Ethnographic Research Articles

MANAGERIAL CHALLENGES OF SOCIAL INCUBATORS FOCUSED ON SUBSISTENCE ENTREPRENEURS

Although social incubators provide a variety of entrepreneurial support, little is known regarding their design, implementation, operation and management. The identification and characterization of the clients and stakeholders of social incubators is complicated by multiple definitions of entrepreneurship and multiple typologies of entrepreneurs. Their ventures are accompanied by strategic and tactical confusion about objectives and populations served. This study investigates the dynamics of incubator clients’ needs and attributes as they interact with the values and interests of other stakeholders in a social incubator focused on survival entrepreneurs. Our sampling was a medium sized mixed economy town in Brazil. Our thirteen-month ethnographic study analyzed the collective struggle to transcend the tensions between social and economic values and improve the lives of vulnerable populations. Central to this struggle is the incubator management’s unique humanistic ideology coupled with the search for realistic concrete results modulated by community and client attributes. Through our analysis of various interventions that occurred within the social incubator, we discuss the importance of getting to know the vulnerable to better manage social incubators that focus on subsistence entrepreneurship. These contents are valued when discussed in the context of the evolutionary phases (or trajectory) of the vulnerable in a social incubator from welcoming through training, to improvement and other phases, until citizens’ autonomy is achieved.

“For my daughter is not the same, for sure”: learners’ and parents’ attitudes towards home language maintenance and development

ABSTRACT Heritage languages (HL) require special pedagogical resources, and from a sociolinguistic perspective, their status may vary, influencing learners’ and educators’ attitudes. In the case of Portuguese as an HL (PHL) in the German educational context, due to a limited institutionalised offer, non-formal settings prevail as a means of language development. In this ethnographic case study, we present the attitudes of parents and PHL learners in a socio-educational project that promotes bilingual education in Munich, Germany. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with parents, whereas with children, a focus group was set up using visual narratives. This study addressed two questions: How do parents’ and learners’ linguistic attitudes in this specific context differ? How do their beliefs concerning linguistic identity influence the home language maintenance? The results pointed to the convergent affective dimension of PHL. Concerning identity influence in home language maintenance, language attitudes result from different statuses assigned to PHL. While parents see PHL as a means of transmitting their ethnolinguistic identity, children's representations revealed different perceptions prevailing ‘home and family language’ status and a sense of fluid belonging, thus showing an emergent multilingual identity characterised by cultural hybridity.

In between the neoliberal reality and the humanities imagination: a narrative inquiry of an English major’s identity construction in China

ABSTRACT This study reports an ethnographic case study of a Chinese female English major of a working-class background – Faye (pseudonym) and her English learning and use experience in an elite community in the Chinese context. Drawing on the data collected from a 13-month longitudinal inquiry, the study employs Darvin and Norton’s [2015. ‘Identity and a Model of Investment in Applied Linguistics.’ Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35:36–56. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190514000191] model of investment to explore her identity transformation through English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) practices. Findings suggest that Faye’s investment in EFL practices appeared to transform with her evolving perceptions of EFL learning and imagined identities, which were shaped largely under the influence of neoliberal and humanities discourses. The study argues for a critical interrogation of the impact of neoliberalism on EFL learning and humanities education, cautioning against its tendency to constrain identity potentials and sustain structural inequalities. Pedagogical implications are suggested at the end of the article.

Workplace Inclusion Through Social Partnerships: A Relational Perspective

In a world with high demand for sustainable business practices, this paper investigates how workplace inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities can be accomplished through social partnerships. Drawing on social exchange theory and based on an explorative ethnographic case study of a partnership constellation aiming for workplace inclusion of an intellectually disabled workforce, the study explores how relational practices in social partnerships contribute to workplace inclusion of young people with intellectual disabilities. The study consists of two sub-studies focusing first on identification of the overall goals of the partnership collaboration in regard to workplace inclusion and, second, an investigation of how the goals are accomplished in the here and now of partnership collaboration. The findings are summarized in a conceptual framework that advocates a relational perspective on workplace inclusion and highlights relational practices between partnership participants as important drivers for workplace inclusion. The study advances knowledge on workplace inclusion by offering insights into how relational practices in social partnerships inform workplace inclusion. Furthermore, the findings help the individual social partnership partners effectively manage workplace inclusion by acknowledging relationship processes as fundamental elements of organizing for an inclusive workplace.

