This volume addresses fundamental questions about the nature, value, and efficacy of museum collections in a postcolonial world and the agency of indigenous people in their production. The book’s primary focus lies with those objects that, by way of their specific histories, have been defined as “ethnographic”; however, the question of the contexts in which things are defined as “art” as oppose...

Many studies have investigated personalized information presentation in the context of mobile museum guides. In order to provide such a service, information about museum visitors has to be collected and visitors have to be monitored and modelled in a non-intrusive manner. This can be done by using known museum visiting styles to classify the visiting style of visitors as they start their visit....

This paper describes how an understanding of everyday conflicts that have ethical implications - what we call 'situated ethics'- can be explored through ethnographic field techniques in healthcare settings. Our approach to ethics is followed by findings from two ethnographic case studies focussing on issues arising as information technologies such as electronic patient records and automatic dru...

observation which I label peopled ethnography. I contrast this to two alternative ethnographic approaches, the personal ethnography and the postulated ethnography. In a peopled ethnography the text is neither descriptive narrative nor conceptual theory; rather, the understanding of the setting and its theoretical implications are grounded in a set of detailed vignettes, based on field notes, in...

this paper is an invitation to accept and to apply the senses in the field of ethnographic research of art. i tried to embed the aesthetic dimension of handmade fabrics woven by lümə-dərə community– one of tərəkəmə clans in northwest iran- in their sensual world and make an approach toward understanding it. therefore, i have made a bridge between anthropology of aesthetics and the anthropology ...

Just as complexity changes notions of what “science” is, ethnography offers an alternative model for “social science.” Particularly striking for ethnography is the family resemblance between its social research tradition and complex adaptive systems. In fact, if ethnography is seen as a CAS, several key issues appear in a new light. In this article, ethnographic research is looked at in terms o...

Many theories of religion tend toward a naturalistic, sociological, Durkheimian framework. While these theories have pointed out important dimensions of religious experience, they risk reducing the human experience of religion to a purely social or psychological phenomenon, without taking seriously the claims of religious adherents themselves. How can we begin to work toward a unique theory of ...

In this article, we present and articulate the analytical lens of multisited design to illuminate transnational connections between sites of design, and aid in the translation of knowledge between designers and ethnographers. This position emerges from the authors’ respective engagements in ethnographic research and design engagements with a slum community center in Bangkok, Thailand, and with ...