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This paper provides an account of the everyday workplace learning of cycle technicians. Derived from an ethnography of working cultures and practices at a bike shop in the North of England, this paper rests on a critical reading of Communities of Practice theory in order to explore the complex and heterogeneous learning of cycle technicians. Drawing on a series of vignettes constructed from the ethnographic data, the paper demonstrates the variety of experiences of both formal and informal learning that characterise the trajectories of new cycle technicians as they enter the industry. In addition to providing an account of a qualified and specialist workforce that is under-represented in extant research literature, the paper also provides an exemplar for ethnographic research as a vehicle for exploring working practices through a Communities of Practice lens, using the paradigmatic theoretical elements of the theory. The paper concludes by arguing that for cycle technicians, and perhaps other occupations as well, Communities of Practice theory can generate rich and complex accounts that do justice to the richness and complexity of the craft and practice being observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secure children's homes are locked institutions that deprive children of their liberty. The government are investing significantly in these homes, yet there remains a lack of clarity about their nature and purpose. Drawing on data generated through a substantial ethnography in one secure children's home in England, this paper uses Goffman's (1961) theorising as a conceptual lens to view the institution. It concludes that ambiguity and confusion about what these institutions are, and what they seek to achieve, impacts negatively on the experience of everyday life within. Clarity is needed urgently to improve experiences and to enable the assessment of outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using examples from the National Health Service in England, this paper illustrates key features of contemporary healthcare governance: the way decisions are hidden in places that are 'in between' and 'out of reach'; the enrolment of doctors in governing; and the important role played by 'boring things', such as power point slides, flow charts, and forms. The essay shows how anthropological proximity and perspectives can extend and deepen understanding of contemporary political power. It does this firstly by showing the importance of agency in the operation of governmentality, and secondly by illuminating the limits of governmentality. The different elements of governing assemblages, such as global management experts, medical leaders, forms of knowledge and analytical technologies, are brought together through the strategic act of framing. Frames are contested and resisted, requiring more visible forms of control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Derived from an ethnography of working cultures and practices at a bike shop in the North of England, this paper rests on a critical application of social practice theories of literacy (Literacy Studies) in order to explore the complex and heterogeneous literacy practices of cycle technicians. Drawing on a series of vignettes constructed from the ethnographic data, the paper demonstrates the variety of experiences of both formal and informal learning that underpin the literacy practices of the cycle workshop. In addition to providing an account of a qualified and specialist workforce that is under-represented in extant research literature, the paper also provides an exemplar for ethnographic research as a vehicle for exploring literacy practices. The paper also suggests that ongoing debates concerning transferable workplace skills can be enriched through considering situated, contextualised literacy events. The paper concludes by arguing that for cycle technicians, and perhaps other occupations as well, Literacy Studies can generate rich and complex accounts that unpack the textual practices found alongside the occupational expertise and competence being observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has long demonstrated the exclusion and Othering experienced by young people with disabilities in education. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted in an 'elite' sixth-form college in England, set against the backdrop of a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape, where neo-liberal discourses of dis/ability and healthism—centring on mental health and wellbeing—are becoming further embedded in educational policy. Drawing on theoretical work by Bourdieu and Foucault, we demonstrate how the students in this study appeared able to re-make disability as a liberal intellectual identity marker and use it as a form of capital within the bounded college sub-field. However, we argue that these empowered disabled subjectivities were strongly middle-classed and precarious. The findings have implications through advancing current understandings of young people's complexifying relationships with disability in education, of enduring inequalities around disability, and how social class is implicated in this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Speech and language therapists and nurses need to work together to keep patients with swallowing difficulties safe throughout their acute stroke admission. Speech and language therapists make recommendations for safe swallowing following assessment and nurses put recommendations into practice and monitor how patients cope. There has been little research into the everyday realities of ongoing swallow safety management by these two disciplines. Patient safety research in other fields of healthcare indicates that safety can be enhanced through understanding the