In this narrative, the author reflects on the personal and ethical dilemmas she faces currently in the beginning stages of conducting dissertation research fieldwork, an aspect often glossed over by retrospective accounts. She is conducting ethnography of Nicaraguan labor migrant women working in Costa Rica's coffee agro-industry, with an emphasis on reproductive health and motherhood. In addition to her social position as a Western, advanced graduate student-researcher, Goldade is also a wife and mother, arriving in the field with her baby daughter just under 4 months of age. She grapples with the challenges of negotiating the moral politics of motherhood and ethnography, seeking collaboration among host country nationals and recruiting study participants, as well as the balancing act of working motherhood.

White English-speaking South Africans - WESSAs - have been an understudied topic in general, and particularly within the discipline of anthropology. In this thesis, I take the reader on an autoethnographic journey of attempting to make sense of life in the suburbs of Cape Town, searching for the elusive middle-class WESSAs and trying to attain an understanding of who they are. What does it mean to be and belong among this fascinating subcategory of Africans of European origin? The thesis takes a novel approach to the topic by viewing it through Nyamnjoh's framework of incompleteness, which posits that humans are incomplete by nature and culture (and cultivation). This framework is based on West/Central African philosophy and draws inspiration from the writings of Amos Tutuola, whose storytelling and conceptual universe also informs this thesis. Two key issues emerging from my fieldwork are power and belonging. A complex interplay exists between these factors of life in Cape Town. On the one hand, I argue that middle-class WESSAs have significant power in my field-site in terms of social status, linguistic dominance as well as control of institutions and the built environment. This hegemony leads to exclusion, marginalisation and Othering of non-WESSAs and less wealthy people, especially people of colour. On the other hand, WESSAs' tendency to perceive their positionality as universal, and their quest for completeness of being, ends up causing alienation and rootlessness even for WESSAs themselves. The themes of rootlessness and non-belonging permeate this thesis, highlighting the detrimental nature of hierarchies of race and class even for those at the top. I join Nyamnjoh in his call for a convivial mode of existence which acknowledges interdependencies, interconnectedness and the inherent incompleteness of human life.

This thesis explores and analyses the mythical quality of modem Athens as experienced by tourists. It is an exploration of the tourist gaze upon the Athenian landscape, as well as an account of how tourists narrate its urban mythology. This research is largely concerned with the relationship of time and space through memory, exploring the interplay between the spatial arrangement of urban elements, temporality and the experience of the city. Athens is viewed as a city marked by a temporal collage where different historical periods are juxtaposed. This juxtaposition gives Athens the character of a deconstructed city. The city is made present through spatialised remainders, her genius loci. This thesis thus analyses the relationship between Athens past and the present, the strangely familiar and the stereotypically exotic, as interwoven within an urban landscape imagined, gazed and finally, narrated by foreign tourists. The core argument of this work is that the Athenian landscape embodies an urban mythology constructed by the nineteenth century romantic travellers: these, through their writings, fashioned the stereotypical imagery of Athens. Modem tourists are the consumers of these myths. Like their nineteenth century predecessors, tourists stroll around the city following the traces of their memory - key landmarks and symbols, recognising what they have already known; feeling nostalgic for the past -their past, fragmenting the landscape into different historic layers, depopulating it from its present inhabitants, orientalising it. In this work I explore the transmission and reinvention of the myths of Athens through guidebooks, travel brochures, guided tours and tourist photographs. The exploration of the different images of Athens as visualised by tourists leads to a discussion of gendered, orientalised, literary, photographic and cartographic aspects of the Athenian urban landscape. The theoretical framework of the thesis is based on post-modernism, post-structuralism and semiotics. My research methods have been qualitative, including both in-depth interviews and participant observation, following tourists around the city and participating in their activities. I also analysed the ways tourists 'gaze' and photograph the city. My intention is to draw -metaphorically speaking- a mental map including the sites visited, consumed and experienced by tourists.

