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Street PhenomenologyThe Go-Along as Ethnographic Research Tool
Abstract
This article introduces and evaluates the go-along as a qualitative research tool. What sets this technique apart from traditional ethnographic methods such as participant observation and interviewing is its potential to access some of the transcendent and reflexive aspects of lived experience in situ. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two urban neighborhoods, I examine five themes which go-alongs are particularly suited to explore: environmental perception, spatial practices, biographies, social architecture and social realms. I argue that by exposing the complex and subtle meanings of place in everyday experience and practices, the go-along method brings greater phenomenological sensibility to ethnography.
... The final part of our methodology involved ethnographic research including "go-along" (Kusenbach, 2003(Kusenbach, , 2018, accompanied shopping trips and co-cooking sessions with a smaller group of research participants to capture the complexities and nuances of food choices, judgments, engagement with government and corporate ethical initiatives and, most importantly, the ordinary ethics of food purchase and use. As part of this phase, digital ethnography also explored the role of social media and online tools as devices implicated in ethical judgements and the creation of markets for sustainable foods. ...
... As part of this phase, digital ethnography also explored the role of social media and online tools as devices implicated in ethical judgements and the creation of markets for sustainable foods. Twelve household food ethnographies, including both go-along shopping trips and co-cooking with participants following the shopping trips, inspired by Kusenbach's (2003Kusenbach's ( , 2018 methodology, were thus conducted in June and July 2019 to engage with household food consumption in practice, spanning the public foodscape and the private spaces of the home. Participants also provided photo diaries of meals to capture the incorporation of food into everyday life beyond each ethnographic encounter. ...
... In so doing, our chosen methods for this research phase were strongly influenced by studies of sustainable consumption emphasizing the routine and habitual practices of daily life (Shove, 2011;. Moreover, our ethnographic work incorporates the six dimensions of consumption identified by Warde (2014) and Evans (2019) -acquisition, appropriation, appreciation, devaluation, divestment and disposal -outlined in Chapter 3. The go-along shopping trips inspired by Kusenbach (2003) helped to capture the importance of the act of food purchase (acquisition) and engagement of Guangzhou citizens with different parts of the city's foodscape. This method has been used in other consumption studies (Thompson et al., 2013) and reflects Goodman's (2013: 258) point that "shopping is . . . ...
... Actively moving through and interacting with the physical and social environment of participants as a companion allows researchers to engage deeply with the participant's emplaced experiences and spatial practices (O'Neill & Roberts, 2020). The slow navigation through the socio-spatial environment evokes a stream of place associations, including memories, anticipations (Kusenbach, 2003), and place attachments. ...
... Second, it facilitated the mapping of implicit social community relationships beyond the strongest social ties. Third, it offered insights into the multilayered environmental awareness or engagement of spatial practices (Kusenbach, 2003). ...
The rapid transformation of suburban neighborhoods, driven by development and changing demographics, is causing feelings of loss, disconnect, and a perceived diminution of political representation. This study examines socio‐spatial relationalities that affect the sense of belonging in such neighborhoods‐in‐flux. We propose a re‐imagined participatory research process with residents from the perspective of “walkability.” Go‐along walking methodology enabled us to gather place‐based narratives that revealed how emotions and memories influence different aspects of the sense of belonging. Jointly moving through the environment gave us sensory exposure to sights, sounds, smells, and tactical sensations of the neighborhood. It also deepened our understanding of how residents mentally and physically navigate the proposed social and spatial transformations outlined in a municipal development plan. Our analysis, informed by a new materialist framework and visualized in a deep map, demonstrates how the walking methodology can generate new knowledge about socio‐spatial dynamics to plan and design place. The methodology facilitated spontaneous and affective encounters with both human and other‐than‐human agents. The diverse range of place‐based emotions, memories, and stories shared, provided insights into how the changing built environment and place identity produce multiple belongings. The findings suggest that go‐along walking praxis offers a unique socio‐spatial window into the affective flows of belonging in neighborhoods‐in‐flux.
... Guan Q (2017) stated that the perception of historical feature authenticity has a significant positive impact on historical nostalgia, and the perception of unique authenticity and functional authenticity have a significant positive impact on individual nostalgia [19]. Kusenbach (2003) pointed out through the study of urban streets that the physical environment and social atmosphere of streets can trigger emotional experiences for pedestrians [20]. ...
... Guan Q (2017) stated that the perception of historical feature authenticity has a significant positive impact on historical nostalgia, and the perception of unique authenticity and functional authenticity have a significant positive impact on individual nostalgia [19]. Kusenbach (2003) pointed out through the study of urban streets that the physical environment and social atmosphere of streets can trigger emotional experiences for pedestrians [20]. ...
From the perspective of social media data, this study investigates the coupling relationship between tourists’ spatial perception and tourism image in traditional old urban areas. Using Nanxun Ancient Town as a case study, this paper reveals the interaction and mutual influence between tourists’ perception of space and tourism image in the development of traditional ancient town tourism. We employed Python 3.13.0 to gather 10,789 valuable comments from tourists from Dianping 11.35.3, Ctrip 8.78.4, and Mafengwo 11.2.6. Mini Tag Cloud software is used to analyze the text data, systematically classify the cognitive image of tourists, and identify negative emotional factors. This paper constructs a four-dimensional landscape spatial perception evaluation system centered on “high-frequency words”, “perceptual dimensions”, “semantic networks”, and “emotional tendencies”. The key findings are as follows: (1) Tourists’ spatial perception exhibits pronounced characteristics of subjective preference and emotional attachment influenced by emotional factors. Overall, tourists exhibited positive emotional perceptions, with 59.51% positive emotions, 21.16% neutral emotions, and 19.33% negative emotions. (2) The perception of Nanxun Ancient Town’s tourism image can be summarized into four dimensions. Here are the dimensions in order of how important they are: historical culture and folk heritage (34.18%), perceptions of natural landscape and architectural style (31.03%), perceptions of tourism services and facilities (18.37%), and psychological identity and emotional interaction (16.42%). (3) Tourism image reciprocally influences tourists’ spatial perception. A positive tourism image is anticipated to encourage tourists to explore the spatial details of the ancient town more deeply, enhancing their positive spatial perception and experience. There exists a coupling relationship between tourists’ spatial perception and tourism image. (4) Key aspects of tourists’ perception of Nanxun Ancient Town include its historical and cultural significance, as well as commercialization. Future studies could focus on tourists’ spatial perception and tourism destination brand image building, and tourism policy makers should pay attention to tourists’ perception of Nanxun Ancient Town’s history, culture and commercialization, and use the coupling of the two to improve development and service policies.
... Qualitative outcome measures will include nonparticipatory observations, individual interviews, and focus group interviews with health care providers. During fieldwork, we aim to be naturalistic and nondirective, stepping back from action and minimalizing interference with regular care [29,30]. ...