cultural context in which risk decisions are made. Aims: To generate new understanding for how speech and language therapists (SLTs) and nurses share information for ongoing management of swallows safety on stroke units. Methods & Procedures: An ethnographic methodology involving 40 weeks of fieldwork on three stroke wards in England between 2015 and 2017. Fieldwork observation (357 h) and interviews with 43 members of SLT and nursing staff. Observational and interview data were analysed iteratively using techniques from the constant comparative method to create a thematically organized explanation. Outcomes & Results: An explanation for how disciplinary differences in time and space influenced how SLT and nursing staff shared information for ongoing management of swallow safety, based around three themes: (1) SLTs and nurses were aligned in concern for swallow safety across all information‐sharing routes; however, (2) ambiguity was introduced by the need for the information contained in swallowing recommendations to travel across time, creating dilemmas for nurses. Patients could improve or deteriorate after recommendations were made and nurses had competing demands on their time. Ambiguity had consequences for (3) critical incident reporting and relationships. SLTs experienced dilemmas over how to act when recommendations were not followed. Conclusions & Implications: This study provides new understanding for patient safety dilemmas associated with the enactment and oversight of swallowing recommendations in context, on stroke wards. Findings can support SLTs and nurses to explore together how information for ongoing dysphagia management can be safely implemented within ward realities and kept up to date. This could include considering nursing capacity to act when SLTs are not there, mealtime staffing and SLT 7‐day working. Together they can review their understanding of risk and preferred local and formal routes for learning from it. What this paper adds: What is already known on the subject: It is known that information to keep swallowing safe is shared through swallowing recommendations, which are understood to involve a balance of risks between optimizing the safety of the swallow mechanism and maintaining physiological and emotional health. There is increasing appreciation from patient safety research, of the importance of understanding the context in which hospital staff make decisions about risk and patient safety. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: The paper provides new empirical understanding for the complexities of risk management associated with SLT and nursing interactions and roles with respect to ongoing swallow safety. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Findings can underpin SLT and nurse discussion about how swallow safety could be improved in their own settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents one aspect of a sociocultural micro-ethnographic study examining how 11- and 12-year-old children formulate meanings when working with an artist in a contemporary art gallery. My primary focus is an examination of methodological contributions emerging from an imaginative coding and analysis of children's art. Ninety-nine artworks were created in collaboration with the artist and were organised and interpreted using a constructionist interviewing coding scheme. This unorthodox approach to visual analysis unearthed information that oral accounts cannot provide alone revealing meanings which would otherwise remain dormant. By intuitively applying the coding framework I expose how participants' meanings are negotiated by appropriating and re-organising cultural concepts into personalised narratives. As such, artworks reveal participants' desires, interpretations and intentions, operating as agentic cultural producers as well as unconsciously reproducing visual epistemologies ubiquitous in Western cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centering the identity‐related impact of spatial structures and physical environments in shaping the sense of being and belonging of people in the diaspora is a key decolonial feminist project for and within psychology. This paper presents an ethnographic study that combines observations at three Black hair salons in England with a total of 25 qualitative interviews with Black women (n = 18) and experts such as hairdressers (n = 7). The question this study seeks to answer is: ''How are Black women's racial identities constructed, structed and shaped by and through their interactions with and navigation of the Black hair care and beauty landscape in England?" This paper shows that participants reflected on the navigation of space as an identity‐relevant experience. Moreover, racial identity construction happens in place through encounters and socio‐spatial interactions and Black women's ways of seeing, being, and inhabiting the world. Lastly, this paper argues the centrality or marginality of Black hair salons is relative, dependent upon the location and situatedness of the person searching or visiting it. This paper thus highlights avenues for future research into the space‐ race‐identity nexus and invites an examination of the identity‐related significance that spatial arrangements carry for people in the diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the experience of researching food in schools. Food is personal. It is an ingested symbol of culture, family, tradition, ethnicity... What does this mean as a researcher? How do we navigate food relationships? How is this relationship shaped by the rules of the school? This paper examines how I went about doing food research in primary schools, and the various incidents that occurred that revealed food was something more than that consumed. It outlines the ethnographic approach adopted, paying attention to