Anthropological Controversies: The ‘Crimes’ and Misdemeanors that Shaped a Discipline.

This book uses controversies as a gateway through which to explore the origins, ethics, key moments, and people in the history of anthropology. It draws on a variety of cases including complicity in "human zoos", Malinowski’s diaries, and the Human Terrain System to explore how anthropological controversies act as a driving force for change, how they offer a window into the history of and research practice in the discipline, and how they might frame wider debates such as those around reflexivity, cultural relativism, and the politics of representation. The volume provokes discussion about research ethics and practice with tangible examples where gray areas are brought into sharp relief. The controversies examined in the book all involve moral or practical ambiguities that offer an opportunity for students to engage with the debate and the dilemmas faced by anthropologists, both in relation to the specific incidents covered and to the problems posed more generally due to the intimate and political implications of ethnographic research

From voting to engaging: promoting democratic values across an international school network

Using a mixed methods design, the researchers investigated understandings and practices of democracy across Round Square, a worldwide network of 180 schools committed to shared values. An extensive questionnaire received 4020 student and 863 teacher returns; additionally, leaders, students, and parents from five case study schools on different continents were interviewed. All stakeholder groups were found to value democracy highly, but saw its implementation in their schools as challenging and limited. While staff and parents espoused more holistic understandings of democratic practices and cultures, students focused primarily on systems of election and representation. A philosophically informed framework for developing ‘responsible leadership’, and a values-led approach to school improvement, are offered to deepen students’ democratic agency through informed, active, and reflective engagement with people, situations, and curricula

The comfort of the river: understanding the affective geographies of angling waterscapes in young people’s coping practices

This paper draws on ethnographic research with angling intervention programmes working with ‘disaffected’ young people in the UK to demonstrate how young people use the affective geographies of waterscapes to regulate their feelings and escape stressful lives. But rather than interpret the restorative or therapeutic quality of waterscapes as the consequence of (passive) immersion into green/blue spaces, we argue that ‘comfort’ is derived from an ongoing, active engagement with(in) the world. Drawing on works influenced by phenomenological theories and relational understandings of the more-than-human world, we illustrate how the affectual qualities of waterscapes are continually ‘woven’ into being through the material and embodied practices of young anglers. However, understanding why waterscapes ‘matter’ to young people also requires accounting for those assemblages originating in the past that shape these co-experienced worlds

Student/staff ‘Collaborative Event Ethnography’ at the Antiques Roadshow

This case study reports and reflects upon a project using Collaborative Event Ethnography (CEE) as, simultaneously, a research and teaching method. Through training workshops and a day of interviews and participant observation at the Antiques Roadshow at Ightham Mote in Kent, staff and students worked together on a project that clearly demonstrated the scope of the CEE method for producing robust academic data while also challenging presumptions that ethnography is a necessarily lone pursuit

Spectral cities: Death and living memories in the dark tourism of British ghost walks

This article explores the role played by ghost walks in imparting and enlivening the histories of cities for tourists. Drawing upon research in York, London, Brighton and Edinburgh the paper explores the manner in which the uncanny nature of the topic allows ghost walks to behave differently to other forms of dark tourism or thanatourism (Lennon and Foley, 2000; Seaton, 1996). Despite dealing with death and tragedy like other forms of dark tourism, the existence of ghosts within narratives allows for tragic history to be narrativised and performed by tour guides in a way that transforms the experience and embeds it within the cityscape anchoring memories and history to particular spaces, even long after a city has changed. Through tales of death the city’s history is brought to life, but in a manner that is more entertaining than mournful due to the facilitation of the uncanny nature of ghosts

Spectral cities: Death and living memories in the dark tourism of British ghost walks

This article explores the role played by ghost walks in imparting and enlivening the histories of cities for tourists. Drawing upon research in York, London, Brighton and Edinburgh the article explores the manner in which the uncanny nature of the topic allows ghost walks to behave differently to other forms of dark tourism or thanatourism (Lennon and Foley 2000, Seaton 1996). Despite dealing with death and tragedy like other forms of dark tourism, the existence of ghosts within narratives allows for tragic history to be narrativised and performed by tour guides in a way that transforms the experience and embeds it within the cityscape anchoring memories and history to particular spaces, even long after a city has changed. Through tales of death the city’s history is brought to life, but in a manner that is more entertaining than mournful due to the facilitation of the uncanny nature of ghosts

