practices and perceptions of fairness/unfairness and their expression in relation to access to material goods and services. An instrumental ethnographic case study was conducted within a community-based institution in Bucaramanga, Colombia, focusing on rehabilitation and social inclusion processes for individuals with visual disabilities and their families. Twenty-two semistructured interviews and 37 participant observation exercises were carried out and documented in a field diary. The emerging categories were (1) the family can be an obstacle or an aid in overcoming social injustices; (2) visual disability is a label, it is in the environment, in the way society recognizes it; and (3) from social exclusion to willingly-given inclusion. Our results indicate that inequities are configured primarily in relation to how people close to those with visual disabilities perceive and act towards them, constituting scenarios of cultural injustice (non-recognition). Part of the meanings and practices that people uphold are based on the view of a body considered outside the canon of normality and the non-recognition of a full citizenship, conditioning discriminatory (such as charity and infantilization), stigmatizing and excluding practices. The inclusion of this population group is mediated by the sensibility of the sighted other, a situation that conditions that the access and full enjoyment of rights is a matter of will.

More with document work, less with patient care: An institutional ethnography of discharge planning practices for diabetic patients

Background: Diabetic patients required comprehensive discharge planning. However, this is a complex and challenging process. Nurses play significant roles and experience tensions in operating the everyday discharge planning practices. Purpose: to explore how nurses’ everyday activities in providing DP for diabetic patients were regulated by the ruling relations operating in the hospital as an institutional context. Methods: This institutional ethnography study applied phone-call interviews with 18 participants, participant observation, and document review to collect the data. Data analysis was concurrently conducted with the data collection processes following the institutional ethnography analytical approach. Trustworthiness was established. Results: The everyday discharge planning practices for diabetic patients follow the flow of patient care. Nurses perceived these practices to be problematic as the initial assessment form did not guide the discharge education, which was informal and unstructured, and documentation was burdensome. The hospital accreditation, nurse ward manager, and the registered nurse were identified as the ruling relations that regulate those practices through the hospitals’ standards and forms, monitoring, and completeness principle. Conclusion: The hospital’s forms, monitoring, and completeness principles are activated as the ruling relation that regulates the discharge planning practices for diabetic patients for satisfying good hospital service quality through standards and forms, monitoring, and completeness principles. This situation drives nurses to work more closely with the documents. Further study is crucial to identify a strategy to effectively bridge discharge planning practices and documentations works.

Archaic and Living Traditions: Ethnoarchaeology of Andaman and Nicobar Archipelago

The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago in the Bay of Bengal has been the home of three sects of people and cultures, namely, the natives, hybrids of convicts, and recent immigrants. The initial inhabitation of the islands is known through the study of shell middens and subsequent peopling by early ethnographic accounts and contemporary issue-based studies. The artifact-centric cultural inferences from such excavation reports, ethnographic accounts, material evidence, and living traditions are of immense value in understanding the cultural history of the archipelago. The cultural inferences derived from such studies under five categories—(a) settlements of the coast and the inland, (b) midden artifacts and native practices, (c) osseous trophies and wooden sculptures, (d) pottery and division of labor, and (e) seasons and preservation practices—are of ethnoarchaeological significance, despite the theoretical debate to consider the erstwhile ethnographic studies and museum collections as evidence for ethnoarchaeological interpretation.

Autonomy Behind the Paywall: Subscription-Chasing and Journalistic Freedom at the Level of Practice

ABSTRACT Addressing the growing phenomenon of datafied paywalling, an ethnographic case study examined journalistic autonomy at the level of day-to-day activities in Finnish tabloid Iltalehti, which launched a chargeable service Iltalehti Plus in March 2021. Created “from scratch,” the service formed a unique laboratory to scrutinise paywalling and the connected use of audience metrics in a tabloid context. Against the backdrop of Henrik Örnebring and Michael Karlsson’s interpretation of journalistic autonomy, the article examines the boundaries of financial and audience considerations, the Iltalehti Plus journalists’ agency, and the ways in which they legitimated autonomy. The findings suggest that in certain conditions paywalling may lead to thoroughly metrics-driven journalistic practices and a remarkably strong market orientation in journalism. In Iltalehti Plus, journalists accepted and internalised the market orientation even on individual level, considering it as developing their professional skills. The legitimation of market-oriented journalism was based on the idea of securing the future of journalism.

What are the challenges to quality in modern, hybrid general practice? A multi-site longitudinal study.

Background Since 2022, general practice has shifted from responding to the acute challenges of COVID-19 to restoring full services, using remote and digital modalities as well as traditional in-person care. Aim To examine how quality domains are addressed in contemporary UK general practice. Design and setting Multi-site, mostly qualitative longitudinal case study, placed in national policy context. Method Data were collected from longitudinal ethnographic case studies of 12 general practices (2021-2023); multi-stakeholder workshops; stakeholder interviews; patient surveys; official reports; and publicly-accessible patient experience data. Data were coded thematically and analysed using Institute of Medicine domains, Starfield's core features of primary care and sociological and socio-technical theories. Results Quality efforts in UK general practice occur within cumulative impacts of financial austerity, loss of resilience, increasingly complex patterns of illness and need, a diverse and fragmented workforce, infrastructure unfit for purpose, and distanciated ways of working. Providing the human elements of traditional general practice is difficult and sometimes impossible. Triage systems designed to increase efficiency have introduced new forms of inefficiency and compromised other quality domains. Long-term condition management varies in quality; amidst some convenience gains, some practices rely on remote, asynchronous data entry by patients and fragmented care by underqualified staff. Measures to mitigate digital exclusion do not compensate for extremes of structural disadvantage. Many staff are stressed and demoralised. Conclusion Contemporary hybrid general practice features changes with the unintended effect of dehumanising, compromising and fragmenting care. Risks to patients and the core values of general practice should be urgently addressed.

