Ethnography is among the many tools used in social research. It refers to a set of methods and techniques used primarily by anthropologists in their fieldwork. It is about observing people during specific periods of time or while performing particular actions and writing about what was observed. Because people rarely do exactly as they state, a purpose of conducting an ethnographic study is to uncover meanings about an issue that may not be available through traditional evaluation methods. Field research has the capability of leading researchers and designers to the understanding of people's needs, wants and expectations; thus, resulting in successful product design. Without conducting field research, the ability of a designer to satisfy consumer's genuine needs and demands is severely restricted. Cognitive, physical and cultural differences are factors which distinguish us from one another. Such factors should not be neglected when studying the design process. Could it be possible, for example, that an attribute such as one's gender can influence and effect decision making or outcome of a project? Although difficult to answer definitively, applying ethnographic research methods can enable us to gain a deeper perspective of the issue. The present study applied ethnographic research methods in examining differences throughout the design process. A total of eight students (four males and four females) from the Industrial Design department in the college of Architecture and Urban Studies at VA Tech were chosen to participate. In further support of previous gender studies conducted, this research attempts to show that females do have a tendency to communicate more throughout the design process. In addition, females tend to engage in more of a communal type of design process. Males, on the other hand, were more likely to work independently, with very little or no interaction among each other. / Master of Science

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acase@tulane.edu / 1 / Jocelyn Horner

In this report, I will examine People from the Other World (1875), a text which documents the transition from American Spiritualism to international Theosophy. The narrative is based off of reports which lawyer-turned-mystic Henry Steel Olcott wrote concerning the validity of séances that were held by the famous mediums, the Eddy brothers, at their rural homestead in Chittenden, Vermont. These gatherings were unique because unlike early Spiritualist séances, which featured the ghosts of departed family members, the Eddy brothers most often contacted a more diverse group including Native American spirits, the ghost of a Khourdish warrior, and the ghost of an Egyptian juggler, among others. I attribute the variety of spirits at these séances to three intersecting tides of cultural influence: The first is the rise of ethnographic studies and the subsequent vogue of ethnographic subjects. Secondly, the Eddy group exhibited signs of antimodern ambivalence towards an age rich with new inventions which may have seemed, to the lay person, to be the work of magic. Finally, at the Eddy séances costumed play is used as a form of therapeutically reassuring ritual during this time of rapid change. While some critics in recent years have posited that such Theosophic meetings may have served as a sign of cross-cultural civic engagement, I will argue that it is far more likely that for the Eddy group, becoming possessed by foreign spirits served as a tool for self understanding which helped them to adapt to the encroachment of a seemingly haunted age. / text

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This study is a qualitative examination on the impact of mobile banking, commonly known as MPESA on the lived experiences of the marginalised poor of Bukhalalire sub-location in western Kenya. Using Capability Approach as the guiding theoretical framework, this research project answers Denzin's (2003) call to performance, a performance which contributes to a more 'enlightened and involved citizenship'. It is 'revolutionary' in that it 'enlightens citizens to the possibilities' of MPESA by staging dramatic texts or performances rewritten from the interviews with the poor. These Performances make sites of oppression visible in the process, affirming an oppositional 'politics' that reasserts the value of self-determination and mutual solidarity. Here, the project explores Performance Ethnography to interrogate and evaluate specific, social, educational, economic and political processes as mechanisms that affect the adoption and successful implementation of MPESA as a poverty eradication strategy. The research work conducts focus groups to draw out dimensions of concerns which this research construes as a capability set, then interviews persons in poverty to establish, firstly, what the dimensions of concerns are and the relationship between them, effectively corroborating the findings from the focus group then secondly establish how MPESA is impacting on those dimensions of concern. The research then uses performances to bring to the front the voices of the poor, making visible sites of oppression in one sense and on another, sites of opportunities within MPESA. This exercise answers the research question in evidencing how Performance Ethnography illuminates dimensions of concerns within a Capability Approach study and as research tool it provokes the interviewer and the interviewee to self examination and reflection, seen thus, the performance becomes vehicle for moving persons, subjects, performer, and audience members in new, critical, 'political' spaces, a space of hope that transcends the conservative politics of neoliberalism rescuing the radical democracy. As such, it 'tells a true and previously untold tale' effectively calling for social transformation.

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