Doing Critical Ethnography
... This autonomy is achieved through the emancipatory dimension of critical thinking. Emancipation is the process by which individuals become aware of the ideology, behaviours and regulatory processes that prevent them from living their own lives and serving their own interests (Thomas 1993;Polifroni and Welch 1999). Critical emancipatory thinking provides nurses with awareness that something is going wrong and some action needs to be taken (Walter 2017). ...
... They recognize their role in the larger context and how their contribution impacts practice. Increasing awareness about reality exposes the constraining impact of dominant rationality and creates a transformative consciousness that drives nurses to change the status quo and move forward toward realizing alternative possibilities (Thomas 1993;Walter 2017). Through its analysis of contextual conditions, a critical emancipatory approach not only increases awareness of reifying forces but also liberates individuals from conditions of domination by providing them with the tools to critique and initiate change (Habermas 1987). ...
In this article, I discuss the implications of the neoliberal transformations on healthcare that are justified under the aegis of economic efficiency. Drawing on the work of German critical philosopher Axel Honneth, I present a critical‐social and philosophical perspective that reinterprets these transformations as pathological consequences with devastating impacts on how we understand what human beings and social relations are. I argue that in a neoliberal context, nursing care becomes a form of reification defined as ‘forgetfulness of recognition’ of the human identity of the patient which contradicts the assumed ethical foundations of nursing. The article provides a detailed account on how neoliberal rationality that governs nursing performance promotes an objective and a ‘neutral stance’ of care that neglects emotional engagement and deals with the patient as an object or a thing which violates all dimensions of patient recognition. I also emphasize that neoliberalism must rather be understood as a specific form of governmentality that goes beyond mere economization and structures a specific way of understanding people in the healthcare context. Neoliberal rationality, as conceptualized in this article, not only considers human being as homo economicus, where decisions are based on economic ideals, but also neutralizes relationships and disseminates an ‘objective’ and purely scientific stance in caring interactions. This leads to the detachment of nurses and reification of patients. Thus, nursing care is reduced to an instrumental rationality that focuses on technical care, which diminishes any possibility for nurses to engage with patients and understand their unique phenomenological world necessary for coping and recognition. Finally, nurses are urged to raise their voices against neoliberal rationality that programs their ideas of what ‘good care’ is. A critical emancipatory mode of thinking provides an opportunity to challenge neoliberal rationality and revitalize nursing agency to resist the devastating transformations taking place in health care.
... 15 At that time, colonial discourses dominated ethnography, which constructed the other as primitive. 16 Academics, in general, were becoming more politically active, which led some ethnographers to advocate for researchers to engage in cultural critiques of society and its institutions and to study the divide between the powerful and the powerless. Ethnographers began to conduct research in unconventional environments such as workplaces rather than in tribal systems and with marginalised groups. ...
... Over time, they developed techniques for resisting domesticationtechniques that helped them to not get saturated by a single way of knowing, a single way of creating knowledge and a single way of exploring. 16 They focused on ensuring that researchers use all the resources, skills and opportunities available to them to break through dominant ways of thinking to get to people's voices that are out of reach and or silent. 17 As such, critical ethnography is as much about the researcher as it is about the methodology. ...
Context
Medical education (ME) must rethink the dominant culture's fundamental assumptions and unintended consequences on less advantaged groups and society at large. Doing so, however, requires a robust understanding of what we are teaching, regardless of our intentions, and what is being learned across the multiple settings that our learners find themselves in, from classrooms to clinical spaces and beyond.
Approach
Gaining such understandings and fully exploring the extent to which we are rising to the challenges of today's society in authentic ways require robust methodologies. In this research approaches paper, we introduce unfamiliar readers to one such methodology—critical ethnography. By doing so, we hope to demonstrate its potential for helping ME both identify and gain novel insight into necessary solutions for many of today's educational challenges regarding healthcare disparities and inequities.
Conclusion
The readers of this paper will gain novel insights into how critical ethnographers see the world and ask questions, thereby changing the way they (the reader) see the world. At its heart, critical ethnography is about thinking differently and that is something that should be accessible to all. Doing so may also enhance our ability to both question dominant ways of thinking and, ultimately, to enact positive change in training and practices to enhance inclusivity and fairness for all regardless of their gender, race and status.
... This method combines traditional ethnographic techniques with a critical perspective, focusing on how power dynamics, inequality, and social structures shape the experiences of the participants. Through immersive observation and reflexive analysis, it seeks to both understand and challenge these dynamics, promoting justice and social change (Madison, 2005;Thomas, 1993). This participant observation consisted of (i) taking field notes and engaging in informal conversations with participants, as well as attending several assemblies and meetings held by Lavapiés's neighbors associations and anti-gentrification groups during the specified period; (ii) taking field notes and engaging in informal conversations during nearly daily ethnographic walks in the neighborhood over the same period; (iii) collecting visual material (photographs); and (iv) conducting 22 semi-structured interviews with neighbors, namely 10 traditional residents, 10 new residents, and two political representatives (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and More Madrid, a newly emerged leftist regional party) in Madrid's municipal assembly. ...
... L'étude a reposé sur un devis ethnographique critique (Thomas, 1993) guidé par une approche participative (Wallerstein et al., 2019) et a combiné plusieurs méthodes de collecte: des observations, des discussions informelles et formelles ainsi que des entrevues semi-dirigées. L'ethnographie critique est appropriée dans une démarche visant à comprendre, du point de vue des personnes qui habitent la rue, les contraintes qui contribuent au non-recours aux ressources d'hébergement en période hivernale. ...
