This thesis explores the moral life worlds of people who have been imprisoned in Mexico, while considering how they incorporate the fate of imprisonment into the story of their lives through cognitive, discursive, sensory, affective, recollective and imaginary processes. The midst of a war on drugs in Mexico confirms that structural factors like political premises and poverty, as well as class backgrounds and racial discrimination largely determine who goes to prison. However, this research is not only confined to a structural analysis, since prisoners also explain their imprisonment in relation to other contingent encounters and coincidences occurring in their every day life. As such, imprisonment seems for prisoners like an unimagined possibility and a latent daily risk. Using a variety of ethnographic methods and modes of representation, this research sheds light on how imprisonment is related to stories of love, treason, memories and hopes. I draw from prisoners and ex-prisoners’ personal sources of expression like their writings; I recur to eliciting their memories through their objects and crafts; I pay attention to the role of the gaze in crafting identities in prison; I also draw attention to prisoners and ex-prisoners’ expressions of feelings and emotions. I argue that such sources and sensorial realms and methods offer relevant insights into their existential experiences. They are also important devices to represent stories from below. Through inmates’ narratives and practices my work offers stories, explanations and effects of incarceration alternative to the official reasons legitimating incarceration. Central to my work is my film Time will Tell that documents the lives of three ex-prisoners and represents their every day duties, and the sensory and corporeal implications of the aftermath of imprisonment. Film has been a central piece of my ethnographic research since it allows audiences to engage with realms of experience that go beyond the one offered by language and text; so as to also help evoke – and not only illustrate- the whole of the journey out of prison as an ontological and sensuous experience.

Cette recherche traite de la forme la plus contemporaine de mascarade du carnaval de Trinidad (République de Trinidad-et-Tobago, Caraïbe Anglophone), connue sous l’appellation Pretty Mas’. Cette dernière s’imprègne d’une esthétique nommée Bikini & Beads, pratiquée en majorité par les femmes et de jeunes participants. C’est la forme de mascarade la plus commerciale du pays et le modèle de carnavals diasporiques à travers le monde. L’objet de cette recherche est d’expliquer comment l’aspect visuel de la mascarade tend à transformer cette performance carnavalesque en spectacle.Je montre que la valeur historique de la pratique du carnaval évolue dans la forme contemporaine Bikini & Beads, où les joueurs portent de simples bikinis en guise de costumes. Cette recherche aborde également la question de la représentation de soi à travers ce style de carnaval où le corps des participants se substitue au costume. Les joueurs y affirment leur individualité et leur volonté d’interpréter des histoires autoréférentielles. La visibilité du joueur et de la joueuse devient un moyen d’affirmation de soi, ce qui modifie la pratique performative de la mascarade. J’analyse ensuite l’impact du visuel sur le management de ce style de mascarade. La recherche de visibilité des joueurs et la nécessité d’impressionner les publics modifient l’organisation des groupes de carnaval et la création des costumes. Le désir de reconnaissance publique des participants influe sur la pratique performative et représentationnelle de la mascarade. En privilégiant l’aspect visuel de l’évènement, la performance carnavalesque devient prévisible et reproductible pour son exportation dans les festivals internationaux. / This research is about the most current form of carnival masquerade on the island of Trinidad (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies), known as Pretty Mas'. Pretty Mas' is imbued with a masquerade style named Bikini & Beads, which is mostly practiced by women and young participants. It is the most commercial form of masquerade in the country and is the model for diaspora carnivals around the world. The object of this research is to explain how the visual aspect of this masquerade tends to transform the carnival performance into a spectacle.I show how the historical value of carnival practice has evolved into the contemporary form of Bikini & Beads, where players wear simple bikinis as costumes. This research deals with the question of self-representation through this masquerade style where the participants' bodies replace the costumes. In doing so players affirm their individuality and willingness to interpret self-referential stories. The player's visibility becomes a mean of asserting oneself, which modifies the performative practice of the masquerade. I then analyze the visual impact on the management of this form of performance and costuming. The players' search for visibility and their need to impress the public have changed the organization of carnival groups and the creation of costumes. The participants' desire for public recognition influences the performative and representational practice of the masquerade. I conclude by affirming that the emphasis on the visual aspect of the event makes the carnival performance more predictable and reproducible so it can be exported to the international festivals.