Based on ethnographic research on exiled Tibetan political institutions and practices in India, this thesis investigates sovereignty in exile. The Tibetan Government-in-exile (TGiE), based in India since 1960, remains internationally unrecognised, has limited judicial powers and lacks de jure sovereignty over territory in both Tibet and in exile. However, this exiled administration claims legitimacy as the official representative of the Tibetan population, attempts to make its voice heard within the international community and performs a number of state-like functions in relation to its diasporic 'citizenry'. Given that conventional political theory is premised on the territorially-bounded sovereign nation-state as a container for political activity, and governments are legitimated according to the territory over which they hold authority, this is an exceptional case of a government which appears to refute these orthodox assumptions. As such, this study of the form, functioning and limitations of TGiE and of its existence and state-like operations within another sovereign state, raises important theoretical issues which speak directly to political geography's concerns with power and space. These include the nature of sovereignty, the extent to which sovereignty can be disentangled from jurisdiction over territory, and the role of 'the exception' in geopolitical discourses. Employing multi-sited ethnographic methodologies, the broad aims of this research are to investigate what kind of political entity the TGiE is, and to examine the nature ofthe sovereignty it articulates. To do so, attention is paid to Tibetan settlements in exile as sites of sovereignty, TGiE's construction of a Tibetan 'population' in exile and its management of livelihoods, the negotiation of exilic political identities, and the strategic spatialities of TGiE's election systems. Rejecting realist arguments that polities such as TGiE should be viewed merely as discrepant forms of political practice, it is argued that if sovereignty is understood as historically contingent and socially constructed - and the state, sovereignty, and territory thereby conceptually disentangled - this opens up the theoretical possibility of territorial-less sovereign polities.

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The purpose of this project is to improve parents experience in the NICU through design, technology, communication and storytelling. A series of shadowing appointments were conducted to gain empathy and a greater understanding of the environment the design would be in. Next 15 user interviews were conducted. The qualitative data was then analyzed and a needs analysis for the application was determined by identifying patterns in the qualitative data. The design then went through three phases of design, testing and iterating, before the final prototype was complete. This study found that design, technology and storytelling could improve communication and the experience of parents in the NICU. / Master of Fine Arts

Understanding dynamic, unpredictable, multiple, pluralistic and entangled relations in technology and organization is an inherent endeavor of the Information System (IS) research. However, recent innovation and changes in technology and organizations have posed significant challenges to the existing theoretical and methodological lens to analyze mutually dependent, ensemble, inseparable, ceaselessly intra-actable and constitutively entangled relations in technology and organizations. In line, this study employed sociomateriality as a wider theoretical lens to analyze constitutive entanglements and disentanglements in technology and organization illustrated with a case of E-service of land record in Bangladesh. This study has applied sociomateriality along with intra-actions, diffraction, relational ontology and performativity lens to trace continuous constitutive entanglements and disentanglements in the E-service. Thus, this study identified significance of constitutive entanglement lens through tracing unprecedented changes, unintended consequences and unexpected outcomes from the intra-actions, diffractions, relationalities and performativity in the organizational context and technological process of the E-service. This study has developed ‗action design ethnographic research' (ADER) as an in-depth methodological framework through conducting 'action design research‘ (ADR) in the process of ethnographic research (ER). In line, this study has formulated problems in organizational contexts, designed and redesigned solutions through mutually reciprocal relations between the researcher and clients, conducted concurrent evaluation and identified learning. Consequently, this study has addressed the practitioners' problems through engaging and intervening in the organizational contexts and technological processes of the E-service of land record in Bangladesh. Thus, both the sociomaterial lens and ADER offered potentials to design and redesign the organizational contexts and the E-service processes. Along the line, the study has contributed to theory and practice of IS research through applying sociomateriality and addressing practitioners‘ problems. Therefore, this study has made significant contribution to knowledge and practice.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary C. Kingery-Page / Placemaking for Socially Resilient Site Design is a project focused on clarifying and characterizing social resilience. This project used ethnographic methods to answer the question: what qualities of place affect the downtown community’s desires for a temporary landscape in Wichita, Kansas? Through literature review this project further defined what social resilience meant at the site scale. Social resilience was operationalized as social systems ability to maintain function while promoting social trust, reciprocity, collaboration, and character between networks of varying scales (Putnam 1995). Literature review provided the foundational knowledge on creative placemaking, a design strategy used to improve community prosperity through a sense of place and imageability (Artscape 2014). Place is determined by a user’s surroundings, and more importantly the memory of social engagement on site (Fleming 2007). Creative placemaking design strategies are valuable and specific to location. Therefore, it was imperative I incorporated ethnographic research methods to answer my focus question. Ethnographic research investigates cultural patterns and themes expressed or observed by a community (LeCompte et al. 1991). This form of research is unconventional for the typical site design process in landscape architecture. However, it proved to be effective in determining the most successful site use and organization. The ethnographic research allowed me to inventory and document user’s most desirable site needs and programming through the stakeholder design charrette and individual interviews. In November 2014 the Wichita Downtown Development Cooperation requested our team as a partner in developing a temporary landscape for downtown Wichita, Kansas. The site was already selected with the intention of becoming Douglas Avenue Pop-Up Park. Funding for this project was awarded to the WDDC in the form of a $146,025 grant from the Knight Foundation. Using an iterative community feedback process with five ethnographic interviews, I reevaluated the WDDC’s initial Pop-Up Park plan resulting from a community charrette. Recurring themes from interviews were identity crisis of downtown, outdoor preference, lack of residential amenities, negative perception of active and public transit, downtown lifestyle, Wichita as a place for families, and lack of nighttime activation. Using the recurring interview themes, I proposed a plan conducive to social resilience.