Problématique: Plusieurs personnes qui habitent la rue n’ont pas accès aux ressources d’hébergement en itinérance et se retrouvent contraintes à habiter dans la rue. Ces personnes peuvent être celles qui vivent seules, en groupe dans des campements de tailles variables ou qui ont recours à des installations variées (un véhicule, un abri d’autobus, banc de parc, etc.) pour s’abriter. Objectif: Cet article documente la manière dont les structures contribuent au non-recours aux ressources d’hébergement en itinérance. Méthodes: L’article se fonde sur une approche anti-oppressive et une démarche ethnographique articulant des observations ainsi que des entrevues informelles et semi-dirigées menées à Montréal (Canada), auprès de personnes qui habitent la rue. Le cadre conceptuel de référence repose sur la typologie du non-recours aux services afin de mettre en lumière les contraintes d’accès aux ressources d’hébergement. Résultats: Les résultats montrent que l’offre de services en hébergement, dans sa forme actuelle, n’est pas adaptée à l’ensemble de la population en situation d’itinérance. Les structures génèrent des exclusions qui peuvent amener les personnes à vivre dans la rue, influençant ainsi leur bien-être et leur santé. Les analyses indiquent que les dimensions d’ordre individuel demeurent pertinentes à prendre en compte si elles sont mises en interrelation avec les dimensions structurelles qui sont surtout en cause dans le non-recours aux ressources d’hébergement. Conclusion: Il semble important de revoir et de bonifier l’accès aux ressources d’hébergement afin de réduire les mesures d’exclusion qu’elles génèrent et ainsi d’inclure les personnes qui habitent la rue dans la mise en place de ces services afin de créer des ressources adaptées aux besoins qu’elles expriment.
... I used a critical ethnographic design, incorporating ethnographic sampling and interviewing, ethnographic participant observation, and critical review of contextual factors in the generation of knowledge (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000;Thomas, 1993). Analytic strategies for the research included critical reflection and domain, thematic, and matrix analyses. ...
In the current health care environment, researchers are asked to share meaningful results with interdisciplinary professional audiences, concerned community members, students, policy makers, planners, and financial officers. Emphasis is placed on effective health care outcomes and evidence, especially for underserved and vulnerable populations. Any research strategy that facilitates the clear, accurate communication of findings and voices will likely benefit groups targeted for intervention with scarce resources. In this example, matrix analysis contributes to the display, interpretation, pragmatic evaluation, and dissemination of findings in a study of rural elders. The author proposes matrix analysis as a strategy to advance knowledge and enhance the development of evidence in qualitative research.
... Satu hal yang menjadi tujuan utama dari strategi pembelajaran yang disandarkan pada pendekatan CRT atau CRL adalah penghargaan yang setinggi-tingginya pada pemerataan kesempatan sesuai dengan kebutuhan masing-masing peserta didik (Faizi, 2024a;Horváth, 2003;Ladson-Billings, 1995a;Taylor, 2011;Thomas, 1993). Penghargaan itu dapat berwujud pemanfaatan budaya yang dimiliki mereka, baik sebagai konten maupun sebagai media dan strategi yang diadopsi atau diadaptasi dalam pembelajaran. ...
strategi yang sering digunakan dalam pembelajaran kontekstual. Tujuan utama dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengidentifikasi teknik yang efektif dalam ketiga strategi ini. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif, penelitian ini mendengarkan dan menganalisis berbagai artikel penelitian tentang ketiga strategi tersebut. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa CRT, TaRL., dan DL. memiliki persamaan dan perbedaan dalam penerapannya. Ketiganya sama-sama menyajikan pembelajaran kontekstual sesuai dengan latar belakang dan kebutuhan siswa, namun perbedaannya adalah CRT berfokus pada adaptasi pembelajaran dengan latar belakang budaya siswa, TaRL berfokus pada adaptasi pembelajaran dengan tingkat pengetahuan siswa, dan DL berfokus pada pemahaman mendalam tentang siswa. berbagai konsep sedang dipelajari. Ketiga strategi ini dapat dikolaborasikan untuk menciptakan pembelajaran yang efektif dengan berbagai skenario yang dapat disesuaikan dengan kebutuhan.
... As memory is fallible, people who experience the same event often recall different versions. Has the researcher recorded their experience factually or has it strayed into a more fictional area (Thomas, 1993)? Finally, with generalisability, autoethnography would not look to apply research findings to large groups of people but would see if a story speaks to a reader, teaching them about why their lives differ or are similar to the researchers, highlighting and analysing issues that may never otherwise be considered (Dyson, 2007). ...
... Este artigo reporta dados parciais de uma pesquisa nacional, do tipo multicêntrico, que utilizou métodos mistos e sequenciais (17) . Para o componente qualitativo, foi utilizada a etnografia crítica (18) . Tal abordagem permitiu o exame de questões culturais, de saberes e de ações. ...
