Journal of Contemporary Ethnography recent issues

Writing Against the Image of the Monstrous Crack Mother

Gubrium, A. — 2008-09-12

Anthropologist Lila Abu Lughod's idea of "writing against culture" is the point of departure for deconstructing the image of the monstrous mother dominating portrayals of African American women who use crack cocaine. Aiming to "unsettle" the cultural stereotypes, this article presents the narrative of an African American woman who has used crack, illustrating how elements of Twelve-Step recovery discourse and Afrocentric spirituality differentially frame her story. The case shows that recovery and spirituality are as much narrative resources as they are narrative imperatives. Rather than simply reproducing either of these resources in her story, she alternatively constructs herself as a recovering addict on one hand, and a spiritually strong woman on the other, exemplifying how narrative obviates stereotypic representations.

Virtual (Br)others and (Re)sisters: Authentic Black Fraternity and Sorority Identity on the Internet

Hughey, M. W. — 2008-09-12

Recently, the Internet has become the focus of immense speculation regarding the social construction of identity and cultural "authenticity." However, examinations of virtual communities such as blogs, multiuser domains, and chat rooms have largely ignored nonwhite, especially African American, virtual communities (VCs). Through participant observation, content analysis, and personal interviews, this article analyzes a VC dedicated to members of African American fraternities and sororities, generally referred to as black Greek letter organizations (BGLOs). Findings show that BGLO virtual authenticity is accomplished via (1) the making of "brothers" and "others" based on symbolic boundaries of exclusion and inclusion and (2) the deployment of themes of resistance based on emotions of both sufferance and success. Implications suggest that interrogations of how virtuality constrains and enables processes of "authentic" racial identity formation as well as configurations of racist narratives and ideologies can yield added insights regarding the raced character of structure/agency, symbolic boundaries, and the social use of emotions.

Peacekeeping and the Gender Regime: Dutch Female Peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo

Sion, L. — 2008-09-12

This article addresses the issue of women participation in peacekeeping missions by focusing on two North Atlantic Treaty Organization Dutch peacekeeping units in Bosnia (SFOR8) and Kosovo (KFOR2). I argue that soldiers are ambivalent toward what is perceived the "feminine" aspects of peace missions. Although peacekeeping is a new military model, it reproduces the same traditional combat-oriented mind-set of gender roles. Therefore Dutch female soldiers are limited in their ability to perform and contribute to peace missions. Both peacekeeping missions and female soldiers are confusing for the soldiers, especially for the more hypermasculine Bulldog infantry soldiers. Both represent a blurred new reality in which the comfort of the all-male unit and black-and-white combat situations are replaced by women in what were traditionally men's roles and the fuzzy environment of peacekeeping. At the same time, both are also necessary: peacekeeping, although not desirable, has become the main function for Dutch soldiers, and women are still a small minority, although they gain importance in the army. Present government policy prescribes a gender mainstreaming approach to recruiting, partly due to a lack of qualified male personnel, especially after the end of the draft in 1996.

"I've Kept It That Way on Purpose": Adolescents' Management of Negative Parental Relationship Traits after Divorce and Separation

Menning, C. L. — 2008-09-12

Although more attention has been given in recent years to adolescents' influences on family dynamics after divorce, little is still known about the forms such agency takes, the rationales and structures that shape it, or its consequences. This study is an examination of adolescents' reports of the ways in which they manage negative aspects of their relationships with their parents. In-depth interviews with fifty adolescents from divorced or separated households are examined for emergent themes related to adolescent agency. The findings suggest that adolescents utilize a variety of relationship management strategies that both shape and are shaped by household structure. These strategies and their possible consequences are described, along with rationales that adolescents use for employing them.

Becoming a Sadomasochist: Integrating Self and Other in Ethnographic Analysis

Newmahr, S. — 2008-09-12

Based on a four-year ethnographic study of an SM community, this article blends analytic and interpretative approaches to ethnographic writing, in order to illustrate the value of incorporating subjectivity into traditional ethnographic analysis. I juxtapose field notes about my own participation in SM with stories of outsiderness among members of the community. I argue that analytical attention to my own experience of "becoming" a member of this community illuminated for me some of the discursive, psychological, and carnal processes through which SM comes to be a central and fulfilling part of participants' lives. This elucidates the intellectual reciprocity between ethnographic introspection and ethnographic understanding, and offers additional insight into an understudied community.

