Journal of Contemporary Ethnography recent issues

Annie Marion MacLean, Feminist Pragmatist and Methodologist

Deegan, M. J., Hill, M. R., Wortmann, S. L. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:22:54 PST

Annie Marion MacLean was a major Chicago sociologist and methodologist. She was profoundly influenced by the gendered division of labor in sociology during her era. MacLean combined her work with the men and women of the early Chicago school of sociology and the women of Hull-House, an early social settlement. As a feminist pragmatist, MacLean was both a theorist and practitioner who used qualitative and quantitative methods. She set precedents in the Chicago school of ethnography, participant observation, and critical methodology. MacLean, however, was not the "mother" of ethnography. Harriet Martineau holds a far stronger claim to be a founding contributor to the origin and development of ethnographic methodologies in the social sciences.

There's Something About Annie: Rejoinder to Deegan, Hill, and Wortmann's Comment on MacLean

Hallett, T., Jeffers, G., Bowman, E. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:22:55 PST

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Coming Out in an Alcoholic Family

Tillmann, L. M. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:22:55 PST

This article invites readers inside emotional and relational dynamics of coming out as gay in an alcoholic family system. Taking an interpretive approach to research, focused on how participants make sense of and make meaning from their lived experience, "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" offers a longitudinal and narrative ethnographic account of family secrecy and disclosure.

Behind the Baton: Exploring Autoethnographic Writing in a Musical Context

Bartleet, B.-L. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:22:55 PST

In this article, the author considers how music can expand the creative possibilities of autoethnography. Likewise, the author explores how autoethnography can offer musicians a means to reflect on their creative work in culturally insightful ways. To "play out" these disciplinary considerations, the author crafts an autoethnographic narrative that centers on her own creative practice as a conductor. Moving between description and action, dialogue and introspection, the narrative reveals some of the complexities of reflecting and writing about music in this way. While this narrative is grounded in the author’s lived experiences, it reveals significant broader issues about the process of doing autoethnography, the conducting profession, and the culture and practice of music-making at large.

The Pointer Sisters: Creating Cartographies of the Present

Roets, G., Roose, R., Claes, L., Verstraeten, M., Vandekinderen, C. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:22:55 PST

In this article, acquired knowledge is considered as a temporary reflection that expresses the enactment of a social life that produces and reproduces social realities. Researchers need to engage with an open-ended process of de- and reconstruction of meanings between many players of the social world. As the poststructuralists Deleuze and Guattari reveal, our knowledge base is inherently trapped in lines of flight, on a voyage for which there pre-exists no map. For researchers involved with a reconstructive move, we explore and apply their concept of the map (cartography) as a potentially innovative methodological and analytical approach. Creating cartographies of the present allows researchers to deal with uncertainties, complexities and effects of surprise as participants in the production of knowledge, so to create sustainable and innovative understandings of situations and realities with research subjects.

Unmaking a Movement: Identity Work and the Outcomes of Zapatista Community Centers in Los Angeles

Glass, P. G. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:40:35 PDT

Identity work explains how participants in social movements build and maintain their collective identities, uniting movement groups. This study, based on ethnographic fieldwork comparing two Zapatista community centers in Los Angeles, asks if the absence of identity work leads to the dissolution of organizations. Both of these groups neglected work of identity convergence and identity construction to integrate three subgroups—"activists," "organizers," and "community members"—into a whole. Yet a lack of identity work alone does not explain the relative stability of one group while the second experienced conflict and eventually disbanded. Additional structural influences—an external crisis facing the group and the internal proportions between members—combined with these cultural factors to bring about organizational schism.

"If I Don't Have to Work Anymore,Who Am I?": Job Loss and Collaborative Self-Concept Repair

Garrett-Peters, R. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:40:35 PDT

Previous research on unemployment among managers and professionals has documented the experience of job loss as stressful because of both economic strain and the damage it does to valued identities and self-conceptions. Little research, however, has examined the processes through which displaced workers collectively attempt to repair this damage. Data from participant observation in four support groups, plus intensive interviews with twenty-two group members, are used to develop an analysis of the self-concept repair strategies used by these relatively privileged workers. Five main strategies are identified: (1) redefining the meaning of unemployment, (2) realizing accomplishment, (3) restructuring time, (4) forming accountability partnerships, and (5) helping others.These findings suggest that our understandings of how people cope with stressful life events need to take into account the social capital available to different groups. A second implication concerns our understanding of how the self-concept operates as a source of motivation.

