Towards an ethnography of a culturally eclectic music scene. Preserving and transforming folk music in twenty-first century England

This thesis presents an analysis of the recent transformations in the folk music scene in England. Through interviews of professional and amateur folk artists, it elicits musicians’ points of view about the music they perform and their own compositions. Adopting an ethnomusicological approach, it compares and contrasts theories of cultural globalisation with the musicians' perceptions of their position within the music scene and in relation to musical traditions in the twenty-first century. Exploring changes in music-making, collecting, and modes and contexts of transmission, this study considers how musical repertoire is exchanged, adapted and preserved within and beyond local communities through means such as archiving, pub sessions, workshops, festivals and formal tuition. From the perspectives of both artists and audiences, contemporary modes and contexts of transmission and the development of new technologies for recording, sharing and teaching music have been encouraging diverse transformations of perception, repertoire, composition and interpretation, as well as the dynamics of interaction between folk musicians. This thesis sheds light on how folk musicians’ horizons have expanded far beyond the local sphere; processes of globalisation have engendered global perspectives, new conceptualisations of what “traditional” and “folk” music are, complex identities reflected in musical hybridisation, new opportunities to access traditional and folk music, new forms of communication technology, demographical changes and cross-borders musical initiatives. The thesis demonstrates that, although the folk music scene in England might often be perceived as somewhat conservative in outlook and overshadowed by a profusion of widely disseminated contemporary popular musical products, many folk musicians have been open to transformation, adapting to new contexts and modes of transmission, embracing new communication technologies, and drawing influences from beyond the immediate local surrounding. At the same time as preserving musical heritage they have been enriching it in diverse ways to ensure its continued relevance

Developing Interpersonal Relationships Between Deaf and Hearing People Using Instagram

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to understand how deaf and hard of hearing individuals use Instagram to interact with and develop interpersonal relationships with hearing individuals. The researcher used her personal experience as a member of the deaf and hard of hearing community to connect with members of the researched population on a personal level. The theories guiding this study were Elihu Katz’s uses and gratifications theory, Joseph B. Walther’s social information processing theory (SIPT), and Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Melvin DeFleur’s media dependency theory. These theories were applied to help the researcher gain a better understanding of the motives for why deaf and hard of hearing individuals choose to use or not use Instagram as a communication tool and to consider whether Instagram nurtures or hinders their interpersonal relationships with the hearing world. After analyzing the qualitative data, the researcher also included new medium theory as a lens to explain how participants shared common interests and supplemented FtF communication. 16 open-ended ethnographical interviews lasting no more than 1 hour each were conducted over Zoom. Interviews were recorded from those participants who gave consent and then hand-coded using textual and structural descriptions. Participants were also required to provide the researcher with .html downloads of their Instagram data where their comments and messages were read, coded, and analyzed. Data were collected from the interviews and the Instagram data files to allow the researcher to interpret and report on participants’ experiences with Instagram in a way that was as thorough and accurate as possible. The findings of this research study showed that Instagram did not have a significant impact on the interpersonal relationships between deaf and hard of hearing individuals and the hearing world. Deaf and hard of hearing individuals prefer to use Instagram to engage with the hearing loss community, educate themselves and others about their hearing loss, and advocate for their needs as deaf and hard of hearing individuals

AN EXAMINATION OF THE FOOD SYSTEM, FOODSCAPE, DIETARY PATTERNS, AND ACCOLATED HEALTH OUTCOMES OF SALISH PEOPLE WITHIN THE CONFEDERATED SALISH AND KOOTENAI NATION

Often an individualistic, consumerist strategy is promoted as the solution to decrease the growing prevalence of diet-related diseases. Unfortunately, this logic is ahistorical and apolitical while privileging pathological individualism, capitalistic consumerism, and prevalent diets within the United States. This reasoning fails to recognize diet construction across time by ideologies, policies, and practices. Such an outlook misses the reality that many people cannot escape the grip of the modern, pervasive, ultra-processed food system. Several Native American populations find themselves plagued with high rates of diet-related diseases. Standard mantra shoulders these communities with their plight, often framing the discourse as personal responsibility and failed willpower instead of focusing on policy and systems. Alternatively, vague abstractions are often shallowly discussed while obfuscating past and present laws, policies, and practices of governments, corporations, collectives, or individuals that harmed and continue to harm people and their food systems and continue to hamper individuals and communities. Academics frequently spotlight health outcomes and vaguely described contributions to health consequences in Indigenous communities. For example, descriptions of Salish communities repeatedly include morbidity and mortality rates but the social arrangements and mechanisms of action contributing to disease, or a more in-depth exploration of the social, political, and economic health determinants often skimmed over, not reviewed, or accounted for at all. Common glossing over and limited accounting operates as a form of erasure, leaving out essential details of communities\u27 lived realities. This research explores relationships between politics, economy, policy, practices, and systems to assess these components\u27 impact on diet and health outcomes of Salish people. A mixed-methods study provided qualitative and quantitative insights into Salish people\u27s local food system, dietary patterns, and diet-related health outcomes. This work examines the linkages between environment, food systems, foodscapes, policy, and programming to highlight the interrelated connections between ecosystem, politics, economics, individual decisions, social patterns, and health in the Salish people of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation. The study contextualizes and provides detailed, nuanced understanding of factors impacting Salish communities\u27 present food system, foodscape, dietary patterns, and related health outcomes

