The gang has been a focal concern in UK media, political discourse, policy, and policing interventions in the last decade, occupying the position of contemporary ‘folk devil’. Despite the heightened attention on urban ‘gang culture’, sociological research on gangs in the UK is limited. However, some sociologists do stress a deterministic relationship between gangs and black urban youth, rendering urban men a source of fascination and repulsion, easy scapegoats in explaining street violence. Arguably, current work that privileges the idea of gang membership misunderstands much about the lives of some men involved. This thesis contributes to correcting that misunderstanding. The study adopts a social constructionist perspective in understanding the (multiple) ways urban men in an inner city area of London construct their lives when immersed in what they refer to as being ‘on road’, a symbolic space in which everyday lives are played out. As a broadly ethnographic study, the data for the thesis were generated using participant observation and semi-structured interviews with a range of participants, including young and adult men. The study identifies three distinct ways in which some men become trapped in difficult experiences and identities ‘on road’. It focuses on the implications of the notion of ‘trappedness’ on their experiences in public space, employment opportunities and, self- identity. The ‘on road’ lives of the men in the study represent a paradox: the road appears to offer opportunity to build masculine identity but entangles them further in a trap, restricting freedom and stunting personal growth. This study has significance for sociological theory. Theoretically, the idea of being ‘on road’ can be understood as a discourse that persists in the language and symbolism that flows through these men’s experiences and narratives. As such the idea of ‘onroadness’ powerfully shapes all aspects of their lives. It is argued that more focus is needed on the psychosocial factors that force some men into volatile social worlds, and the personal contexts that frame local narratives of ‘on road’ culture, especially within wider experiences of friendship, faith, and identity. The thesis suggests that this form of analysis offers a critical explanatory framework within which it is possible to understand the lives of some of the young and adult men in certain inner city areas in the UK.

Este artículo presenta una reflexión sobre la ética de la investigación etnográfica en los espacios sociales digitales conocidos como mundos virtuales o cibermundos. Partiendo de la propia experiencia del autor en los cibermundos Second Life, There, Onverse y Twinity, se exploran y analizan cuestiones relacionadas con la transparencia y presencia del etnógrafo en los cibermundos, las expectativas de privacidad o la cuestión del anonimato. si bien los cibermundos recogen problemas éticos presentes en la etnografía tradicional y virtual, también presentan nuevas dificultades y dilemas éticos que deben ser identificados y analizados desde un punto de vista crítico. / The following paper presents a reflection on the ethics of ethnographic research in so-called virtual worlds or cyberworlds. based on my own experience in Second Life, there, Onverse and Twinity, issues related to transparency, presence, privacy and anonymity are discussed. Although research in cyberworlds shares some ethical problems with traditional and virtual ethnography, they present newdifficulties and ethical dilemmas during fieldwork that should be identified and analyzed from a critical point of view.

Between Memory and Forgetting. Observations on Funeral Rites in the South American LowlandsA detailed analysis of the empirical data concerning Amazonian mourning reveals two types of contrasting funeral treatment. While various human groups make efforts to erase all memory of their dead, others seek to maintain continuing relationship with them. Pertinent research invalidates partially the commonly held thesis of an archetypical form of mourning in the Amazonian lowlands according to which there is a radical break with their dead. The existence of the two types of treatment also invites to reflections about the production of different forms of historical memory in these societies. / Si se realiza un examen detenido de los datos empíricos sobre las formas de duelo en la Amazonía, se revelan finalmente dos tipos contrastados de tratamiento funerario. Mientras que por un lado varios grupos humanos se esfuerzan por borrar toda traza y memoria de los muertos, por otro se busca mantener una relación de continuidad con ellos. Las investigaciones realizadas invalidan en parte la tesis común aceptada según la cual la forma arquetípica del duelo en las tierras bajas pasaría por una ruptura radical con los muertos. La existencia de estos dos tipos de tratamiento invita, por otra parte, a reflexionar sobre la producción de formas diferenciadas de memoria histórica en esas sociedades.