LINCing learners to digital literacy: supporting social integration and English language learning during COVID-19

Abstract Many newcomers to Canada experience significant difficulties adjusting to life in their new community, with few more challenging than learning English. While Canada’s Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program suggests a pathway to social integration, ideologies pertaining to language and diversity that inform the LINC program can lead to the assimilation and marginalization of immigrant and refugee newcomers. The disruptions that COVID-19 brought to LINC classes exacerbated these issues. Here, we explore these themes in an ethnographic study of one LINC site and suggest that the incorporation of digital technologies could offer a space for a translingual pedagogy to take root. With appropriate guidance, the adoption of a translingual pedagogy could work against the problematic discourses perpetuating within LINC and improve English learning outcomes by providing increased opportunities for digital literacy socialization.

Towards a ‘transformative relationship’: Evans‐Pritchard, mysticism and anthropological fieldwork

Ongoing attempts to develop a ‘transformative’ relationship between anthropology and theology have exhorted anthropologists to look to theology to ‘unsettle’ existing understandings of the discipline's goals and potential. This article explores the ‘transformative’ relationship between anthropology and theology by examining E.E. Evans‐Pritchard's perspective on fieldwork, influenced by his Catholic faith and mysticism. Evans‐Pritchard saw both fieldwork and mysticism as rooted in shared experiential knowledge, challenging the discipline's secular foundation and reframing the relationship between anthropology and theology as grounded in a shared concern for experiential knowledge. Refiguring participant observation fieldwork in this way – as sharing a fundamental aspect with something as profoundly religious as mysticism – not only disrupts anthropology's understanding of its secular constitution but also reframes the relationship between anthropology and theology. This shift moves the relationship from one barred by a lack of shared beliefs to one potentially grounded in joint attention to and care for experiential knowledge.

Managing the risk of suicide in a psychiatry clinic: An ethnographic study on the work atmosphere of nurses during the Covid-19 pandemic

The aim of this study was to describe the approaches of nurses working in an inpatient psychiatry clinic during the pandemic period to managing suicide risk in the context of their work atmosphere. This ethnographic research design used a sample of 13 psychiatric nurses in a psychiatric clinic in Ankara, Turkey. Data were collected with in-depth interviews and 612 h of observation. Qualitative thematic analysis was used for data analysis. Two themes emerged from the data analysis, including ‘De-prioritizing the uniqueness of the patient in managing suicide risk’ and ‘A condition that remains important for uniqueness: personality disorders’. The current risk assessment methods for suicide, pandemic measures, and past inadequacies in the approach to patients with personality disorders have revealed the risk of alienating from the individual risk factors as well as the patients' history in risk management. Risk management practices that consider the psychosocial assets of patients at risk of suicide, addressing the risk level with a safe measurement scale and performing triage according to this grading system can provide an atmosphere that allows nurses to make risk assessments greater self-confidence.

Teaching practice: Contributions to Spanish prospective mathematics teachers

Prospective primary education (PE) teachers of mathematics are trained on university programs which include core subjects in the field of the didactics of mathematics. However, these subjects have no general practical component. Therefore, this research aims to analyze the contribution of practical courses to the development of good practice in mathematics education. For this purpose, an ethnographic study was carried out with the participation of 23 prospective teachers who completed a questionnaire with closed and open-ended questions. The closed responses were analyzed by frequency and percentage, and the open-ended responses were analyzed using the ATLAS.ti software (v. 22) (ATLAS.ti, 2022). The results show that most of the prospective teachers identified principles of good practice in mathematics classes, and most of them found a relationship between their initial training and what they experienced in these classrooms. In the light of the results, contributions are made to improve the initial training of mathematics teachers in PE.

