Surviving Ethnography: Coping with Isolation, Violence, and Anger

This article concentrates upon the intensities of emotion experienced by a novice ethnographer. The argument is that acknowledging the emotional impact of events in the field enables the ethnographer to analyse reflexively the differences between the values of the self and those of the other. Seeing beyond the emotions generated at times of crisis can permit and facilitate an analysis of the everyday social relations between participants. Dealing with the personal impact of these emotions is an entirely different matter; very few others (supervisors, academics, peers) although well-intentioned, will appreciate the depths of these emotions and the problems that they produce for an individual ethnographer. The argument is illustrated by reflexive field notes, experiences and poetry from the author\u27s ethnographic study of British Deaf people

Inward, Outward, Onward: Autoethnography of a Dissertation in (Qualitative) Transitional Space

This article presents the connection of a personal dissertation process to the wider world of qualitative research. Using the concept of transitional space as a metaphor, the author chronicles her theoretical transition from critical race theory to poststructural theory to emerging questions about material feminism. This transition is mapped to three major qualitative research moments within the field: modernist, crisis of representation, and the future. Autoethnography and found text are used to present the micro and macro telling of the dissertation process. White racial identity development among Christian teacher educators at a religious university was the original dissertation focus. Ethical dilemmas emerged during the data collection process, presenting the researcher with a theoretical crisis that needed to be addressed

Creative Nonfiction in Social Science: Towards More Engaging and Engaged Research

The paper aims at identifying, explaining and illustrating the affordances of “creative nonfiction” as a style of writing social science. The first part introduces creative nonfiction as a method of writing which brings together empirical material and fiction. In the second part, based on illustrations from my ethnographic research of European “crisis reporters,” written in the form of a novel about a fictional journalist, but also based on a review of existing social science research that employs a creative method of writing, I identify several main affordances of creative nonfiction in social-scientific research. In particular, I argue that creative nonfiction allows scientists to illustrate their findings, to express them in an allegorical way, to organize data into a narrative, to let their pieces of research act in the social world, and to permeate research accounts with self-reflexive moments. I also discuss some apparent negative affordances: challenges that creative nonfiction poses to readers and to the institutionalized academic discourse. Finally, I suggest that writing about sociological problems in the style of creative nonfiction can help to produce more engaging and engaged texts, and I discuss the ethical implications of the approach

The Appeal of Protest Rhetoric: How Moral Entrepreneurs Recruit the Media into Moral Struggles

Whenever the news media feature brand-related moral struggles over issues such as ethicality, fairness, or sustainability, brands often find themselves in the position of the culprit. However, brands may also take the opposite position, that of a moral entrepreneur that proactively raises and addresses moral issues that matter to society. In this chapter, we present a case study of the Austrian shoe manufacturer Waldviertler, which staged a protest campaign against Austria’s financial market authorities (FMA) in the wake of the authorities demanding that the company closes its alternative (and illegal) consumer investment model after 10 years of operation. In response to this demand, the company organized protest marches, online petitions, and press conferences to reclaim the moral high ground for its financing model as a way out of the crunch following the global credit crisis and as a way to fight unfair administrative burdens. We present an interpretive analysis of brand communication material and media coverage that reveals how this brand used protest rhetoric on three levels – logos, ethos, and pathos – to reverse moral standards, to embody a rebel ethos, and to cultivate moral indignation. We also show how the media responded to protest rhetoric both with thematic coverage of context, trends, and general evidence, and with episodic coverage focusing on dramatic actions and the company owner’s charisma. We close with a discussion of how protestainment, the stylization of a leader figure, and marketplace sentiments can ensure sustained media coverage of moral struggles

The development of a rich multimedia training environment for crisis management: using emotional affect to enhance learning

PANDORA is an EU FP7-funded project developing a novel training and learning environment for Gold Commanders, individuals who carry executive responsibility for the services and facilities identified as strategically critical e.g. Police, Fire, in crisis management strategic planning situations. A key part of the work for this project is considering the emotional and behavioural state of the trainees, and the creation of more realistic, and thereby stressful, representations of multimedia information to impact on the decision-making of those trainees. Existing training models are predominantly paper-based, table-top exercises, which require an exercise of imagination on the part of the trainees to consider not only the various aspects of a crisis situation but also the impacts of interventions, and remediating actions in the event of the failure of an intervention. However, existing computing models and tools are focused on supporting tactical and operational activities in crisis management, not strategic. Therefore, the PANDORA system will provide a rich multimedia information environment, to provide trainees with the detailed information they require to develop strategic plans to deal with a crisis scenario, and will then provide information on the impacts of the implementation of those plans and provide the opportunity for the trainees to revise and remediate those plans. Since this activity is invariably multi-agency, the training environment must support group-based strategic planning activities and trainees will occupy specific roles within the crisis scenario. The system will also provide a range of non-playing characters (NPC) representing domain experts, high-level controllers (e.g. politicians, ministers), low-level controllers (tactical and operational commanders), and missing trainee roles, to ensure a fully populated scenario can be realised in each instantiation. Within the environment, the emotional and behavioural state of the trainees will be monitored, and interventions, in the form of environmental information controls and mechanisms impacting on the stress levels and decisionmaking capabilities of the trainees, will be used to personalise the training environment. This approach enables a richer and more realistic representation of the crisis scenario to be enacted, leading to better strategic plans and providing trainees with structured feedback on their performance under stress

Fear, anxiety, and boredom

Phenomenology's central insight is that affectivity is not an inconsequential or contingent characteristic of human existence. Emotions, moods, sentiments, and feelings are not accidents of human existence. They do not happen to happen to us. Rather, we exist the way we do because of and through our affective experiences. Phenomenology thus acknowledges the centrality and ubiquity of affectivity by noting the multitude of ways in which our existence is permeated by our various affective experiences. Yet, it also insists that such experiences are both revealing and constitutive of human nature. It is precisely this last point that marks an important distinction between a phenomenological study of affectivity and perhaps all others. For phenomenology, one cannot understand the nature of human existence without coming to terms with the character of affectivity and at the same time, one cannot come to terms with the character of affectivity without understanding the nature of human existence. Practical and social engagements, scientific endeavors, familial and political interactions are all predicted on the fact that we are beings who are capable of being affectively attuned to ourselves, to the world, and to others. In this entry, we discuss Martin Heidegger's and Jean-Paul Sartre's respective accounts of affectivity. In the first section, we present Heidegger's understanding of affective existence. In this context, we discuss the significance of moods and offer an analysis of the affective phenomena of fear, anxiety, and boredom. In the second section, we present an overview of Sartre's account of emotions and advance a Sartrean interpretation of fear and boredom. We conclude by raising some brief concerns with both accounts

Regret, Resilience, and the Nature of Grief

Should we regret the fact that we are often more emotionally resilient in response to the deaths of our loved ones than we might expect -- that the suffering associated with grief often dissipates more quickly and more fully than we anticipate? Dan Moller ("Love and Death") argues that we should, because this resilience epistemically severs us from our loved ones and thereby "deprives us of insight into our own condition." I argue that Moller's conclusion is correct despite resting on a mistaken picture of the nature and significance of grief. Unlike Moller, I contend that grief is a composite emotional process, rather than a single mental state; that grief is a species of emotional attention rather than perception; and that grief is a form of activity directed at placing our relationships with the deceased on new terms. It is precisely because grief has these three features that it facilitates the scrutiny of our practical identities and thus fosters self-knowledge and self-understanding