Objetivo: Compreender como agentes comunitários de saúde identificam as estratégias na atenção primária à saúde, com intuito de captar as recomendações para a assistência nos serviços de pré-natal e puerpério. Método: Pesquisa multicêntrica, qualitativa, com abordagem da etnografia crítica, visando à análise de questões culturais, de saberes e ações. A pesquisa foi realizada em municípios dos estados do Rio de Janeiro, de Minas Gerais e da Paraíba, no período de julho de 2019 a março de 2020, por meio de grupos focais presenciais. O reconhecimento da existência de condições promotoras e mantenedoras da violência obstétrica, e o processo indefinido de referência-contrarreferência desses casos guiaram a análise temática. Resultados: Durante os cinco grupos focais dos discursos dos 48 participantes, predominantemente do sexo feminino, emergiram percepções da prática na identificação, monitoramento, referência e contrarreferência dos casos de violência obstétrica. Os participantes fizeram relatos sobre a efetividade e viabilidade das ações de suporte ao trabalho, bem como sobre as dificuldades ou lacunas nesses processos. Desse modo, foi evidenciada a indefinição da prática interprofissional, a qual ocorre somente nas situações em que os agentes estabelecem excelentes relações interprofissionais. Porém, embora estejam na linha de frente, não há um canal facilmente identificável pelos agentes para comunicar tais ocorrências. Conclusão: A identificação dessa violência, somada à falta de informação dos agentes, junta-se à precária organização da rede de ação, descontinuando o acompanhamento dos casos. A capacitação dos agentes é condição para a promoção do empoderamento das mulheres, pautado em seus direitos.
... Para la elaboración de este artículo, los autores optaron por una estrategia de investigación mixta. Esta metodología tiene como eje central una etnografía crítica (Carspecken, 1996;Garcia-Ruiz, 2023;Thomas, 1993) cuyo objetivo es entender los procesos y subprocesos de turistificación en el barrio de Cais de Sodré. Esta etnografía fue realizada entre enero de 2020 y junio de 2024, incluyendo el periodo pandémico. ...
Este artículo examina los impactos espaciales, sociales, simbólicos y patrimoniales derivados de la expansión de la vida nocturna orientada al turismo en Cais do Sodré, el antiguo barrio rojo de Lisboa (Portugal). Tras una breve contextualización geohistórica, el artículo presenta una etnografía crítica realizada entre enero de 2020 y junio de 2024. A la presentación de las cartografías cambiantes de la vida nocturna en Cais do Sodré durante este período le seguirá una discusión etnográfica sobre la sustitución de los locales de ocio nocturno tradicionales por nuevas fórmulas centradas en atraer a los city-breakers. Asimismo, los resultados apuntan a una imparable disneyficación del espacio, transformando y amenazando el patrimonio cultural tangible e intangible existente de la noche de Cais do Sodré. La sección final del artículo subrayará la necesidad urgente de desarrollar nuevas acciones, iniciativas y estrategias para catalogar y proteger el llamado «patrimonio nocturno» de la zona. El artículo concluirá proponiendo la extensión de esta nueva visión sobre la importancia de la protección del patrimonio nocturno a otras ciudades del contexto ibérico y europeo.
... Critical ethnography is an approach that goes beyond traditional ethnography by incorporating a critical perspective on social issues and power structures. Thomas (1993) describes this as follows: "Critical ethnographers describe, analyze, and open to scrutiny otherwise hidden agendas, power centres, and assumptions that inhibit, repress, and constrain." We find an application of this in Myers and Young (1997), who use critical ethnography to uncover hidden agendas, power, and issues such as managerial assumptions in the context of an information system development project in mental health. ...
Ethical guidelines and policy documents destined to guide AI innovations have been heralded as the solution to guard us against harmful effects or to increase public value. However, these guidelines and policy documents face persistent challenges. While these documents are often criticized for their abstraction and disconnection from real-world contexts, it also occurs that stakeholders may influence them for political or strategic reasons. While this last issue is frequently acknowledged, there is seldom a means or a method provided to explore it. To address this gap, the paper employs a combination of social constructivism and science & technology studies perspectives, along with desk research, to investigate whether prior research has examined the influence of stakeholder interests, strategies, or agendas on guidelines and policy documents. The study contributes to the discourse on AI governance by proposing a theoretical framework and methodologies to better analyze this underexplored area, aiming to enhance comprehension of the policymaking process within the rapidly evolving AI landscape. The findings underscore the need for a critical evaluation of the methodologies found and a further exploration of their utility. In addition, the results aim to stimulate ongoing critical debates on this subject.
... This differs from Marxian or liberal theories, which record most collective identities as pre-political (Yiftachel, 2009;Gramsci, 2011). Hence, we employ critical ethnography (Cresswell, 2013;Carspecken & Apple, 1992;Madison, 2005;Thomas, 1993) with queer theory in an (critical) approach that acknowledges the continuous remaking of community identities where contentious spatial politics and the workings of power are premised on the subjectivity of human experience, the uncertainty of truth claims, value-laden inquiry, local knowledge, and cultural expressions (Madison, 2005). The study involved several week-long physical surveys conducted in Khulna city, Bangladesh (Figure 1 a & b). ...
Amidst limited social acceptance and scant governmental and non-governmental support for third gender communities in Bangladesh, this paper explores the intricate relationship between the conception of hijra and its profound impact on redefining the notion of home. In the queer tropics, hijra communities form a unique identity within South Asia’s urban fabric. Employing ethnographic methods and spatial analysis, this multidisciplinary study investigates the hijra home-making process in Khulna, Bangladesh, shedding light on their lived experiences. It unravels the complex interplay of tropical architecture leading to their transformation into, and stigmatisation as, hijras, investigating the spatial implications of their stigma in the organisation of household spaces based on hijra notions of publicness-privateness, spatial sequencing/order, layering, and hierarchy. The formal articulation of homes and their integration into the larger urban scale signifies a distinctive counter-spatial culture within this marginalised community, which acts to counter prevailing ideas of stability, ownership, and family within the concept of home. This counter-culture, as the paper unveils, makes the hijra home dynamics a process of socio-spatial transaction where gender identities manifest and are subverted/shaped by the domestic space. The findings of the paper enrich our understanding of the diverse spatial ways social discriminations are interwoven into the ordinary fabric of contemporary urban living in the tropical city of Khulna.