Therapy in turmoil: Russian psychotherapists navigate war and ethics

This ethnographic study explores how Russian psychotherapists are navigating professional ethics and politics after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Analysing a conversation between an instructor and students at a psychotherapy training centre in Russia, the study examines how therapists negotiate neutrality, values and therapeutic approaches in a shifting sociopolitical landscape. The author identifies four approaches to delineating the boundaries between professional practice and political engagement and explores how the boundaries between therapeutic and political realms are constantly negotiated through social interaction. These processes highlight tensions within Russian therapeutic culture and offer insights into professional subjectivity formation amid political turmoil, revealing the complex interplay between individual subjectivity, professional identity and sociopolitical structures in contemporary societies. The research contributes to anthropological understandings of professional communities as mediators between individuals and states. The study also shows how cultural norms adapt to political pressures and illuminates the role of therapeutic practices in shaping societal responses to political events in authoritarian settings.

“Mutual Sustenance”: Co‐constructing the Foundation for Vulnerability in the Participant/Researcher Relationship through an Ethnographic Study of Vehicle Residents' Information Practices

ABSTRACTInformation Science (IS) researchers and practitioners aim to understand information seeking and needs across vulnerable communities. These relationships possess insider and outsider dynamics between researchers and participants. To foster vulnerability, trust, and empathy in the research process and to meet participants where they are in the research process, it may be beneficial for IS researchers to incorporate and consider concepts like reflexivity and positionality. The concept of the “vulnerable observer” (Behar, 1997) was implemented to frame the humanization of the researcher through an ethnographic study of vehicle residents as a vulnerable population. The relationships developed with participants serve as the grounds for which vulnerability can flourish through the utilization of safe environments. A safe, familiar environment for the participant is an important ingredient to produce trust and reciprocity. Reciprocity has the potential to lay the groundwork for a vulnerable foundation built on trust and rapport.

Educational practice in Germany between racism and far-right ideologies

Researching educational responses to far-right youth mobilization and ideologies has so far focused mainly on informal education spaces. We thus know little about how and why teachers seek to respond to these issues in their classrooms in formal education. This is despite the fact that far-right mobilization and attitudes are rising in Germany and are having a political impact. In this article I present data from an 18-month ethnographic study in Berlin’s secondary schools, arguing that it is not only important to understand how teachers conceptualize the problem in their student body but also how teachers seek to address these issues. Through this knowledge, we will be able to better understand and systematically respond to far-right ideologies in classrooms.

What matters for sustainable psychosocial interventions and who decides? Critical ethnography of a lay counselling program in Nepal

Lay counselling, or the delivery of talk-based therapeutic support by people without a clinical degree, is gaining popularity as a way of addressing global shortages of mental health professionals. In Nepal, lay counselors have made significant contributions to mental health and psychosocial care over the last two decades, particularly in the aftermath of major emergencies. However, research on the longer-term integration and sustainability of lay counselling interventions remains limited. This ethnographic study explored the meaning and importance of sustainability to different stakeholders in a lay counselling program implemented following Nepal’s 2015 earthquake. We conducted participant observation in the everyday lives of five counsellors as well as four focus group discussions and 51 semi-structured interviews with counsellors and other key stakeholders. Our analysis revealed significant discrepancies in perceptions of sustainability; while organizations involved in implementing the program described it as a sustainability success due to continued government financing, counsellors emphasized their own and the government’s failure to sustain high-quality service delivery in practice. Program-level barriers included inadequate budget and remuneration, lack of clinical supervision, and poor integration within existing systems. We also identified wider sociopolitical influences on sustainability, including the social positioning of counsellors, low understanding and acceptability of counselling, and a rapidly changing political landscape. These findings reveal the need for a critical approach to sustainability in global mental health, warning against superficial engagement that prioritizes continuity of government financing over quality of care and workers’ rights. Advocating for an ecological orientation within sustainability research, we also discuss the importance of looking beyond program design factors to consider how local and national sociopolitical dynamics influence frontline service provision.