<ul>The growing field of Indigenous media has contributed greatly to theorizations around digital appropriation, self-representation and political advocacy, and the importance of media to Indigenous People’s movements. However, these theorizations and scholarly works tend to primarily focus on Indigenous men’s media practices and contexts. This dissertation presents findings from the Mẽnire Making Movies project, a participatory media project that explores Kayapó women’s digital worlds through a case study that merges ethnographic research and on-site media training in the village of A’Ukre in the Kayapó Indigenous Lands in northeastern Brazil. This project trained 4-6 Kayapó women in introductory audiovisual production and editing and is the first project to focus exclusively on Kayapó women’s engagements with digital technology. Through a decolonial and participatory methodology, this media project centers Kayapó social values of accountability, relationality, and conviviality, to analyze how Kayapó women’s media-making speaks to gendered and generational dimensions of personhood through an Amazonian social lens. Drawing from literature on feminist geography, Amazonian social theory, and Indigenous media in Latin America, this project presents findings that broaden the current literature on Kayapó media by introducing the conceptual framework of accompanied media. As an analytical and theoretical framework, accompanied media approaches Indigenous media as both a product and a social practice, centering the relational dimensions of production, consumption, and circulation. Scholars and media facilitators can apply the accompanied media framework to design inclusive media workshops with Indigenous communities that take into account barriers that can limit women’s participation like language, gender, social and behavioral norms, and other practical elements of participatory media work.</ul>

Presented diploma thesis is based on seven-months fieldwork in the Danish commune of Christiania. It sustains a heritage of utopian ideas of a contraculture of the 60s on which it has been created. The thesis examines which aspects of utopia are presented here and asks about the character of these utopian visions. It focuses on the question how the dream, that locals wanted to implement, is still presented in their minds, and how they perceive its realization. I used examples of street art, that is plentifully presented here, as a mediator of ideological background of this community. Its symbolism allowed me to approach values, ideas and world-views of people who already have been living in this area for almost forty years. I used the principles of visual anthropology to reveal meanings contained in visual manifestations in a public space. My research is focused only on people who moved to Christiania in 70s that means those who were present here in the times of forming this community, and who were a part of revolting atmosphere of the 60s and of its ideals. Methods used during my fieldwork are a nonparticipant observation, informal, semi-structural and photographic interviews