the sensory in research. I explore researcher identity, explaining how my own identity was multiple, and shifting, depending on where I was at a particular "food moment". I draw attention to several events that, on reflection, serve to reveal the importance of food in everyday life, and helped understand both the field site, and the wider context of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the corporate (re)naming of football stadia and their urban environs is negotiated through fans' toponymic discourses and associated commemoration. Critical toponymy research emphasises oppositional toponymic tensions between sovereign authorities and citizens, which can result in competing inscriptions of space. Adopting a quasi-ethnographic approach, we reveal a more complex picture by exploring the variegated toponymic discourses of football fans. The findings demonstrate intricate entanglements in how fans reluctantly accept a corporate stadium name, yet also actively resist it through counter-performative utterances, often imbued with commemorative intent. Alternatively, fans passively ignore a corporate stadium name, using a former toponym in quotidian and habitual speech. We conclude by considering the implications of these findings for the influence of corporate power in urban toponymic inscription. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The welfare of the child in the context of private family law proceedings is of significant international interest. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study of private law proceedings in England, which explored legal professionals' experiences of and practice within space and place. Data are derived from interviews with professionals, and observations from the waiting areas, canteens, interview rooms and offices of lawyers who represent parents in private family law proceedings. The paper focuses on winners and losers in the area of private family law, and the 'trophy', the child, who appears to be lost in the battleground of legal proceedings, but remains the ultimate prize. The concept of space is explored before moving to reflect upon the data from the interviews. The themes that emerge from the data are the relationships between the public space of the court and the vulnerability of the parties as they attempt with greater or less ease, to navigate the complexities of this formal and procedurally driven space. This paper explores the idea of the child as the ultimate 'trophy' within private law proceedings to consider its significance for family justice practice in England, and to elicit a greater understanding of the importance of space and place in private law proceedings that have remained largely unexplored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the work of Pierre Bourdieu to understand the lives of a set of young White working-class men living in a deprived urban locale in the north of England. All participants were classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training) throughout the research and had spent lengthy periods of time outside education and work before the study commenced. Although none took part in formal employment, many participants engaged in illicit activities, often for material gain, during the course of the fieldwork. The data presented is drawn from ethnographic fieldwork and deals with participants' attitudes to education, work and social life more broadly. Whilst some findings are troubling, the paper challenges dominant discourses about the attitudes, values and aspirations of NEET young people, especially those from White working-class backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High quality primary care is a foundational element of effective health services. Internationally, primary care physicians (general practitioners (GPs), family doctors) are experiencing significant workload pressures. How non-patient-facing work contributes to these pressures and what constitutes this work is poorly understood and often unrecognised and undervalued by patients, policy makers, and even clinicians engaged in it. This paper examines non-patient-facing work ethnographically, informed by practice theory, the Listening Guide, and empirical ethics. Ethnographic observations (104 h), in-depth interviews (n = 16; 8 with GPs and 8 with other primary care staff) and reflexive workshops were conducted in two general practices in England. Our analysis shows that 'hidden work' was integral to direct patient care, involving diverse clinical practices such as: interpreting test results; crafting referrals; and accepting interruptions from clinical colleagues. We suggest the term 'hidden care work' more accurately reflects the care-ful nature of this work, which was laden with ambiguity and clinical uncertainty. Completing hidden care work outside of expected working hours was normalised, creating feelings of inefficiency, and exacerbating workload pressure. Pushing tasks forward into an imagined future (when conditions might allow its completion) commonly led to overspill into GPs' own time. GPs experienced tension between their desire to provide safe, continuous, 'caring' care and the desire to work a manageable day, in a context of increasing demand and burgeoning complexity. • The non-patient-facing work of general practitioners is often invisible or hidden. • Hidden work is associated with complexity and uncertainty. • Behind-the-scenes work is care work, just as direct work with patients is care work. • Doctors face tensions between completing tasks and working a manageable day. • Combining practice theory with the Listening Guide embraces multi-vocality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research focuses on the complexities associated with contemporary rural primary school leadership. The paper draws on in-depth ethnographic