This study introduces rapid design ethnography as a research strategy that may be used in design as an alternative to conventional ethnography. It interrogates this strategy by means of a study of the Ghanaian Adinkra symbols. Adinkra is an indigenous graphic language that carries specific cultural narratives that embody proverbs and or poetic messages. In view of this, this study discusses how a collaboration between ethnography (and rapid ethnography) and design can be merged to create appropriate visual communication with specific reference to this indigenous visual vernacular. The study also highlights the evolution of rapid ethnographic techniques in comparison to conventional ethnography, as well as the way that these techniques may be of assistance to both designer and ethnographer. / Mini Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Visual Arts / MA / Unrestricted

The United States is home to hundreds of thousands of refugees and immigrants who desire to learn English. In contrast to academically-focused English language learners (ELLs), or international students, refugee and immigrant ELLs are often dealing with the stresses of poverty and/or a precarious immigration status, giving them a diverse and complex set of needs that are often not adequately met by ESL programs. Building off a foundation of Activity Theory, Sociocultural Theory, and Language Ecology, which emphasizes an approach to language learning and teaching that does not separate language from the authentic contexts from which it arises (Van Lier, 2002; Leather & Van Dam, 2003; Pennycook, 2010; Swain & Watanabe, 2012; among others), I seek to uncover and address these needs in-context through an ethnography of six Spanish-speaking immigrant ELLs in the western United States. I detail the results of an in-depth analysis of 116 hours of participant observation with these women, paying special attention to their daily routines and how, where, and why they employ English or Spanish. I show how the women's daily routines and participation in Latinx communities curtail much of their need for daily English, how they employ various strategies to get by when they do need English, and how their expressed motivations to learn English are often thwarted by their current life circumstances. I end by summarizing key observations about the ELLs in the study and making general recommendations to ESL programs for how to apply these observations.

This ethnographic thesis reports a research project undertaken with a group of breast cancer dragon boaters in the Lake District in the UK. First undertaken as part of a research project to understand the affect of exercise on people affected by breast cancer, the practice has developed and spread around the world. Using participatory and ethnographic sensibilities and methodologies, the thesis works through the experiences of the researcher with the group. Split into three sections, these deal in turn with methodological issues, the collaborative cultures of the group, and the healing rhythms with the group in terms of their collaborations with nature and other paddlers. In section one, it is suggested that any participatory research project can only be approached through an iterative understanding of the group of participants. Through this iterative approach, and although the study was approached with a broad perspective on academic literatures concerning participatory, and autoethnographic approaches, it was only through contact with the group that the particular projects within the research emerged. In section two, the group and its practice are approached in three chapters which seek to highlight the ways in which collaborative groups that concern an illness experience can develop, not through the socially structured pre-group identities of breast cancer survivors, but through the collaborative practice of these individuals. In this case, the implicit collaborative geographies of Paddlers for Life are explored as ‘communities of practice’, as features that emanate from the practice of the group. The following two chapters continue to explore this analysis, examining the practices of the group to explore how paddling is seen as an experience at once separate from but also entwined with the lived experience of cancer. In section three, I develop the experience of the group as it has developed after a cancer experience. By utilising, in particular, Lefebvre’s (2004) understanding of rhythm and Ingold’s (2007) theory of wayfaring, we are able to explore how the experience of breast cancer dragon boating is not seen as a journey with a fixed end, but is explored through the rhythms of lived interactions with the environment. In Chapter 8, these ideas are used to develop the notion of the therapeutic landscape (Gesler 1992), so that it is not particular places or spaces that are emphasised, but the results of rhythmic wayfaring that can be undertaken in the world.

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Cooking is mind, body, spirit work. What’s possible when we ‘drop in’ to our bodies when cooking? We begin noticing what we are energetically bringing to the food we make. This creative project practices a pedagogy that works with food to create healing space. Healing, as it is defined here, is not void of discomfort nor is it happiness all the time. Who haunts your domestic space? Who is at your back when you cook? This project finds information and sacred knowledge in the food we cook and eat; it reflects back to us deeply buried truths regarding our traumas, joys, and subjectivity. This pedagogy holds the potential for participants to bring “new meanings” to food, and thereby, be activated as cultural producers cooking up the next chapter in our peoples’ creation stories (Anzaldúa 103). This project is documented as an auto-ethnographic tale from the perspective of the practitioner, using erotic storytelling to keep fire in the pages and a methodology of refusal to “determine the length of the [academy’s] gaze” (Tuck and Ree 640).

