“I Fell into Librarianship”: Experiences of Post-Soviet Librarians at the National Academic Library in Astana,Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the attitudes of librarians in post-Soviet Kazakhstan regarding their roles at the new National Academic Library of the Republic of Kazakhstan (NAL). Using ethnographic observation, interviews, and surveys of library staff (n = 24), we find that Kazakhstani librarians either sensed a “calling” to librarianship or “fell into” library careers given life circumstances, and value their library for its contribution to cultural preservation and digital access on a national scale. This pilot project presents NAL to an international community, sharing the voices of Russian- and Kazakh-speaking librarians to highlight the role of libraries in the development of the post-Soviet nation.     

Soccer’s Small Worlds

Abstract

In this autobiographical article about my academic career I explain how I developed my approach to sport and soccer in particular, drawing on sociology, linguistics, and cultural history. This career has been and continues to be characterized by interdisciplinary work and intercultural perspectives and by a variety of working relationships that they generate. In a way I turned into a sports scholar by accident. I am convinced, however, that sport, and soccer most of all, lends itself ideally to a comparative analysis of cultural practices which suggests case studies – both on and off the field – that are open to interpretation from historical, sociological, or linguistic perspectives.     

Education and social change in Spain: from crisis to opportunity

This paper analyses a particular socio-educational experience in a marginalised neighbourhood in Malaga, Spain. This initiative came about as an institutional proposal to combat neoliberal austerity policies and is known as the ‘Casa de la Buena Vida'. It aims to generate new educational practices based on solidarity, dignity and justice. The methodology followed entailed carrying out an ethnography at this institution, participating in the initiative over a period of 4 years. At the same time, life histories of some of its most notable members were drawn up. In the results section we offer an analysis of the particular identities that are created as a consequence of the living conditions, social conflicts, multicultural nature and survival strategies that operate in a welfarist policy system. We also analyse this institution's socio-educational proposal using alternative social practices that enable other subjectivities to develop.     

Practice-Based Design of Information Systems: Notes from the Hyperdeveloped World

This paper offers reflections on information systems design based in everyday practices. Drawing on experience in what I name the hyperdeveloped world of industrial research and development in the United States, I outline a series of concerns, organized under the themes of information flows, local improvisations and work practices. I then offer a set of alternative understandings of change and innovation that underwrite a practice-based design approach. These include a view of innovation as indigenous to technologiesin-use, an emphasis on the investments needed to create sustainable change, and an orientation to artful integration as an objective for information systems design.     

赫哲族作家孙玉民散文作品中“不浪费”的民族志

赫哲族作家孙玉民的散文作品中描述和呈现了赫哲族冬季捕鱼生活的地方性知识,在＂不浪费的人类学＂视野中,作为本土话语书写的赫哲族作家作品呈现出文化主体的主体权与表述权和谐统一的民族志特征,本族群的作家作品是该族群民族志＂不能浪费＂的重要组成部分。     

Ethnographic Facilitation as a Complementary Methodology for Conducting Applied Communication Scholarship

This essay presents a methodological approach, ethnographic facilitation (EF), through which applied communication scholars (1) employ ethnographic practices to develop a rich, nuanced understanding of communication within and constitutive of groups, organizations, and/or communities; (2) intervene into communicative practices using group facilitation processes to promote change or development for the group, organization, community, and/or its members; and (3) report their findings to scholarly and relevant practitioner communities. The essay explains how EF draws on, yet differs from, and extends related methodological approaches, such as ethnography, critical ethnography, discourse tracing, and participatory action research, and integrates traditional facilitation practices with ethnography. Implications of the methodology are discussed regarding site selection, researcher conduct and relationships, techniques used to describe and facilitate communication, facilitation assessment, and dissemination of research findings. To illustrate the principles that inform this methodology, examples are included from a case study conducted with a church leadership team.     

Relational Maintenance as Including the Other in the Self

The defining nature and characteristics of qualitative research are surveyed in this article, which identifies key distinctions between method and methodology. The authors note that qualitative research is primarily concerned understanding human beings' experiences in a humanistic, interpretive approach. Issues of research design differences between quantitative and qualitative research are traced with an emphasis on identifying diverse methodologies, including those focusing on analysis of text, and diverse forms of data collection along with criteria for evaluating qualitative research.     

Navigating the academic borderlands as multiracial and trans* faculty members

ABSTRACT

Postsecondary institutions remain bastions of oppression, threat and harm for faculty who hold minoritized identities. While some scholars have explored the ways in which monoracial faculty of color and LGBT faculty members navigate an academy that is steeped in racism, genderism, sexism and other systems of oppression, there remains a paucity of scholarship focused on the experiences of multiracial faculty and nonbinary trans* faculty. Given the need to focus on faculty who hold liminal identities in relation to hegemonic identitarian illogic, we used Gloria Anzaldúa’s borderlands theory and an auto-ethnographic analysis to explore our academic experiences as faculty members whose identities place us betwixt-and-between socially constructed monolithic identity categories.     

网络民族志:“互联网+”时代教育研究的新路径

在“互联网+教育”时代,教育信息化的发展和普及不仅带来了教育方式的变革,更重构了教育空间、教育情境和教育关系,形成了独特的网络教育文化。网络民族志以网络环境作为主要的研究背景和环境,利用网络媒体平台和互动工具来收集数据资料,以探究和阐释互联网及相关社会文化现象。作为伴随网络文化现象而产生的研究方法,网络民族志对于探究互联网环境下的教育文化具有一定的借鉴作用,通过浸润体验、对话互动、情境追踪和多维分析等具体方法,实现对网络教育现象的整体性认知、共情化理解和过程性透视。文章指出了网络民族志在教育研究中可能面临的问题,为“互联网+”时代教育研究提供了新的路径参考。     

Toward a communication theory of group dialectics: an ethnographic study of a community theater group

A dialectical perspective recognizes that there are tensions between oppositions in human interaction such as the need for independence and the need for dependence. This approach has been instrumental in exploring the dialectical tensions and coping strategies individuals use in interpersonal contexts. This ethnographic study utilized a dialectical perspective to examine group communication in a community theater group. The results revealed 11 specific dialectical tensions within the group that represent four more global issues for the group as well as a number of communication strategies that group members use to manage those tensions. These issues provide a framework for further development of a communication theory of group dialectics.