Background
Admission to a hospital can be a very stressful and anxiety-provoking experience, as patients face many unknowns that can compromise their physical and psychological well-being. Patient-centered care necessitates that health care organizations and professionals actively comprehend patients’ experiences and values, for which effective training in communication skills is essential.
Objective
This study will contribute to this field of research by evaluating a blended therapeutic communication training program.
Methods
The training consists of online e-learning that provides insights into important concepts of therapeutic communication, followed by a virtual reality patient-embodied experience shown to help nurses feel what it is like to be a patient themselves during a 1-day didactic training with experiential small groups. Theory on therapeutic communication is taught, focusing on how to use rapid rapport techniques and hypnotic and suggestive language to facilitate empathy. This is combined with practical exercises, ensuring an active learning process. By integrating these diverse blended learning training methods, the program aims to enhance nurses’ communication skills, ultimately improving patient care. Applying the Kirkpatrick model for training evaluation, this prospective study will use a convergent mixed methods study design, integrating both qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data will include fieldwork, as well as individual and focus group interviews with the participating nurses. Quantitative data will include questionnaires that include the first two levels of the Kirkpatrick model and that are validated for this purpose. Inclusion started in April 2024, and the therapeutic communication training was scheduled for the first half of 2024.
Results
On February 8, 2024, we received permission from the authorizing body (Institutional Science Committee and NWMO Committee) to start our study. Data collection started in April 2024 and was completed by the end of 2024.
Conclusions
This study will systematically evaluate the effectiveness of therapeutic communication training in the acute admission ward for patients who require emergency treatment. The results will yield insights into the feasibility and acceptance of the implementation of therapeutic communication training among nurses in an acute admission ward in the Netherlands.
International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)
DERR1-10.2196/65795
... In addition, I documented the local protest against the arrival of African asylum seekers in local and national meetings. I also conducted two "go-along" interviews (Kusenbach, 2003;Lager et al., 2013) with young migrants from Sudan to explore how they experienced their exclusion from the neighborhood's public space. During my ethnographic work, I accompanied two African migrants to receive administrative, health, or government assistance. ...
... The following step, data collection, was organised using a thematic approach defined during the creation of the questionnaire using LimeSurvey Community Edition version 6.14.0+250520. This was supported by the work of Kusenbach and Holgersson [30,31] (ii), which framed the key themes explored during the 'go-along' interviews. However, an additional subject on climate adaptation was introduced, exploring perceptions of climate change and its health impacts. ...
Urban environments and climate-related challenges impact older adults’ health and well-being. To address these challenges, climate adaptation strategies and urban design guidelines should be tailored to older adults’ needs. Ethnographic studies can help identify these needs by involving them directly in the research process. This study uses ethnographic research to explore older adults’ perceptions and behaviours regarding climate change risks and impacts, health, and mobility challenges in a vulnerable urban area—São Roque da Lameira, Porto, Portugal. It studies the applicability and complementarity of four participatory methods that can inform urban design: (I) semi-structured interviews, (II) ‘go-along’ interviews, (III) user observations, and (IV) emotional mapping. The qualitative data collected were analysed through thematic and spatial analysis. Common themes emerged between the four methods, including concerns about accessibility, safety, and comfort, such as uneven pavements, lack of seating, and poor infrastructure for people with reduced mobility. Participants recommended improvements, such as more green spaces and better pedestrian infrastructure quality. Notably, each method uncovered distinct dimensions, highlighting the added value of a multi-method approach. This study demonstrates that combining participatory methods offers deeper, context-specific insights to inform age-friendly and climate-resilient urban design. Future research should take climate-focused methods and a multidisciplinary approach into consideration.
... After taking the photos, the Research Assistant and participant sat in a quiet, private space to conduct the interview. This type of interview reflects 'walk-along' interview and 'go-along' methodological approaches that aim to provide a rich understanding of lived experiences in a target environment, including micro-scale environmental and contextual factors (Carpiano, 2009;Kusenbach, 2003). The interview guide included questions on why they chose each place, how the season and weather influenced their experience of each place, how each place and the weather-related effects impacted their health and how each place could be made better. ...
Climate-related extreme weather events (EWE) exacerbate resource insecurities that, in turn, shape sexual and reproductive health (SRH). Refugee settlements face increased EWE exposure yet are understudied in EWE research. We explored experiences of climate change and SRH among refugee youth aged 16–24 in Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement, Uganda. This qualitative study involved walk-along individual youth interviews and key informant (KI) service provider interviews. We conducted thematic analysis informed by the resource scarcity framework, which explores socioeconomic and ecological risks for resource insecurity. Participants (N = 44) included youth (n = 32; mean age: 20.0, standard deviation [SD]: 2.4; 50% men, 50% women) and KI (n = 12; mean age: 37.0, SD: 5.8; 75% men, 25% women). Findings illustrate how EWE shape SRH outcomes for refugee young women: (1) climate change contributes to water scarcity, extreme heat, and changing rain patterns; (2) drought contributes to resource scarcities (e.g. food, water) that increase sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) risks, transactional sex, and menstruation insecurity and (3) heavy rains/flooding contribute to resource scarcities that increase SGBV risks, and sanitation insecurity exacerbates menstruation insecurity. Findings highlight how EWE-related resource insecurities are associated with poor SRH (STI/HIV acquisition risks, unplanned pregnancy, SGBV) and should be addressed in multi-level climate-informed humanitarian programmes.
... This technique enables us to look at the processes of territorialization and the tensions and negotiations that accompany them as well as the family relationships within each dwelling. Finally, the Go-Along Method (Kusenbach, 2003) consists of accompanying children on a typical journey between their two residences. This technique provides rich information on how children leave one residence, travel to and arrive at the other, and the emotions associated with this journey. ...
Based on in-depth fieldwork with Belgian children aged 10 to 16, this book examines how children in shared physical custody define and negotiate their place within the household of each parent.
The authors analyse how family practices within and between each dwelling shape children’s sense home, and the strategies and skills children develop to manage and position themselves in these different environments.
Challenging common stereotypes and giving voice to children in shared custody, the book provides valuable insights for practitioners and scholars to better understand and support children and their parents.
This book contributes to several fields of research, including mobility, multilocality, materiality, and family practices
... We selected two darbars located in two different cities in Pakistan, that is, Pakpattan and Chishtian. To facilitate our research, we employed the well-established "go-along method" of ethnography research (Kusenbach 2003), adopted by scholars doing ethnography on similar topics (see Chafik and Drechsler 2022). This method allowed the fieldworkers to actively explore the subjects' experiences and practices as they interacted with their physical and social environment. ...
... Additionally, researchers may utilise different field strategies, such as (a) following/going along with informants during their mundane activities or when completing tasks of specific interest (Kusenbach 2003); (b) "hanging around" at different places in the field at different points of time; (c) identifying and following the rumours, gossips and conflicts centred around the "people of influence/power" in the fieldwork setting (ethnography is well placed to capture the "slices, glimpses and specimens" of such daily micro-political operations that other methodologies cannot); and (d) identifying the "war" stories that people are eager to share. These narratives shed light on the issues that are deemed important and problematic by the individuals being studied. ...
