Participatory Ethnography

This fieldwork focused on exploring local men's, women's and clergy's perceptions and understandings of spousal abuse in juxtaposition to: a) theology-informed analysis of Church teachings concerning the metaphysics of gender relations, marriage and spousal abuse, and b) an analysis of culture-specific gender ideals and norms. This research has been motivated by the aim to identify local mechanisms and resources for changing attitudes that sustain spousal abuse and, especially, the relevance and feasibility of theology-informed and clergy-centred solutions. Ms Istratii presents here an overview of the project and fieldwork, contextualising it in the relevant literatures and the rationale for its epistemological and methodological innovations. While early to reach any conclusions, some research findings are delineated in ways that suggest intricate, multifarious realities on the ground and the need for multidimensional approaches to normative change.

This article is concerned with the effectiveness of gender and development practice in diverse knowledge systems. Conventional theoretical and analytical frameworks and methodologies of gender and development reflect primarily secular epistemologies and it has yet to be addressed systematically how non-secular knowledge systems may be incorporated effectively in the design and implementation of gender programmes. This article presents a project from a Muslim rural community of Senegal that analysed gender realities through the prism of the local religio-cultural cosmology and explored community members’ responses to increasingly internationalised western ideals of gender equality. As an innovative methodology, participatory research techniques were integrated into short-term ethnographic investigations in an attempt to explore gender realities through the conceptual repertoire of the research participants. The study showed that understandings of subjectivity and gender norms were intertwined intricately with religio-cultural beliefs which influenced how participants conceived themselves and local gender relations and how they responded to western ideals of gender equality. Gender itself seemed to be conceptualised at a more profound ontological level emanating from religio-cultural beliefs. The implication is that gender-sensitive development in this community will need to account for this epistemological framework and to attune to religio-cultural sensibilities. The study also suggests that the participatory ethnographic methodology that was employed can facilitate a transition to an epistemology-sensitive gender and development practice; however it must be combined with reflexivity and be followed by more rigorous research.

Lors des « Rencontres Congolaises », des artistes provenant du pais africain ont traversé la ville de Cosenza avec leurs œuvres, défiant les contraintes des limites. Qu’est-ce que cette expérience a laissé dans la ville ? Un des protagonistes tente de tirer des conclusions.

L’articolo descrive l’esperienza dell’autore nella residenza artistica “Vivre sur le seuil. Rencontres Congolaises”, svoltasi a Cosenza nel maggio 2018. La metafora della soglia, che dava il titolo alla manifestazione, ha effettivamente permeato le opere degli artisti partecipanti, così come l’esperienza vissuta dalla città.

In an era of economic globalization shaped by hegemonic capitalism, resistance movements introduce different alternatives for a life beyond capitalism. The powerful and dominant system logic criticizes such movements for being utopian dreamers with no pragmatic sense of plausible social change.
The 'ontology of the possible' for emancipatory social change is dominated by the coloniality of power and epistemic violence of modernity. Time becomes a powerful measurement tool developed by Western clocks in order to measure the successes and failures of social movements and categorize their impact on social change.
Based on the analysis of an ethnographic research with the campaign for Marichuy in Mexico, I argue that this indigenous movement constructs a conception of time related to social change, which challenge the Western notion of a measurable evolutionary timeline. Such iconoclastic strategy of indeterminacy becomes their emancipatory potential, which envisions the possibilities for emancipatory social change.
The purpose of this study is to contribute to a global conversation with scholarship and activism. Through a combination of theoretical literature and ethnographic data material, this thesis intends to challenge the status quo conception of time horizons for change.

Key words:
Emancipatory social change, time horizons, social movements, indigenous resistances, concrete utopias, system critique, participatory ethnography, neocolonialism, ontology of the possible, indeterminacy, Marichuy, CNI, CIG, EZLN, Zapatismo

This title summarises an innovative project for gender and development research in one religious society. The approach that was employed combined participatory and ethnographic methods toward a merging of anthropological research with gender and development to prioritise the articulations and understandings of the local population concerning gender norms in their society. The approach was premised on the observation that gender relations are contextual and differ cross-culturally, and this diversity must be accounted for better in mainstream gender and development analytical and theoretical tools, which have been disproportionately influenced by western gender conditions and epistemologies.  A second premise was that understanding gender relations and improving women's problems in traditional societies can only be achieved with the inclusion of men and the cooperation of religious/cultural leaders who influence local attitudes, and therefore this project engaged with both genders across sociocultural groups. The article was written for non-specialists and was published on the official website of the Tokyo Foundation in Japan which granted funds for the implementation of the project. The full article may be found at the link: http://www.tokyofoundation.org/sylff/16277

Youth development work within and beyond religious settings should honor and engage the experiences participants bring with them, as well as the directions they wish to take their learning. This paper presents such an approach to using digital storytelling to foster healthy identity development. I illustrate and analyze a mini-ethnographic project conducted during a weeklong storytelling experience at the summer program of a Mainline Protestant congregation in a primarily Latinx northeastern suburb. I show that for these three participants, explicit, agentic self-reflection was mediated significantly by the sociotechnical affordances of digital storytelling and the sociocultural structures of the summer camp itself. The resulting identity work clarified and deepened the participants’ understanding of the role of the camp in their development and the contributions they have made to this dynamic community.

This article is concerned with the effectiveness of gender and development practice in diverse knowledge systems. Conventional theoretical and analytical frameworks and methodologies of gender and development reflect primarily secular epistemologies and it has yet to be addressed systematically how non-secular knowledge systems may be incorporated effectively in the design and implementation of gender programmes. This article presents a project from a Muslim rural community of Senegal that analysed gender realities through the prism of the local religio-cultural cosmology and explored community members’ responses to increasingly internationalised western ideals of gender equality. As an innovative methodology, participatory research techniques were integrated into short-term ethnographic investigations in an attempt to explore gender realities through the conceptual repertoire of the research participants. The study showed that understandings of subjectivity and gender norms were ...