... The data was probed by employing critical interpretive analysis commonly used in cultural studies or critical ethnography (for supporting methodological writings refer to Geertz (1973); Madison (2012); Miles and Huberman ([1984] 1992); Thomas (1993); Thompson ([1990] 2015); see also Cavallaro (2001);Fairclough (1992;1995); Jorgensen and Phillips ([2002] 2010, pp. 60-61); Kumbara (2023). ...
This article attempts to look deeper into the Udayana School of Kajian Budaya compared to the spell of British Cultural Studies to understand both modes and critical discourses in debate. It hopes to widen the horizon on the plurality of cultural studies versions existing beyond Britain, the United States and Europe; specifically the Udayana School of Kajian Budaya in Bali and broadly in Indonesia. Hence, the authors conducted a literature search to compile relevant publications, interviewed Kajian Budaya lecturers and alumni, and employed critical interpretive analysis to the data. The study indicates formation of the British and the Udayana School variants were influenced by critical theory of the Frankfurt School and postmodernism ideas of French and American thinkers, which critiqued institutions of modernity, capitalist society, positivism in scientific inquiry, ‘classical’ enlightenment thought, and the culture industry. However, the Udayana School of Kajian Budaya exhibits distinctiveness in its study areas, approach and paradigm.
... Permettant une mise à distance tant du droit dans les livres que du discours que tiennent les acteurs et actrices sur leurs pratiques, l'ethnographie est une technique de collecte des données particulièrement pertinente pour dévoiler les rapports de pouvoir à l'oeuvre au sein de l'institution judiciaire (Thomas, 1993). Elle est couramment utilisée, le plus souvent en matière criminelle et pénale, pour documenter avec précision le déroulement des procédures et les attitudes des acteurs et actrices judiciaires (Conley et O'Barr, 1993 ;Coutin et Fortin, 2015). ...
... I was a participant observer working alongside the learners at rehearsals and I engaged in critical ethnography to highlight the issues relating to the participation agenda. The aim of a critical ethnography is to move beyond descriptive 'storytelling' and to consider participants' experiences within larger structural systems (Madison 2005;Thomas 1993). ...
This article presents findings from qualitative research which aimed to capture the experience and views of people who were supporting fourteen learners with intellectual disabilities (aged 12-18) to perform with a professional orchestra. Findings have been analysed in two stages. The first analysis, published elsewhere (Rickson 2012), focused on supporters’ experiences of organising and preparing for the performance. The supporters believed that through practising and performing an orchestral work the diverse musicians had the potential to challenge stereotyped portrayals of disability, change attitudes and foster the ongoing inclusion of people with diverse abilities. However, while the learners’ responses during preparatory workshops were described as interesting, meaningful and creative, there seemed to be a general perception that they were vulnerable and in need of protection from potentially unsympathetic audiences. This dichotomy was examined in post-performance interviews with supporters and audience members. Findings, presented here, show that the narrative of vulnerability and ‘overcoming’ persisted. Nevertheless, interviewees remained convinced of the artistic value of the work and believed the learners had the potential to attract wider audiences to their performances. Further opportunities for young people with intellectual disabilities to be involved in community arts projects alongside non-disabled musicians may result.
... We chose this approach for its strength in investigating public health issues embedded in complex systems and social processes [21]. Critical ethnography is an ethnographic style or discourse that represents and analyses social life to address social marginalisation and engender change [22]. In this case, we employed ethnographic methods to understand the complex social position of adolescent boys in a crisis and their experiences of violence and marginalisation. ...
Adolescent boys (age 9–19) are impacted differently by humanitarian emergencies. However, academic research on adolescent health and child protection has tended to focus on the direct impacts of an emergency rather than indirect impacts that may arise after a crisis. We sought to identify child protection concerns affecting adolescent boys in emergency settings and boys who are more vulnerable to harm through a case study of the humanitarian response to the 2017 Rohingya refugee crisis. We collected data in the Rohingya refugee crisis in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh between 2018–2019. This included six months of participant observation, 23 semi-structured interviews and 12 informal ethnographic interviews with humanitarian staff working in the crisis, and 10 focus group discussions with a total of 52 child protection caseworkers from four child protection organisations. Our results showed that adolescent Rohingya boys were exposed to numerous protection concerns, including child labour, drug trafficking, substance abuse, family violence, and neglect. We classified these into three main typologies: community-related violence, income-related violence, and life-stage vulnerabilities. We found that adolescent boys who were unaccompanied or separated from their caregivers, adolescent boys who were members of vulnerable households, and adolescent boys with a disability were at more risk of harm. Our findings indicate that adolescent boys are exposed to an array of impactful child protection concerns in humanitarian emergencies and that this has implications for the delivery of public health and child protection interventions. We believe that humanitarian actors should improve recognition of the complexity of adolescent boys’ lives and their exposure to gender and age-based harm as a critical matter for addressing adolescent health equity.