Chinese medical research professionals utilize their intellectual cultural capital and flexible citizenship for their lives in two localities: the western suburban metropolitan Philadelphia area and Shanghai, China. In addition, this dissertation discusses modern Chinese culture through Chinese returnees' eyes in Shanghai. This research will discuss migration of skilled intellectuals under globalization and the change in these Chinese professionals' transnational identities in different localities. Moreover, this research presents the impact brought by neoliberal ideology in the United States and by policies of privatization in modern Chinese society to these transnational professionals as part of the global process of migrating professionals. This research contains two parts. The first part of this research will study Chinese medical research professionals' lives in the western suburban metropolitan Philadelphia area--the Philadelphia Mainline, West Chester, and Exton. The second part of my research studies these Chinese medical research professionals' return experience when they relocate back to Shanghai, China. Most of these Chinese professionals who I studied came to the US from China (the People's Republic of China), Hong Kong, and Taiwan (the Republic of China) for their graduate degrees. After graduation in the 1980s and 1990s, they stayed for work in pharmaceutical companies in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Despite having US citizenship or permanent residency, these Chinese professionals never identify themselves as "Americans". Their lives in the historically European-American cultural dominant western Philadelphia suburbs are challenged socially and culturally when they try to carry out their "American dream". Not being able to engage in activities in American society and often feeling disempowered, these Chinese professionals maintain their social connections with their "hometowns" in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in many cultural ways. At the same time, these Chinese medical professionals are involved in cultural activities such as Saturday Chinese Schools and Chinese Christian churches. Saturday Chinese Schools and Chinese Churches provide pivotal social network milieu for these Chinese professionals to construct their safety network in living in the western suburban Philadelphia area. Unlike Chinese immigrants in California and New York City where the Chinese population is huge, these Chinese professionals do not distinguish themselves by their countries of origin since they all consider themselves as a pan-Chinese minority in this Philadelphia metropolitan area. They do, however, distinguish themselves from Chinese immigrants in Philadelphia's Chinatown owing to social and economic differences, though a shared sentiment of pan-ethnicity emerges when they experience racial discrimination. These Chinese professionals conceive of neoliberal ideology as a natural fact of life in the US which they appreciate. They consider the social milieu of China as making it harsher for them to be prosperous than in the US since they do not need to have existing guanxi networks based on their families and friends in the US context. Intergenerationally, these Chinese professionals try to pass down their cultural heritage by ensuring that their children are educated, formally and informally, in Chinese language and culture. Their children--the second generation Chinese immigrants--identify themselves mostly as Chinese Americans with an imagined identity that connects them with their parents' respective homelands. Gender plays a vital role for these second generation Chinese immigrants with respect to the issue of becoming well-adjusted in attending to American high schools. Girls are more accepted by non-Asian peers than boys. Most of these second-generation Chinese boys tend to socialize only with Asian boys, and are very protective about themselves with respect to other groups in high schools. The second part of my research discusses these Chinese medical research professionals' return experience to China, particularly to the fast-paced, rapidly developing context of Shanghai. Starting from the year 2007, the economic recession has gradually been taking over the United States. At the same time, the booming Chinese market and economy are becoming the new focus of American companies. American pharmaceutical companies in the Philadelphia area recognize that these Chinese medical research professionals' transnational background enables them to broaden the company's economic development in China; therefore, they repatriate some Chinese medical professionals to China at management levels. Simultaneously, other Chinese professionals are returning to China to start their own small businesses because they were laid off in the United States. Having come to the US to pursue their American dreams, the unexpected return challenges Chinese professionals in every aspect of life. First, the process of relocation of the whole family can take years and lead to separation of the family. The separation leads to a shift in gender roles. Usually the mother takes charge of the whole family while the father moves to China for work. Some families are broken because some family members opt to stay in the US, which leads to adoption of children, love affairs, and divorces. China has developed dramatically economically and culturally since these Chinese professionals left in the 1990's; therefore, these Chinese professionals, who become returnees after returning to China, realize that they have difficulties adjusting themselves to life in Shanghai. Feeling like outsiders again, they have developed strategies to counter these difficulties. First of all, these Chinese returnees find that their identities as Chinese are strongly challenged since they are recognized as Americans by local Chinese. They realize that they have been Americanized in their social behavior, and they have had to force themselves to adapt to contemporary modern Chinese culture--which is heavily influenced by capitalism and neoliberalism after the PRC market reforms. Realizing that guanxi relationships are the main element in social networking in Chinese society, these Chinese returnees have to learn to adjust themselves to guanxi politics and engage themselves in Chinese style networking. Trying to avoid local people's secretive attitudes, these Chinese returnees tend to be friends only with people of similar background. Having social status and economic privileges in Shanghai, most Chinese returnees are able to maintain their own personal spaces and privacy by avoiding public spaces and public transportation. Most Chinese returnees are aware of the embedded social control by Chinese government in every corner in the city, and see the freedom they have in China as limited mostly to economic aspects. Some devout Christian Chinese returnees are always prepared to be deported by Chinese government since they insist on holding their non-legally authorized gatherings for fellowship and worship in private properties. These Chinese returnees' children are surprised to find that China is extremely different from what they have imagined after their move to Shanghai. They identify themselves as Americans and refuse to learn Chinese language and culture in order to distinguish themselves from local people. While people in Shanghai enjoy their imagined participation of globalization by consuming the Shanghai EXPO, these Chinese returnees keep themselves updated with US news and media through satellite television in order to retain a broad view of the world. These Chinese medical research professionals' lives in the Philadelphia metropolitan area and in Shanghai are examples of the migration and return migration of skilled professionals under the force of neoliberal ideologies and globalization. Their living experiences in China highlight changes in their ideas about national identity as Chinese transnationals in the context of modern Chinese society, which is highly influenced by state controlled capitalism and Chinese nationalism promoted through mass media and propaganda. This research will contribute to the lack of literature about Chinese professional immigrants to the East Coast of the United States, and their return migration to China. / Anthropology

Thesis (MPhil (Sociology and Social Anthropology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / It has been said that anthropology operates in “liminal spaces” which can be defined as “spaces between disciplines”. This study will explore the space where the fields of art and anthropology meet in order to discover the epistemological and representational challenges that arise from this encounter. The common ground on which art and anthropology engage can be defined in terms of their observational and knowledge producing practices. Both art and anthropology rely on observational skills and varying forms of visual literacy to collect and represent data. Anthropologists represent their data mostly in written form by means of ethnographic accounts, and artists represent their findings by means of imaginative artistic mediums such as painting, sculpture, filmmaking and music. Following the so-called ‘ethnographic turn’, contemporary artists have adopted an ‘anthropological’ gaze, including methodologies, such as fieldwork, in their appropriation of other cultures. Anthropologists, on the other hand, in the wake of the ‘writing culture’ critique of the 1980s, are starting to explore new forms of visual research and representational practices that go beyond written texts.