abstract: The global spread of body techniques, such as Yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, Qigong, and non-competitive martial arts have been diffusing into socio-cultural spaces and institutions outside of their native contexts. Despite the ubiquity of cultural borrowing and mixing, the much needed conceptualization and theorization of cultural appropriation is nearly absent within intercultural communication studies. This ethnographic study examines one community of martial artists who practice Aikido, a martial art originating from Japan, in the United States to explore how members negotiate and appropriate its cultural elements in their practice, how the practice binds the dojo community, and how the practice cultivates an embodied dialogic practice. The study takes an ethnographic approach that uses qualitative methods (e.g. participant-observation and interviews). It is also an experiment with methodology comprised of two moment: the first taking an informative and a communicative view of ethnography, and the second, a performative approach. The ethnographic account transposes the Aikido technique - 1) attack, 2) evasion, 3) centralization, and 4) neutralization - onto the chapters as a way to co-produce the world textually rather than extract representations from it. At the dojo Shining Energy, corporeal, material and semiotic components coexist to produce both defined and latent relationalities that open fields and spaces not predetermined by meaning, law, and authority. The transmission of skill takes places through the relational openings in the rich structured environment during practice that each member helps to generate regardless of their skill level. Aikido practice cultivates a latent form of coping strategy where practitioners learn to flourish in midst of hostile situations while maintaining their own presence and identity. Practitioners persist in the practice of Aikido to submit themselves to the processes to engage their sinews, senses and neural paths to keep up with the particulars of situations so that perception, control, and action to run together like the "flash of lightening" to open up inert reality into a process. The practice of Aikido points to a space and time beyond the movement forms to intimate and reveal new ways of not only moving in the world, but also moving the world! / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Communication 2012

abstract: To understand the visual culture and art education practices within three ideologically distinct kindergartens, I employed an interdisciplinary approach, utilizing tools from the fields of art, education, anthropology, literary theory, visual studies and critical social theory. Each of the three schools was considered to be the "best" of its kind for the community in which it resided; TBS was the original bilingual school, and the most Westernized. It was set in the heart of a major city. The second school, OBS, operated from an Islamic framework located in an under-developed small transitioning suburb; and the last school, NBS, was situated in Al-Jahra, an "outlying area" populated by those labeled as bedouins (Longva, 2006). The participants' attitudes towards art education unfolded as I analyzed my visual observations of the participants' daily practices. I have produced a counter-hegemonic visual narrative by negotiating my many subjectivities and methods to gain new knowledge and insights. This approach has provided a holistic understanding of the environment in each site, in which attitudes and practices relating to art education have been acquired by the community. Operating from three different educational paradigms, each school applied a different approach to art education. The more Westernized school viewed art as an individual act which promoted creativity and expression. In the Islamic school art was viewed as an activity that required patterning (Stokrocki, 1986), and that the child needed to be guided and exposed to the appropriate images to follow. In the bedouin school, drawing activities were viewed as an opportunity for representing one's individual story as well as a skill for emergent literacy. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2012

