In recent years, entrepreneurship studies scholars have begun studying entrepreneurship from a process-oriented philosophy and with an interest in the prosaic, everyday practices of entrepreneurs. In keeping with these "new movement" approaches, I have tried to "catch" entrepreneurship as it is happening within the field of private investigations. An in-depth, two-year field study of private investigators engaged in the entwined practices of investigating and entrepreneuring was conducted. Methodologically, I shadowed five private investigators and interviewed an additional 25. Because shadowing is an emergent methodology, an in-depth discussion of conducting and writing shadowing research is provided. As noted in this discussion, it is important that writing remain primarily descriptive yet linked to dominant contemporary discourses. Consequently, an overview of dominant narrative themes in popular and academic discourses about private investigating and entrepreneurship are included. Based on the framework of this methodology, dominant narrative themes, and field notes, various culturally-situated accounts of private investigator practices are offered. The findings of this research project suggest that private investigators use various rhetorical and practical strategies to successfully and simultaneously complete investigative and business-related tasks, such as "planting suspicions," using gender and race to strategically position themselves in relation to others in opportunistic ways, and incorporating contemporary technology into their work routines. Drawing on actor-network-theory, I argue that opportunities are enacted through a series of taken-for-granted and everyday interactions among subjects and objects. This research privileges descriptive accounts over theory-building. However, the descriptive accounts of the practices of subjects and objects suggest pragmatic solutions for private investigators to create and manage entrepreneurial opportunities. For example, I propose that private investigators should collectively engage in practices that further professionalize their field. Such professionalizing activities would include, among other things, engaging in knowledge accumulation through academic and professional research activities and professional association public relations campaigns. Insights are also provided regarding the role of rhetoric and technology in opportunity creation and destruction. Readers interested in organization communication and theory will find many of the descriptions to be empirically rich examples of ethno-methods used by actors in highly institutionalized contexts. Similarly, these scholars may also find the descriptions to validate recent arguments regarding organizing as "hybridized actions" (or action nets) occurring in multiple spaces, places, and times. The examples herein demonstrate the usefulness of shadowing as an approach to understanding organizing practices, especially in fields where actors are always "on the move." Readers interested in private investigating will find many of the examples rich in techniques that will enhance profitability. Finally, readers interested in entrepreneurship studies will undoubtedly find many novel potential research projects that are embedded in the various thick descriptions throughout the document.

A vast majority of tourism development in Guanacaste has occurred in the northern coastal region along the Pacific coast (Honey, Vargas and Durham 2010). However, recent development is beginning to move south as developers visualize big returns on early investments. As new tourism development continues to expand in the southern region of the Nicoya Peninsula, small communities are being transformed from small fishing and farming communities to communities heavily reliant on tourism. Playa Azul, a small beach town in the southern region of the Nicoya Peninsula, is one such community. This dissertation utilizes ethnographic fieldwork to examine the impacts of tourism on the daily lives of residents of Playa Azul, particularly looking at how local residents cope with perceived changes to the norms and values of the community as tourism development continues to expand in the area. The penetration of foreign capital into the community is having a transformative effect on community relations, particularly challenging community norms and values. It is my contention that as Playa Azul continues to develop as a primary tourist destination and development continues to expand, the rifts within the community between existing community members (Azuleños, foreign Ticos and lifestyle migrants) and newly arriving “business-oriented” members will continue to grow with it. I argue this has led to subtle forms of resistance among community members as they work to maintain the pura vida “vibe” of the town and the values that support a multicultural community based on humility, acceptance and mutual respect. / 2021-01-11

Previous academic research which focused on girls’ behaviour tended to do so by looking at behaviour in terms of the extremes: by either exploring the perceptions and experiences of girls who appear to behave well, or alternatively, by researching girls who are categorised as extreme misbehavers, in institutions such as Pupil Referral Units. This ethnographic study was undertaken in a state secondary school setting over one academic year. The research centred on girls who were in Years 10 and 11, and is an exploration of the micro performances of their behaviour in the school. The ethnographic nature of the research allowed an in depth focus on girls’ micro performances in school. The feminist influenced thesis seeks to explore girls’ constructions of gender, how this is negotiated alongside their wider performances as pupils in the school and is subsequently recognised (by themselves and others), as performances of particular behaviour. The research draws on Goffman’s (1959) conceptualisation of performance and impression management, Butler (1990), theoretical notions of performativity and Foucault’s (19757:1978) theories of power, discourse and surveillance, to explore how gender and behaviour are being understood in this context. The study sought to explore the world from the girls’ viewpoint to understand the complexity of their experiences more fully. The research examines not only how the girls were positioned in terms of their perceived behaviour, but also how they responded to this positioning (their resistance and accommodation of these positions, and the shifting nature of these positionings across time) and how these were often perceived in relation to particular gendered expectations. The originality of the research stems from findings about issues of self-harm, panic attacks, authenticity, social media, middle class girls and fighting, which lie in the rich and detailed empirical data arising from the study. The significance of these findings draws these multiple threads together, giving insight into gender positioning and behaviour, and the study privileges the girls’ voices as they discuss their feelings and the effects of these issues on them, complicating previous research.