... We were particularly keen on understanding how and why women engage with zawāyā and provide services to their communities. Our approach, therefore, combined desk research alongside qualitative, field-based ethnographic research (Kusenbach 2003), the latter of which was discursive in nature (Zittoun 2009), emphasising the subjective perspectives of those embedded within the institutions to gain insights into the social phenomena they embody. ...
... In order to pursue our goals, we assembled a research team from UCL IIPP and partner universities and institutes in the Islamic world and elsewhere. The actual research consisted of ethnographic fieldwork -embedded observational participation (Kusenbach 2003) and discursive interviews (Zittoun 2009) -to explore both the administrative practices of the ICIs and the specific Islamic values underpinning their work, which the theory chapter by Urinboyev outlines in detail. ...
... Jennifer spent 1 day a week with each of the focal teachers, in classrooms, meetings, lunch, prep periods, and other spaces, which allowed for a large variety of settings (Kusenbach, 2003), especially within the context of service delivery-both the ESL and the special education teachers pushed into general education classrooms and provided pull-out services for small group instruction. Jennifer audio-recorded interactions throughout the day and regularly wrote memos (n = 26) and fieldnotes after observations (n = 109). ...
Special education and dual language/bilingual education (DLBE) programs originated to protect educational rights for students with disabilities and multilingual students. However, these structures require categorizing learners through standardized testing, which can reinforce ableist and racist practices. This ethnographic and discourse-analytic study examines educators' perceptions of fourth-grade students' language practices within an urban K-8 bilingual program as they inhabit an institutional perceiving subject position. Rooted in critical perspectives on race, language, and disability, findings suggest that all students were subjected to the white normative gaze, highlighting structural oppression in DLBE and special education while exploring implications for urban schooling contexts.
... In all but one venue, we conducted a form of walk-along as part of the interview (Kusenbach, 2003). In food related research this is sometimes referred to as kitchen tours (Meah and Watson, 2013;Wills et al., 2016) or fridge stories (Joosse and Marshall, 2020). ...
Since the rise of the New Nordic Cuisine, ideas relating to local, seasonal, traditional and sustainable food has permeated parts of the Swedish restaurant sector, including inspiration from past preservation and storage practices. However, there is little knowledge of how preservation and long-term storage in general is practiced within restaurants’ daily operations. The aim of the article is therefore to explore if and how preservation and storage practices in restaurants, as emphasized by the NNC movement, could be scaled up to support a transition towards a more resilient and sustainable hospitality industry. By identifying opportunities and challenges through interviews with restaurant professionals and wholesalers, it seeks to provide a nuanced understanding of the role these practices can play in enhancing food security and resilience in the Nordic gastronomy. While restaurants use preservation methods in line with their gastronomic philosophy to create specific flavors and meal experiences, there are many constraints to expand such practices further. These challenges are located within the restaurant practice, i.e. “doing restaurant”, more specifically material and social constraints vis-à-vis storage space, economy, recruitment of skilled staff, the risks associated with fermentation and the perceived relevancy of preserving and storing food for long-term use. We argue that with skilled restaurant personnel and access to food, the restaurant could become an important actor for maintaining a more resilient food system at the local scale. With the right incentives, the restaurant sector could ensure that the relevant skills are maintained if preservation once again should become a necessity.
... Walk-along methods provide an understanding of lived experiences in a target environment, including microscale environmental and contextual factors. [61][62][63] Finally, in each study site, we held two 2-day YA PMWs, one with 10 boys and the other with 10 girls, leading to a total of 12 PMWs across all six sites. PMWs were guided by the question: What priorities and recommendations do young adolescents identify for addressing climate change and resource insecurity in their communities? ...
Introduction
Growing evidence supports linkages between climate change and extreme weather events (EWEs) and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) among adults. Yet knowledge gaps persist regarding climate-related experiences and pathways to SRH among young adolescents (YA). We conducted a multi-method qualitative study to explore climate change-related factors and linkages with SRH among YA aged 10–14 years in Kenya.
Methods
This six-site study was conducted in Nairobi’s urban slum Mathare; Naivasha’s flower farming community; Kisumu’s fishing community; Isiolo’s nomadic and pastoralist community; Kilifi’s coastal smallholder farms and Kalobeyei refugee settlement. Methods involved: n=12 elder focus groups, n=60 YA walk-along interviews (WAIs) and n=12 2-day YA participatory mapping workshops (PMWs). We conducted codebook thematic analysis informed by the resource insecurity framework.
Results
Participants (n=297) included: elders (n=119; mean age: 60.6 years, SD: 7.9; men: 48.7%, women: 51.3%), YA WAI participants (n=60; mean age: 13.4, SD: 1.5; boys: 51.4%, girls: 48.6%) and YA PMW participants (n=118; mean age: 12.1, SD: 1.3; boys: 50.8%, girls: 49.2%). Narratives identified climate-related changes and EWEs increased existing resource insecurities that, in turn, were linked directly and indirectly with SRH vulnerabilities. Food and water insecurity contributed to YA missing school, sexual violence, transactional sex and exploitative relationships. Sanitation insecurity produced challenges regarding menstrual hygiene, sexual violence risks and transactional sex. Transactional sex and exploitative relationships were linked with unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection risks. Gender inequities increased girls’ risks for violence and sexual exploitation, whereas boys were more prone to running away.
Conclusion
We found that climate change exacerbated resource insecurities that may drive SRH outcomes among YA in Kenya. We developed a conceptual model to illustrate these pathways linking climate change, EWEs, resource insecurities and SRH. Climate-informed interventions should consider these pathways within larger social environmental contexts to advance young adolescent SRH in Kenya.
... Furthermore, the authors also engaged in observation with different levels of participation in various settings, such as Thai Buddhist temples, Thai restaurants, bars, and Thai festivals in Austria. During participant observation, informal interviews and go-along conversations occurred (Kusenbach 2003). Participant observation further helped to understand Thai women's everyday practices and experiences, leading to enhanced interpretation of the data (Kawulich 2005). ...
This study examines the dynamics of social capital and the role of Thai-connotated spaces in fostering social relationships among Thai marriage migrants in Austria. It addresses a gap in migration studies concerning the dual nature of social capital and its spatial formation in small migrant communities. While existing research often emphasises the benefits of social capital in migrant integration, fewer studies explore its simultaneous exclusionary and conflict-inducing effects. Drawing on qualitative data supported by a survey, the findings reveal that Thai-connotated spaces, such as Thai temples, restaurants, and shops, act as vital hubs for bonding social capital, offering emotional and material support through networks of trust and reciprocity. These spaces enable migrants to navigate their new environments by sharing information on language learning, employment opportunities, and cultural adaptation while also fostering solidarity through shared experiences.
