BACKGROUND Each year over five million people develop chronic non-malignant pain and can experience healthcare as an adversarial struggle. The aims of this study were: (1) to bring together qualitative evidence syntheses that explore patients' experience of living with chronic non-malignant pain and develop conceptual understanding of what it is like to live with chronic non-malignant pain for ...

The methods of ethnography and cognitive psychology are frequently set in opposition to each other. Whilst such a view may be appropriate in de"ning pure, or prototypical, classes of each activity, the value and necessity of such a distinction is broken down when researchers are goal-directed to study complex work domains in order to foster technological change. In this paper, we outline a rapp...

In this paper recent research involving inter-disciplinary ethnography is presented as an exploration of its contribution to studies of people and technology in the workplace. Three main patterns of interaction between ethnography and “the others” are examined. First, the influence of ethnography in promoting people-oriented perspectives of technology is discussed with reference to workplace st...

In recent years, many ethnographers have conducted participant observation studies in virtual worlds, whether in games like World of Warcraft or user-generated environments like Second Life. However, the acceptance of digital fieldwork as a legitimate form of ethnography does not make it strictly identical to its physical counterpart. In particular, the logistics of virtual ethnography offer bo...

BACKGROUND Contextual factors associated with health care settings make reducing health care-associated infections (HAIs) a complex task. The aim of this article is to highlight how ethnography can assist in understanding contextual factors that support or hinder the implementation of evidence-based practices for reducing HAIs. METHODS We conducted a review of ethnographic studies specificall...

For almost 20 years, occupational therapists have advocated client-centered practice. Yet client-centered practice is fraught with tensions that arise outside the practice of individual occupational therapists. This paper is guided by two questions: What produces professional tensions in client-centered practice? and What understanding and change might be generated using institutional ethnograp...

her 50s, spent a year working low-wage jobs as a waitress in Florida, a housecleaner in Maine and a Wal-Mart sales clerk in Minnesota. Her detailed ethnography, the best-selling Nickel and Dimed, reveals how physically demanding and personally demeaning these jobs are, and how workers are trapped in them. Ehrenreich’s book has received wide critical acclaim, a typical book review in the Minneap...