This research investigates contemporary conceptual understandings of Hollywood and Community, seeking to understand how the two, independently and in relation to each other, are made real for the participants ("insiders") engaged in the American film and television industry. The ethnographic field research was conducted over a period of eighteen consecutive months and supplemented by return visits over three of the years that followed. Data collection took place in locations where "Hollywood" was performed, primarily in Los Angeles, California, but also in the State of Utah and Cannes, France. I used anthropological methods, such as interviews and participant-observation, as well as what I term a "working methodology" that required working in a variety of short-term jobs as a means to access the population of study. This working methodology provided unique insight into the critical element of positionality in Hollywood and situated me as an "insider" at times in my own research. This exploratory research concentrates on "locating" Hollywood in a discussion that seeks to capture the invisible complexity of a map that is both literal and imagined: a "place" made up of social and economic networks, marked spaces, and historical connections to a literal landscape. The research suggests that Hollywood is perceived to be a community and, that community membership is defined by work and co-constructed through a dynamic of insider/outsider interaction. An individual's relationship to, and perception of, the Hollywood community is heavily influenced by her position as well by discursive tropes of Hollywood recognized by "insiders". The presentation of data is organized around examples that index Hollywood, in particular for "insiders": Hollywood-speak, time as it is perceived in the setting of Hollywood, and the material culture that is locally called "S.W.A.G.". The idea of Hollywood -- whether as an industry, an institution, or a myth -- has proven its staying-power over time, so too has the idea of Community. Both may prove to be intangible with the specifics up for debate among scholars, but both can also be expected to remain in public discourse and popular imagination for a long time to come.

In this ethnographic study, I sought to understand the diasporic lives of Afghan Hindus by studying how they discursively constructed their migration and settlement in Germany. By directing attention to their ways of speaking about migration I understood the importance of community and family to the Afghan Hindu way of life, and how the cultural premises of homeland an integral part of their relationships in the diaspora. Speech codes theory is the primary theoretical framework for this ethnographic study. Research was conducted over four separate visits to Germany lasting from four to ten weeks, beginning in summer of 2005 and ending in December 2008, proceeding in phases. Primary methods used were, participation observation, and in-depth interviews. Sites of research included Afghan Hindu temples and family events. The main indigenous term used to describe migration was bikharna, which captured spatial dispersal, relational fragmentation, and loss of traditions. The Afghan Hindu meaning of community was premised on physical proximity and relational connection among Afghan Hindus. The changing meaning of family from the multi-member, multi-generational household of Afghanistan to Western ideas of the nuclear family also figured prominently in ways of speaking about migration. Cultural premises of the homeland continued to inform life in Germany, but were also increasingly being challenged by lifestyle choices of some Afghan Hindus. The temple in Afghan Hindu diasporic lives emerged as an important place, in discursive constructions of community. What was once a place of worship in the homeland was constructed in the diaspora as a place that could bring the fragmented community together. However, the temple was also contested space, as different groups of people within the speech community had different perspectives on its importance in Afghan Hindu lives. This study has implications for the study of culture, communication and relationships in the context of diaspora. Ethnography of communication offers an ideal theoretical framework in which to understand diasporic experiences, by examining the underlying rules and premises of everyday lives of diasporic people. As a case study of a refugee diaspora, this study also has implications for scholarship on South Asian diasporas.

Thesis advisor: Hosffman Ospino / Roughly one-third of U.S. Catholic parishes serve parishioners of multiple cultural, ethnic, and/or linguistic groups. In these “shared parishes,” the possibility and meaning of community across boundaries is an urgent question. This dissertation examines the role of ritual in the formation of community in diverse parishes. Critiquing prevailing ecclesiological models of unity in diversity that inadequately address structural sins of racism and xenophobia, I argue for an understanding of communion as a task of the local Church, embodied ritually in solidaristic practice. Then, establishing a conversation among ritual studies and U.S. Latinx discourses of border identity, I propose an understanding of the shared parish as a kind of borderland – as a place where a subjunctive communal identity can be negotiated ritually through embodied engagement. Methodologically, the dissertation is grounded in an ethnographic study conducted over five years at St. Mary of the Angels, a small, diverse parish in Boston, MA. Weaving together historical and archival data from parish, neighborhood, and archdiocese; participant-observation of bilingual Holy Week liturgies; and Spanish- and English-language interviews, the case study foregrounds the dissertation's theoretical work by analyzing how parishioners constructed rituals that facilitated the crossing of cultural, racial, and linguistic boundaries. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry.