However, the study also uncovers the adverse effects of social capital, conceptualised as ‘social shackles’, where close-knit ties lead to exclusion, interpersonal conflicts, and social pressures. Jealousy, mistrust, and hierarchical relations often undermine mutual support, while cultural norms such as conspicuous consumption and the need to ‘keep face’ exacerbate tensions. Moreover, patriarchal control and exclusionary practices further marginalise certain individuals, illustrating the restrictive nature of social embeddedness within the Thai migrant communities.
... I draw my reflections from qualitative data, primarily generated through observation, informal interviews and especially through 'walking interviews' (Kühl, 2016;Kusenbach, 2003) during my semi-ethnographic study 'Architectures of care and constraint: A qualitative study on physical spaces where 'problematic' individuals are accommodated' part of a larger project called 'Coercive space-time-regimes: Comparing configurations of care and constraint in different institutions'. 2 Inspired by sensory ethnography (Pink, 2009), this sub-project aimed to explore in situ the subjective and embodied experiences of incarcerated persons and prison staff with regard to the built environment. My fundamental interest was in how people who live and work in the prison experience elements of its architecture and design. ...
Despite long-standing emphasis on the importance of prison infrastructure, the specific impact of architecture and design on the lived experience of incarcerated persons remains under-researched. This article explores how people living in a newly built prison in Switzerland perceive and experience this place, which was designed according to the principle of ‘normalisation’. Drawing on qualitative data generated through ethnographic methods and using ‘atmosphere’ and ‘affordance’ as key concepts, this article aims to map the prison's sensory topography and to illuminate experiential spaces that emerge from a dynamic interplay between the design features, institutional control and individual perception. By introducing the concept of the ‘pains of unattainable affordances’, this article demonstrates that in the ‘normalised’ context of a new-generation prison, incarcerated persons may experience novel ‘pains of imprisonment’, as the space–time regime that prison management imposes often collides with the architects’ intentions and restricts access to the prison environment's ‘offerings’. This article contributes to the emerging field of studies that highlight the spatial, embodied and sensory experience of imprisonment and raises critical questions regarding ongoing reflections surrounding the ‘principle of normalisation’ that has become a key concept in contemporary prison philosophy.
... I went on regular walks and boating trips around the island with residents, which created opportunities to get at residents' opinions and explanations of the places and activities we observed. These trips were like informal go-alongs (Kusenbach 2003) in which the informant and I moved through the physical place or landscape, and the places we encountered guided our conversations. I also participated in several formal and informal community groups, including a weekly "coffee clutch" at the local firehouse, a ladies' group that met weekly to play cards, and the Sabula Visioning Committee (a committee focused on community beautification and economic development with a strong focus on increasing tourism). ...
... During these interviews, interviewers accompany individuals on their natural outings. They are usually 90 min long, but participants ultimately determine length of time that makes sense for the outing (Kusenbach, 2003). The interviewer might follow up on specific interactions and spaces mentioned during the prior interview. ...
Background: Formerly incarcerated people with serious mental illnesses (SMI) experience the criminal legal system unequally and have elevated rates of recidivism, homelessness, general medical problems, and substance use disorders. Permanent supportive housing (PSH) can be used during reentry, but it has limited resources for addressing community integration, a key component of reentry. PSH are often located in high-poverty environments with increased criminogenic risk. The geography of PSH also includes public spaces, which are associated with positive outcomes. The risk environment framework provides a structure for understanding the geography of PSH through its focus on the physical, social, economic, and policy influences on the micro and macro environments of reentry.
Methods: This is a novel QUAL + QUAN (spatial) concurrent mixed-methods study that will examine how individual, interpersonal, and environmental factors interact with public and private spaces to inform reentry wellbeing. Eighty multimethod interviews (i.e., qualitative, quantitative, and participatory mapping methods) will be conducted with formerly incarcerated clients with SMI. Go-along interviews will be conducted with 20 of these participants. Participatory mapping will be geocoded and sites identified as places of importance, frequent participation, and belonging will be evaluated in relation to objective features of spaces to develop a community resilience index. Findings will ultimately be integrated into an intervention development codesign process with a community advisory board.
Discussion: During reentry, individual, interpersonal, and environmental factors can interact with these environments to produce or reduce risk. If addressed, these factors can contribute to reentry wellbeing, through improved community participation and treatment engagement and reduced psychiatric distress and substance use.
... Dieses erweitert sich auf der Basis von iterativer Auswertung kontinuierlich mit dem Ziel, eine möglichst große Bandbreite an Problemen und Eigenschaften im Sinne der "theoretischen Sättigung" (Glaser & Strauss, 1998 Insbesondere die begleiteten Mobilitätsspaziergänge ("mobile methods" vgl. Kusenbach (2003); Pink et al. (2016); Hein, Evans & Jones (2008, S. 1276 helfen, situationsgebundene Mobilitätserlebnisse von Personen samt ihren Emotionen und Ideen einzufangen (Büscher, Urry & Witchger, 2010, S. 8) wobei die von den Forschenden begleiteten Personen als Expert:innen ihrer Situation wahrgenommen werden. Die Methode gründet auf dem verstehenden Paradigma (Phänomenologie, symbolische Interaktion) und erfordert das Eintauchen in den Ort (emplacement) sowie die Bewegung des Körpers im Raum (embodiment) auf Augenhöhe mit den Proband:innen (equality). ...
Die Verwobenheit von Medientechnologie und Mobilität schreitet zwar zügig voran, ist aber nicht uneingeschränkt als produktiv zu beurteilen. In städtischen, insbesondere nächtlichen Räumen sind zwar Verbesserungen auch für Frauen queere Personen und vulnerable Gruppen im Gespräch, aber vielerorts noch nicht umgesetzt. Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich in vier explorativen qualitativen Studien mit Mobilitätsgerechtigkeit und zeigt Wege zu einer benutzerfreundlichen Technologieentwicklung an der Schnittstelle zu physischen Stadt(Nacht)Räumen auf. Das Multi-Methoden-Set involviert Auto-Ethnografien, qualitative mobilitätsbiografische Interviews und begleitete Mobilitätsspaziergänge mit jungen Erwachsenen
... individuals supporting the running of the programme) and programme participants from the CMCs were conducted within the respective neighbourhoods' of the CMCs (February to March 2023). This method, also termed 'walking through spaces', was selected due to its participatory nature [25,26]. Anchoring on the neighbourhood setting means that these interviews tapped into resonant narratives that accounted for the environment where the CMCs operate. ...
Background
In an effort to improve population health, communities are being enabled to take charge of their health through the Movements for Health (M4H) programme in Singapore. The present study seeks to understand what characterises a health movement and explores health narratives which resonate over the different life stages.
Methods
A multi‐component qualitative formative study was undertaken. Focus group discussions (FGDs, n = 12) and one semi‐structured interview (altogether involving n = 52 individuals) were carried out with government and community implementation stakeholders, alongside go‐along interviews (n = 24, involving 11 volunteers, 13 programme participants) and e‐diaries (n = 37, with 22 programme participants and 15 volunteers).