abstract: Over the past few decades, businesses globally have advanced in incorporating the principles of sustainability as they strive to align economic outcomes with growing and complex social and environmental demands and opportunities. This transition is conditioned by the maturity, scale, and geographical location of a business (among other factors), with particular challenges placed on small enterprises in middle- to low-income communities. Within this context, the overarching research question of this dissertation is why and how business incubation processes may foster sustainable enterprises at the middle and base of the socioeconomic pyramid (MoP/BoP). To explore this question, in this project I used as a case study the experience of a network of social business incubators operated by Tecnologico de Monterrey, a private, non-profit, multi-campus university system in Mexico. Centering on its campus in Guadalajara and in order to understand if and how MoP/BoP businesses address sustainability, I developed a current state assessment of incubator processes, analyzing during two semesters the activities of incubated entrepreneurs and their goals, motivations, and outcomes. The general expectation at the outset of the study was that Tec's social business incubation process, in both its design and implementation, focuses on the economic viability and outcomes of incubated projects and hence does not promote entrepreneur commitment to sustainability goals and practices. The general approach of the research project involved a qualitative, in-depth ethnographic assessment of participants. Data were collected by means of the following research tools: (a) archival and documentary review, (b) participant observation, (c) surveys of participants (entrepreneurs and advisors/mentors), and (d) semi-structured interviews of participants. The overall design of the research was inspired by the transitions management approach and by the intervention research method, while qualitative results were assessed under the grounded theory approach. Results of the research are reported under three general categories: (a) analysis of entrepreneur goals, motivations, and outcomes, (b) identification of social and environmental opportunities, and (c) review of the role of social networks and broader support structures. While results confirmed the general expectation of the study, it was possible to establish (based on the interaction with the entrepreneurs and other actors) that there is both interest and commitment to identify and explore opportunities in social and environmental issues. Thus, the dissertation concludes with a proposal for potential future interventions in this social incubator, exploring a new vision and strategies for a transition to a more sustainability-oriented approach. Finally, key recommendations define the most critical elements of an agenda for transition in the social incubation process at Campus Guadalajara and provide input for other efforts. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Sustainability 2014

abstract: Museums are gaining increasing attention throughout the world for their ability to foster social inclusion, intercultural dialogue, and collaboration in practices of heritage management, exhibition, and interpretation. This dissertation aims to contribute a critical perspective on museums as agents of social change through an exploration of new museological practices in contemporary China. Through an ethnography of the ecomuseum, I unravel the assumptions and expectations of implementing a Western concept based on notions of community participation, empowerment, and the democratization of heritage in the context of a transforming China. In my ethnographic account of the multifaceted politics faced by ecomuseums, I question how power and authority are mediated through these civic institutions and how central aspects of museum and heritage practices are being redressed in Chinese society. This study exposes how ecomuseums in China are a result of global processes and positioned as part of a heritage protection movement and museum development boom to promote cultural nationalism, a "civilized" China, and state edicts of rural development in impoverished ethnic minority regions. Detailing the implications of government-led ecomuseum development in ethnic villages in southwest China, and the specific case of Huaili ecomuseum, in Guangxi, I interrogate the institutionalization of heritage and cultural landscapes through processes of exhibition, museumification, and the revaluing of culture. I explore the ecomuseum as a social space of cross-cultural encounter and friction through which local actors grapple with conditions of cultural governance and the entanglements cultural difference and a national heritage discourse. In my critical analysis of collected ethnographic narratives over 15 months of fieldwork from state-directed interest groups, Chinese technocrats, and villager informants involved in the institutionalization of heritage, I present the complex arrangements and interactions that take place through the ecomuseum context and how subject positionalities shift and claims to heritage, identity, and voice are negotiated, regulated, and contested. This study contributes to the anthropology of China and museum and heritage studies, and aims to push new directions in the study of community heritage and museums, in offering a critical perspective of the political nature of ecomuseums in non-Western contexts, such as China. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2014

abstract: This ethnographic study contributes to the literature on Latin@ youth in the US by focusing on the experiences of Latin@ youth in Arizona and their identity management practices. The data from 9 months of field observations and 11 unstructured interviews provides a vivid picture of the youth's daily encounters. Using a thematic analysis this study reveals the youth's experiences in occupying predominantly white spaces, managing privilege, and managing negative stereotypes. The youth's involvement at El Centro, an Arizona nonprofit organization, provided them a safe space in which they created a familial environment for themselves and their peers. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Communication 2014