... Rob: Right, and that element of accessibility is something that I have really appreciated as a critical researcher. One point of critical research is that it is supposed to be transformative, either indirectly in the form of consciousness-raising, or directly through intervention in the research setting, as in some forms of critical ethnography (Fitzpatrick & May, 2022;Thomas, 1993) and action research (Fine & Torre, 2021;McIntyre, 2008). This is true both for critical research in general, and my own approach based on early Frankfurt School critical theory (see Horkheimer, /1972a1972b;Held, 1980) The goal shouldn't just be to diagnose problems in society, but to actively contribute to the progressive transformation of society. ...
Duoethnography is an approach to qualitative research in which two researchers engage in dialogue to understand how a particular phenomenon has manifested differently in their lives, and in so doing, aim to come to a new understanding of that phenomenon. In this paper, two applied linguists from different research backgrounds, and with different priorities, engage in a metaduoethnography to explore what they each find of value of the method for their separate research programs. Through dialogue , they uncover what first drew each of them to duoethnography, and go on to both praise and problematize the accessibility of the method. Following this, they use the concept of the "research ecosystem" to investigate the role duoethnography plays, or may play, in their separate and evolving research programs, particularly focusing on the concepts of reflexivity and praxis. It is hoped that this exploratory dialogue may resonate with other researchers, and assist them in evaluating the benefits of du-oethnography for their work.
... In addition, the first author kept a reflective diary of the research journey, which was updated after every contact session with a participant. In it she recorded relevant thought processes and reasoning, affective states, interpersonal dynamics, and personal background and carefully considered how these could influence the meaning-making process (as suggested by Thomas (1992)). ...
In this paper, I explore how newcomer youth navigated identity, agency, and adaptation through music education at the Youth Music Program (YMP) in Canada. By analyzing their musical actions, this paper challenges dominant vulnerability narratives and highlights students’ creative and adaptive capacities. Drawing on critical ethnography and sociological perspectives on musical agency, findings suggest that participatory music-making fosters belonging, identity negotiation, and social inclusion. Through improvisation, composition, and collective performance, students demonstrated flexible mobility and cultural integration. I conclude by underscoring the role of music education in shaping social interactions and reimagining belonging in the Canadian context of human mobility.
Today's major changes in society are being enabled by emerging technologies that converge and fundamentally disrupt our lifestyles. But what characterizes an Emerging Technology? Emerging technologies are science-based innovations that can achieve exponential growth and have the potential to create a new industry or transform an existing one. This includes radically new technologies arising from long-term research (sometimes also described as DeepTech) or incremental technologies arising from the convergence of existing technologies. SenseTech refers to technologies that have a structural impact on our lifestyles and organizational processes, in such a way it is able to change behaviours and culture. In this chapter, we will explore several methodologies to identify the impacts of Sensetech in Organizations and enable them to leverage this knowledge and be able to create different scenarios that can ultimately steer change in a more effective manner.
Equity‐focused calls for elementary education reform recognize the importance of student and teacher translanguaging, yet nuances of how this process unfolds in early childhood science is an underexplored area. This study examines young plurilingual children's participation in science investigations, with a view toward understanding how open‐ended pedagogical structures supported their communication and engagement as related to science learning. We examine the work of 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds as they participated in a 3‐week unit exploring worms and draw upon translanguaging theoretical perspectives to interpretively analyze their interactions in science. Situated in the multilingual national context of Luxembourg, the study examines the interactions of these plurilingual children and their teacher as they investigated worms in varied open‐ended pedagogical structures. Schools are trilingual in Luxembourg, yet approximately half of the students in the country's elementary schools do not come to school with proficiency in any of the three languages of instruction. Issues of equity in schooling are thus heavily bound in languages. The robust dataset incorporating video data were examined using multimodal interaction analysis, and three vignettes zoom in on children's actions, utterances, and materials in open‐ended science learning spaces, providing rich examples of classroom structures that support meaningful translanguaging through students' agentic science communication. Young students' communication and science engagement are inseparable, and this study shows that these intertwine through translanguaging, in a process which is emergent when children are able to agentically draw upon diverse resources to make meanings.
The renowned U.S. sociologist Howard S. Becker, writing in 1969, posed the ethical question: Whose side are we on? In the context of continued structural inequalities in the distribution of power and wealth and individual and institutional oppression, in terms of class, race, gender, disability, and sexual orientation, this question remains as important as ever. The article, in advocating a robustly partisan approach, offers an emancipatory ethical framework continuum and an empirical example, from the authors’ critical arts-based research with undocumented Mexican Americans, to support and inform critical researchers, committed to working with oppressed groups against discrimination and for social justice.
The article presents findings of an ethnographic study carried out in Poland with homeless people living on the street and in a hostel. Interpretative orientation was used to ensure the opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge about their perspectives. The paper has two aims. First, it reconstructs the limits and risks of “(un)helpful help” and its impact on experiences of stigma. Second, it addresses how good intentions and policy efforts can have negative consequences, drawing on data from two separate research studies. The first research included seven male homeless people living on city streets. The second was carried out with 20 homeless people served by an agency working for homeless people. A qualitative methodology was employed for this critical ethnography, according to which the authors analyzed the data using a constructivist grounded theory approach.
Findings
The research revealed a number of support measures which, instead of positively changing their situation from the participants’ points of view, can exacerbate it by further stigmatizing homeless people with support based on helpers’ stigmatizing approaches which can compound homeless people's negative experiences of “help.”
Applications
An understanding of the mechanisms of structural and systemic stigmatization from the participants’ perspectives can help shift responsibility for their situation away from homeless people themselves toward society's responsibility as a whole. It highlights how there needs to be a change of consciousness and approaches within assistance systems, shifting the balance from an asymmetrical to a symmetrical relationship based on partnership and collaboration.
