Showing papers in "Journal of Contemporary Ethnography in 2000"
TL;DR: This paper provided a critical analysis of the role of the "insider" researcher in qualitative fieldwork in race and ethnicity in the Cape Verdean American community of southeastern New England.
Abstract: This article provides a critical analysis of the role of the “insider” researcher in qualitative fieldwork in race and ethnicity. The analysis is based on research conducted on the construction of racial and ethnic identity in the Cape Verdean American community of southeastern New England. Reflections are presented on the various ways that the researcher's status as an “insider” was evaluated and negotiated during fieldwork. It is suggested that these negotiations reveal the manner in which group members define the boundaries of the group, the attributes they associate with it, and the meaning of the group itself. This interpretation of insider status, as involving complex and ongoing definitions and negotiations of group membership, highlights the way that researchers and participants are simultaneously engaged in the construction of race and ethnicity.
134 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that interactions between strippers and their customers are vehicles for the conveyance of attention and the enactment of masculine power in addition to sexual attraction and dominance. But, they did not consider the role of women in these interactions.
Abstract: Using ethnographic data, this article argues that interactions between strippers and their customers are vehicles for the conveyance of attention and the enactment of masculine power in addition to...
125 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined how nurse managers attempted to accomplish the formal boundaries of clinical nursing in a large UK district general hospital in the context of wider national policy developments which had provided the impetus for role realignment.
Abstract: This article examines how nurse managers attempted to accomplish the formal boundaries of clinical nursing in a large UK district general hospital. The study was undertaken in the context of wider national policy developments which had provided the impetus for role realignment. The practices and rhetorical devices nurse managers employed in doing demarcation are treated herein as examples of “boundary-work.” The management context is an arena which has hitherto been neglected in symbolic interactionist studies of the hospital division of labor and, as a consequence, the understanding of the processes through which occupational jurisdictions are constituted remains partial. This article aims to begin to address this gap in the literature by considering the contribution of these microsociological processes to the practical accomplishment of the hospital division of labor.
124 citations
TL;DR: Despite a growing body of work across the social and cognitive sciences concerned with the relations between inanimate objects and sociality, we still have relatively little understanding of the relationship between objects and their sociality as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Despite a growing body of work across the social and cognitive sciences concerned with the relations between inanimate objects and sociality, we still have relatively little understanding of the wa...
123 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the relationship between community art and community development was examined using data gathered from community-art projects in two Denver neighborhoods, and the authors described the community-a...
Abstract: This study examines the relationship between community art and community development. Using data gathered from community-art projects in two Denver neighborhoods, the study describes the community-...
117 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of health information seeking among informal, interpersonal networks is examined, focusing specifically on the extent to which these conversations serve to identify role boundaries, specifically that of motherhood.
Abstract: Examining the impact of health information seeking among informal, interpersonal networks, this article focuses specifically on the extent to which these conversations serve to identify role boundaries, specifically that of motherhood. Drawing on Goffman's work on region and regional behaviors, this ethnographic analysis of women in a moms and tots play group reveals boundaries between the public and private presentation of self. The regions of front stage, backstage, and “back”-backstage are used here to discuss how talk regarding health issues, and particularly inappropriate or taboo talk, defines and exemplifies the role of the “good” mother. The implications for the accessibility of information are discussed in light of the cultural contradictions women face in fulfilling this role.
106 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the social meaning of disability and the construction of social identity in a family whose members, as well as numerous kin and friends, have been officially defined as handicapped, disabled, or mentally retarded.
Abstract: This study examines the social meaning of disability and the construction of social identity in a family whose members, as well as numerous kin and friends, have been officially defined as handicapped, disabled, or mentally retarded. As a point of departure for examining family members' perspectives, this article briefly reviews the literature on disability and stigma. In contrast to current theories, the family in this study has constructed a life world in which disability is not stigmatizing or problematic for their identities. This article examines, in depth, how family members and their broader social network construct the meaning of disability labels in nonstigmatizing ways and define themselves and each other in terms of their personal characteristics and family relationships. The conclusion of this article considers some factors that seem to account for the family's ability to avoid the stigma and stained identities associated with mental retardation and other disabilities.
62 citations
TL;DR: This article found that middle schoolers distinguish between food served in the private realm of the family and the public realm of school where it is used as a signifier for school care, indicating a class ideology of care and how food as a metaphor plays a part in it.
Abstract: This study is based on in-depth and focus group interviews with thirty middle schoolers from diverse racial/ethnic and class backgrounds. Drawing on the literature on care and the meaning of food, this study expands the dialogue about adolescents' worldviews by examining middle schoolers' assessments of cooking, sharing, and receiving food from others and how these food activities shape perceptions of family and school. The findings suggest that middle schoolers distinguish between food served in the private realm of the family where it is used to express solidarity and conflict and the public realm of the school where it is used as a signifier for school care. Overall, this study reveals a class ideology of care and how food as a metaphor plays a part in it. This article also addresses broader implications about adolescents' perceptions of their future selves and of work, family, and school issues and problems.