This thesis considers Liberian youth and the concept of Sport for Development and Peace (SDP). Since the early 2000s the notion of SDP has been strongly advocated, accepted and inserted into UN led policies and intervention strategies for uniting societies divided by violent conflict. Whilst little has been done to monitor and evaluate such programmes the notion has grown at an unprecedented pace and has been adopted by the development and humanitarian industry with real vigour. In many ways football has become the face of development in post-conflict societies. However, this fashionable intervention remains a development assumption rather than a tested method of programming. Liberia is a post-conflict society with a large youth population, an active large UN peacekeeping force and a long footballing heritage with a plethora of local NGO’s using SDP initiatives. My intention in this thesis is to question the assumptions of SDP advocates as they are applied in Liberia, in order to provide a better understanding of the social effects of football for Liberia’s youth population. I pursue this goal through an ethnography of one Liberian youth football team, Zatti FC, the community from which the players are drawn and the Catholic youth centre where they play. This thesis is significant as, despite its popularity, SDP has rarely been subjected to academic scrutiny, especially using the detailed qualitative methods I apply here. I will argue that, in this context, SDP is highly counter-productive for the purpose of youth development and the re-building of a peaceful Liberian society because football constitutes and reinforces the marginal status of youth. Seductive images rather than rational argument are central to SDP’s implementation and growth. Aiming to engage and integrate youth in post-conflict Liberia, SDP actively confirms youth status in a competitive and exclusionary age-based hierarchy.

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This thesis is about the processes and practices that underpin everyday life in a Bangladeshi qawmi madrasa, a rather contentious faith-based Islamic schooling system that is very popular among the rural poor. Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork that took place in Biswanath, a rural town in northeastern Bangladesh, this thesis focuses specifically on the processes that are considered by the qawmi madrasa system to be crucial for the creation of a “good Muslim” persona. The thesis is, therefore, primarily about a particular form of (religious) schooling and (religious) identity formation processes in rural Bangladesh. This study describes a wide range of issues, traditions, and practices embedded within the qawmi madrasa system. The economic and social dynamics of the locality have also been observed closely, as these are directly linked with and influenced by the centrality of Islam in the life of the people. The protagonists of this system believe that every Muslim requires authentic Islamic schooling in order to become a “good Muslim”. Essential to the construction of the “good Muslim” within the qawmi madrasa system therefore lies the assumption that this type of schooling is transformative in nature. Hence, my analysis highlights the centrality of the believer’s body and suggests that for the successful construction of a Muslim persona it is the Islamic orthopraxy, rather than the orthodoxy, that they (learners) receive here most of their faith schoolings on. Central to such orthopraxy is Sunnah (ritual and non-ritual actions approved by the Prophet), which is reinforced and inculcated by the wider community of adults (parents, teachers) into learners by systematically addressing and synchronizing various qualities and expectations through the schooling process. Loyalty is one such quality that both the qawmi protagonists and the wider society believe is infusible. Loyalty towards the moral and social order is thought to be achievable through both moral and corporal discipline. Hence, accustoming one’s body and mind to the knowledge of adab (manner) constitutes the fundamental knowledge of all within this system. In other words, in this study I suggest that the qawmi madrasa system is a system of schooling where adab signifies not only the moral but also the political identity of a person. However, an ideal Muslim persona or an approved Muslim body’s construction within this context also rests on religious beliefs (iman) and deeds (amal). In Bangladesh the qawmi madrasa system is categorized as an ultra orthodox Islamic schooling system on the basis of its stance for authentic and scripture based Islam. However, as I will demonstrate, in reality, the system is sustained by both accommodating many secular expectations of the people and by compromising many of its stances.