Thesis advisor: Juliet B. Schor / Social science scholarship on climate change increasingly situates global climate change in the everyday experiences, practices, and knowledges of individuals and communities in local landscapes. Although climate change is a global phenomenon, it is experienced, negotiated, and adapted to at the local scale. In this dissertation, I situate and emplace global climate change in the everyday experiences and practices of people with land- and sea-based livelihoods in Maine. Maine is, in many ways, at the forefront of the climate crisis, and farmers, fishers and foresters—with their ongoing, intimate knowledge of and relations with particular places—are experiencing climate change and making meaning of its impacts. The aim of the dissertation, broadly conceived, is to particularize climate change and locate it in the embodied relations of people and places in Maine. I draw from several bodies of scholarship to locate the study of livelihoods and global climate change in Maine. First, I utilize the work of James O’Connor, Raymond Williams, and contemporary livelihoods scholars to position analysis of climate change impacts within broader historic relations of land and labor. Second, hybrid materialist perspectives, as well as relational perspectives on place, help to understand global climate change as a constellation of interrelated, but distinctly localized manifestations of a translocal process. Methodologically, I employ climate ethnography, which broadens the ethnographic lens to the more-than-human world. I draw from 45 ethnographic interviews, extensive participant-observation, a participant survey, and participant photography to co-investigate the profound ecological shifts farmers, fishers, and foresters are experiencing. I also employ public sociology to communicate data through creative nonfiction, art, and various public events. The dissertation probes how climate meanings are locally constructed and shaped by repeated encounters within multispecies communities in place. In addition, it documents the ways in which livelihood conditions in Maine are entangled with processes of gentrification and shifting economic conditions that, along with climate change, are putting additional pressures on nature-based livelihoods there. The dissertation contributes to an understanding of how climate change is a bundle of processes that cannot be neatly separated as natural or social. It also demonstrates the central role of livelihoods—and their contingent identities—in understanding and adapting to climate change. Ultimately, the dissertation bears witness to precarious land- and sea -based livelihoods, and agitates for greater attention to ways in which people, places, and climate change are irrevocably bound. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, similar to many cities in the western and southwestern United States, continues to build large scale business and housing developments. In response, communities most affected by urban sprawl challenge local government decisions to approve such developments, citing concerns for environmental, cultural, and economic well-being. My thesis explores one such community effort to protect land and water resources within the historic Atrisco land grant, located southwest of the city of Albuquerque. In particular, I examine an event that occurred May 28th, 2015 when a group of concerned women and children disrupted a Bernalillo County special zoning meeting where a five member board of county commissioners denied community appeals to reject approval of a 14,000 acre development called Santolina. I employ ethnographic methods of in-depth interviews, participant observation, and secondary data collection to provide a rich description of the Women’s Action as an act of resistance. I situate my ethnographic account within the scholarship of Ewick and Silbey (1995; 1998; 2003) who empirically derive a theory of everyday acts of resistance as momentary reversals of hierarchical power relations embedded in institutional space. My research offers insights into how communities both engage in and disrupt public participation processes.