Critically-oriented health research often engages participants whose lives are shaped by structural inequities and structural violence. As scholars who engage in critical theoretical, praxis-oriented research, including research with social justice and decolonizing aims, we are cognizant of the histories of exploitation and structural violence often perpetuated through research. To engage in research that effectively promotes health equity, we are increasingly aware of the necessity of critical research approaches that include processes for engaging in data collection that are respectful, affirming, and minimize harm, and that illuminuate unequal relations of power, challenge the status quo, and contribute to social change. The aim of this paper is to explore participant observation as a method of data collection in critical ethnographic health research with people impacted by structural violence and inequity. Our premise is that it is not possible to conduct research that exposes structural violence, marginalization and social injustices without also critically examining our research processes. To illustrate, we weave together our experiences of conducting critical ethnographic work in diverse contexts to examine the complexities of conducting participant observation with people impacted by structural violence, surfacing the tensions between the potential for harm in research, and strategies for promoting equity. Specifically, we present our collective analysis of how observational practices can reproduce stigma, exacerbate harms associated with methodological and academic colonialism, thereby contributing to epistemic violence, and how participant observation can be deployed in ways that prevent and mitigate such harms. Despite the inherent challenges and complexities, we see immense value in critical ethnographic research that includes participant observation, and we join others in advocating for trauma-, violence-, and justice-informed approaches to critical ethnographic research.
Thematic analysis has evolved as a prominent qualitative data analysis method, rooted in the rich history of social sciences and, in particular, psychology. It stands as a cornerstone in qualitative inquiry, offering researchers a systematic approach to identifying and interpreting patterns, or themes, within qualitative data. This chapter seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of thematic analysis within the context of qualitative research, addressing its theoretical foundations, methodolog-ical considerations, and practical applications. It explores approaches to thematic analysis, including induction, deduction, and abduction, highlighting their distinctive characteristics and applications to qualitative data analysis. It also outlines key steps involved in conducting thematic analysis. Overall, this chapter aims to equip researchers, practitioners, and students with the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct rigorous and insightful thematic analyses of qualitative data.
In this chapter the authors share critical historic turns in ethnography in educational and social science research in the U.S. The authors describe initial radical departures from positivism toward emic approaches in anthropology and sociology, the interpretive turn, and the melding of interpretivism and critical theory in critical ethnography. They discuss the collapse of critical ethnography and explore movement toward a postcritical/post-critical epoch. They conclude with more recent ontological developments informed by post-structuralism, posthumanism, and new materialism, and address post qualitative research.
Recounting community based work with Burundian families navigating resettlement in the United States, the author details how postcritical ethnography opened ways to understand and engage with the complexity of the families’ experiences and her own while a part of an interdisciplinary research team. Emphasizing reflexivity, the interrogation of positionality, and the importance of multiple representations to generate new understandings, the author recounts turning critique back on herself as the researcher and subsequently changing directions in the research process. She argues that an orientation to postcritical ethnography made such decisions possible and ultimately led to the creation of data for Burundian families rather than data about them.
The significance of considering local hidden voices in urban design projects is the central theme of this book. With the manifestation and influence of critical attacks on modern urban developments occurring during the 1960s, there have been ongoing worldwide discussions concerning the context of living place, defining the city as an image of memory and meaning (Lynch, 1960), social interaction and close social relationships (Jacobs, 1961), identity and orientation (Norberg-Schulz, 1980) amongst many other definitions, which signify the importance of the social fabric in making urban places. The disconnection existing between modern city designers and citizens seems to be the key problem in modern urban developments. As Jane Jacobs (1961, p. 15) examined an ordinary citizen’s statement, “nobody cared what we wanted when they built this place”, which illustrates this common practice. This issue of ‘sensory deprivation’, however, has ‘larger causes’ and ‘deeper historical origins’ (Sennett, 1994, p. 16). Traditional Iranian cities, as examples, have been influenced by modern urban developments [A traditional city ‘simply refers to the pattern of development that human civilization has built in for millennia’ (Price, 2013, p. 1)]. In this book, along with general historical investigations, I attempt to discover this urban transformation through the involvement with ordinary citizens’ life stories and daily activities in order to design a new urban methodology for Iranian urban studies. This book, therefore, is a social study of traditional Iranian cities using Yazd as a specific case study: how people move about the city; what manner of social relationships and facilities they engage in as opposed to those they would wish to have; what their memories tell about their living places; why some people enjoy living in the older fabrics while others prefer to live in the newer fabrics; and if there exist any interconnections between these areas. In this opening chapter, I will discuss the lack of contemporary citizen’s participations in Iran, and why Yazd was chosen for this study. Then, I will explain the designed methodology followed by using 'shoe' as a symbol of social and urban transformations.
Integrated development post of non-communicable diseases (Posbindu penyakit tidak menular/PTM) is one of the strategies implemented by the MOH of Indonesia for prevention, screening, and early detection through community empowerment and community involvement in reducing the number of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cancer. This study aimed to explore the barriers to reducing the risk of cancer. Twelve participants were involved in this study using in-depth interviews and participant observations. All the interviews and discussions were recorded using an audio tape recorder and also using field notes, and then a transcript was transcribed verbatim. Five themes emerged namely providing funding for the program, obtaining appropriate support from the government based on the community’s needs and a health workforce shortage, sharing and discussing the health information, and cultural practices of the community as barriers to reducing the risk of cancer in the community. The study results can be used as evidence to develop and sustain effective strategies to address the barriers to reducing the risk of cancer in communities in Indonesia.