“Plomo por hablar, plata pa’ que hablemos”. Diversidad étnica y educación en el suroccidente colombiano

How do the relationships between the concept of being indigenous and the processes of ethnoeducation manifest in southwestern Colombia? This ethnographic study explores the complexities of constructing ethnic identity among the indigenous peoples of Nariño, focusing on the implementation of educational programs driven by a population perspective. By questioning the foundations of ethnoeducation from the late 20th century to the early 21st century, we establish a dialogue among various institutional agents within the broader framework of ethnic-based social organization. We also examine the historical relationships, institutional archaisms, and contemporary challenges faced by ethnic educational processes in Nariño. We conclude with insights into the construction of ethnic identity and its implications for the social order governing the interactions between community members and government representatives. We conceptualize the relationship between the State, school, and ethnic identity as a fundamental part of Colombia’s modern project, which has been in development since the republican era. The institutional framework has fluctuated between protectionist, paternalistic, and cultural assimilation policies. However, the current threats to the physical and cultural survival of ancestral peoples must be addressed through the State’s institutional mechanisms and governance technologies. These mechanisms are designed to tackle the challenges of interculturality within a complex and often contradictory framework of relationships.

Diversity of Eucharistic Ritual in COVID-2019 Context

Discussing diversity in the celebration of the Eucharistic ritual in COVID-2019 contexts, this is a comparative study of CITAM (Christ is the Answer Ministries) Valley Road assembly and St. Andrew’s PCEA (Presbyterian Church of East Africa) in Nairobi, Kenya. COVID-2019 had a great impact on the order of worship in Christian churches across the world. Churches were closed down at times. Whereas CITAM Valley Road administered the Eucharist in the virtual space, St Andrew’s PCEA did not adopt virtual Eucharist and had to wait until the lockdown prohibiting church meetings was lifted. This ethnographic study was carried out in Nairobi County at CITAM Valley Road and St. Andrew’s PCEA over a period of six months from late 2021 to early 2022. The methodological approach taken by the researchers was a blend of ethnography and grounded theology. Data was collected through virtual ethnography, participant observation, interviews, and focus group discussions. Findings from the study demonstrated an emerging trend of administering the Eucharist digitally as the Church in Kenya navigated both continuity and change. The findings also revealed the fact that religious change advances not suddenly, or as a single complete change, but in specific expressions that are local and distinct. The researchers posit that in the PCEA, believers could not imagine themselves administering virtual Eucharist in their homes; in CITAM also some Christians felt that administering the Eucharist in the virtual space was different from when it was administered in the physical space.

Negotiating Safety by Movements: Articulation, Alignment and Separation between Train Driving and Railway Traffic Controlling Activities

This article explores the negotiation of safety between two distinct activity systems that operate jointly on a daily basis: train driving and railway traffic controlling. We have employed cultural-historical activity theory and an ethnographic case study of a large European passenger and freight transport company to pinpoint three different types of movement underpinning the negotiation of safety. These different movements can be found in work organization, work situations, and workers’ actions. The negotiation of safety would appear to be based on the movements of articulation (articulation, disarticulation, re-articulation), alignment (alignment, misalignment, realignment), and separation (separation, re-separation, de-separation) between activity systems. Within the framework of activity theory, we have used evidence from highly reliable organizations and the management of high-risk organizations to offer a better understanding of the movements between activity systems in safety negotiation.

Politicized caring as anti-carceral pedagogy: An ethnographic case study of a Black woman educator

ABSTRACT The “racialized social control infrastructure” of schools refers to the over-emphasis on controlling the behaviors and bodies of Black, and other, students of color. Politicized caring, or the strategic prioritization of the needs and desires of those traditionally marginalized, may be disruptive to it. The objective of this analysis is (1) to describe how one Black female educator enacts a pedagogy of politicized caring on a day-to-day basis and (2) to investigate how it intersects with one school’s social control infrastructure. Arising from a longitudinal, collaborative research partnership with a predominantly Black high school, the analysis features two years of data with over 80 observations and 13 interviews. The findings identify five discrete forms of enactment of politicized caring and shows how the educator uses them to buffer her students from the harsher elements of social control. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Integrating Scientific and Everyday Concepts: Student Leadership in a Language Learning Community