Public Amnesia and Multiple Modernities in Shanghai: Narrating the Postsocialist Future in a Former Socialist "Model Community"

Wing Chung Ho, , Ng, P. — 2008-08-04

In contemporary Shanghai, one key phenomenon that marks the disappearance of the status and benefits once promised by Maoist socialism has been the spread of consumer values among the populace. This article draws from the ethnographic observations of Cucumber Lane—an urban slum turned into a socialist "model community" in the 1960s—and the post-socialist cultural landscape of urban Shanghai to explore the different interests, agendas, and rationales of the residents in terms of multiple narrative forms that underlie the fabric of reformist China in transitioning toward a post-socialist future. The author concludes that, despite the state-led efforts to articulate a new course of transition, ostensibly by encouraging public amnesia of the socialist past, the "multiple modernities" expressed by the residents represent an "informal privatization of time" through which individuals come to lay claims on the control of their previously collectively shared future.

A "Perversion" of Choice: Sex Work Offers Just Enough in Chicago's Urban Ghetto

Rosen, E., Venkatesh, S. A. — 2008-08-04

In an apartment building on Chicago's Southside, fifty of the seventy-five residents are sex workers. Our study uses in-depth interviews and participant observation of Chicago's sex work economy to argue that sex work is one constituent part of an overall low-wage, off-the-books economy of resource exchange among individuals in a bounded geographic setting. To an outsider, the decision to be a sex worker seems irrational; in this article we argue that specific localized conditions invert this decision and render it entirely rational. For the men and women in our study, sex work acts as a short-term solution that "satisfices" the demands of persistent poverty and instability, and it provides a meaningful option in the quest for a job that provides autonomy and personal fulfillment.

"My Regular Spot": Race and Territory in Urban Public Space

Britton, M. — 2008-08-04

Employing ethnographic data from a diverse Chicago neighborhood, this article examines how and why a group of Black men asserted exclusive claims to a street corner in explicitly racial terms. The analysis focuses on why racial-ethnic categories became the basis for social and spatial segregation in public spaces but not in a less conspicuous indoor setting. Consistent with prior research by urban ethnographers, the evidence indicates that the dynamics of interaction in public space encourage individuals to rely on categoric knowledge, which triggers stereotypes and provokes intergroup suspicions and hostilities. However, beliefs about how third parties evaluate whether or not specific interactions in visible public spaces are suspicious can also promote racially charged territorial behavior and thereby limit intergroup contact.

The Social Construction of "Sophisticated" Adolescents: How Judges Integrate Juvenile and Criminal Justice Decision-Making Models

Harris, A. — 2008-08-04

This study investigates the types of decision-making models that frame people-processing decisions. An analysis of the judicial waiver hearing will be used as an example of such institutional processing. I investigate how decision makers engage in practical reasoning by exploring the methods they use to organize information about youth and accomplish their judicial duties. Observational and interview data from a case study of three juvenile courthouses in a California county are used to investigate official case processing. The study offers three important theoretical insights for research in sociology and criminology; a revised theoretical framework for understanding juvenile justice decision making that incorporates criminal justice frameworks, an analysis of how substantive factors (e.g., values, stereotypes, assumptions) can enter into decision making, and an illustration of how decision making is organizationally situated.

Rejecting the American Dream: Men Creating Alternative Life Goals

Magnuson, E. — 2008-04-30

This article uses ethnographic research to explore the dynamics of belief, morality, and life change within the mythopoetic men's movement. Examining the creation of local meaning within this context shows that its members have developed a significant criticism of the material values and work ethic connected to what has been called the American Dream. They are generally upper and upper middle-class white men who have come out ahead in the economic competition and yet have found it emotionally damaging and unfulfilling for themselves and their wives, children, and others in their lives. As a result, they take significant steps to change their lives, deprioritizing work and economic success in favor of emotional values and spiritual well-being. The analysis synthesizes ethnography with cultural sociology to explore this curious critique of modern culture and the corresponding efforts at microlevel social change.

Generalizing from Workplace Ethnographies: From Induction to Theory

Edwards, P., Belanger, J. — 2008-04-30

Two modes of generalizing from the large set of workplace ethnographies now in existence are compared. These are the results of the Workplace Ethnography (WE) data set and holistic modeling (HM) based on a more theoretically driven project. In the treatment of specific cases, there is impressive complementarity between the two. But the WE data fail to capture some key features of leading studies, because they do not treat cases holistically. They might also be developed by including studies not included to date. A more explicit theoretical approach offers some firmer grounds for generalizing, and new directions for comparative ethnographies arise.

From Sombreros to Sincronizadas: Authenticity, Ethnicity, and the Mexican Restaurant Industry

Gaytan, M. S. — 2008-04-30

While scholars agree that performances of authenticity and ethnicity express social relations and reveal the socially constructed character of identity, we know little about how these interactions contribute to the politics of everyday life. By engaging in participant observation, drawing on open-ended interviews, and analyzing the content of available data regarding restaurant culture, the author argues that the accomplishment of Mexican authenticity is a social construction. However, despite its socially created qualities, the author contends that performances of authenticity and ethnicity affect not only how individuals understand each other, but illustrate the challenges faced by different groups of people in the commercial production and consumption of identity.

