September 5, 2012 | 0 Comments

Ethnozine: August Edition – the tools we use, ethnography of Occupy, EPIC12 preview, men peeing, & uprooting assumptions

As far as fieldwork tools go, hardly anything drives an ethnographer more crazy than trying to find the most appropriate fieldwork tools. That is why we decided for the August issue of Ethnography Matters, we’d talk all about fieldwork tools and launch a new series called “The Tools we Use.”

Heather Ford starts us off with a discussion of the software she uses for her Wikipedia research, followed by Jenna Burrell’srecommendations for software she has tried and wants to try in the field. Rachelle Annechino suggests a few Android appsalong with colored markers and Tricia Wang tells us about her anxieties of not knowing which tools she’ll use for her analysis process.

“Tools we Use” is an ongoing series, so if you have a fieldwork process or an app review you’d like to contribute, please contact us!

Rachelle Annechino also offers another post this month on the fears and delights in using ethnography to research drug use. She reveals some assumptions around drug consumption. And she throws in Lady Gaga to her post!

This month we have a lot of exciting guest contributors. First up is John Payne from Moment in NYC, NY. Gasp! John is not a formally trained ethnographer, but he’s a designer who relies on ethnography and trains all his designers at Moment to use it. This month, in Teaching Ethnography For User Experience: A Workshop On Occupy Wall Street, John shares his process on a two and a half day training he held for a group of designers in NYC. The training aimed to improve communication for the participants of Occupy. John’s 3-part reflection shows us their entire process from research questions, observations, post-fieldwork analysis and to design solutions.

As the co-chair of EPIC 2012 (October 14-17), John gives us a preview of their upcoming conference in Renewing Ethnography: Exploring The Role of Applied Ethnography At EPIC 2012. Did you know that EPIC will have two amazing keynote speakers this year? John tells us about keynoters Emily Pilloton of Project H Design and Philip Delves Broughton, author of The Art of the Sale: Learning From the Masters about the Business of Life. It’s not too late to register for EPIC. And for those of use who can’t get to EPIC 20212, readers of Ethnography Matters can look forward to a special post-conference review of notes and highlights from EPIC panels and workshops.

Our next guest contribution is an incredibly beautiful and personal essay, Men Pee Standing Up: The value of an anthropological perspective. Anthropologist Robbie Blinkoff co-founded the global research group, Context-Based Research Group in Boston, USA, but he doesn’t talk about his industry work in his essay. Instead, Robbie shares with us his process of discovering his anthropologist identity and how it helps him see the world.

Journalist and researcher, Luisa Beck closes out our great guest contributor line up with a post on the joy of having one’s assumptions turned upside down. She shows us that good ethnographic inspiration comes in all forms, from blog posts to talks.

NEXT MONTH

Gabriella Coleman will share with us her process for conducting ethnography on Anonymous.
Mike Gotta will tell us about ethnography and enterprise software.
John Payne will tell us about the history of EPIC.

TIDBITS

Did you see Living Anthropologically’s post on how Kiplinger voted Anthropology as the worst college major?
And do check out the letter to the AAA (American Anthropological Association) from Ryan Anderson, Jason Antrosio, Eliza Jane Darling, and Sarah Kendzior on Savage Minds. Be sure to read the comments.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Reboot is hiring! They are looking for visionaries!
EPIC 2012 registration reminder
IFTF is Hiring – Health Horizons Program

Would you like to be our next guest contributor? Ethnography Matters is your space. You can feature a project/paper/book/syllabus, provide a fieldwork update, or share your thoughts. Here are some more ideas for how you can participate. We’d love to hear from you. Email us!

August 2, 2012 | 2 Comments

July Edition of Ethnozine – Ethnography of Wikipedia Sources, Live Fieldnoting, & 4 guest contributors for The Ethnographer’s Reading List

Ethnozine: July ’12 edition

Just because summer is here doesn’t mean that ethnographers slow down.This month Heather Ford updates us on her Wikipedia research. She shares with us screenshots from her digital ethnography of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, revealing how Wikipedians manage sources in breaking news events. Tricia Wang finished up a few years of fieldwork in China and shares with us a new process for writing ethnographic fieldnotes, live fieldnoting. We have four guest contributors for The Ethnographer’s Reading List. Sam Ladner’s list mixes creativity with time, religion, and humor. Nicolas Nova’s list takes us back to objects, public spaces, and lines. Christina Dennaoui’s list brings us some science, emotion and pain. Elisa Oreglia’s list gives us something new, something blue, and something borrowed.

Other tidbits:

Jason Antrosio at Living Anthropologically compiled a list of anthropology communities with a facebook page. We saw familiar communities like Savage Minds, but we also discovered new ones like Neuroanthropology, ALLA (The Association of Latina/o Anthropologistsa) and How to be an Anthropologist. We’ve added several their blogs and a few new ones to our blogroll. Do let us know if you would like to suggest a site to add to our blogroll!

Do you have a post that you would like featured on Ethnography Matters? Or would you like to be our next guest contributor? Here are some ideas for how you can participate. Email us! We’d love to hear from you.

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July 1, 2012 | 0 Comments

June Ethnozine – wrapping up June contributions

The June Ethnozine is online.

Summer is here in the Western hemisphere! Many of us are going into fieldwork or doing some catch up reading. This month we are launching a new series called “The Ethnographer’s Reading List.” We’re starting off with Tricia Wang’s summer reading list and then featuring two contributors who work in the industry, Carla Borsoi of AOL and Jay Owens of FACE. Thanks to Roy Christopher for giving us the inspiration to create the Reading List series! Every summer, Roy asks friends and colleagues to create a reading list in which he laboriously compiles and links to Powell’s online store. After we saw his list, we wanted to create an ongoing one at Ethnography Matters. Do check out Roy’s 2012 list that has contributions from Howard Reingold to Douglas Rushkoff.

Our July guest contributor, Jared Braiterman, is a design anthropologist based in Tokyo, Japan. Jared starts off the summer with an exciting post, first telling us that we should break anthropology rules and second suggesting that design anthropology is distinct from ethnography. The last time we had a post this provocative was when guest contributor Sam Ladner asked if “Corporate Ethnography sucked?” What are your thoughts on Jared’s ideas? What rules do you break? And how different do you think design anthropology is from ethnography? We’d love to hear your thoughts on Jared’s article in the comments section.

Jenna gives us the final installments of the The Ethnographer’s Complete Guide to Big Data. You can read all three installments together, part 1 , part 2, and part 3. Lastly, Heather talks to Annie Lin of Wikimedia Foundation about their collaboration between Cairo and the Middle East.

We announced the idea for an ethnographic reading group last month on Mendeley. We’ve just posted some of our ideas for how to conduct the group. For now, the blog contributors will experiment with how to conduct a virtual reading group and we’ll report back by the end of the summer on how to start a reading group! Anyone who is interested is invited to join on Mendeley (sign up here). Also help compile a list of ethnographic monographs on our shared Mendeley group or share with us your ideas for the group!

Do you have a post that you would like featured on Ethnography Matters? Or would you like to be our next guest contributor? Here are some ideas for how you can participate. Email us! We’d love to hear from you.