Maid to Queer is the first book about Asian female migrant workers who develop same-sex relationships in a host city. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with Indonesian domestic
Scholars have sometimes maintained that the study of the history of African religions is an impossible endeavor. Some have contended that African religions do not have a history unto themselves, apart from their interaction with the newer religious traditions of Islam and Christianity. Others concede that such a history exists, but believe the source materials are insufficient to reconstruct such a history. This book speaks directly to these critics. The history of African religions becomes in many ways like a pentathlon, expecting the scholar who conducts such research to work with written texts, to learn African languages, to live within a community where these religious traditions are practiced, to study material culture, both sacred and mundane, and a variety of archaeological sources from tree rings to stone circles and gravesites. By relying on the existing corpus of written texts, oral traditions, linguistic analyses, descriptions based on participant observation, and various ty
"Danny L. Jorgensen's book certainly provides a good handbook to supplement the more general comments on participant observation found in other texts. . . . I also appreciate Jorgensen's attention to
"Participant observation lies at the heart of the ethnographic approach to qualitative research. The essence of participant observation is immersion in the settings, cultural practices, and daily acti
Qualitative research in such diverse areas as anthropology, sociology, education, nursing, and medical research draws on the insights gained through the use of participant observation for gaining grea
All too often anthropologists and other social scientists go into the field with unrealistic expectations. Different cultural milieus are prime ground for misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and in
All too often anthropologists and other social scientists go into the field with unrealistic expectations. Different cultural milieus are prime ground for misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and in
No ethnographer can record and analyze everything that she encounters in the field. We must make choices about what to look at and how to look at it, which means privileging some aspects of social lif
No ethnographer can record and analyze everything that she encounters in the field. We must make choices about what to look at and how to look at it, which means privileging some aspects of social lif
This book is a participation observation study of control agents, and the agency where they work. The theoretical framework for this study focuses on norms as rules in use, and contributes to the soci
Mira Menzfeld explores dying persons’ experiences of their own dying processes. She reveals cultural specificities of pre-exital dying in contemporary Germany, paying special attention to how concepts
This study utilizes the perceptions of criminal investigators of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to describe the normative structure of an organization in its social context. The lega
Poetry. "In her new collection, PARTICIPANT Linda Russo shows how to distill and clarify perception as a method of lyric practice in order to render "a world made sharp." This long poem of observation
