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Situated Practices (situated + practice)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	100%

Selected Abstracts

Indigenous Ecological Knowledge as Situated Practices: Understanding Fishers' Knowledge in the Western Solomon Islands

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 3 2009
Matthew Lauer
ABSTRACT In this article, we draw on research among fisherfolk of Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands, to examine certain epistemological assumptions of the "indigenous knowledge" concept. We describe how approaches to knowledge in Roviana differ from prevailing models of knowledge that distinguish between cognitive aspects and other modalities of knowing. For many Roviana fishers, ecological knowledge is not analytically separated from the changing contexts of everyday activities such as navigating and fishing. Inspired by Roviana epistemologies, we argue that a practice-oriented approach provides a more sympathetic and informative theoretical framework for understanding knowledge and its role in contemporary marine-resource conservation efforts. The theoretical and methodological implications of the perspective are illustrated with examples from an ongoing marine conservation project in the western Solomon Islands that integrates indigenous knowledge, remote-sensing techniques, and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies. [source]

,Have You Got a Boyfriend or are You Single?': On the Importance of Being ,Straight' in Organizational Research

GENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 3 2006
Attila Bruni
The article focuses on heterosexuality as a covert feature of organization studies as well as of organizational research. In fact, while organization studies have discussed the gendered and the gendering aspects of organizational practices and organizational theory, the implication of heterosexuality has yet to receive intensive analysis in these fields. And while the mutual and reflexive constitution of the observer and the observed has been the topic of a considerable amount of research, the dimension of (heterosexual) desire in this process of mutual constitution is still largely unexplored. Referring to three different episodes that occurred while the author was doing organizational ethnography, the article suggests that a heterosexual model of desire is called into action both in organizational and research activities and that focusing on it can be an occasion to question not only the gender (and heterosexual) biases of organizational practices but also the way in which gender and sexuality are mobilized while doing research. In particular, on the basis of the concept of cathexis, the article shows how heterosexuality is learnt and enacted as a situated practice and through a variety of processes: performing power, negotiating and displaying that one belongs to an organizational culture, obscuring the hetero-normativity of professional identities and neglecting the emotional engagement that characterizes research activities and that exposes the researcher to an otherwise vulnerable position. [source]

Talking the talk: Debating debate in northern Afghanistan

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 2 2009
Magnus Marsden
The ethnographic focus of this article is on the ways in which Afghan families who lived in northern Pakistan as refugees are currently reflecting upon to their complex experiences of return to their country through a rich and complex culture of debate, as well as the deployment of other verbal and peformative skills, especially imitation. More broadly, it argues that the comparative study of situated practices of debate offers unique insights for the anthropological analysis of Islam, which an expanding body of work on the ways in which piety minded Muslims embody and cultivate ethical and moral values has thus far overlooked. [source]

Of eagles and flies: orientations toward the site

AREA, Issue 3 2010
Keith Woodward
The macro-micro distinction is one of the most powerful in the human and physical sciences. In this article we challenge the macro by positing an alternative that recognises the intricacies and complexities of material geographies. We employ the Latin proverb , Aquila non captat muscas (Eagles don't catch flies) , to epitomise our position. Instead of looking to general theory , the bird's eye view , we argue for interrogating the ontological and methodological implications of a reciprocal, but antithetical, perspective , that of the flies. We call this alternative the site, an ontology that attempts to account for the different and varying political possibilities , virtually infinite and ,un-catalogue-able', constantly at work in the world. The site is a formulation that recognises social life as a realm of infinite singularity and variability, where matter is immanently self-organising and pure difference unfolds. We explore the spatiality of the site through the concepts of topology and difference and then develop four methodological orientations for exploring the terrain of situated practices enmeshed in and unfolding through sites. [source]