Literature across a range of social science disciplines highlights the existence of multiple masculinities, performed and negotiated through everyday practices. However, many studies of male consumers have not explicitly addressed how practices construct gender. In consumer research, themes of masculinity have mainly emerged in studies of advertising images, subcultural consumption, brands, events and consumer tribes. Few studies have explored men’s consumption and the construction of masculinity through and across practices. Previous studies also appear to have examined gender, practices and identities at either individual or group levels. This study therefore sought to address the role of consumption in young men's construction of masculine identities, across a range of contexts, and at individual and group levels. Working within the Consumer Culture Theory tradition, these issues were explored through ethnographic research with young Scottish men aged 18-22, developed from contact with members of a football-themed University society. Data on collective practices were generated through non-participant observation followed by participant observation over a 13-month period. Practices included playing, watching and supporting football, visiting pubs and nightclubs, and playing poker. Accompanied shopping trips also formed part of the study. To gain further insights into individual identities long interviews with nine key informants were conducted. The analysis involved the iterative cycle of de-contextualising and re-contextualsing of data strips in the form of detailed reflexive fieldnotes, interview transcripts, photographs and film material. Masculinities emerged as contextualised, shifting and deeply rooted within practices of these young men. Their consumption produced normative ideals within groups. It also played a role in practices during which ‘masculine capital’ was sought. This capital was expressed through knowledge and experience in practices rather than objects and brands. Practices came to resemble games in which this capital was constantly contested. Through these games, groups also negotiated their place within the cultural context of gender relations. Consumption within practices constructed 'invisible’ gender identities through collectively shared meanings of masculinity. However, seemingly normal meanings of masculinity and consumption emerged as highly complex and layered as individuals constructed their multiple selves across practices. Rather than being fixed, consumption and masculinity was constantly (re)negotiated in changing contexts. This layered negotiation process of consumption meanings and masculinity was also reflected in informants’ discourse. This study suggests that various masculinities are 'played for’ through consumption across culturally situated practices. It shows how practices and consumption meanings shift during the negotiation of often contradictory and intertwined layers of gender identities. Methodologically, it offers insights into the challenges of gender differences between researcher and researched, and the role of new technologies such as mobile phones in ethnographic studies. Consumption and marketing messages may therefore allow young men to ‘do’, ‘talk’ and ‘be’ masculine across varying practices and contexts.

This thesis concerns the making and remaking of localism, by which the thesis refers to the experience of group identity expressed through commitment to community, in rural Northumberland. Specifically, the research investigates the process of becoming, or claiming to be, or being seen as, a local person, and of belonging to a community. It examines how the processes of making, verifying and ascribing such identity claims occur and in what situations and contexts. The research contributes to the sociology of local identity and ‘belonging’, using a broad ethnographic methodology focused around public events. Through participant observation and analysing some relevant documents, it examines how ‘incomers’ and ‘locals’ cooperate to organize and attend these events and how they provide a time/space through which solidarity or otherwise is performed and identities are related to the outside world. The thesis argues against binaries such as public and private, insider and outsider, local and incomer, and instead proposes that there are layers of belonging, gradations of relationship and many points of interconnection. Further, division and cooperation are different ways in which groups and individuals choose to connect, and both are forms of attachment and interrelationship existing along a continuum of belonging. A person can commit and connect over time through volunteering and acquiring local knowledge about the place. However, often it is those who are socially on the fringes, the incomers, who are most assiduous in performing what passes for local. History is important for understanding prevailing social conditions, and some current events were analysed in an historical context. Many commentators have drawn boundaries around their area of study. However this thesis argues that the boundaries, geographic and social, move depending upon context, time, situation and the social location of those involved, including the researcher. The conclusion brings together a set of interconnected findings, and presents the distinctive main arguments about belonging and the local in the thesis. First, birth is not an absolute criterion for belonging and incomers can become ‘local’ in the sense that they can move inwards into their own construction of place. Second, rather than focusing on boundaries alone, the centre of what is bounded is seen as being as important as the boundaries in assessing what it means to be local. Third, while looking into the historic past is a valuable tool in understanding prevailing social conditions, attention must also be paid to the evolving future and how such perceived changes impact on the social. Fourth, there are varied routes to belonging that allow a person to move from outside towards inside. However, the routes to belonging are complicated and cannot be patterned. Fifth, the boundaries are permeable and expand to the global and contract not only to the local, but to the isolated, following an annual rhythm. The result is research which contributes to the sociology of localism and ‘belonging’ in relation to community and self in contemporary Britain.