Search results for "ethnography."

Remembering and Forgetting, Discovering and Cherishing

2018

The events of the Second World War left considerable material remains in Finnish Lapland, ranging from the remnants of structures that were destroyed in the 1944–45 Lapland War, through to small, portable objects connected to soldiers, prisoners of war and civilians. These material remains have variously been saved and cherished by survivors and their families, disregarded as ‘war junk’, ‘discovered’ by hobbyists exploring the landscape, amassed and exchanged by private collectors, and accessioned into official museum collections. These various processes represent transformations of material culture to take on various meanings and embodiments, depending on the different individuals and orga…

"Mais... je ne visite pas!". Une approche ethnographique de l'usage faible des œuvres

2013

Some photographic exhibitions are nowadays set outdoors in order to popularize art. Through a case study, this article examines the "weak use of images" as it is practised in public places, by passers-by who do not identify art pieces as such, and do not consider themselves as visitors. Their relation to art pieces, in this context, is built on an apparent paradox (they relate and at the same time do not relate to the pieces), and constitutes the minor mode of situations and observed interactions (this relation does not organise or structure the latter).

Performing ethnography and ethnicity : an early documentation of Finnish immigrants in Nordiska museet

2010

This article discusses the first project of the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, dealing with immigrants. It was carried out between 1972 and 1990, and it produced material based on interviews, participant observation, photographs and other written and visual sources. The article first examines why and how this extensive research project was carried out and then discusses the documentation project as performance. The project was an early attempt to document the contemporary lives of people through fieldwork, although the original aim of this pioneering project was merely to create and preserve ethnic identity by documenting “authentic” Finnish characteristics. Thus, it is a good example …

Authenticity, normativity and social media

2015

Breaking the “Fourth Wall” in Qualitative Research: Participant-Led Digital Data Construction

2018

This article reconstructs the typical researcher-participant focus - where the participants are doing for us - instead we followed the participants’ lead in the construction of research. Using a qualitative literacy event case study as an example, we describe how participants unexpectedly co-constructed knowledge through a participant-led digital data collection. In this theoretical article, we provide an explanation of the original study, which used observations, semi-structured interviews, and home visits as a collective qualitative case study on parental participation in social literacy practices. The original investigation led to the important shift that occurred in participant-research…

Struggle and banality of belonging to Europe. Cultural Europeanization from the perspective of the Central and East European citizens

2023

The European Union (EU) has developed cultural policy initiatives that seek to promote cultural Europeanization with the purpose of constructing European identity narratives and facilitating citizens’ sense of belonging to Europe and the EU. The article focuses on the citizens’ perspective to cultural Europeanization through ethnographic research on one central action in the EU cultural policy, European Heritage Label (EHL). We analyse the interviews conducted in selected EHL sites with Central and East European (CEE) citizens who were visiting the sites as well as with cultural heritage practitioners working at three EHL sites located in CEE countries. We ask how the practitioners and the …

Phytotoponymy and Synphytotoponymy in Western Granada Province (Andalusia, Spain)

2009

En el marco de la investigación etnobotánica desarrollada en el poniente granadino, se ha realizado un estudio sobre la toponimia de la comarca con atención a los apelativos de origen vegetal (fitotopónimos y sinfitotopónimos). La información —obtenida de la Gerencia Territorial del Catastro de Granada, de la Junta de Andalucía y de nuestro trabajo de campo— se ha incluido en una base de datos con el programa Microsoft Excell®. Un total de 98 especies vegetales se encuentran representadas en la toponimia local, dando nombre a 593 lugares del territorio. Se aportan comentarios sobre el significado ecológico, paleofitogeográfico y etnobotánico de las especies reflejadas en la toponimia.

Paradoxes of Mentoring: An Ethnographic Study of a Mentoring Programme for Highly-educated Women with Migrant Backgrounds

2019

This article explores paradoxes that emerge in the mentoring of highly-educated, female, foreign-born job-seekers in Finland. Theoretically, the study is linked to the growing body of research scrutinising the integration or discrimination of migrants in working life. It analyses cultural practices and ideas that are visible and affect the mentoring interaction. On a more practical level, the paper determines how the mentors and mentees experience the mentoring, and how intercultural mentoring could be improved in order to promote mentees’ employment. The article is based on ethnography and 11 semi-structured interviews. Two major paradoxes and their links to cultural meanings were identifi…

Relational analysis and the ethnographic approach : constructing preschool childhood

2021

This article elaborates the relational ontology in an ethnographic study. The aim is to seek relational construction of preschool practice and how children’s positions are constructed in it. The study is based on the understanding that ethnography and relational sociology share the idea that society emerges through repeated relations. The ontological thinking of relational sociology is applied in a micro-level analysis of three episodes from a Finnish preschool. We propose that relations appear in every single ethnographical episode and that carefully analysed repetitive relations can reveal a stabilised organisational structure. The analysis shows how the position of one child is structuri…

Levels of Preservation for Cultural Heritage within an Open-air Museum

2018

In Sibiu, Romania, the Astra National Museum Complex includes an open-air museum with around 300 ethnographic monuments and a collection of almost 30,000 objects on display and in storage.Four cate...