The Underlife of Kids' School Lunchtime: Negotiating Ethnic Boundaries and Identity in Food Exchange

Nukaga, M. — 2008-04-30

While the literature on ethnic identity takes traditional "adult-centered" socialization theory for granted, this study breaks away from such a perspective, and instead uses ethnographic data on children's food exchange during lunchtime in two predominantly Korean (-American) elementary schools to explore how children use food as a symbolic resource to negotiate group boundaries in peer interaction. Following a discussion of lunchtime seating patterns, this article presents children practicing exchange of "dry food (mass-consumed)" and "wet food (homemade)" that takes three different forms—gift-giving, sharing, and trading—each of which have different relevance for marking, maintaining, and muting ethnic boundaries and other social differences. Taking a child-centered perspective, the study finds that children's ethnic identity development is by no means a universal linear process. Instead, preadolescent children, although constrained by external forces, learn to do layered and situated ethnic identity through using cultural resources in peer interaction.

Native among the Natives: Physician Anthropologist Doing Hospital Ethnography at Home

Zaman, S. — 2008-03-10

The focus of the present article is the methodological aspects of conducting ethnography in a district level hospital in Bangladesh, the first of its kind in the country. Ethnographies in non-Western medical settings are rare. I describe the experience of gaining entry and negotiating my way through diverse gatekeepers, building rapport and trust with the doctors, the staff community, and the patients. I share the challenges of being native among the natives as my "nativity" was twofold: as a Bangladeshi doing fieldwork in the country, and as a medical doctor studying a hospital, the domain of doctors.

Can Bioethics Be Global and Local, or Must It Be Both?

Finkler, K. — 2008-03-10

This article contributes to ethnography of bioethical practices in a developing nation by examining how doctors perceive and use them in Mexico. We ask whether principle-based bioethics can transplant to a developing nation. An analysis reveals the bioethical approaches in different hospital settings, the local nature of bioethical understanding, and a universal requirement for ethical distribution of health care. After an overview of U.S. bioethics development and of Mexican biomedical institutions, the article presents field research done on bioethical conceptualizations and practices in two Mexican government hospitals. An analysis of the bioethical dilemmas physicians face and the approaches taken within the society in different institutional venues uncovers the local character of bioethics and the universal bioethical needs, and the intersection between micro and macro processes in hospital health care. While local conditions must guide a physician's day-to-day ethical practices, a global bioethics is needed to address universal problems experienced in economically developing nations.

Constructing Hope: Dis/continuity and the Narrative Construction of Recovery in the Rehabilitation Unit

Warren, N., Manderson, L. — 2008-03-10

Hope and recovery are focal narratives within rehabilitation discourse, which is characterized by its goal of returning physical functioning to individuals in a way reminiscent of their pre-impairment ways of life. Rehabilitation is concerned with coming to terms with often devastating bodily disruption and learning strategies to minimize it. Rehabilitation provides individuals with skills and tools designed to enable them to return to their former life. This discourse of "return to normal" is problematic for elderly or seriously ill patients, whose bodily disruption often occurs toward the end of a phase characterized by an extended period of ill-health and/or disease, and whose embodied experiences directly challenge the rehabilitative discourse. For these patients, the projected future is usually short-term and features decreasing levels of function and participation because of their health status. We explore the disjuncture between rehabilitative discourse constructed by and within the multidisciplinary clinical team and lived experiences for elderly people who have undergone amputation.

Negotiating Boundaries and Roles: Challenges Faced by the Nursing Home Ethnographer

Tinney, J. — 2008-03-10

There is ambiguity in the role of the institution that tries to be a "home" and a place of physical care and protection. Many nursing home residents are constrained by physical and social isolation, their vulnerability increased by unmet social needs. Equally, there is ambiguity in the role of the volunteer ethnographer. The obligation to do no harm is rendered more salient by resident dependence and the intensity of nursing home relationships. Ambiguities are entailed in combining the roles of researcher and volunteer in attempting to maintain observer objectivity while becoming a trusted intimate of both the residents who live in the institution and the staff who work there. How does a volunteer determine how to "ration" help when the need for it is constant? The ethnographer is challenged to limit participation and to preserve enough distance to meet the responsibilities entailed in ethical and rigorous research.

Outside the Ward and Clinic: Healing the Aboriginal Body

McCoy, B. F. — 2008-03-10

Despite predictions in the 1970s that, with the advent of Western medicine, there would be no Aboriginal healers by the end of the twentieth century, maparn continue to be active within the Kutjungka region of the Kimberley (Western Australia). Using narrative and art from the healers themselves, the author examines their contemporary role and practice. As desert people continue to engage their healers, as also the services of the local health clinic, the author explores how two very different models of health care might better understand each other and work together to improve desert people's health.

What Is Going on?: Ethnography in Hospital Spaces

Finkler, K., Hunter, C., Iedema, R. — 2008-03-10