Esta tese está inserida no debate da relação entre religião e televisão e possui como objetivo analisar as práticas discursivas de atores religiosos no contexto televisivo, comparando três programas de três canais brasileiros distintos. o \"Em Pauta\" da Rede católica Canção Nova, o \"Mundo Maior Repórter\" da TV Mundo Maior, e o \"Fala que eu te escuto\" da Igreja Universal - para estabelecer as semelhanças e as idiossincrasias de cada um, analisando as categorias mobilizadas, o repertório posto em cena, e os significados e as variações semânticas dos termos. Esses programas, do modelo debate, possuem uma determinada configuração: propõem debates de questões candentes da sociedade brasileira; possuem três posições de fala- a figura do especialista no tema da polêmica, o âncora, responsável pelo gerenciamento do debate, e sujeitos anônimos que calcam a argumentação na própria vivência e experiência-; e, por fim, um estilo argumentativo pautado pelo jargão \"jurídico\", \"científico\" e do \"sofrimento\". Vale destacar ainda que produzem, na sua dinâmica, ordenamentos sociais, isto é, eles são modelo teóricos da sociedade que prescrevem a relação da religião com a sociedade. Desse modo, eles participam de um debate público que pretende definir suas posições na ordem social. / This thesis is inserted in the debate of the relationship between religion and television and aims to analyze the discursive practices of religious actors in the television context, comparing three programs from three different Brazilian channels. - The \"Em Pauta\" of the Rede católica Canção Nova, the \"Mundo Maior Repórter\" of TV Mundo Maior, and the \"Fala que eu te escuto\" from the Igreja Universal- to establish the similarities and idiosyncrasies of each one, analyzing the categories mobilized, the repertoire put on the scene, and the meanings and the semantic variations of the terms. These programs, of the debate model, have a certain configuration: they propose debates on burning issues of Brazilian society; they have three positions of speech - the figure of the expert on the theme of controversy, the \"centralizing presenter\", responsible for the management of the debate, and anonymous subjects who put the argument in their own life trajectory and experience; and, finally, an argumentative style based on \"legal\", \"scientific\" and \"suffering\" jargon. It is also worth mentioning that they produce, in their dynamics, social orderings, that is, they are the theoretical model of society that prescribes the relationship between religion and society. In this way, they participate in a public debate that intends to define their positions in the social order.

This study investigates children’s peer culture, social networks and the role that kids’ food plays in peer exchanges during middle childhood. During this stage children develop social competencies as they join peer groups with other children and become socialized into children’s peer culture. In order to immerse myself within children’s culture, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork at two afterschool programs providing care for elementary school children. I investigated friendships, social networks and exchanges among third through fifth grade children at the programs. The study included participant observation and participatory group interviews with a sample of the children at both sites. The findings reveal how children use exchange of snack foods, candy and toys to build social connections among peers. The results indicate that children are active participants and creators in their peer cultures. They manipulated adult norms to structure oppositional identities as children. One tool for identifying with peers and gaining social acceptance are kids’ foods, which are processed food items marketed for children. Kids’ food served as a form of social currency in expressing friendship and connection. For the children in this study, food provided for edible consumption, entertainment and symbolic connection to peers. The results of this research demonstrate the need to approach child nutrition promotion from a cultural and social view point of children, not only based on physical and health motivation.

This thesis examines how the village of Birzeit is made as place. The reader is taken on a tour designed to show some of the sights of Birzeit and three sets of practices that are key in forging Birzeit-as-place. The first set of practices cohere around homes: the dilapidated houses in the Old City, the modern Spanish Apartments, the frequently empty dwellings of diaspora and two destroyed homes. The second set of practices involves families: the negotiation of different distances by families stretched across continents, the extensive efforts of some families to live in close physical proximity that contrast with others who are witnessing the increasing nuclearization of family living space and attendant family practices. Thirdly, im/mobilities: the movements of disapora in the summer, students travelling to and from Birzeit University and immigrants who have migrated from the north and south of Palestine to work in and around Ramallah. In offering a passing glimpse at some of the dynamic relationships that cohere around and between these material and imaginative spatial practices, I hope to (re)present Palestine as a vibrant and dynamic place, shaded by social, political, economic and cultural differences that maybe similar to other parts of the world. In doing so my chronicle departs from accounts of Palestinian space that tend to prioritize the ongoing practices of Israeli Occupation and its effects. Nevertheless, Birzeit is coloured by such practices too, which penetrate and complicate practices of home, family and im/mobility. The tour stages a series of empirical stories and events that were drawn from the eleven months of fieldwork I conducted in Birzeit between June 2005 and October 2007, during which time I conducted participant observation, interviews and archival research. These stories are punctuated by a set of theoretical engagements. I choose to keep these moments separate to explore how theory and Birzeit as I experienced it might converse with one another. I hope that each will be an equal partner in the conversation, that each will complicate and extend the other, and that this conversation will also build a affirmative relation between this place and you. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