Tea is a beverage that has long been taken to symbolize a key aspect of Chinese tradition and history. However, it is one of many beverages drunk in contemporary China, where in recent times knowledge of wine has come to stand for the West and as a much-desired cultural capital. This dissertation examines everyday tea drinking and tea tasting in Dalian—a northeastern city in Liaoning Province, China. Through ethnography of practices, processes, and interactions taking place in daily events of tea drinking and tasting, this dissertation provides a window into social conflicts, ideas and desires, historical consciousness, and national identity, individualism, and collectivism, in a contemporary Chinese city. It explores questions of why and how people learn to taste tea by acquiring certain levels of knowledge and skill that is valued in tea culture, and how people drink and taste tea in different social scenarios and contexts. Then it explores the significance of tea drinking and tasting to people in their daily life and as part of ritualized social relations, and specifically in contrast to beverages such as wine. As representative of Chinese culture, tea tasting raises questions of how sensory capabilities should be honed and deployed, and the relationship between so-called “objective” scientific knowledge of taste and the tacit, embodied skill that is associated with traditional cultural understandings.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND: Traditionally, patient referral occurs from a primary healthcare facility to a secondary or tertiary healthcare facility. Despite these formalised procedures in place, it has been reported within the global context that patients often circumvent these procedures and apply various forms of selfreferral to tertiary hospitals. Through self –referral to the high level of care, patients’ diagnoses and care are interrupted and get lost along the way. AIM/ OBJECTIVES: The overall aim of this study was to develop strategies for patients’ self-referral in tertiary hospitals in Gauteng. In order to achieve this aim, the specific objectives of the study were: Phase 1 Objective 1: To explore and describe current patients’ self-referral patterns from patients and healthcare professionals’ perspectives in tertiary hospitals in Gauteng Province. Phase 2 Objective 2: To develop strategies for managing patients’ self-referral in tertiary hospitals in Gauteng Province. METHODOLOGY: A qualitative research approach using critical ethnography was used. Purposive or judgment sampling was used as the researcher considers the participants to have a profound knowledge and in-depth information on the phenomenon. Data was generated through three phases: in-depth interviews with patients and healthcare professionals (registered nurses and doctors) rendering services to self-referred patients in Gauteng Chronic clinics based in tertiary hospitals; reviewing of relevant site documents; and imbizo as policy discussion forum between the service providers and users of the services were held for the development of patient self-referral strategies. Data was analysed through the analytic five steps framework as advocated by the nurse ethnographers Roper and Shapira (2000: 98). FINDINGS: From the analysis of data five themes emerged as the pathways.. These pathways are emergency admissions, word of mouth, admissions in disguise, enabling patients to pay for admission, human rights, and sense of belonging. CONCLUSION: This study provided a baseline data on self –referral of chronic disease patients in tertiary hospitals in Gauteng Province. Given the epidemiology of chronic disease in South Africa, there is a need for innovative ways of bending the costs for treatment of such. The implementation of National Health Insurance (NHI) will address this problem as NHI has to have a self –referral scheme. The use of the hybrid (new technology and traditional) strategies will facilitate access to care and empowerment of patients to initiate self –referral. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Nursing Science / PhD / Unrestricted

Cette thèse propose une analyse ethnographique des pratiques du militantisme dans l’économie Populaire dans la Région Métropolitaine de Buenos Aires, soulignant la façon dont des « droits » sont contestés et produits et la création de stratégies collectives pour la production et reproduction de la vie. Avec cet objectif, la thèse développe les résultats obtenus par le travail de terrain mené en collaboration avec deux organisations qui composent la Confédération des Travailleurs de l’Économie Populaire : l’Organisation Sociale et Politique Los Pibes et le Mouvement des Travailleurs Exclus. / This thesis proposes an ethnographic analysis of the practices of militancy within popular economy in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires, focusing both on the way that “rights” are produced and on the creation of collective strategies for the production and reproduction of life. It presents the results achieved from the field work carried out together with two organisations that form a part of the Confederation of Workers of the Popular Economy: the Social and Political Organisation Pibes and the Excluded Workers Movement.

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of vegans in the world. The main goal of my research is to understand the vegan struggles in their daily life and study how Facebook might help them solve these difficulties. This master's thesis focuses on the user perspective and how they perceive barriers to follow a vegetarian lifestyle in Spain. The research questions are about finding those barriers and knowing how they could be solved by using Facebook groups. For this purpose, an ethnographic approach has been used. The target group of this study are vegans who have gone through the time of change and may have had some problems in making that decision. Fifteen vegans have been interviewed to find challenges that have arisen when they have changed their lifestyles. After that, an online ethnography study has been performed by observing the content of a Facebook group, called "Vegetarianos y Veganos – España", focusing on publications where group members were asking for advice, information or solutions. The results indicate that the investigated group of Facebook is essential for the exchange of information, knowledge and experience. The members also contribute to increased knowledge through publications and comments. But most importantly, the members receive solutions to the problems they share with the group.

The aim of the thesis is to understand elements and processes, that are constituting a specific vegan Restaurant in Prague. The method used is ethnography, particularly participatory observation completed with interviews with the owner and customers. The owner as well as the Restaurant itself and as well as every individual are hybrids created by biological, spiritual, cultural, technical and many other elements. Based on the observation I have divided these elements into four big groups: philosophical, culinary, material and human. These groups are mixing, balancing and contrasting one another and together creating the Restaurant aesthetics. In each of the chapters I show different realities and I explain the Restaurant from different views according to particular elements. By uncovering their context, the relation network which creates the Restaurant is explained. Key words: ethnography, restaurant, vegan, vegetarian, hybrid