49 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the micropolitics of identity construction by residents in a total institution is discussed. But the authors focus on the personal narratives of residents in the context of nursing care.
Abstract: This article is about the micropolitics of identity construction by residents in a total institution. Data come from two hundred hours of participant observation during a four-month period of full-time employment as a nurse aide. Interactional analysis of observations suggests that residents' personal narratives, whether real or imagined, become who some residents conceive themselves to be and define residents' expectations for interactional others. Changes in institutional culture occur as staff begin to recognize in interaction the ways residents think of themselves. The narrative accounts and interactional struggles to define self that the author discovered in the institution are not unlike conceptions and processes of identity construction, maintenance, and change that confront all human actors. These accounts provide insight into the liberating possibilities of personal identity claims.
47 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an ethnographic look at sixth graders and their parents as they apply to private high schools highlights the emotion work parents do as they push their children through a process they dislike, forcing themselves to believe that the private school system is necessary, so that they can manage their children's emotions: motivating them, preparing them for disappointment, and comforting them.
Abstract: This ethnographic look at sixth graders and their parents as they apply to private high schools highlights the emotion work parents do as they push their children through a process they dislike. Parents manage their own emotions, forcing themselves to believe that the private school system is necessary, so that they can manage their children's emotions: motivating them, preparing them for disappointment, and comforting them. This emotion work challenges and deepens social, cultural, and human capital theories by problematizing the transfer of capital resources. It shows that, unlike the automatic inheritance of money, the inheritance of other forms of capital is done through a great deal of work, tension, and anxiety for parents and children. It also demonstrates, through the exploration of an extreme case, the parental work involved in securing a good education for children and the dilemmas parents face trying to motivate children and make them feel confident and loved.
45 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the disruptive nature of immigrants' visit to the native home in terms of temporality and space is discussed, and the authors conclude that these processes deconstruct the personal and cultural sources that cultivate a sense of nostalgia.
Abstract: The article theorizes the disruptive nature of immigrants' visit to the native home in terms of temporality and space. Such a disruption demands that immigrants reevaluate their relationships to the old home. Probing visiting tales elicited from immigration stories, the authors discuss how separation from the old home is effectuated during visits to the native home through the simultaneous and contrary processes of (1) linking up with the familiar, (2) distancing from the old home, and (3) appraising personal change in the new home. The authors conclude that these processes deconstruct the personal and cultural sources that cultivate a sense of nostalgia. This article argues that such diffusion or conversely the nurturing of nostalgia is context bound. The immigration stories were gathered by in-depth interviews conducted with forty-three university students who immigrated to Israel from the former USSR in the “big wave” in the 1990s.
TL;DR: In this article, the concept of stigma through an everyday notion of familial toxicity and commonsense understandings of murder is examined, and moments of opportunity for managing stigma through three metatactics: management of space, information, and self-presentation.
Abstract: Drawing on in-depth interviews with the relatives of convicted murderers, this article interrogates the concept of stigma through an everyday notion of familial toxicity and commonsense understandings of murder. Identifying moments of stigmatizing strain, the article examines moments of opportunity for managing stigma through three metatactics: management of space, information, and self-presentation. However, due to the problems in carrying out sensitive research with a hidden population, there are limits to how far arguments made can be generalized. Therefore, the article concludes by raising questions for future research.
TL;DR: In this paper, an interpretive ethnography of young people's uses of spaces in Ybor City, a National Historic Landmark District in Tampa, Florida, is presented, focusing particularly on a record store popular with young people.
Abstract: This article is an interpretive ethnography of young people's uses of spaces in Ybor City, a National Historic Landmark District in Tampa, Florida. The analysis focuses particularly on a record store popular with young people. The author seeks to understand why it and other places attract particular groups of people and to discern the character of the public life generated by the ways people occupy such spaces. The narrative quality of spaces is crucial to understanding why people choose to gather in them and also suggests something about the tenor of public life in contemporary America. People are attracted to narrative spaces that in their ambiguity offer the possibility of an interactive public life, yet when people gather in those spaces, they often merely congregate into separate “lifestyle enclaves” and display their difference from other groups.
TL;DR: This article conducted an ethnographic exploration of the practices of gender differentiation among nine-to-12-year-old schoolchildren in Germany, focusing on spontaneous territorial games, characterized by a high degree of physical activity in which the children split up into gender homogeneous teams.
Abstract: Taking recent ethnomethodological insights into gender as an ongoing interactional accomplishment as a starting point, a research group conducted an ethnographic exploration of the practices of gender differentiation among nine- to twelve-year-old schoolchildren in Germany. This article deals with a small segment of these practices: spontaneous territorial games, characterized by a high degree of physical activity in which the children split up into gender-homogeneous teams. Based on the detailed analysis of two recess situations, the article explores how gender-defined territories are achieved interactionally and how gender polarity is thus staged. The concluding play-theoretical reflections in particular show that territorial games simplify, alienate, and aestheticize gender arrangements.
TL;DR: In this paper, a review of research published in the American Journal of Sociology from 1895 to 1910 attests that the field of sociological research has changed dramatically over the past century.