How we come to know about social phenomena is an important sociological question and a central focus of this thesis. How knowledge is organised and produced and becomes part of ruling relations is empirically interrogated through an institutional ethnography. I do this in the context of explicating the construction of a public history concerning Aboriginal Australian child separations over the 20th century, and in particular as it arose in the 1990s as a social problem. Particular attention is given to knowledge construction practices around the Australian National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal Children from Their Families (1996-1997) and the related Bringing Them Home Oral History Project (1998-2002). The once separated children have come to be known as The Stolen Generation(s) in public discourse and have been represented as sharing a common experience as well as reasons for the separations. Against the master narrative of common experience and discussion of the reasons for it, this thesis raises the problematic that knowledge is grounded in particular times and places, and also that many people who are differently related and who have experiences which contain many differences as well as similarities end up being represented as though saying the same thing. Through an institutional ethnography grounded in explicating the social organising activities which produced the Bringing Them Home Oral History Project, I examine how institutional relations coordinate the multiplicity and variability of people’s experiences through a textually-mediated project with a focused concern regarding the knowing subject, ideology, accounts, texts and analytical mapping. Through this I show how ruling relations are implicated in constructing what is known about the Aboriginal child separation histories, and more generally how experience, memory, the telling of a life and the making of public history are embedded in social organising practices.

Why do original/grassroots branding efforts occurring on a local level continue to proliferate despite the existing market saturation created by larger corporate entities? Using existing theoretical frameworks associated with “do it yourself” (DIY) culture, this thesis explores cultures and themes associated with skateboarding, including the production and consumption of brands of skateboarding products; the use of space and spatiality by skateboarders; and, finally, changes in skateboarding. I conducted ethnographic interviews within a network of skateboard entrepreneurs in the Florida skateboard community, seeking to understand why they start brands, their perceptions of their entrepreneurial efforts, and how these businesses operate. Drawing from historical, visual and interview data, I identify the roles that branding efforts play into the formation of skateboard culture. The project analysis creates an understanding of skateboard culture that explores skateboard identity at the intersections of consumer/citizen, individual/citizen and the politics of larger capitalist structures and the entrepreneurial efforts of local business.

Comment se façonne, en pratique, la valeur d'une prestation de conseil en management ? Malgré le dynamisme du marché qui lui confère une légitimité de fait, le conseil en management est à la fois mal connu et brocardé par la critique : on s'interroge sur l'efficacité de ses méthodes, sur la valeur ajoutée de ses préconisations. Les outils de la sociologie pragmatiste permettent de jeter un éclairage nouveau sur ces questions, en contournant l'opposition classique entre une approche fonctionnaliste (rationnelle-technique) et une approche critique (psycho-sociale) du métier. L'argument central de la thèse est que le conseil en management doit être compris comme une performance entièrement tendue vers un enjeu d'efficacité pratique qui se découvre dans l'action. La valeur émerge de la prestation en train de se faire : elle sanctionne la félicité d'un attachement socio-technique entre le consultant et le système-client dans lequel il intervient. Basée sur une immersion complète de près de trois ans dans un cabinet international, la thèse est une ethnographie de la pratique des consultants en mission dans différents grands groupes. Elle décrypte, en particulier, cinq opérations de mise en valeur qui augmentent la densité et l'impact de l'activité de conseil en management dans les systèmes-clients : (1) la singularisation de la prestation, (2) la montée en compétence du consultant, (3) la production de son autorité, (4) la présentation graphique du diagnostic et (5) le signalement de l'activité. L'étude empirique de ces mécanismes permet d'alimenter une théorie pragmatiste de la valeur comme forme pratique d'attachement et de mieux comprendre les enjeux du capitalisme contemporain. / How does work the fabric of management consulting's value? Despite the dynamism of the market, consultants' practice remains poorly known and often criticized. One questions the efficacy of their methods and the general value added of their recommendations. The intellectual tools of the pragmatist sociology allow us to shed a new light on these matters, getting around the classic opposition between a functionalist (rational-technical) and a critical (psycho-social) approach to the practice. The key argument of the dissertation is that management consulting should be understood as a performance geared toward a practical efficacy. Value emerges from the service as it is being performed: it sanctions the felicity of a socio-technical attachment between consultants and their client-system. The dissertation is grounded on a complete involvement in a large French consulting firm, for about three years. It is an ethnographic account of the practices of consultants during their assignments within various large organizations. It decrypts specifically five valuation processes that intensify the density and the impact of the service in client-systems: (1) the singularization of the service, (2) the rise in competence of consultants,(3) the production of their authority, (4) the graphical presentation of the diagnosis and (5) the signaling of activity. The empirical study of such mechanisms fuels a pragmatist theory of value as a practical attachment and allows us to better understand the stakes of contemporaneous capitalism.