Results
Themes are reported in bold, with subthemes in italics. Health movement building was defined as an evolving process marked by co‐creation, emotional investment and framed by a shared understanding founded on explicit theory. Furthermore, health movements were characterised as taking root in the community, needing a shared ‘cause’ to be self‐sustaining. They should be able to garner momentum and be replicable, and thus ultimately far‐reaching and inclusive of all walks of life. Themes cross‐cutting life stages include concerns about chronic illness, which are not limited to seniors. Positive role modelling is crucial in encouraging hesitant participants towards healthier behaviours. Additionally, the importance of building supportive, emotional connections with implementers was emphasised. Priority areas for changing health behaviours and informing health literacy planning across various life stages have also been identified. For youths, mental health struggles, such as mood regulation issues, are prevalent and often exacerbated by parental invalidation. Adults tend to deprioritize social health due to responsibilities like breadwinning and childminding, coping through social connections forged among programme participants. Seniors expressed trepidation regarding their physical health, fearing a loss of independence and verbalising how limited mobility affects their ability to exercise and socialise.
Conclusion
The present study has provided insights into the early phases of the novel M4H community‐led programmatic approach. Our findings defined health movements and health needs across the life course, whilst expanding on related theoretical and applied community development traditions.
Patient or Public Contribution
This study mixes participatory data (i.e. go‐along interviews) with other qualitative data to provide insights into the co‐creation process of health movement building. The study also adopted a user‐centred approach, and the content appropriateness of the programmes was fed back to the community‐level implementers (i.e. Community Movement Champions [CMCs]) and the M4H administrating committee to inform future programming. Future CMCs have taken up the recommendations extracted from stakeholder engagement, where components on sleep, mental health, etc., have been added. Community coaches and commissioning stakeholders are involved in authorship.
... The mobile, dynamic nature of this interview meant safety considerations were vital with older participants. Go-alongs combine the advantages of interviews with observations of the participant in action (Kusenbach, 2003). The use of go-alongs allows us to observe how they perform linguistically in daily life and to capture their in-situ perception of their performance (Chen & Buckingham, 2024). ...
Older migrants often constitute a hard-to-reach demographic group for researchers, particularly those who are ethnolinguistic minorities with limited host country language competence. Acknowledging the heterogeneous profiles of older people and their particular life histories, in this article we discuss the methodological challenges in conducting qualitative research with older Chinese migrants. We report on our experience during data collection (recruitment, implementation, and termination) using various methods (questionnaires, interviews, and go-alongs) with 22 participants, as part of a broader project that focused on older migrants’ experience of daily-life language challenges and coping strategies in New Zealand. Successful recruitment relied heavily on trust-building that was facilitated by gatekeepers, given older migrants’ vulnerability to fraud. Pre-talks were used to deepen trust and negotiate practical age-related issues. During research implementation, we demonstrate the benefits of collaborative questionnaire completion, dialogical interviews, and of enabling participants to co-construct the go-along procedure. We emphasize the importance of practical and psychological acknowledgement of participants’ contribution and discuss forms of meeting participants’ expectations for ongoing contact without encouraging dependency. We observed limited evidence of post-research abandonment among participants. We close with recommendations for recruiting this demographic group aimed at future researchers.
... The walk-and-talk technique is a participant-led approach that encourages spontaneous storytelling, allowing individuals with leprosy to share their experiences (Kusenbach, 2003). Participants guide researchers through their daily environments, providing real-time insights into how they navigate their physical spaces, social contexts, and personal challenges (Carpiano, 2009;Emmel & Clark, 2011;King & Woodroffe, 2017). ...
Leprosy, though curable, continues to present physical and psychosocial challenges for those affected. This study explored how individuals affected by leprosy in Malaysia navigated daily life, societal expectations, and personal challenges through the walk-and-talk technique, a participant-led qualitative approach that fostered spontaneous storytelling and reflexivity. By guiding researchers through their environments, participants shaped the narrative, shifting power dynamics and enabling authentic dialogue. Six participants from Kelantan and Selangor shared their everyday activities, aspirations, and coping strategies. Video documentation was used as a supplementary tool to capture non-verbal cues and contextual interactions. Visual, auditory, and field data were transcribed and thematically analysed using NVivo 12, revealing key themes, including resilience and perseverance, employment and economic sustenance, stigma, family support, and community engagement. Work emerged as central to their well-being, fostering dignity and providing financial stability. However, self-imposed stigma limited social inclusion, while strong familial and community bonds provided crucial support. These findings highlighted the effectiveness of the walk-and-talk technique in capturing rich qualitative data and emphasised the need for tailored interventions to address stigma, enhance social inclusion, and support the well-being and economic stability of individuals affected by leprosy.
... Go-along interviews. to explore this emergent theme further, the first author's observations and fieldnotes were augmented with "go-alongs" (evans & Jones, 2011;Kusenbach, 2003). in this, the researcher walks with participants as they go about their daily routines, asking questions along the way. ...
... This article explores these questions by reflecting on the process of developing FoodCoach, an automated dietary tracking and intervention app, in which the authors collaborated as science and technology studies (STS) researchers with a background in the anthropology and sociology of food and eating. The article focuses on seeking user feedback on mundane data sharing, dietary tracking technology, mock-ups and prototypes of the app in 'go-alongs' 2 (Kusenbach 2003) followed by informal or semi-structured interviews and in focus groups as part of the research project. ...
Digitally tracking food and eating has become a widespread activity. Scholars in anthropology, sociology and science and technology studies have problematised the personal and social implications of dietary tracking and the metrification of food and eating. Metrification has contributed to the emergence of new types of relevant expertise and new experts of eating and health. This warrants in-depth research to better understand the forming, negotiation, establishment and effects of new expertise. Drawing on a sociomaterial perspective, this article explores these questions by reflecting on the development of an automated dietary tracking and intervention app. The article focuses on seeking feedback on mock-ups and prototypes of the app from potential users and non-users in ‘go-alongs’ and interviews, and in focus groups. The analysis revealed that the delegation of dietary expertise to an automated system poses a challenge for many participants. They emphasised what is neglected in the process—including their dietary but also bodily and sociocultural expertise. Our study contributes to an understanding of how dietary tracking and delegating expertise to an automated system appeals to users whose food values align with metrics used in the app but also users who accept to delegate specific forms of care to the technology.
... The aforementioned quantification of the health hazards was derived from the narratives of the lived experience of 40 sample women respondents through a "Go-Along" method [50]. The researcher accompanied, observed, photographed, and interviewed them while they retrieved water during their routine daily household chores in the summer months of 2022 and 2023. ...