The Deaf Community has faced a great deal of historical oppression from hearing people that still resonates throughout the Community today. Recent literature has acknowledged the disconnect between the Deaf and hearing worlds, particularly in healthcare and education settings. Likewise, there have been many advocacy and service projects and programs to try to improve these situations. However, much of the existing literature and projects have failed to include input from Deaf Community members. As such, hearing perspectives dominate the lives of Deaf individuals. This study examines how the dominant biomedical perspective of deafness affects Deaf individuals’ ability to receive adequate healthcare. Using standard ethnographic methods, including in-depth, open-ended interviews, and immersion in the research population through ongoing participant observation at a Deaf agency and Deaf Community events, this study highlights the perspectives of Deaf Community members themselves. The findings confirm previous studies’ assertions that the dominant biomedical perspective toward deafness negatively affects Deaf people overall, particularly because of communication obstacles and a lack of understanding about Deaf Culture, specifically in the realm of access to biomedical care. This has never been more worrisome for Deaf people in America than in the current unstable political climate that now threatens access to subsidized healthcare, disability services, and legally protected accommodations.

abstract: This thesis examines the Mexican federal judiciary and the problem of corruption in this institution, particularly related to cases of drug trafficking. Given the clandestine nature of corruption and the complexities of this investigation, ethnographic methods were used to collect data. I conducted fieldwork as a "returning member" to the site under study, based on my former experience and interaction with the federal judicial system. I interviewed 45 individuals who work in the federal courts in six different Mexican cities. I also studied case files associated with an important criminal trial of suspected narco-traffickers known in Mexico as "El Michoacanazo." My study reveals the complicated nature of judicial corruption and how it can occur under certain circumstances. I conclude that the Mexican federal judiciary has become a more professional, efficient, and trustworthy institution over the past fifteen years, though institutionalized practices such as nepotism, cronyism, personal abuse of power, and gender inequalities still exist, tending to thwart the full professionalization of these courts and facilitating instances of misconduct and corruption. Although structural factors prevent full professionalization and corruption does occur in these courts, the system works better than it ever has before. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Justice Studies 2012

Characterization of an ancestral territory of the indigenous community of Macedonia was performed (Colombian Amazon located 57 km upstream from Leticia); through the cultural maps analysis obtained of ethnographic methodology based on social mapping and one analysis through intersubjective processes of consensus.As a result, georeferenced maps that generate an approximation of non-places that give access to shamanistic macro-space were obtained, which in turn is used to generate a local cultural revaluation that encourage glocalization  processes in the context of globalization. / Se realizó una caracterización ancestral del territorio de la comunidad indígena de Macedonia (Amazonas Colombiano ubicada a 57 km de Leticia río arriba); a partir del análisis de mapas culturales obtenidos de una metodología etnográfica sustentada en cartografía social y un análisis a través de procesos intersubjetivos de consensualización. Como resultado se obtuvieron mapas georreferenciados que generan una aproximación a los no lugares que dan acceso al macroespacio chamanístico, lo que a su vez sirve para generar una revalorización cultural local que fomentaría procesos de glocalización en el marco de la globalización.

The ‘technology’ of risk structures social relationships within and outside of organisations, even though risk tends to be perceived externally as objective, neutral and apolitical. In adopting a poststructuralist perspective, this research investigates the impact of ‘calculating’ risk and how cultural, economic, social, psychological and political aspects influence the concept of risk and risk management practices. Hence, it provides a contextualized understanding of how risk and risk management are constructed intra-organisationally. This is a study of risk based on immersion. After six months of critical ethnographic fieldwork in a Brazilian development bank, called BrazBank, and applying the Discourse Theory of Laclau and Mouffe as well as the Logic of Critical Explanation of Glynos and Howarth, this research contextualises and challenges the universal logic of the discourse of ‘risk’, from a regulatory point of view. This research links macro- and micro-discourses of risk to reveal its ‘hidden power’ and to provide a glimpse into the fundamental contingencies in this discourse of control. It considers that the potential multiple interpretations of risk allows the construction of a hegemonic discourse, with boundaries that constitute and subvert certain claims in a rhetorical historic (re-)articulation of power. By doing so, it exposes how a technology that was supposed to simplify and enable, creates miscommunication in an organisation. ‘Risk’ became a battleground as controlling the understanding of risk, meant control of the organisation. Therefore, reflecting shifts in the international macro-context of risk regulation, the power of risk shifted between departments and their managers over political mandates and empowered and constructed experts and non-experts. This research illustrates different articulations of risk in the BrazBank context, how different individuals and groups developed competing interpellations of risk and, by examining the role of ideology, how and why certain conceptions of risk management practice were conserved, even as an illusion or secret, to maintain hierarchical positions and power imbalances.