This study examines the role of everyday and scientific concepts in developing student leadership in a self-access learning center (SALC) in Japan. For this purpose, data from three student learning community leaders and one SALC faculty member participating in an 18-month ethnographic case study of the Learning Group (LG), a student-led learning community within a university-based SALC in central Japan, was reexamined according to a framework informed by concept-based learning. Data was first coded inductively utilizing reflective thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and subsequently deductively using communities of practice theory and the themes of scientific and everyday knowledge. This data highlights numerous ways three leaders of the LG had internalized concepts introduced to them through a SALC-based leadership course administered by a learning advisor (LA) and how this influenced not only their individual learning trajectories, but also the path of their community. Furthermore, the LG leaders were able to develop coherent management/facilitation guidelines for themselves and for future generations of leaders from the social mediation that collaborative group reflection and intentional reflective dialogue afforded. The implications of this study highlight the potential value within SALCs of learning advisors engaging in concept-based instructional approaches where explicit instruction is internalized through dialogic and communicative verbalization and through finding avenues for learners to apply scientific concepts to everyday practice.

Konaway Nika Tillicum Native Youth Academy: Enacting a medicine wheel educational framework.

Native American youth need educational experiences that promote positive, healthy development, which requires decolonizing current educational experiences. Konaway Nika Tillicum Native Youth Academy (KNT) offers a holistic approach to education, incorporating Tribal cultures and values along with valuing higher education. Across two complementary studies, we seek to understand how the Medicine Wheel framework supports the design of educational experiences and the effectiveness of this design on positive development factors, including cultural identity development, self-esteem, and academic optimism. To address our research questions, we first share an ethnographic study including participant observations and interviews with five KNT staff to investigate how the educators of KNT enact the Medicine Wheel in designing educational experiences for Native youth. We then examined the effectiveness of this Medicine Wheel framework on positive development factors across two summers of the academy with youth ages 11-18 (23 boys, 38 girls) representing diverse tribal affiliations. Findings from our first research question reveal a Medicine Wheel Educational Framework that offers holistic and culturally sustaining/revitalizing education experiences for Native youth. Findings from our second research question indicate that Native youth experienced significant increases in their cultural identity and academic optimism directly and indirectly via increasing self-esteem through engaging in the KNT. Implications of findings show that when educated in a learning space that promotes Native students' culture, youth show healthy development in factors valued across Indigenous and Western perspectives, including cultural identity, self-esteem, and academic optimism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Sensory attunements of caregivers and care receivers: the value of an embodied and emplaced approach in everyday care encounters

ABSTRACT This paper underlines the role of the senses in everyday care encounters within hospice and dementia care settings. We bring together two ethnographic studies, which adopted embodied, emplaced, and sensory approaches to understanding everyday life and care. We draw on existing conceptualizations of bodywork, and theorizations of sensory atmospheres of care, to extend ideas about the relationality of experience shared between those receiving and providing care. Our analysis illuminates the entanglement of the sensory within care relationships, as we appreciate the ways in which atmospheres are lived and felt in relation to others. We consider the environments and engagements between staff, patients, and residents, which facilitate restorative and supportive connections, as well as disrupt feelings about identity and choice. Appreciating the interconnected nature of care, this paper sheds light on the sensory, embodied, and material practices that shape atmospheres in hospice and dementia care settings.

An Ethnographic Case Study: Exploring an Adult ESL Learner’s BICS and CALP Proficiency Disparity

This ethnographic case study investigated the disparity in an adult learner's second language (L2) proficiency between basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). The learner, well-educated in his first language (L1) Italian, demonstrated higher CALP but lower BICS in L2 English. Data collection spanned 15 weeks and included classroom observations, in-class artifacts, and semi-formal interviews. Two main factors were identified as contributing to the disparity: (1) unbalanced language exposure favoring CALP over BICS and (2) the positive transfer of CALP from L1 outweighing that of BICS. The study found that teacher instruction and learner's language engagement and investment increased exposure to grammar and literacy, thereby enhancing CALP development and facilitating CALP transfer from L1 to L2. However, limited exposure to interpersonal communication practices both inside and outside the classroom led to his underdeveloped BICS. Consequently, the unbalanced proficiency further influenced his second language acquisition. The learner's low BICS level resulted in negative self-positioning, increasing fear of interacting with English speakers and reducing opportunities to acquire the target language in natural interactive environments. Pedagogical implications are provided for adult EFL teaching, emphasizing balanced instruction and interactive and multilingual approaches. The research suggests future directions for supporting bi-/multilingual adults in developing balanced language proficiency and a positive language identity effectively.