Youth's desire to learn: The pedagogies of platformised learning communities

Online, youth have opportunities to shape their learning differently than within formal education. Vermeire is interested in these alternative forms of learning that youth create on social media platforms, as these might question fixated ideas about what constitutes ‘good’ learning. To research how youth (alternatively) shape their learning online, Vermeire has done an ethnography of six learning communities on YouTube, Twitch and TikTok, including in-depth interviews with community members. In her research, Vermeire acquired an understanding of how youth shape their own learning online and, in doing so, how they resist and appropriate the pedagogical opportunities and limitations that formal education, social media platforms, and online learning communities offer them. Youth for instance describe how they experience YouTube and TikTok as platforms to learn to be active on societal issues that matter to them in a manner that lacks within their formal education. Youth furthermore describe how they discover alternative careers online, for which online learning communities are perceived as more relevant in preparing them than formal education. Additionally, youth feel like they can control social media’s algorithms to an extent that they can ‘curate’ which ‘lessons’ and ‘teachers’ they see online, even though those same algorithms are also experienced to thwart their community’s educational aims. Vermeire hopes that her in-depth study of how youth shape their learning online offers inspiration to educators and policy makers to move beyond dystopian perspectives on youth and social media and towards reimaginations of educational practices

I, Too, Am a Woman: an Emancipatory Text on the Intersections of Race, Gender, and Sexuality

This inquiry builds upon Black Feminism and Critical Race Feminist frameworks by exploring the juxtaposition between Black Women and Queer Black Women. It is also an exploration of the similarities between Queer Black Women and Black Women and how they interact with femininity and masculinity, patriarchy, and heteronormativity. Claiming digital space through podcasting, it honors the power of counter narratives by employing autoethnographical story telling. It examines the multivalent ways in which critical geographies, safe spaces, and homeplaces nurture or alienate Black Women on the basis of sexual orientation, gender performance, race, and social class. Employing tenets of Black Feminist Thought, Critical Race Feminism, Black Queer Studies, and Black Cultural Studies this work reveals that the gap between margins of Queer Black Womanhood and Black Womanhood is a critical geography ripe with the fertile soil necessary to nourish a reimagined Black Feminist Agenda that is complex, progressive, and inclusive

Social Contagion\u27s Impact on Decision-Making Among Millennial Parents Seeking a Christian School

Connections in a social network influence people in both positive and negative ways (Christakis & Fowler, 2009), and this study describes how connections in a virtual network affect school choice decision-making in a market heavily saturated with school choice options. This is a qualitative ethnographic study of millennial parents who experience social contagion across online platforms. Participants have at least one child enrolled in a private school in Shelby County, Tennessee. Social contagion is what flows between participants in a social network and influences decision-making (Christakis & Fowler). This study examined influence as the specific social contagion impacting school choice decision making among millennials in Shelby County, Tennessee

Networked together: designing participatory research in on-line ethnography

Abstract. This book contains the conference proceedings of the third edition of Rethinking Educational Ethnography: Researching on-line communities and interactions Conference hold in Napoli from 6th to 7th of June 2013. In 2013, the third edition of the Conference has invited ethnographers in different fields of research (not only in education), and those involved in ethnographic investigations in diverse disciplines (anthropology, sociology, etc.) to present and discuss contributions on the challenges of participatory research design in digital ethnography

Active Ageing with Music and Technology: Meaningful Participation and the Situated Use of Technology in Community Music

Scholars and commentators have long advocated the benefits of communal artistic activity for the ageing population. The notion of “Active Ageing” also brings a new angle to the understanding of challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies. In this dissertation, I argue that recognising community music practices and technology use as situated action provides opportunities to grasp the subtleties of social participation and technology use for active ageing. Qualitative and quantitative enquiries were used to (i) uncover the experiences of meaningful participation and the situated use of technology in community music; (ii) unpack the psychological basis of meaningful participation that is sustained by technology use. Drawing on social practice theory by Elizabeth Shove and the situated action approach by Lucy Suchman, this dissertation contributes a productive context of technology use to the richly researched area of community music with older people, and illuminates the complexities of community music practices and the ways in which technological devices coordinate the practices and the implications for active ageing. Two empirical chapters address the two research goals, respectively. Chapter 3 uses qualitative methods and identifies music practices mediated by technology, such as music sharing and revisiting, and how these practices evolve through the reconfiguration of connections between technological devices, competence, meanings, and forward-facing identities. Identity development, via routes such as exercising control, role transitions and social spaces, has psychological significance and implications for the broader concept of active ageing. Building on these findings, we further elucidate how self-efficacy (an exemplar of competence) and motivation (an exemplar of meaning) are associated with the use of digital music technologies (an exemplar of technologies for community music participation) in Chapter 4. Two sets of use patterns that emerge from the quantitative survey data, Contributing and Active interacting, further lend support to the qualitative data. The use of digital music technologies was not determined exclusively by age and employment status, but also by music group memberships and music-technology-specific self-efficacy. Getting social connectedness was a key motivation for more frequent use and sharing using digital music technologies. These results also suggest that age is relevant in thinking about why technology is used in the participants’ particular ways. Drawing upon these findings, I wrote about how HCI can leverage the tenets of active ageing and might facilitate older people’s meaningful participation in community activities with digital music technologies.Cambridge Trust and CS