1,720,980 research outputs found
Trading in unicorns: The role of exchange etiquette in managing the online second-hand sale of sentimental babywearing wraps
No full textSince the 1970s, an international market has been growing in the production and sale of fabric specifically woven for ‘babywearing’. These ‘wraps’, a simple piece of cloth for baby carrying, have a long tradition throughout the world but are increasingly marketed to ‘high-end’ collectors as well as ‘modern’ young parents. New releases of limited edition and boutique ranges create competition over highly desirable and often quite unattainable wraps that must be tempted out or awaited in the second-hand forums. The community describes the search for these desperately desired goods as the search for ‘unicorns’. But obtaining one’s unicorn requires others to part with material objects made incommensurable through the intimate, inter-embodied ‘skinship’ practice of wrapping and carrying a child. This article explores how the emotional entanglement of these second-hand goods is negotiated through an emerging exchange etiquette that attempts to protect the illusion that one is trading in incommensurable goods
'Breaking Other People's Toys': Reflections on Teaching Critical Anthropology in Development Studies
No full text This paper explores the personal transformations of students learning critical anthropology on a Development Studies course. Students� personal projects intertwine with their disciplinary and professional choices. I show how learning that radically challenges the development paradigm may lead to internal personal conflicts and life-project crises. How should teachers of anthropology design and teach such courses and what is the impact on students and on the disciplines?</jats:p
Anthropological Controversies: The 'Crimes' and Misdemeanors that Shaped a Discipline
No full textThis book uses controversies as a gateway through which to explore the origins, ethics, key moments, and people in the history of anthropology. It draws on a variety of cases including complicity in "human zoos", Malinowski’s diaries, and the Human Terrain System to explore how anthropological controversies act as a driving force for change, how they offer a window into the history of and research practice in the discipline, and how they might frame wider debates such as those around reflexivity, cultural relativism, and the politics of representation. The volume provokes discussion about research ethics and practice with tangible examples where gray areas are brought into sharp relief. The controversies examined in the book all involve moral or practical ambiguities that offer an opportunity for students to engage with the debate and the dilemmas faced by anthropologists, both in relation to the specific incidents covered and to the problems posed more generally due to the intimate and political implications of ethnographic research
How the socio-cultural practices of fishing obscure micro-disciplinary, verbal and psychological abuse of migrant fishers in North East Scotland
Full text linkIn recent decades, part of the UK fishing industry has become increasingly reliant on migrant crew, to fill local crew shortages. With restricted immigration status and invisibility on vessels out at sea, crews are vulnerable to both extreme and mundane forms of control and exploitation. Although the UK is legally addressing the potential for trafficking and forced labour across the fishing industry, more needs to be done to address the potential for micro-disciplinary, psychological, and verbal abuse of non-European Economic Area (non-EEA) crew which remains difficult to evidence. This requires recognition of how non-EEA migrant fishers are made vulnerable by the intersection of socio-cultural practices of fishing with a visa system that anchors immigration status to named vessels, limits movements, and makes changing employers or raising complaints difficult. Taking the 2020 prosecution of a Scottish skipper for abusing Filipino crew as a discursive starting point, we explore how differences in local interpretation of fishing relationships, by skippers and non-EEA crew, reveal limited agreement over what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Drawing on fieldwork in North East Scotland, we argue that the white noise of coarse language, ‘alpha male’ behaviours, and narratives of risk and responsibility that dominate local fishing practice, when combined with scant appreciation of how non-EEA migrant experiences differ from other crew, can serve to obscure migrant crew’s experiences of maltreatment. Greater attention is consequently required to vernacularise migrant crew rights, by making them locally meaningful so that both skippers and crew adequately recognise their responsibility to safeguard non-EEA crew
Student/staff ‘Collaborative Event Ethnography’ at the Antiques Roadshow
No full textThis project report details the experiences of a student/staff collaborative research projectcarried out in the summer of 2016 and using the Collaborative Event Ethnography (CEE)method developed by Brosius and Campbell. Adopting the CEE approach, undergraduateanthropology students, working alongside postgraduates and research staff, collectedethnographic data through interviews and participant observation at the Antiques Roadshowat Ightham Mote in Kent. They engaged in data-coding and analysis, with opportunities forfurther involvement in collaborative writing and dissemination of findings.Our project demonstrates both the value of CEE as a method for gathering academicallyrobust ethnographic data at large-scale, time-limited events and also its potential as apedagogical tool for fine-tuning the development of research skills. We find that engaging inthe production – alongside seasoned researchers – of academically-rigorous knowledge with‘real’ researc