Gossip at Work: Unsanctioned Evaluative Talk in Formal School Meetings

Hallett, T., Harger, B., Eder, D. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:40:35 PDT

This article uses a form of linguistic ethnography (LE) to analyze videotaped recordings of gossip that took place during formal school meetings.By comparing these gossip data against existing models of gossip based on data collected in informal settings, the authors identify eleven new response classes, including four forms of indirectness that operate to cloak gossip under ambiguity and seven forms of avoidance that change the trajectory of gossip. In doing so, this article makes three larger contributions. First, it opens a new front in research on organizational politics by providing an empirically grounded, conceptually rich vocabulary for analyzing gossip in formal contexts. Second, it contributes to knowledge about social interactions in organizations. By examining gossip talk embedded within a work context, this project highlights the nexus among structure, agency, and interaction. Third, it contributes to understandings of gossip in general. By examining gossip in a context previously unexamined, this project provides analytical leverage for theorizing conditions under which gossip is likely and when it will take various forms.

Examining the Virtual Subculture of Johns

Blevins, K. R., Holt, T. J. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:40:35 PDT

The growth of the Internet and computer-mediated communications has enabled the formation of a variety of deviant subcultures online, particularly among sexual deviants.This qualitative study examines the subculture of the male heterosexual clients of sex workers by exploring their argot. Using a sample of posts from Web forums in ten U.S. cities, this study identifies three subcultural norms that structure beliefs and attitudes about sex work among johns: experience, commodification, and sexuality. The influence of computer-mediated communications on the formation of subcultures and argot are explored as well.

Making Sense of the Social Forum: On the Local Framing of a Fashionable Global Symbol

Nordvall, H. — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:13:57 PDT

The worldwide emergence of Social Forums (SF), originating from Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 2001, is a key element in the movement for global justice. A growing body of literature on the forums concerns its function as a transnational venue for civil society and a global symbol for resistance against neoliberalism. However, little empirical research is carried out on the local meanings of the widespread SFs. This article reports on a case study on the organizational process of a local forum in a Swedish town. The analysis focuses on intracoalitional interaction among activists from the labor movement, Attac, and a local cultural institution. The importance of considering local framing processes and the often-neglected influence of fashion when studying the emergence of SFs is emphasized. Findings show how the dichotomy the Old versus the New became crucial in the framing process. Framed as a novelty contrasted with "old" socialist values, the SF was rejected by the labor movement activists as just another expression of a contemporary neoliberal trend of depoliticization. Implications for the study of the social forum phenomenon are discussed.

"Damn, Yo--Who's That Girl?": An Ethnographic Analysis of Masculinity in Drug Robberies

Contreras, R. — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:13:57 PDT

Previous street crime research has shown that female robbers manipulate their sexuality to secure male victims. Also, the larger ethnographic drug market literature has shown how male criminals construct masculinity through the sexual and economic manipulation of women. However, both accounts miss how male criminals manipulate the masculinity of other men to victimize them. This article fills that gap, showing how male drug robbers play on the masculinity of male dealers to bait them into a robbery. Through The Girl, a female accomplice, male drug robbers lure male dealers, believing that men demonstrate masculinity through sexual relations with women. Apart from this, male drug robbers construct their own masculinity through The Girl, who is often manipulated and exploited through sexist stereotypes and practices. This research is based on ethnographic field data collected on a group of Dominican drug robbers in a South Bronx neighborhood.

Corporate Logo Tattoos and the Commodification of the Body

Orend, A., Gagne, P. — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:13:57 PDT

This research explores the sociological factors underlying the increasing popularity of corporate logo tattoos. The authors draw upon critical theory, sociology of the body, and consumption to analyze data from in-depth interviews with a small sample of subjects with a corporate logo tattoo. Findings suggest that the increasing popularity of logo tattoos is a product of the commodification of culture via the culture industry. Findings show that the majority of the sample was motivated by brand loyalty and self-identification with a brand philosophy or lifestyle, while a small minority attempted to alter the intended meaning of the logo by appropriating it into a simulated meaning. This research suggests that corporate logo tattoos are one way that corporations have inscribed themselves onto the bodies and into the identities of many of those who acquire them, while others attempt to use such body modifications as a way to play with postmodern images.

