{"title":"Climate Activism and the Destabilization of Business-as-Usual in Milan, Italy","authors":"Daniel Delatin Rodrigues","doi":"10.1177/08912416241233698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416241233698","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this article is to describe and analyse how climate activists in the city of Milan try to intervene in the production and consumption of fossil fuels. The material worked on here was accumulated over three years (2019–2021): it consists of field notes through participant observation, conversations held on messaging apps and documents made available to participants in the local coalition about the internal workings and strategic objectives of the activists. The article explores their political experiments to slow down the pace of climate change and transform the socio-political conditions that underpin the trajectory of business-as-usual. Along the way, we will witness the emergence of various agents and practices that seek to intervene to reduce or block business-as-usual—through actions that can erode the material and immaterial spaces for the reproduction of fossil fuels.","PeriodicalId":47675,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Ethnography","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140035882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Widow and a Questionable Autoethnographer","authors":"Georgina Tsolidis","doi":"10.1177/08912416241232415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416241232415","url":null,"abstract":"There are two aims in writing this paper. Firstly, I reflect on several incidents that highlighted for me what it meant to be a widow in the eyes of others. The intention is to bring to light how becoming a widow reinforces how people define you relative to a man, more poignant because that man is absent. Providing personal insights sifted through theory is a form of feminist autoethnography that functions here as an intervention into more common views of widowhood. The second aim is to consider my experience of having the original version of this paper rejected by a journal. The reviewers’ comments made me understand that my execution of feminist autoethnography was seen as problematic. This experience has spurned me to explore the need for methodological risk-taking, particularly when the topic being discussed, in this case widowhood, requires personal resilience to bring out of the shadows. Discussing issues that are “heartfelt” can contribute to debates about the construction of knowledge because they invite consideration of what is taken to be rational and what is taken to be emotional.","PeriodicalId":47675,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Ethnography","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139956261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Occupational Rehabilitation or Self-Change? Practices for Self-Change in an Occupational Rehabilitation Group for Ultra-Orthodox Low-SES Women in Israel","authors":"Gitit Sagiv Zuri, Avihu Shoshana","doi":"10.1177/08912416231218269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416231218269","url":null,"abstract":"This article is based on ethnographies in an occupational rehabilitation group for unemployed and underemployed Jewish ultra-Orthodox low socioeconomic status women in Israel. The ethnographies tracked the cross-cultural encounter between ultra-Orthodox women and an organization that uses neoliberal practices in its occupational rehabilitation. The findings revealed the implications of practices promoting autonomy and freedom to choose, psychologizing structural barriers, and simulating the occupational world in a group setting. They also demonstrated ultra-Orthodox women’s agentic solutions for dealing with the discursive clash they experienced between the collectivist and neoliberal discourses. They used collectivization—familiar to them from their ultra-Orthodox culture—to respond to the demands for individualism and freedom to choose, which enabled them to proceed on their own terms. This article discusses intercultural encounters in the context of occupational rehabilitation for minority groups and the importance of designing culturally sensitive facilitation practices that include cultural translation.","PeriodicalId":47675,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Ethnography","volume":" 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139144158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Toward a Phenomenological Understanding of Internet-Mediated Meme-ing as a Lived Experience in Social Distancing via Autoethnography","authors":"Ningfeng Zhang","doi":"10.1177/08912416231216980","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416231216980","url":null,"abstract":"As the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent social distancing measures have rendered online communication a “new normal” in the post-pandemic era, the production and consumption of internet memes have also emerged as a significant communicative paradigm in this context. However, academic discourses on internet-mediated meme-ing have tended to focus on socially oriented macro-perspectives with a pursuit of positivistic objectivity, leaving the experiential and subjective aspects of “everyday internet-mediated meme-ing” vis-à-vis individuals in a lifeworld less explored. To address this gap, this study uses structured vignette analysis (SVA) coupled with individual-oriented phenomenological reflexivity to elaborate on how internet-mediated meme-ing reveals itself as a meaningful lived experience for a “solitary conscious self” in the overall context of social distancing. It seeks to demonstrate the phenomenological applicability of the SVA as an autoethnographic method as well as highlight the individual-oriented phenomenological substantiality of meme-ing that involves self-other relations in social distancing.","PeriodicalId":47675,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Ethnography","volume":"22 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138972401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Backstage at the Barristers’ Case Conference: A Dramaturgical Analysis","authors":"Helen Jones, Fiona Brookman","doi":"10.1177/08912416231210003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416231210003","url":null,"abstract":"Socio-legal ethnographies have focused largely on the dramaturgical themes present in the competing performances seen in adversarial trials. Drawing on ethnographic observations of British homicide investigations, we illuminate the hidden “backstage” space of prosecution barristers’ case conferences. Using Goffman’s dramaturgical framework, we analyze the interactions, deliberations, and negotiations that are enacted between barristers, homicide detectives, forensic scientists, and other specialists. To our knowledge, the work that happens in these conferences has never been