Women bearing the disproportionate burdens of water collection in water-deficit pockets face myriad issues that deter their economic participation and quality of life (QoL). This article deals with the ground realities of how and why the feminization of water leads to the marginalization of women. The article is based on an empirical investigation in a water-deficit district of Odisha, i.e., Nabarangpur. The article deviates from conventional studies on the feminization of water by focusing not only on marginalization from an economic angle but also on the QoL. The study has devised 20 four-point indicators retrieved from field observations and interviews. It has adopted a qualitative method with a “Go-Along” approach to collect information and narratives, which have proven to be highly revealing in nature. Furthermore, the article departs from the stereotypical observations of the impact of the feminization of water on economic participation and health, bringing out new dimensions, such as discovering seasonal differences in the distance covered and the time consumed for collecting water and some specific health issues faced due to it in the study locality.
The digitalization of communication practices affords major gains for qualitative methods of communication science. What we term digital qualitative fluidity captures the way traditional boundaries between interviewing and ethnography may dissolve through the use of contemporary, digital technologies. We illustrate how communication scholars have leveraged the digital to open ethnographic spaces within interviews to examine situated communication processes of meaning-making in action, amplifying marginalized voices, evoking affect, and enabling sense making–better meeting key goals of qualitative research. We discuss examples of harnessing the fluidity of digital ethnographic interviews in different corners of communication science, dilemmas that accompany this approach, and institutional investments to ensure that qualitative data and methods are valued alongside computational approaches.
These are all the references from the monography 'Belonging and belongings. Children's sense of home in shared custody arrangements'.
Community-based elderly care is a method of providing care to the elderly that has developed globally. The supply of community-based facilities and services is essential for implementing social elderly care, ensuring that older individuals receive the necessary support within their communities. The gaps between the supply and demand of community-based elderly care facilities and services seriously affect the elderly's quality of life further impacting social and economic development. Current research on China lacks comprehensive information regarding the requirements of older adults,, particularly in terms of official reports and analyses evaluating the availability of community-based care facilities for the elderly. The study explores the reason for the imbalanced supply and demand between community-based elderly care facilities and services in two cases in Shanghai urban central areas, aiming to develop effective research methods on the needs of the elderly and provide support for planning strategies and policy development. This study employed a pilot investigation to support methodology development. The data collection techniques and interview questions were refined based on the actual data collection circumstances and analysis of the pilot study. Subsequently, the needs of the elderly and the provision of facilities and services were identified through semi-structured interviews with 40 elderly individuals and two managers, and 400 h of observations, whilst Shanghai’s existing policy gaps were ascertained through relevant documentary reviews. Through investigation, significant undersupply and oversupply between community-based elderly care facilities and the elderly’s expectations were discovered and illustrated. Supply–demand disparities in community-based elderly care facilities manifest in both undersupply and oversupply. While insufficient supply constrains service quality, resource wastage due to oversupply exacerbates inefficiency. Shanghai’s future policy and planning guidance formulation for community-based elderly care facilities should be based on clarifying the needs of the elderly, marketing the promotion of elderly care services in communities and developing skilled and ethical professional elderly care teams. The elderly, the government, and social economy development can benefit from the improvement of policy and planning guidance on elderly care.
This article grapples with the making of habit and the dynamics of knowledge ‘in the hands’ among outdoor adventurers. Especially in early phases of learning, budding adventurers orient their movement and sense of the environment off the body positions and perceptual judgments of experienced others. The ultimate reference point for action is the mountains themselves, and so a major lesson is one of quiet humility, inhabiting a world that others may have a weaker sense of. They adopt the term ‘listening’ metaphorically to express how they always organise their bodies in relation to what is happening beyond them. The degree of connectedness to the world is variable. The silence above the snowline heightens focus and expands the bounds of what can be safely achieved, providing a climber’s stress and state of health do not get in the way.
Objective
Guided by intersectional feminism and symbolic interactionism, the purpose of this study was to document the untold stories of women with incarcerated spouses in India.
Background
When a family member is incarcerated, the task of emotionally and financially supporting the family often falls upon women, who are likely to be underresourced and overwhelmed. Women whose husbands are incarcerated in India are likely to possess multiple marginalized identities, increasing their vulnerability to intersecting forms of oppression. Empirical research is lacking on wives of incarcerated men in India, contributing to their invisibility in policy‐making and programmatic interventions.
Method
In‐depth, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 14 wives of prison inmates who resided in or around the capital city of Delhi, all of whom either held a lower caste identity or a Muslim religious identity. Transcribed interviews were analyzed following the steps of narrative analysis.
Results
Results illustrate the diversity of storied experiences of wives of incarcerated husbands in India. Participants' narratives represented three types of stories: Ambivalent but Hanging On , Unconditionally Devoted , and Independent and Disillusioned . Four overarching themes characterized women's experiences with spousal incarceration: gendered care work , being stigmatized and sexualized , staying in the marriage , and ceilings of aspiration .
Conclusion
This study renders visible women on the margins of Indian society, illustrating how they make meaning of extraordinary life circumstances and persevere through dire hardship.
Coercive animal labour is central to capitalism, based on anthropocentric environmental ideologies that often regard animal bodies as solutions or fixes for often human‐caused environmental crises, even as, incrementally, it causes extreme ecological destruction. However, geographers and others have yet to focus on the ways in which coercive animal labour shapes, and is impacted by, environmental degradation and damage, despite growing critical work on the human slavery–environment nexus. Bringing animal labour and critical resource geographies together, this paper exposes the vulnerabilities and lived experiences of donkeys entrapped in river sand mining in regional Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, India, to probe the slavery–environment nexus through a multispecies approach. It expands the nascent work on animal capitalism in informal/grey economies of the Global South, to demonstrate how criminal economies organise the multispecies slavery–environment nexus through the maintenance of ‘low‐value’ human–animal labour relations in difficult environmental conditions, where precarious human labour relies on extreme extractions from animal bodies for survival. This paper calls for environmental, labour and critical resource geographers to extend existing work on the links between slavery and environmental destruction, through anti‐anthropocentric analyses that politically recognise (other) animals, and their vulnerabilities, specifically in being animal, a colonial‐anthropocentric ideology of animality as pejorative. Taking hope from radical (re)makings of worlds otherwise for these animals—empirical, political, even opportunistic—and however fleeting or frail, this paper proposes the articulation and development of an animals' ecological politics that refuses environmental anthropocentrism, and safeguards animal–nature relations in their fullest scope, specifically from human exploitation, as foundational to multispecies liberatory praxis.
Austerity in the United Kingdom has been widely framed, in academic and popular representations, as a nostalgic project, drawing legitimacy from idealised images of a resilient past. We argue that these notions of resilience embedded in austerity discourses parallel nostalgic attachments to mining legacies in the South Wales coalfield. Through analysing the promises and strategies behind austerity, we explore its complex dynamics in post-industrial communities marked by long-standing marginalisation and hardship. Based on ethnographic research in the South Wales Valleys, we contend that nostalgia plays a key role in nurturing the ‘cruel optimism’ of austerity, enrolling citizens into its neoliberal logic and material practices. Nostalgic practices such as heritage projects and community initiatives often reinforce values central to austerity, creating a conflicted space where memory serves both empowerment and exploitation. However, amid the legacies of deindustrialisation and austerity, a growing scepticism and recognition of austerity’s failures have given rise to subtle forms of resistance, grounded in community solidarity and care. This resistance, sustained by nostalgic narratives of perseverance and collective identity, holds potential for alternative, transformative politics in the future.