Ce travail porte sur la conception du « durable » dans le milieu de l'architecture en Inde. Il s'appuie, notamment, sur deux séjours effectués en 2011 et en 2012, dans une agence d'architecture dans la ville d'Ahmedabad (dans l’État du Gujarat) et dans un bureau d'études dans la ville de Bombay (dans l’État du Maharashtra). L'arrivée des labels sur le marché de l'immobilier et de la construction permet de mettre au goût du jour l'idée de « durabilité » dans la conception architecturale et de raviver un débat typiquement local. La polémique concerne, plus précisément, la mise en œuvre des labels « LEED » d'origine nord-américaine. Ce « durable » « occidental » et procédural, qui sert des logiques économique et de marketing, ne représente pas, selon les architectes, l'« authentique ». Or, l'Inde est le pays, par excellence, du « durable » : il suffit de regarder autour de soi les modes de vie, la culture indienne, ou évidemment, l'architecture « traditionnelle » et « vernaculaire ». Au delà de cette rhétorique entre tradition et modernité, en suivant dans les petits détails des projets d'architecture en train de se faire, l'enquête ethnographique montre les similarités entre ces deux lieux de conception. Le devenir du « durable » est lié, d'une manière ou d'une autre, à l'idée d'engagement et de conviction. L'idéal de « durabilité » ne repose pas tant sur une certitude (qui demeure pour le reste toujours plus ou moins relative selon les acteurs), mais sur le quotidien et les pratiques qui tendent à le faire vivre et à lui donner corps le plus possible. / This work explores the making of sustainability in the field of architecture in India. It is based on two ethnographical studies made in 2011 and 2012, in an architectural studio in the city of Ahmedabad (in the State of Gujarat) and in an consultancy firm in the city of Bombay (in the State of Maharashtra). The arrival of labels on the real estate and construction markets makes it possible to date the idea of sustainability in architectural design and rekindle a typical local debate. The controversy more specifically concerns the implementation of LEED certifications of American origin. This “Western” and procedural sustainability, which serves economic and marketing logics, does not represent, according to the architects, the “authentic” one. But then, India is said to be, par excellence, the country of sustainability: just look the lifestyles, Indian culture, or of course, the “traditional” and “vernacular” architecture. Beyond the rhetoric between tradition and modernity, the ethnographic investigation follows the small details of architectural projects in the making and shows the similarities between the studio and the consultancy firm. The fate of sustainability is related, in one way or another, to ideas of commitment and conviction. The ideal of sustainability is not lying so much on a certainty (which still more or less depends on the actors), but on the daily life and on the practices that tend to give it life and the most substance possible.

Este trabalho parte de uma pesquisa etnográfica junto ao povo A\'uw Xavante falante de uma língua do tronco lingüístico MarcoJê, habitando hoje regiões do leste do estado do Mato Grosso (Brasil) realizada entre os anos 2008 e 2010. A partir dos dados obtidos em campo e do debate com a produção etnográfica e antropológica sobre os A\'uwXavante em particular e sobre os povos ameríndios em geral, considerando também outras contribuições teóricas, abordo as concepções a\'uwxavante de gente e pessoa em seus mais variados aspectos, buscando compreender o processo de sua contínua constituição. Tomo a experiência da captura do etnógrafo pelos sujeitos à pesquisa como base para esta compreensão ainda que seja apenas uma parte do todo que aqui apresento. Capturado, o etnógrafo adquire uma potência de tornarse gente, através de sua predação, familiarização e magnificação. Com isso, abordo questões que dizem respeito ao parentesco, ao páraparentesco (como as metades agâmicas e as classes de idade), aos rituais, à relação transformista entre humanidade e nãohumanidade, à constituição política da pessoa e aos cargos cosmopolíticos. / This work is based on an ethnographic research amongst the A\'uwXavante people who speak a language of the MacroJê linguistic trunk, now inhabiting areas of eastern Mato Grosso (Brasil) conducted between the years 2008 and 2010. From data obtained in the field and in discussion with ethnographic and anthropological production about the A\'uwXavante in particular and the amerindians in general, also considering other theoretical contributions, I address the a\'uwxavante conceptions of humanity and personhood in their many aspects, seeking to understand the process of its ongoing constitution. I take the experience of the ethnographer being captured by the subjects of research as a basis for that comprehention although it is only a part of the whole presented here. Captured, the ethnographer aqquires a potency of becomming human through the predation, familiarization and magnification. With that, I address issues councerning kinship, parakinship (such as agamic moieties and age classes), rituals, the transformist relation between humanity and nonhumanity, the political constitution of the self and cosmpolitical offices.