Thematic analysis has evolved as a prominent qualitative research method, rooted in the rich history of social sciences and, in particular, psychology. Its emergence can be traced back to the early works of scholars such as Frederic Bartlett (1932) and Gregory Bateson (1972), who laid the groundwork for identifying recurring themes and patterns within qualitative data. However, it was the seminal contributions of Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke in the early 2000s that propelled thematic analysis into the forefront of qualitative research methodologies. Their influential papers, notably “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology” (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and “Thematic Analysis” (Braun & Clarke, 2012), provided a comprehensive framework and guidelines for conducting thematic analysis across various disciplines. Since then, thematic analysis has gained widespread recognition and adoption in social sciences, healthcare, education, and beyond, owing to its versatility, accessibility, and rigour in uncovering meaningful insights from qualitative data. Thematic analysis, therefore, stands as a cornerstone in qualitative inquiry, offering researchers a systematic approach to identifying and interpreting patterns, or themes, within qualitative data. This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of thematic analysis within the context of qualitative research, addressing its theoretical foundations, methodological considerations, and practical applications. It explores approaches to thematic analysis, including induction, deduction, and abduction, highlighting their distinctive characteristics and applications to qualitative data analysis. It also outlines key steps involved in conducting thematic analysis. Overall, this paper aims to equip researchers, practitioners, and students with the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct rigorous and insightful thematic analyses of qualitative data.
Keywords: Thematic Analysis, Qualitative Research, Data Analysis, Interpretation, Reflexivity
Purpose:
Living with risk is a salient part of everyday living and although risk affects everyone, older adults are often regarded as a high-risk group, particularly older adults who are aging with a disability, such as vision loss. A prominent focus within low vision rehabilitation is the provision, and training, of older adults in the use of low vision assistive devices as a strategy to manage risks in both the home and community environment. This study aimed to unpack the influence of assistive technologies on experiences of risk among eleven older adults (aged 65+) with age-related vision loss.
Materials and methods:
This critical ethnographic study used home tours, the go-along method, and a semi-structured in-depth interview.
Results:
The study identified five prevailing themes including: 1) Moving away from the individualization of risk; 2) The cost of assistive technologies as a risk contributor; 3) Practicing 'responsible living'; Technology as an adaptive strategy to risk taking; 4) Resisting the label of 'at risk'; The influence of technology on self-identity; and 5) Technology as a substitution versus supplement for social connectedness.
Conclusions:
The study findings highlight the importance of moving beyond a technico-scientific perspective of risk, in which risk is framed as an objective phenomenon located in older adults' bodies, and instead framing risk within a broader sociocultural perspective which moves our attention to those contextual or environmental factors that shape experiences of risk for older adults with vision loss.
Abstract
Responding to recent calls from within critical MOS and organizational ethics studies to explore questions of difference and inclusion ‘beyond unity and fixity’, this paper seeks to enrich the debate on difference and its negotiation in organizations, thereby foregrounding difference as the contested and ever-changing outcome of power-invested configurations of practice. The paper presents an ethnographic study conducted in a psychosocial day-care centre that positions itself as a ‘space of multiplicity’ wherein ‘it is normal to be different’. Highlighting the context-specific challenges and struggles encompassing mental ill-health as a category of difference deviating from the norm, our paper contributes to a critical-affirmative understanding of difference. We foster an approach that values normative orientations such as ‘egalitarian difference’ and ‘difference as multiplicity’ yet avoids idealising portrayals of an ethics of difference that challenges normalcy and unconditionally favours otherness and calls for ‘radically other kinds of difference’.
This paper explores the complexities of conviviality in a London neighbourhood by using primary qualitative data to analyse the implications of the (in)visibility of difference for superdiverse social relations. It develops the concept of power‐geometries to examine the implications of how social differences are produced, imagined, and experienced in the neighbourhood's public spaces. Drawing on three situated examples from a visual ethnographic research project, it explores the affective intensities of how gender, sexuality, class, and race intersect with ethnicity, religion, and migrant status to shape urban conviviality. The paper argues the way different positions and identities are layered and intersect can shape the development of ‘cosmopolitan outlooks’ and intercultural relations. In doing so, the analysis refines understandings of superdiversity conceived narrowly within the remit of majority/minority relations. It promotes instead more critically ethnographic explorations of the complex and varied ways difference has meaning in everyday lives in superdiverse places and shapes everyday forms of recognition and equality. The paper contributes to debates on geographies of difference, encounter, and public space by analysing how power relations affect conviviality. It demonstrates how conviviality is an ambivalent process that is punctuated by both prejudices and solidarities and is shaped by structural inequalities and wider political discourses. The paper concludes by highlighting the role of agency and space for dialogue for residents negotiating differences among urban change.