Yol bulma, insanların geliştirdiği önemli
mekânsal eylemlerden birisidir. Yol bulma
biçimleri tarih boyunca ve insanların
kullandıkları araçlara göre gelişim
göstermiştir. Başlangıç noktası ile varış
noktası arasındaki rotanın sık kullanıma göre
edinilen bir bilgi olmasının yanında basılı
haritalar ve dijital navigasyon uygulamaları
gibi farklı ara yüzler de yol bulma
biçimlerine etki ederler. Yol bulma
biçimlerine fiziksel unsurların yanında
algısal unsurlar da etkide bulunmaktadır.
Çalışma İstanbul İli Çekmeköy İlçesi
Hamidiye Mahallesi’nde belirlenen bir
alanda iki nokta arasında bölgeyi bilenlerin
edindiği yol bulma biçimlerini, bölgeyi
bilmeyenlerin basılı harita kullanarak veya
mobil harita kullanarak geliştirdiği yol
bulma biçimlerini hareketli yöntemlerle
irdelemektedir. Çalışma neticesinde
katılımcıların en çok kullandıkları
güzergahlar, en çok kullandıkları dönüşler ve
akıllarında kalan unsurlar değerlendirilirken
ortaya çıkan rotalar alanın arazi kullanım,
yolların ortalama eğimi ve yürünebilirlik
analizleri doğrultusunda üretilen bulgularla
karşılaştırılmıştır.
Çalışma, dijital navigasyon sistemlerinin ve
basılı haritaların yol bulma süreçlerinde
etkileri olduğunu ortaya koymakla beraber
rota tercihlerinde yer bilgisi, eğim gibi
fiziksel etmenlerin yanında yapıların ve
sokakların kişiler üzerinde bıraktıkları
etkileri gibi algısal etmenlerin de önemli
olduğu görüşündedir.
Çalışma boyunca üretilen paftaların, akıllı
şehir uygulamalarının geliştiği günümüzde
yaya açısından oluşturulacak mobil yol tarifi
uygulamalarının yürünebilirlik ve eğim
verileri ile uyumlulaştırılmasına hizmet
etmesi de düşünülmüştür. Çalışmanın ayrıca
yol bulma biçimlerine etki eden algısal
etmenlere dönük araştırmaların
derinleştirilmesine de olanak tanıdığı
düşünülmektedir.
Homelessness affects diverse populations and contexts worldwide, but the responses from different countries vary significantly. The Greek experience underscores the complexity of homelessness, particularly in the absence of a comprehensive national counting system and policies that offer only brief, superficial relief rather than long-term solutions. This article is based on a doctoral research project that examines the role and practices of social workers in the social integration of people experiencing homelessness in Athens. Using a qualitative design, in-depth, walking interviews were conducted with (1) ten people experiencing homelessness, (2) 16 social workers in the field of homelessness and (3) five policymakers. This article focuses on data from the interviews with social workers and social policymakers, discussing their views and experiences of social work’s role in policymaking for homelessness. It is revealed that despite social workers’ constant struggle in advocating for people’s needs, their voices are ignored and unheard. The article concludes that by using the profession’s institutions and community coalitions, social work can advocate for inclusive processes in policymaking through which people’s and professionals’ voices and experiences will be both visible and heard.
This study explores the displaced Syrian population’s changing relationship with food in urban Turkey, focusing on the gendered politics of food and reproduction and relying on an urban ethnography in Istanbul. The study aims to examine the transformation of Syrian women’s reproductive foodwork with a particular focus on their coping mechanisms toward bridging resources and needs to secure access to healthy, nutritious, and sufficient food for their households, on the one hand, and maintaining Syrian ethnic identity, on the other. The study also investigates whether reproductive foodwork signifies only gendered oppression or acquires new meanings such as empowerment in a displacement context. This article argues that although Syrian women’s increasing responsibility in reproductive foodwork in displacement imposes on them a more significant pressure to ensure their households access to both sufficient and ethnic food, it hints at increasing autonomy and power of the women within the family with a particular focus on food acquisition and food budget. The dynamics of food acquisition in the displacement transforms the patriarchal gender norms that restrain Syrian women’s engagement with public space. Thus, the change in gender relations within Syrian households suggests that patriarchal oppression and gendered empowerment are simultaneously entangled in Syrian women’s reproductive foodwork in displacement.
Focusing on the “small stories” of everyday embodied encounter with place, this study investigates how sense of place manifests itself amongst residents of a northern English city. The study employs map drawing and “go-along” interviews and the paper presents data from a sample of these. The study draws on the assemblage thinking of Deleuze and Guattari to elaborate a concept of sense of place as assemblage with three dimensions: the affective / sensorial, the temporal / mnemonic, and the political. Sense of place, seen as an opening up of oneself to the potentiality of the encounter with space, is characterised as a disrupting concept. The paper considers the implications of the research for how residents might be engaged more effectively in future debates about the city’s development.
Background
Surgical ward rounds (SWRs) are typically led by doctors, with limited involvement from key participants, including patients, family members, and bedside nurses. Despite the potential benefits of a more collaborative and person-centered approach, efforts to engage these stakeholders remain rare.
Objective
This qualitative exploratory study aims to examine the experiences and needs of doctors, nurses, patients, and their relatives during SWRs as part of a participatory design process.
Methods
Data were collected through ethnographic field studies, focus groups with the health care providers, patients, and relatives, and dyadic interviews conducted as part of home visits to patients and their partners after discharge. Field notes and interview data were analyzed using systematic text condensation.
Results
Lack of organization, traditional roles, and cultural norms compromised the quality, efficiency, and user experience of SWRs in multiple ways. SWRs were routine-driven, treatment-focused, and received lower priority than surgical tasks. Unpredictability resulted in unprepared participants and limited access for nurses, patients, and relatives to partake.
Conclusions
The study identified a gap between the organizational and cultural frameworks governing the SWRs and the experiences and needs of key participants. Digital technologies were perceived as a potential solution to address some of these challenges.
In recent decades, the discourse surrounding children's participation in research has undergone a profound transformation, shedding light on their evolving role from passive subjects to active agents. This shift has placed a strong emphasis on incorporating par-ticipatory methodologies while researching with children, which enables us to capture their perspectives and place them at the core of the research process. In this study, to explore the experiences of Palestinian children growing up in a refugee camp, we present an innovative and participatory methodology known as "walk-along." This approach allows children to guide the research through the fabric of their daily lives, actively
Much of the source of emergent class-based disparities is intricately entwined with the socially imposed forms of social stratification of race, gender, or caste. The forms of social exclusion often remain unseen and invisible in everyday life as discriminatory practices are not always overtly blatant. Disguised under the pretence of objectivity, fair process, and merit, discriminatory practices appear subtler, making their mundane operation undetectable and even misleading to believe in their absolute absence in the modern world. Poised between the debates on the influence of modern urban spaces and processes on the traditional caste system and vice versa, the book explores how space and identity converse and influence the nature, manifestation, (ir)relevance, and fate of caste in the globalising metropolis of Delhi vis-a-vis reorders the urban.