This thesis is a reflection from the cultural studies point of view of my personal volunteer experience in Ukraine. Its focus is to present practical use of anthropology or cultural studies knowledge in such field as volunteer or humanitarian work in a different culture. It suggests use of photography as a method of cognition of the environment. It presents an auto- photographic method as an alternative to a research using classical methods of visual anthropology. This thesis also presents two sets of photographs taken by children in a local orphanage which record their possible worlds. Key words: volunteering, auto-photography, visual anthropology, qualitative research, possible worlds

Esta pesquisa procurou compreender e comparar apresentações de reportagens do Jornal Nacional e de documentários sobre o Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). O material audiovisual - cobrindo o período entre 1981 e 2009 - foi analisado a partir de suas próprias imagens e sons e com o intuito de estudar posturas, linguagens e temas. Momentos marcantes na trajetória do MST foram contemplados, tais como o aumento das ocupações no Pontal do Paranapanema na metade da década de 1990, o massacre de Eldorado do Carajás, a marcha nacional a Brasília em 1997, a entrada na fazenda da família do então presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso, o encontro com o presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva após a marcha de 2005, as ações em relação às empresas Aracruz e Vale, os acontecimentos em Xinguara. / This research aimed at understanding and comparing the Landless Workers Movement (MST) presentations from Jornal Nacional and from documentaries. The audiovisual material - covering the period from 1981 to 2009 - was analyzed through its own images and sounds and with the intention of studying postures, languages and themes. Noticeable moments in the MST trajectory have been contemplated, such as the increase of land occupations in Pontal do Paranapanema in the middle of the 1990s decade, the Eldorado do Carajás massacre, the national march to Brasília in 1997, the occupation of former President Fernando Henrique Cardosos family farm, the encounter with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after the national march in 2005, the actions towards Aracruz and Vale, the happenings in Xinguara.

A pesquisa que realizei se concentrou em minha avó materna Akie Sakasegawa Matsuyama e suas famílias: seus pais e irmãos (Sakasegawa) e seu marido e filhos (Matsuyama). Não conheci meu avô Hideo Matsuyama. Talvez este estudo seja a maneira que encontrei de conhecer um pouco de sua história. Concentrei-me principalmente no espólio de Akie Sakasegawa Matsuyama, que compreende cartas, fotos avulsas e álbuns fotográficos, e na coleção fotográfica de sua mãe, Ine Narita Sakasegawa. Conduzi entrevistas não estruturadas, com fotografias, com diversos membros de sua família, nuclear e estendida, no Brasil e no Japão. Através desse material, pude vislumbrar os meios pelos quais as relações familiares foram mantidas após a imigração para o Brasil. O principal intuito do trabalho foi questionar o papel da fotografia nas trocas interpessoais entre as famílias no Japão e no Brasil. E, dessa forma, entender as ligações entre os retratos fotográficos e a noção de identidade que os imigrantes tinham de si mesmos. Por se tratar de um estudo sobre a família, a minha família, tentei utilizar metodologias concernentes à antropologia reflexiva, ou seja, procurei deixar claro que sou eu quem faz as reflexões e escreve sobre elas. Assim, muitos pontos podem dar margens à discórdia, muitas afirmações são escolhas que tive de fazer em função do texto. Uma vez que este estudo se refere à vida íntima de membros de minha família que, em sua maioria, não tive o privilégio de conhecer, boa parte do texto está aberta a outras interpretações. Tentei não impor minha visão demasiadamente, procurei estar aberto o suficiente para ouvir sem preconceitos o que os informantes me comunicaram. Busquei, enfim, seguir os rastros deixados por meus antepassados e ser fiel ao que pude vislumbrar. Este é um trabalho cuja intenção é preservar a memória das histórias e dos afetos compartilhados pelos imigrantes japoneses e suas famílias. Através de materiais permeados por amor e amizade, fotos e cartas, tentei compreender as relações íntimas entre os imigrantes de minha família materna. / This research focused on my maternal grandmother, Akie Sakasegawa Matsuyama, and her families: her parents and siblings (Sakasegawa) and her husband and children (Matsuyama). I did not know my grandfather, Hideo Matsuyama. Maybe this study is a way I found to know a little about his life history. My main focus was on the state of Akie Sakasegawa Matsuyama, encompassing letters, photographs and photographic albums, and on the photographic collection of her mother, Ine Narita Sakasegawa. I conducted several non-structured interviews, using photographs, with members of her family, nuclear and extended, in Brazil and in Japan. All this material helped me to understand the means by which the familial relationships were maintained after the migration to Brazil. The main purpose of this work was to question the roles of photography in the interpersonal exchanges between the families in Japan and in Brazil, and try to figure out the liaisons between photographic portraits and the sense of identity the immigrants had of themselves. Once this is a study about the family my family I felt the need to make use of methodologies within reflexive anthropology. I wanted to make it clear that I´m the one thinking about these issues and writing about them. In this aspect, in many instances, there is room for disagreements; many of the statements I support are choices I had to make in order to write a somewhat coherent text. Because this is a study about the intimate life of members of my family I did not have the chance to meet or interview, a lot of my assumptions are open to interpretation. Nonetheless, I tried not to force my points of view in an exaggerated fashion, I wanted to be open enough to listen without preconceptions what the interviewees told me. Thus, I tried to follow the threads left by my ancestors and be faithfull to everything I could find. The objective of this work is to preserve the memory of the histories and endearments shared by the Japanese immigrants and their families. Using materials that are fulfilled with love and friendship photos and letters I tried to comprehend the intimate relationships between the immigrants and their families.