Institutional Ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry into the social organisation of knowledge. It begins with a disjuncture/troubling experience impacting a specific group of workers and adopts their standpoint/subject positon to look out into the wider institution and trace the work and textual practices that organised (and produced) the disjuncture under investigation. The study took the standpoint of Senior Social Care Workers (SSCWs) from one RCH in Scotland to uncover the complex social organisation of “abandonment” SSCWs described when there was insufficient support from NHS services to care appropriately for sick and dying residents. The focal point of inquiry was on SSCWs descriptions of being “pushed” into “difficult” decision-making conversions with family members about “serious illness” andthe Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) – without the support of doctors (or nurses).To inquire into how SSCWs work had become tied into the medical, legal and bureaucratic practices that rule death, dying and Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) decision making in Scotland's RCHs the study drew on ten open-ended interviews (SSCWs, n= 4 and others whose work influenced SSCWs working practices, n= 6). Interview transcripts were examined to uncover SSCWs accounts of their knowledgeable work related to managing illness, death and dying - along with the characteristic tensions,frustrations and contradictions embedded in those accounts. The study traced how doctors and nurses were routinely, and systematically, absent from RCHs - leaving residents systematically excluded from the level of care that they needed. It also traced how SSCWs work with “serious illness” and “difficult” conversations was co-ordinated in disquieting ways in an apparent commitment to high quality “palliative care”.What was discussed between SSCWs and family members during conversations about “serious illness” and the DNACPR form was out of step with the DNACPR policy, the rhetoric of palliative care, and the actual needs of SSCWS, family members, and residents for medical support. However, the study shows that what happened in the RCH was not simply an error of practice. This is becauseit was textually planned, organised, and co-ordinated across healthcare institutions, professional groups, the regulatory body acting on behalf of the Scottish Government and the management and care staff of the RCH itself. SSCWs - and others – were organised to take up the powerful ruling discourse of palliative care in ways which treated residents and family members withincreasing objectivity, where institutional needs to reduce NHS spending and to protect the income generating potential of the care home as a business ruled over individual needs. In taking up and enacting the powerful ruling discourse of palliative care, SSCWs – and others- (intentionally but unknowingly) took up the very tools of oppression that dominated and overpowered their own and others lives. The knowledge generated by this research can be used to show SSCWs and others how they unknowingly participate in taking up actions that are not in their own or others interests. This is the basis of changing the conditions of SSCWs and others lives thereby advancing anti-oppressive work.

This thesis develops a 'human economy' approach to understanding economic life that elucidates the social nature of economic reason. It explores deep structural changes in financial capitalism through the emergence of the sustainability paradigm in institutional investment, which involves the integration of environmental and social factors and long-term thinking into mainstream financial corporate valuations. The research is based on an extended-case study through participant-observation with one sustainable investment agency. The company is led by a power figure in sustainable finance and his trusted network of elite actors, who aim to be at the vanguard of the changes in institutional investing as they construct the category of the sustainable investor. The thesis explores the ambiguities inherent to such an undertaking and intends to open up new ground for economic anthropology and the anthropology of finance. The ethnography shows how the investment agency developed from a start-up firm with people operating from their homes to an established organisation in London. The majority of research was conducted with a team of sustainable investment analysts whose role it is to produce ratings on companies and influence the decision-making of financial analysts and portfolio managers. The ethnography depicts the everyday practices of this team, how the material arrangements of the investment agency were constructed, and actors' attempts to develop relationships with financial experts within investment processes. The findings are used to critique institutional investing and comment on normative and policy changes in the industry that centre on the figure of 'the fiduciary'. The thesis also points to new areas for research such as the links between corporate executives and sustainable investors. A historical account of investment management is also presented as a way of deconstructing many of the logics and ideas that were encountered during fieldwork and to better understand where and how sustainable investment fits into mainstream investing. The thesis also offers theoretical and methodological guidance for future ethnographies of finance by positioning the present study with existing sociological and anthropological studies and approaches. The discussion covers the political economy of sustainable investing with an emphasis on the links between market and society and the rise of the large corporation; outlines a framework for studying monetary transactions; and reflects on the nature of agency in financial markets and organisational actors there. A review of ethnographies of finance shows that studies of change within financial market practices should address issues of market functionality and political economy.

The Revolutionary Breath is praxis of conscious breathing and values awareness. I explore the transformative potential of this praxis through a method I call axio-somatic ethnography, which is an expansion of traditional autoethnography that de-centers identity and valorizes body-sensing as the foundation for authentic storytelling. The Revolutionary Breath is juxtaposed to the State Sponsored Breath, a constellation of physical and cultural habits and values. The Revolutionary Breath, itself, is composed of three Allowings, or conscious sensing practices, all framed within a commitment to the depth and ease of one’s breath. Throughout the dissertation, I use axio-somatic ethnography to present my own experiences of putting this praxis into use.