Recall and awareness of gambling advertising and sponsorship in sport in the UK: a study of young people and adults

Background: The impact of gambling advertisements shown during sporting events on young people is an important public health issue. While extensive research has taken place in Australia, there is still only a limited understanding of this issue in the United Kingdom (UK). Method: A mixed methods study was conducted with 71 family groups comprised of 99 young people (8–16 years) and 71 adults recruited at six sites across South London, England (May–July 2018). Interviewer-assisted surveys investigated recall and awareness of sports betting brands using interviews and a magnet placement board activity developed in Australia. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, with qualitative data interpreted using thematic analysis techniques. Results: Just under half of young people (n = 46, 46%) and more than two thirds of adults (n = 49, 71%) were able, unprompted, to name at least one gambling brand. Boys had a significantly higher recall of brands than girls, as did young people who watched a lot of football on television. Almost two thirds of young people (n = 63, 63%) correctly placed one or more shirt sponsor magnets next to the corresponding football team, and 30% (n = 30) correctly placed three or more sponsors magnets next to the corresponding football team. Just under two thirds of adults (n = 44, 62%) correctly placed one or more shirt sponsors magnets next to the corresponding football team. Young people recalled seeing gambling advertising on television (n = 78), technology/screens (n = 49), and in association with sports teams (n = 43). Adults recalled seeing advertising on television (n = 56), on technology/screens (n = 37), in sports stadiums (n = 34), and in betting venues (n = 34). Over three quarters of young people (n = 74 out of 95 responses, 78%) and 86% of adults (n = 59 out of 69 responses) thought that betting had become a normal part of sport. Conclusion: In order to reduce the exposure of young people to gambling advertising, policymakers in the UK should consider comprehensive approaches, similar to those applied in tobacco control, which cover all forms of advertising, including promotion and sponsorship

Rethinking ‘safe spaces’ in children’s geographies

In this editorial, we provide a preliminary definition of ‘safe spaces’ before exploring how the collected authors have taken a fresh approach to understanding ‘safe spaces’ though a geographical lens. Until now, the material ‘location’ of safe spaces have remained under theorised, but by turning attention to how children and young people co-produce and bring safe spaces into being through their situated practices, this Special Issue provides rich ground for re-evaluating why places ‘matter’ in children’s lives. This editorial maps out those common threads that are uncovered across a diverse collection that spans playful protest in Johannesburg, family food struggles in Warsaw, to the theatrical parodies of second generation Somali youth in London

Peer-led focus groups as ‘dialogic spaces’ for exploring young people’s evolving values

Although peer-led focus groups are widely used in research with children and young people, surprisingly little has been written that evaluates their methodological appropriateness. Drawing on data from 10 peer-led focus group sessions across 5 international schools, this article demonstrates how focus group discussions around moral and social values, which become more meaningful though the self-reflection provoked in encounters with different experiences and perspectives, can be advantageous for research. Peer-moderators, as both participants and facilitators, run focus groups that open dialogic spaces for exploratory talk that avoids the self-censure and deference that can emerge in the presence of an adult moderator. This is particularly important when participants are structurally disadvantaged and lack similar spaces for collaborative inquiry into their shared experiences. Video capture allows researchers in-depth access to these focus groups after the event, revealing evidentially and pedagogically rich dialogues

Trading in unicorns: The role of exchange etiquette in managing the online second-hand sale of sentimental babywearing wraps

Since the 1970s, an international market has been growing in the production and sale of fabric specifically woven for ‘babywearing’. These ‘wraps’, a simple piece of cloth for baby carrying, have a long tradition throughout the world but are increasingly marketed to ‘high-end’ collectors as well as ‘modern’ young parents. New releases of limited edition and boutique ranges create competition over highly desirable and often quite unattainable wraps that must be tempted out or awaited in the second-hand forums. The community describes the search for these desperately desired goods as the search for ‘unicorns’. But obtaining one’s unicorn requires others to part with material objects made incommensurable through the intimate, inter-embodied ‘skinship’ practice of wrapping and carrying a child. This article explores how the emotional entanglement of these second-hand goods is negotiated through an emerging exchange etiquette that attempts to protect the illusion that one is trading in incommensurable goods