Este estudo trata-se de uma etnografia sobre formas sagradas. O nosso campo empírico foi a cidade de Juazeiro do Norte, município situado no sul do Ceará, um dos maiores centros de romaria popular do Brasil, enfocando em particular a Ladeira do Horto, caminho velho que conduz à estátua do Padre Cícero. A partir de uma cooperação teórica entre os campos da etnomusicologia e da antropologia visual, realizamos uma reflexão sobre processos não narrativos de enunciação e produção de poder sagrado. A provocação empírica que move esta discussão foi identificada durante a nossa pesquisa de mestrado, concluída no ano de 2002, questão inicialmente circunscrita ao âmbito da significação musical. Percebemos, naquela época, que algumas músicas do repertório religioso tradicional, verdadeiros tesouros para os devotos mais idosos, eram rechaçadas pelos católicos modernos, sendo seu canto considerado um chamariz de infortúnios, prenúncio de má sorte. Retomada nesta pesquisa de doutorado, a velha provocação mostrou uma envergadura infinitamente maior, transcendendo o domínio sonoro e abrangendo todo um conjunto de expressividades relacionadas a uma prática devocional voltada para o cultivo da penitência como principal preceito religioso na economia de salvação das almas. Esta pesquisa procura mostrar como foi possível a esses devotos idosos preservarem a sua identidade penitencial sem prejuízo do sentimento de unidade religiosa com a Igreja Católica, cuja orientação doutrinária atual constrange as práticas devocionais centradas no exercício da penitência e da mortificação do corpo. Alvitramos a existência de uma doutrina penitencial apócrifa que apesar de não ser propalada nos discursos sobre religião está consignada no repertório musical dos antigos benditos, nos altares domésticos e na corporeidade das velhas beatas, instâncias que elaboram um espaço estético de plausibilidade capaz de legitimar o valor sagrado da penitência e de preservar nos devotos a convicção sobre obediência e unidade católica. / This study is an ethnography regarding sacred forms. Our empirical field was the city of Juazeiro do Norte, which is located in the south of Ceará, one of the biggest centers of popular pilgrimage in Brazil, emphasizing the old path that leads to the statue of Padre Cícero called Ladeira do Horto. By means of a theoretical cooperation between the fields of ethnomusicology and visual anthropology, we carried out a reflection on non-narrative processes of enunciation and production of sacred power. The empirical provocation that guides this discussion was identified during our previous research for the masters degree back in 2002. At that time, the point of the study was musical significance, and we realized that some songs of the traditional religious repertoire, considered to be real treasures for the older devotees, were refused by the modern catholics, since they were thought to attract bad things. The old provocation resumed on this doctoral research has shown a wider scope, transcending the sound domain and incorporating now a number of means of expression related to a devotional practice that considers penitence as the main religious rule on the economy of salvation of the souls. This research aims to show how it was possible for these old devotees to preserve their penitential identity without any loss as to the feeling of religious unity with the Catholic Church, whose doctrinaire orientation nowadays reproves the devotional practices based on penitence and mortification of the body. We suggest the existence of an apocryphal penitential doctrine that, in spite of not being mentioned on religious speeches, is present on the musical repertoire of the old benditos, as well as in the home altars and on the corporeal image of the old beatas, instances that create an aesthetic space of plausibility that is able to legitimate the sacred value of penitence and preserve on the devotees the conviction regarding obedience and catholic unity.