From voting to engaging: promoting democratic values across an international school network
Full text linkUsing a mixed methods design, the researchers investigated understandings and practices of democracy across Round Square, a worldwide network of 180 schools committed to shared values. An extensive questionnaire received 4020 student and 863 teacher returns; additionally, leaders, students, and parents from five case study schools on different continents were interviewed. All stakeholder groups were found to value democracy highly, but saw its implementation in their schools as challenging and limited. While staff and parents espoused more holistic understandings of democratic practices and cultures, students focused primarily on systems of election and representation. A philosophically informed framework for developing ‘responsible leadership’, and a values-led approach to school improvement, are offered to deepen students’ democratic agency through informed, active, and reflective engagement with people, situations, and curricula
‘The one that got away’: how angling as a culture of practice manifests in the teaching and learning relationship within angling-based intervention programmes
No full textIn recent years a professional sector has emerged within the UK delivering angling-based intervention programmes targeted at young people ‘disengaged’ with education. These coaches bring with them an angling cultural background, which influences their interactions with young people as ‘novices’, emerging in ‘angler talk’ that accompanies waterside coaching. We argue that young people's exposure to ‘angler talk’ amounts to a cultural apprenticeship, socialising young people into an experience-based learning community. Through angler anecdotes and waterside banter young people are encouraged to be active participants in an egalitarian system of knowledge exchange that is particularly appealing for working with disaffected young people. By identifying how angling as a community of practice manifests in the teaching and learning relationship, we demonstrate the benefit of ethnographic approaches for appreciating the subtle cultural influences at work in skill-based intervention programmes
Peer-led focus groups as 'dialogic spaces' for exploring young people's evolving values
Full text linkAlthough peer-led focus groups are widely used in research with children and young people, surprisingly little has been written that evaluates their methodological appropriateness. Drawing on data from 10 peer-led focus group sessions across 5 international schools, this article demonstrates how focus group discussions around moral and social values, which become more meaningful though the self-reflection provoked in encounters with different experiences and perspectives, can be advantageous for research. Peer-moderators, as both participants and facilitators, run focus groups that open dialogic spaces for exploratory talk that avoids the self-censure and deference that can emerge in the presence of an adult moderator. This is particularly important when participants are structurally disadvantaged and lack similar spaces for collaborative inquiry into their shared experiences. Video capture allows researchers in-depth access to these focus groups after the event, revealing evidentially and pedagogically rich dialogues
The Ship of Theseus and the Problem of 'Post-War' Answers to Contemporary Guatemalan Problems
Full text linkThis article considers the problems caused by the ubiquitous use of terms such as “postwar” and “postconflict” in the analysis of contemporary Guatemala. The terms feed a historical reductionism which conflates present-day social problems with the violence of the past while also conflating continuity, change, and historical and analytical categories. Drawing upon Plutarch's thought experiment “The Ship of Theseus”, we explore the paradox at the heart of the use of “postwar” and its synonyms and demonstrate the potentially harmful effects connected to the dominance of the term
Rethinking ‘safe spaces’ in children’s geographies
Full text linkIn this editorial, we provide a preliminary definition of ‘safe spaces’ before exploring how the collected authors have taken a fresh approach to understanding ‘safe spaces’ though a geographical lens. Until now, the material ‘location’ of safe spaces have remained under theorised, but by turning attention to how children and young people co-produce and bring safe spaces into being through their situated practices, this Special Issue provides rich ground for re-evaluating why places ‘matter’ in children’s lives. This editorial maps out those common threads that are uncovered across a diverse collection that spans playful protest in Johannesburg, family food struggles in Warsaw, to the theatrical parodies of second generation Somali youth in London
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