Abstract: Ethnographic research has changed dramatically over the past century, as a review of research published in the American Journal of Sociology from 1895 to 1910 attests. After describing the characte...
TL;DR: The authors report on the experiences of sixteen Czech families ten years after the Velvet Revolution and show that the transition toward a market economy and democracy has been a mixed blessing consistent with social thought on the earlier Great Transformation.
Abstract: The authors report on the experiences of sixteen Czech families ten years after the Velvet Revolution. The families were selected from a four-year panel of 740 households and were interviewed in 1997-98. They talked about their lives during communism and since the reform. They recalled their initial high expectations, followed by facing new challenges and their later reassessment of the reform. Their stories show that the transition toward a market economy and democracy has been a mixed blessing consistent with social thought on the earlier Great Transformation. They also complement the notion that attitudes about the reforms differentiate into the dichotomy of winners and losers. These families gave well-measured accounts of this historic change whether winners or losers.
TL;DR: In the Utopian metanarrative, same-sex desire is simply absent from human interactions, while in the Arcadian, it is present everywhere, a simple part of the background that can be endlessly deferred as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Ethnographers complicit with the ideology of compulsory heterosexuality generally use two metanarratives to obviate the need to discuss same-sex desire from their texts. In the Utopian metanarrative, same-sex desire is simply absent from human interactions, while in the Arcadian, it is present everywhere, a simple part of the background that can be endlessly deferred. Classical, modern, and postmodern ethnographies of both Western and non-Western cultures are analyzed. It is suggested that future ethnographies might avoid the metanarratives to fully explore the fluidity and complexity of same-sex desire.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an account of a suicide of a teenage girl in a volatile home where there is constant fighting and tension, and her reaction to the anger surrounding her and the disapproval she feels culminates in an act of self-destruction.
Abstract: Research on youth suicide is reviewed along with a brief recounting of family systems theory and the concepts underlying life study research. Together, these three orientations serve as a foundation for an account of a suicide of a teenage girl. The story of the young woman reveals the role of narrative thought in autoethnography as well as the nature of story-telling and the witnessing of personal accounts by the researcher. The actual account describes the life of a young woman growing up in a volatile home where there is constant fighting and tension. Her reaction to the anger surrounding her and the disapproval she feels culminates in an act of self-destruction. The account concludes with a discussion of the role of family systems, shame, and destructive relationships in the development of the self.
TL;DR: The tabernacle in the Catholic Church is a contested sacred object with respect to its location as mentioned in this paper, and there is an attitudinal and behavioral gap between professional ministers and ordinary pew dwellers.
Abstract: The tabernacle in the Catholic Church is a contested sacred object with respect to its location Professional church ministers called liturgists are a new knowledge class within the Catholic Church since Vatican II (1962-65), and they promote the removal of the tabernacle from the main body of the church to a separate smaller space called a eucharistic chapel Ordinary lay parishioners, on the other hand, want to be able to see and pray before the tabernacle and therefore want the tabernacle to remain in the main body of the church These differing views on the location of the tabernacle indicate that an attitudinal and behavioral gap exists between professional ministers and ordinary pew dwellers This article then draws on the work of Durkheim, Demerath and Williams, and Kniss to explain why
TL;DR: In this paper, a demarche ethnographique of two ouvrages is presented and commentaire de deux ouv rages, which traitent des contextes educationnels a partir d'une demarcation ethnographiques: Cooperative learning in context: An educational innovation in everyday classrooms; and Particularities: Collected essays on ethnography and education.
Abstract: Presentation et commentaire de deux ouvrages qui traitent des contextes educationnels a partir d'une demarche ethnographique : Cooperative learning in context: An educational innovation in everyday classrooms (Evelyn Jacob, 1999) ; et Particularities: Collected essays on ethnography and education (George W. Noblit, 1999). Mettant en perspective la problematique de la recherche qualitative en recherche educationnelle, l'A. met en evidence les contradictions dans les demarches des deux ouvrages et les hesitations - voire les inversions epistemologiques - entre approche constructiviste (interpretative) et positiviste. Il suggere que ces incoherences puissent servir de stimulant ou modele heuristiques pour la recherche qualitative dans le domaine de l'education, afin de generer de nouvelles perspectives sur les phenomenes educatifs.
TL;DR: The author discovered that living out these old ways in the present has surprising health-giving outcomes because of the attendant purposeful occupation and social interactions old ways compel from elder women within this emergent household form.
Abstract: This is a study of elder women now living single in retirement and the strategies the women create to survive in this new cultural setting. Retirement-complex living in the emerging American elder care market calls for devising individual occupation strategies to adapt to the previously unknown lifeway in which the retirees form a family community matrix. Lacking cultural precedent, traditional old ways, anachronisms vanishing from the mainstream of popular culture, provide a means for the women to create and use personal bridging strategies in “living happy.” Included are scripted and solipsistic rituals that provide self-appraisal of one's health status through immediate experience. The author discovered that living out these old ways in the present has surprising health-giving outcomes because of the attendant purposeful occupation and social interactions old ways compel from elder women within this emergent household form.