Using the Victim Role as Both Sword and Shield: The Interactional Dynamics of Restorative Justice Sessions

Kenney, J. S., Clairmont, D. — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:38:22 PDT

Recently, criminal justice professionals have advocated restorative justice as an alternative to traditional punitive practices. Extant research has not examined the strategic interpersonal dynamics between victims, offenders, supporters, and facilitators during restorative justice sessions. Our ethnographic study addresses this gap. Building on studies of emotion in reintegrative shaming, we explore how shaming emotions are dramaturgically mediated by the rhetorical use of victim roles. We suggest that this micropolitical shame management facilitates apparently meaningful outcomes, undermines them, or results in agreements based more on realpolitik than reintegration. Our data are derived from detailed field notes at 28 youth restorative justice sessions in a mid-sized Canadian city. Our findings reveal a different picture than the frequently idealized images of restorative justice, thus underscoring the need for further analysis in this important area of criminal justice.

An Examination of Lesbian/Queer Bathhouse Culture and the Social Organization of (Im)Personal Sex

Hammers, C. — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:38:22 PDT

Physical features of space shape the sex and sexual interaction that occurs within bathhouses. Although there is scholarly interest in and documentation of male public sexual cultures, lesbian/queer public sexualities have been sorely neglected. In examining two Canadian lesbian/queer bathhouses— Pussy Palace in Toronto and SheDogs in Halifax—this article fills some of this gap. Utilizing ethnographic methods (in-depth interviews and participant observation), this article accomplishes two objectives: first, it describes the bathhouse setting and how modifications of space affect lesbian/queer sexualities; second, it compares these findings to what has been documented in the way of the gay male bath scene.

The Worldview of Hospital Security Staff: Implications for Health Promotion Policy Implementation

Thu, 07 May 2009 17:38:22 PDT

Interventions to encourage compliance with smoking control policies often rely on intermediaries for implementation, and the culture of the intermediary group might affect policy implementation. The authors present an ethnography of security staff involved in enforcing restrictive smoking policies in a large hospital in Canada. They find strong norms associated with control, mutuality, and deference to authority. Common sense interpretation rather than strict enforcement of rules prevails. To be enforced effectively, smoking policy would have to compete with other duties and elevate the security staff's perceived status in the eyes of visitors, staff, and patients.

You Got It, So When Do You Flaunt It?: Building Rapport, Intersectionality, and the Strategic Deployment of Gender in the Field

Mazzei, J., O'Brien, E. E. — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:38:22 PDT

Building on existing literature and disparate field experiences, this article forwards a thesis that status group memberships such as gender are not destiny for building access and rapport during fieldwork. Rather, the female researcher is an active participant in how she is perceived and received by informants, capable of negotiating socially constructed scripts that dominate the field setting to her analytic advantage. Analysis demonstrates how field settings deem various combinations of a researcher's attributes relevant and how researchers can strategically utilize established scripts regarding these status group memberships to ethically gain the trust of informants. Our comparative case study design uses the concept of "deploying gender" to build this more general, intersectional thesis on the role of a researcher's status group memberships for gaining rapport.

"The Game Turns on You": Crack, Sex, Gender, and Power in Small-Town Ohio

Draus, P. J., Carlson, R. G. — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:38:22 PDT

Exchanges of sex for crack cocaine have received much attention from public health researchers and ethnographers of substance abuse. These exchanges are often viewed as one-dimensional relationships in which men use their access to crack cocaine and women's dependence on the drug to exploit them sexually. Drawing on in-depth interview data gathered during three years of research conducted in central Ohio, this article examines the relationship between sexual behavior and crack cocaine use from both male and female perspectives. Bourdieu's concept of fields is then applied to illuminate the relational dimensions of gender, sex, and power within this local crack-cocaine using scene, while also illustrating the domination inherent in most scenarios involving crack-for-sex exchange. Implications for possible interventions based on this analysis are also discussed.

A Visigoth System: Shame, Honor, and Police Socialization

Conti, N. — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:38:22 PDT

This article documents the process by which a police academy staff generates an interaction order of obedience to authority during recruit training. Specifically, it examines the formal pattern of face-to-face interaction that recruits are expected to embrace before they can engage the larger occupational culture. The staff utilizes a dialectical method akin to Braithwaite's model of reintegrative shaming in which recruits are simultaneously degraded for what are defined as highly stigmatic civilian characteristics and offered a status elevation for the excision of these problematic attributes. Subscription to or deviance from established rituals is taken as evidence of personal character and assists in driving recruits through a moral career, in which they can evolve to an idealized status of police officer.