Sexual harassment in the workplace is both illegal discrimination under human rights law and a part of the everyday experiences of women working in the full-service restaurant industry in British Columbia (BC). This dissertation is a feminist, institutional ethnographic inquiry into how women’s unwanted or uncomfortable sexual experiences with managers, co-workers, and customers within the context of full-service restaurant work in BC are still happening more than three decades after sexual harassment was first named sex discrimination in Canada. I argue that restaurant work is organized in such a way that uncomfortable or unwanted sexual experiences at work are made normal. My dissertation tells the story of how law is implicated in the construction of such restaurant workplaces within which sexual harassment and unwanted sexual experiences are normalized. The complicated interaction between the social context of restaurant work, workplace practices in restaurants, and inadequate employment standards legislation constructs precarious work environments wherein workers have little economic or job security and rely on customers for tips. Tipping, a practice legally legitimized and reinforced with lower minimum wages for alcohol servers, means workers endure sexualized and discriminatory behaviour at work in exchange for tips. Moreover, gendered social relations, reflected in managerial hiring practices and restaurant dress codes, lead women workers to associate femininity and a sexualized presentation of their self with their employment. Sexual harassment law is implicated in the problem as well. Sexual harassment law in BC (re)produces the gendered social relations of work through an individualized human rights framework and a jurisprudential notion of “unwelcomness” that both place the burden for addressing discrimination on the shoulders of workers. / Graduate / 2019-05-06

Aims - This thesis describes an open drug market and its suspected drug users in a Swedish city. This drug market is located at the local bus hub called Navet, in the city of Sundsvall, which has a reputation of being a place to avoid because of the substance abuse and accompanied crime. The aim was to disclose what happens at Navet that is associated with drug related activities. Method - two observers visited Navet from November 2016 to March 2017 at different times of the day with an ethnographic approach to take notes of the daily life at Navet, using their own experiences as basis for the description and analysis. No interactions with the actors at Navet were initiated by the observers. Results - Navet is more than just adrug market, it also provides a meaningful social aspect for the actors by spending time at Navet granting a feeling of belonging to a group. Four different groups of people were identified, the traveling citizens using Navet for transportation, people using navet as their meeting place without taking part of the drug activities, the suspected drug users and the young suspected drug users. The most frequent and openly used substances was alcohol followed by unspecified pills, other types of illegal substances were suspected to be common at Navet but never witnessed to be consumed. Conclusion - As rumored, Navet is a place where drugs and suspected drug users are present during almost all hours of the day. However, the generally perceived feeling of hostility and danger is exaggerated, contributing to a worse reputation of Navet compared to what can be supported through this study. / <p>2017-06-01</p>

In this thesis, I explore the dynamics of German Swiss folk music today in relation to the emerging musicians who have been involved in a folk music post-secondary program in recent years. Approaching the field as a community of musical practice (Lave and Wenger 1991), I attend to processes of learning and transmission and to the spaces of experience in which it takes place. In participant responses, three key themes emerged. The first was the significance of the recently-established folk music postsecondary program as a site of learning and participation for emerging German Swiss musicians. The second was the importance of creativity among this demographic, and the way in which learning environments and spaces of experience (Gosselain 2016), such as universities or festivals, shape this creative potential. The third was the centrality of Swiss folk music festivals to the continuance of this music and community, and the way in which they offer spaces of experience in which to connect, learn, share, and participate. In this thesis, I draw on the theoretical concepts of legitimate peripheral participation, boundary objects, spaces of experience, and genealogy, and explore issues pertaining to informal and formal learning, intergenerationality, access and power, and peripherality. / Graduate / 2018-08-31

From family-style portraits to selfies, who is photographer and/or photographed varies as families engage, stage, and interpret the visual. How families participate in photo-making changes how individual family members feel about and relate to not only their photographs, but also each other. In this dissertation, I examine photographs as visual and material objects, and include the communication processes and ritual practices of producing, consuming, curating, viewing, and circulating these photos. By framing family photo-making as ritual, I explore how families do photo-making in everyday life, and identify the patterns of choice embedded in the genre of family photography, which symbolically and socially construct family. My methodological approach moves from analyzing images to the lives of photos and spaces in which photos are represented and shared, observing visible practices and the traces – photographs and photo displays – they produce. I ask questions about communicative acts of performing rituals and negotiating family memory in the public space of the Easter Bunny Photo Hut, the personal and domestic space of a mother’s home, and the digital space of the social media app Snapchat. Each site provides a unique access point to study family photo-making ethnographically. Combining my ethnographic observations with photo elicitation interviews, I study the symbolic value of photographs negotiated by and between family members.