The research I present within this thesis is a meaning analysis of contemporary shamanism for practitioners in the north of Norway and Sweden. I have used ethnographic research methods of observation, participation, conversations, interviews, context research and analysis of written texts. My aim has been to research the meaning of the sacred in the lives of contemporary shamanic practitioners, by using a theoretical framework from psychology of religion made by Paloutzian (2005). By using this frame I have focused on practitioners understanding of spiritual beliefs and ultimate concerns. As to view how these come forth in expressions of self-definition, values, goals, purposes and attitudes. My conclusions have been that contemporary shamanism is viewed as a spiritual understanding of the world that is expressing itself differently within cultural practices and geographical spaces. It is a worldview that is connecting people through shared beliefs and understandings. These understandings create strong values on how we should act with eachother, nature and our own self, as we are viewed as belonging to each other in a spiritual perspective. These values come in conflict with social and political structures built on other values and attitudes. Practitioners speak of a call for change in structures, the need of understanding our history and our belonging with eachother and nature for our own wellbeing and our world to survive. As some engage in social activism and other social engagements, others view their goal as to”walk in beauty”(Gaup 2007).

This study describes the attempt to understand the quality of mediation between people within a community of practice. An innovative chefs’ apprenticeship in a dedicated restaurant provides a setting in which to explore what happens when a group of young people are learning to become fully accepted members of a community of practice. The setting, the social enterprise of Fifteen London, is founded on a passionate belief in the learning potential of all individuals, regardless of background. Conducted over a period of five years this ethnographic study tells the stories of the apprentices; the story of the community; and the story of conducting the investigation. A pilot study completed in 2005 revealed that beyond the mediation observed between individuals, apprentices’ felt their experience of the culture of the learning environment had a greater impact. The thesis explores the theoretical implications of these findings. Drawn from a sociocultural perspective, two theoretical frameworks are applied: Mediated Learning Experience (Feuerstein, Miller and Tannenbaum, 1994) concerned with the mediation between people and its effect on human development; and Situated Learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991) concerned with participation in a community of practice. These frameworks were felt to be useful to an analysis which demonstrates that a community of practice can be analysed according to the framework for Mediated Learning Experience. The symbiosis of these two approaches creates a coherent framework for discourse in which to analyse the learning process itself. A description of the community highlights the complexities of learning, and the challenges of attempting to change the course of human development by means of cultural transmission and social enterprise. I conclude that this learning environment serves as a good example of what can be achieved when innovation works hand in hand with moral purpose.