VIVALDI ASCOT and Ethnography Study: protocol for a mixed-methods longitudinal study to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 and other respiratory infection outbreaks on care home residents’ quality of life and psychosocial well-being

IntroductionOlder adults in care homes experienced some of the highest rates of mortality from SARS-CoV-2 globally and were subjected to strict and lengthy non-pharmaceutical interventions, which severely impacted their daily...

Educational Values of Taboo Expressions in the Sasak Speech Community: An Ethnography Study

This study aims to determine the form, meaning and perception of the community related to taboo things or expressions in Muncan Village. This research is an ethnography research using descriptive qualitative method design. The sample of this research is 10 people of Muncan Village from experts in culture to ordinary people. The data collection process in this research is by using observation and interview. In the process of analyzing the data is done by identifying, classifying, and explaining the meaning and perception of the community. The results of this study show that there are 57 taboos believed by the community. Therefore, it can be concluded that the people of Muncan Village still believe in many taboo things or expressions that they should not violate or do. In other words, taboo expressions and things in today's modern era are still believed to be things that should not be said or done in Muncan Village.

A Study on Support from a Distant Learning Department at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

Online programs have made a lasting impact on institutions of higher learning for several decades. This ethnographic qualitative study focused on the development and support of a distance learning department at a Hispanic-serving institution. The study aimed to identify unique organizational elements specific to this Hispanic-serving institution. The findings were significant, revealing that the Distance Learning department, operating under an “academic umbrella”, functioned as a comprehensive hub for both faculty and student support, offering a wide range of services including technical and instructional technology support. Furthermore, the study found that the department's placement under the “academic umbrella” not only centralized support but also lightened professors’ coursework loads by assisting students with instructional technology support.

Urban Agriculture’s ‘Invisible’ Short Food Value Chain: How Small-scale Farming Contributes to Johannesburg Food Security

AbstractUrbanisation into poverty in cities of the global South gives impetus to urban agriculture (UA) as a strategy to improve food security for low-income residents. This study disputes that UA is a trivial sector by arguing through the invisible short food value chain lens that it contributes to food security in local communities. The study adopted the extended case method that immersed researchers for more than a year to understand the practices of 11 farming entities and 20 of their customers in Johannesburg. Open-ended interview guides were administered to key informants from the city, provincial government, and non-governmental organisations. Findings show that UA increases food availability in local communities through the short food value chain. However, the local economy is undocumented and invisible to city stakeholders, negatively affecting their land use planning decisions for the sector. Though stakeholder consensus on UA is still lacking, the City of Johannesburg recognised UA’s potential and allocated both temporary and permanent land access arrangements for farming. Small-scale farmers lack the capacity to supply formal institutions, which can be overcome by intermediaries, such as civil society facilitation. The limitations of UA manifest in its inability to attract labour and keep records which inhibits its potential and support at the city level.

Alleviating Poverty Through One House One Farm Project in Bangladesh

Poverty is a bad inhalation process in the economic breath system, especially at the rural level in Bangladesh. The one house one farm project was initiated to alleviate poverty in Bangladesh as an initiative of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The project focuses on rural households generating income through family farming with e-financial inclusion or online banking opportunities. The study focuses on the fundamental understanding and reasons for the One House One Farm project. The study follows a generic qualitative method with secondary data sources, including the website of The Project, newspaper articles, and journal articles, to indicate what, how, and why questions. With some beneficiaries' statements, an ethnographic study is conducted as another data collection source. The study introduces a thematic mode of analysis that covers the explanation of the pattern of the One House One Farm project and gives a general idea about the background. The study finds that the One House One Farm project was a primary and better initiative for alleviating or eradicating poverty in Bangladesh, which helps to focus on achieving Sustainable Development Goal- 01. Besides the main target of alleviating or eradicating poverty in Bangladesh, this project helped rural households create a basement for generating income and being free from dependency.

Organizational value streams as multiteam systems: an ethnographic case study

Organizational value streams as multiteam systems: an ethnographic case study

Task‐Designated Identities in Danish Homeless Shelters

This paper is based on an ethnographic study of how domesticity is enacted and adapted at homeless shelters for determining which clients are “service worthy .” The study draws on nineteen placement meetings with homeless men and focuses on institutional mechanisms for encouraging homemaking skills or domesticity among clients. Adapting Robert K. Merton's typology of adaptations to social norms, as well as Jaber Gubrium's “task‐designated identity,” we showcase male clients' self‐presentation strategies for adapting to the institutional mandates of domesticity. Specifically, our qualitative analysis reveals four modes of task adaption: (1) task conformity by professing the desired norms in their service encounters, (2) task evasion to avoid conversations and related tasks, (3) task transformation by linking the task at hand with something other than originally intended, particularly by reframing biographies to meet the local goals of domesticity, and (4) task protestation, which involves questioning the rationale and necessity of assigned tasks.