When pets die, their owners often mourn a social loss. Pet cemeteries serve as spaces where this loss can be both experienced and processed. Based on empirical research on pet cemeteries, this article demonstrates that, in addition to the embodied experience of mourning, ambivalent attributions to pets as individualised social partners, material objects, and cadavers requiring hygienic disposal shape the place and the related practices. These attributions characterise dead animals with a multidimensional status, which the article explores through the concepts of subject, object, and abject. Situated within the frameworks of more-than-human geographies and animal geographies, the article argues (1) that analysing the multidimensional status of dead animals provides a productive lens for understanding human-animal relations and illustrates (2) how loss processing can be read in a more-than-human way by focusing on non-human beings, things, and atmospheres.
In this paper I would like to consider one of the phenomenological approaches in the social sciences which has developed in recent years, the ethnomethodology of Harold Garfinkel, his students and associates, and analyze some of its characteristics.
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
This article presents an interactionist-based theory of place attachment, the emotional bond formed by an individual to a physical site due to the meaning given to the site through interactional processes, and suggests that such attachment is comprised of two interwoven components: (1) interactional past, or the memories of interactions associated with a site, and (2) interactional potential, or the future experiences perceived as likely or possible to occur in a site. To discuss these components, I use the case of an organization that moved to a new location, thereby disrupting its employees’ place attachment to the original site. Data collection involved questionnaires, participant observation, and interviews.
This article discusses the use of life history as a method of ethnographic research among stigmatized, unempowered people. The author describes and analyzes the process of elicting the life history of a man with mental retardation. To combine life history interviewing with the detailed observation of behavior in a naturalistic setting is typical of the ethnographic tradition; interviews with people from marginalized social groups (particularly those who are considered mentally “disabled”) are, however, often decontextualized and conducted in quasi-clinical settings that emphasize the retrospective reconstruction of the life. By treating a person with mental retardation as a contextualized participant in a world outside the clinical setting and by eliciting the life narrative in the course of following that person as he attempts to make sense of life outside the institution, it is possible to clarify the dynamic in the formation of a metaphor of personal identity. This technique might not be appropriate for all persons with mental disability, but when it can be used, it helps to demonstrate the proposition that mental retardation is not a monolithic condition whose victims are distinguished by arbitrary gradations of standardized test scores. Rather, it is only one of many factors that figure into a person's strategy for coping with the world.
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
This paper is a definition of photo elicitation and a history of its development in anthropology and sociology. The view of photo elicitation in these disciplines, where the greatest number of photo elicitation studies have taken place, organizes photo elicitation studies by topic and by form. The paper also presents practical considerations from a frequent photo elicitation researcher and concludes that photo elicitation enlarges the possibilities of conventional empirical research. In addition, the paper argues that photo elicitation also produces a different kind of information. Photo elicitation evokes information, feelings, and memories that are due to the photograph's particular form of representation.
In this companion volume John van Maanen's Tales of the Field, three scholars reveal how the ethnographer turns direct experience and observation into written fieldnotes upon which an ethnography is based. Drawing on years of teaching and field research experience, the authors develop a series of guidelines, suggestions, and practical advice about how to write useful fieldnotes in a variety of settings, both cultural and institutional. Using actual unfinished, "working" notes as examples, they illustrate options for composing, reviewing, and working fieldnotes into finished texts. They discuss different organizational and descriptive strategies, including evocation of sensory detail, synthesis of complete scenes, the value of partial versus omniscient perspectives, and of first person versus third person accounts. Of particular interest is the author's discussion of notetaking as a mindset. They show how transforming direct observations into vivid descriptions results not simply from good memory but more crucially from learning to envision scenes as written. A good ethnographer, they demonstrate, must learn to remember dialogue and movement like an actor, to see colors and shapes like a painter, and to sense moods and rhythms like a poet. The authors also emphasize the ethnographer's core interest in presenting the perceptions and meanings which the people studied attach to their own actions. They demonstrate the subtle ways that writers can make the voices of people heard in the texts they produce. Finally, they analyze the "processing" of fieldnotesâthe practice of coding notes to identify themes and methods for selecting and weaving together fieldnote excerpts to write a polished ethnography. This book, however, is more than a "how-to" manual. The authors examine writing fieldnotes as an interactive and interpretive process in which the researcher's own commitments and relationships with those in the field inevitably shape the character and content of those fieldnotes. They explore the conscious and unconscious writing choices that produce fieldnote accounts. And they show how the character and content of these fieldnotes inevitably influence the arguments and analyses the ethnographer can make in the final ethnographic tale. This book shows that note-taking is a craft that can be taught. Along with Tales of the Field and George Marcus and Michael Fisher's Anthropology as Cultural Criticism, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes is an essential tool for students and social scientists alike.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Boston University, 1988. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-208).
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Los Angeles, 2003. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 358-367). Community, interaction and the parochial realm -- Patterns and outcomes of neighboring -- Four zones of local community -- Crises and community. Photocopy.
Obra sobre las características y métodos de la investigación cualitativa, desde la planeación del proyecto hasta la interpretación del material. Incluye un panorama sobre los desarrollos recientes en la materia.
Philosophy, Science, and Everyday Life
- T Luckmann
Luckmann, T. (1973) 'Philosophy, Science, and Everyday Life', in M. Natanson (ed.) Phenomenology and the Social Sciences. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Lynch, K. and M. Rivkin (1970) 'A Walk around the Block', in H.M. Proshan-sky, W.H. Ittelson and L.G. Rivlin (eds) Environmental Psychology: Man and his Physical Setting. New York: Rinehart & Winston.
Alfred Schutz und die Idee des Alltags in the Sozialwissenschaften
- W M Sprondel
- R Grathoff
Sprondel, W.M. and R. Grathoff (1979) Alfred Schutz und die Idee des Alltags in the Sozialwissenschaften. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke. Srubar, I. (1989) Kosmion: Die Genese der pragmatischen Lebenswelttheorie von Alfred Schutz und ihr anthropologischer Hintergrund. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Sudnow, D. (1978) Ways of the Hand: The Organization of Improvised Conduct. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Low (eds) (1992) Place Attachment
- I Altman
Altman, I. and S.M. Low (eds) (1992) Place Attachment. New York: Plenum Press.
Getting Back Into Place: Towards a Renewed UnderstandingPractices of Space On Signs
- E Casey
Casey, E. (1993) Getting Back Into Place: Towards a Renewed Understanding Certeau, M. de (1984) 'Practices of Space', in M. Blonsky (ed.) On Signs. Balti-more, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Alfred Schutz’s Long-range Influence on American Sociology
- H R Wagner