documented. Our findings reveal how prosecution narratives evolve and are tested behind the scenes before being performed in court. We pay particular attention to the role of anticipatory work in guiding how criminal justice actors choreograph the prosecution case. The findings add to our understanding of narrative case building and elaborate Goffman’s dramaturgical framework. We discuss the implications of our findings for due process.","PeriodicalId":47675,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Ethnography","volume":"118 27","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135138213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Disclosing Otherness: Situated Knowledges and the Politics of Ethnographic Approaches to the #WeAreNotWaiting Movement in Type 1 Diabetes and Beyond","authors":"Bianca Jansky","doi":"10.1177/08912416231207648","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416231207648","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I reflect on my empirical engagement in the global (digital) health movement #WeAreNotWaiting in the context of Type 1 Diabetes. I want to take my relationships and interactions in this community as a starting point to discuss the multifacetedness of doing ethnographic research in health-political activist communities while not being affected by the health conditions the research participants are affected by and not sharing their explicit personal-political aim. Building on Donna Haraway’s conceptualization of situated knowledge and Kim TallBear’s notion of ethics of accountability, I empirically retrace three accounts of disclosing otherness in my empirical engagement that were generative for my understanding of the movement. I suggest that the moments where one needs to explain oneself, where one is met with skepticism, or experiences tensions, might be uncomfortable and challenging but can be generative. To engage with them can contribute to the accountability of the ethnographer.","PeriodicalId":47675,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Ethnography","volume":"83 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135868827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Techno-Social Experiences of Privacy and Intimacy in College Culture","authors":"Alecea Standlee","doi":"10.1177/08912416231207647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416231207647","url":null,"abstract":"This work considers the contemporary intersections of intimacy, technology, and privacy among college students in the US. This article outlines a framework for shifting social meanings and theorizes some potential implications. This project includes data from two primary field sites, a private university in the northeast and a public college in the southeast. I used a combination of face-to-face interviews and online ethnographic data collection methods for this project. Findings from this study indicate that while the concepts of intimacy and privacy remain fundamentally important to participants, the definitions of such concepts and their relationship with one another are being changed by communication technologies. Increasingly, young adults are defining privacy as the experience of managing their digital identity and understanding intimacy as being potentially disconnected from shared exchanges of private information. However, these ideas are in transition, and still deeply contested by participants.","PeriodicalId":47675,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Ethnography","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135413970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michal Kravel-Tovi, Tzofiya Malev, Eran Nisan Schwarzfuchs
{"title":"Purge the Evil From Your Midst: Material Cancel Culture Among Religiously Observant Jews","authors":"Michal Kravel-Tovi, Tzofiya Malev, Eran Nisan Schwarzfuchs","doi":"10.1177/08912416231200260","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416231200260","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores cancel culture as a material endeavor on the ground. We draw on ethnographic tools to call attention to formative material dimensions of canceling and employ the conceptual lens of material culture to analyze rationales and practices around the canceling of objects. The case study concerns how ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel manage allegations of sexual abuse against a beloved author by engaging in a myriad of material-canceling actions around his books. We cluster and investigate these actions under three categories: Time-Out, Taking Out, and Casting Out. We offer the term Material Cancel Culture as a productive intervention in a literature that generally focuses on the discursive and digital components of cancel culture. The multiplicity of possible material (dis)engagements allows us to move beyond a somewhat dichotomous outline of cancel versus not-cancel, and to consider how the material immediacy and properties of objects open up new scripts of action in response to public sentiments of rage and critique.","PeriodicalId":47675,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Ethnography","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135483724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Gareth McNarry, Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson, Adam B. Evans
{"title":"Somewhere Between a Stopwatch and a Recording Device: Ethnographic Reflections From the Pool","authors":"Gareth McNarry, Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson, Adam B. Evans","doi":"10.1177/08912416231200642","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416231200642","url":null,"abstract":"As has recently been highlighted, despite the prevalence of methodological “confessional tales” in ethnography generally, the challenges of undertaking ethnographic research specifically in institutional sports settings remain underexplored. Drawing on data from a 3-year ethnographic study of competitive swimming in the United Kingdom (UK), here we explore some of the practical challenges of balancing different elements of the researcher’s role when undertaking ethnographic “insider” research in familiar settings. In particular, we consider the difficulties of balancing the role of a doctoral researcher and the chosen research role of a volunteer coach with a competitive swimming program. Employing the anthropological concept of liminality, we also analyze the lived challenges of leaving a highly familiar field and entering a state of liminality, where the researcher was caught on the threshold betwixt and between a return to full-time employment in the former “known” role of coach, and a move forward to embrace a new “unknown” role as a full-time member of academic staff.","PeriodicalId":47675,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Ethnography","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136279991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}