The strong tendency of specific perspectives and discourses in environmental education in schools has the potential to marginalize other alternatives. This research is intended to investigate how dominant perspectives, discourses, and orientations are constructed and how environmental actors experience and interpret environmental practices at Adiwiyata School as a superior environmental education program initiated by the Indonesian government. This research uses critical ethnography, which is intended to describe hidden realities to maintain domination and hegemony as truths that are taken for granted. The existence of uniform environmental actions, which tend to be imitative and repetitive, is very problematic when the school’s characteristics, location, and urgency of the socio-ecological crisis are very heterogeneous. This indication raises suspicions about the state’s efforts through hegemonic education tailored to the regime’s tastes. Limited, predetermined options can mean you do not have a choice because you are just using the existing options. An environmental practice carried out routinely and repeatedly must still provide space for a critical reflective study process. The implications are expected to provide encouragement and opportunities for schools to revise curriculum and learning. The need for hope, opportunity, and the possibility of alternative environmental practices can free school environmental actors from reductionist constraints and foster an open, understanding-oriented, and democratic school climate.
Since the 1990s language endangerment which is defined as 'en mass, often radical shift away from unique, local languages and language practices' (Woodbury, 2011: 160) has gained tremendous attention in sociolinguistics. Accordingly, there has been a dynamic growth in the number of studies researching on the loss and shift of indigenous and minority languages around the globe. In the early millennium I undertook nine months fieldwork for my PhD thesis (Lee, 2004) which investigated on the phenomenon of language shift of Papia Kristang, the Portuguese creole spoken by the descendants of the Portuguese conquerors of Malacca in 1511. In this paper, I discuss the rationale for using the ethnographic approach to investigate language shift, the research design, namely, the research participants and the tools I employed and how I went about collecting data for my study, the experiences of being with the community and last but not least, what I have achieved conceptually and methodologically in carrying out the study vis-à-vis an ethnographic framework. As a conclusion to the sharing, I emphasised the rich experiences of my ethnographic journey at the Portuguese Settlement and expressed my gratitude to the community for the opportunity to metaphorically 'eat, sleep and dance' with them.
Beaucoup de travaux de science politique se revendiquent de la méthode ethnographique, mais peu la définissent plus précisément ou en exposent les apports. L’objet de cet ouvrage est de prendre en compte le développement en science politique de cette méthode initialement conçue comme la méthode propre à l’anthropologie. Il s’appuie sur les contributions de chercheurs et chercheuses spécialistes qui se fondent sur cette méthode dans leur étude de certains objets canoniques de la science politique. Qu’apporte de travailler de manière ethnographique sur des élections, des partis politiques, des événements protestataires, des moments révolutionnaires ou des modes informels de politisation ? Comment cette méthode permet-elle de mieux saisir des politiques culturelles dans le contexte de leur internationalisation ? Dans quelle mesure une ethnographie de la circulation des idées politiques peut-elle en affiner l’étude ? Dans quelle mesure la méthode ethnographique permet-elle de travailler de manière critique sur l’État, les pratiques administratives et les rapports entre bureaucrates et usagers ? Telles sont certaines des questions que les auteurs et autrices de ce livre se sont attaché·es à traiter. Ce faisant, ils et elles s’efforcent également de montrer comment cette méthode met en dialogue la science politique avec l’anthropologie, la sociologie ou l’histoire, réaffirmant ainsi l’idée de sciences sociales.
This article critically examines the perpetuation of gender regimes within postsocialist Europe by analyzing how organizational recognition is performed as part of the corporate celebration of Christmas. A critical ethnography was conducted at a male-dominated company in postsocialist Hungary. The article’s findings align with three corporate Christmas scenes: the company owner’s speech, an award ceremony for families, and an award ceremony for the best employee. This study contributes to critical organization studies by advancing an understanding of the postsocialist gender regime and those ideological forms of recognition that invisibly reproduce it through the seemingly innocent practices of Christmas celebrations. Furthermore, by providing a critical reconceptualization of workplace familism as an ideology, it is argued that it is a central and distinctive element of the gendered subtext of this particular postsocialist gender regime. Ultimately, three different and ritualized forms of pathological recognition (misrecognition, overidentification and reification) are identified, claiming to be constitutive of individual gender identity regulation and extending socioideological control beyond the boundaries of the organization.
The meaning of modernization as a strategy for reforming the Danish welfare state must be deconstructed in order to reveal a proper role for evaluation practice.
In this study, we discuss the colonial project as an eliminatory structure of indigenous ways of knowing and doing that is built into Canadian social and health institutions. We elaborate on the role nursing plays in maintaining systemic racism, marginalization and discrimination of Indigenous Peoples. Based on historical practices and present‐day circumstances, we argue that changing language in research and school curriculums turns decolonization into what Tuck and Yang call a ‘metaphor’. Rather, we propose decolonization as a political project where nurses acknowledge their involvement in colonial harms and disrupt the assumptions that continue to shape how nurses interact with Indigenous people, including knowledge systems that perpetuate colonial interests and privilege. Decolonization requires nurses to understand the colonial practices that led to dispossession of land, erasure of knowledge, culture and identity, while upholding indigenous ways of knowing and doing in health, healing and living. As a political manifesto that liberates indigenous life from oppressive structures of colonialism and capitalism, The Red Deal is presented as a visionary platform for decolonization. The aim of this study is to articulate three dimensions of caretaking within The Red Deal as a framework to decolonize nursing knowledge development and practice. Based on the philosophical dimension embedded in The Red Deal that revoke norms and knowledge assumptions of capitalism that destroy indigenous ways of knowing and doing, we underscore an approach toward decolonizing nursing. Our approach rejects the apolitical nature of nursing as well as the unilateral western scientific knowledge approach to knowledge development and recognition. A critical emancipatory approach that addresses the socio‐political and historical context of health care, recognizes dispossession of land and adopts a ‘multilogical’ vision of knowledge that gives space for representation and voice is needed for true decolonization of nursing.
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