research undertaken in two contrasting English rural primary schools and their surrounding community over a period of three years and in particular the experiences and perspectives of the two head teachers from these schools. The paper is conceptually informed by the work of Bourdieu [1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul] and his work around field, habitus and capital as a means of understanding practice. The paper contends that as the neo-liberal economic field increasingly contaminates the field of schooling so a contextual understanding of the complex and shifting social space which a head teacher occupies, including their habitus and the capital they deploy, is of central importance to understanding practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of the increasing number of initiatives setting out to challenge heteronormativity in education, the No Outsiders project has arguably been one of the most influential. Conducted across 15 primary schools in England, No Outsiders sought to disrupt heteronormativity through critical pedagogy, gaining widespread academic and media attention in the process. In spite of its prominence, though, there has been a lack of research exploring the effects of this project on children's attitudes towards sexuality in school. This paper draws on data from an ethnographic study of two UK primary schools – one that was and one that was not involved in No Outsiders – to explore the 'effects' of this critical intervention. The research found that whilst homophobia persisted across both schools, children's understandings of its acceptability differed markedly according to their involvement in equalities pedagogy, with institutional silence interpreted by many as equivalent to school-sanctioned homophobia. The implications of these findings are significant, revealing proactive sexualities pedagogy as essential to countering the damaging effects of institutional invisibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although breastfeeding is known to improve health, economic and environmental outcomes, breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates are low in the United Kingdom. The global WHO/UNICEF Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) aims to reverse declining rates of breastfeeding by shifting the culture of infant feeding care provision throughout hospital maternity settings. In the United Kingdom, the global BFHI has been adapted by UNICEF UK reflecting a paradigm shift towards the experiences of women and families using maternity services. This research used a critical ethnographic approach to explore the influence of the national UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) standards on the culture of one typical maternity service in England, over a period of 8 weeks, across four phases of data collection between 2011 and 2017. Twenty‐one staff and 26 service users were recruited and engaged in moderate‐level participant observation and/or guided interviews and conversations. Basic, organising and a final global theme emerged through thematic network analysis, describing the influence of the BFI on providing, receiving and leading infant feeding care in a hospital maternity setting. Using Antonovsky's sense of coherence construct, the findings discussed in this paper highlight how the BFI offers 'informational' (comprehensible), 'practical' (manageable) and 'emotional' (meaningful) support for both staff and service users, strengthened by effective, local leadership and a team approach. This is juxtaposed against the tensions and demands of the busy hospital maternity setting. It is recommended that ongoing infant feeding policy, practice and leadership balance relational and rational approaches for positive infant feeding care and experiences to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice learning site is an important place of determining suitability for social work practice and as such is a key site of gate keeping. Research, both international and multi-disciplinary have consistently highlighted the challenging emotional processes involved in failing a student in a practice learning setting. This research has largely focused on practice educators. What has been not been explored however, are wider decision-making processes about students who have failed the placement, namely, what is known in the UK as the Practice Assessment Panel (PAP). The paper thus documents findings from an ethnographic study of four PAPs in England, utilising a practice-near analytical approach. Findings centre around three key themes; the deferring of difficult decisions, powerful voices and the unacknowledged emotional climate. The paper concludes that the PAP can be theorised as a powerful projective field and suggests possible ways forward in light of the themes to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The social positioning and treatment of persons with dementia reflects dominant biomedical discourses of progressive and inevitable loss of insight, capacity, and personality. Proponents of person-centred care, by contrast, suggest that such loss can be mitigated within environments that preserve rather than undermine personhood. In formal organisational settings, person-centred approaches place particular responsibility on 'empowered' direct-care staff to translate these principles into practice. These staff provide the majority of hands-on care, but with limited training, recognition, or remuneration. Working within a Foucauldian understanding of power, this paper examines the complex ways that dementia care staff engage with their own 'dis/empowerment' in everyday practice. The findings, which are drawn from ethnographic studies of three National Health Service ( NHS) wards and one private care home in England, are presented as a narrative exploration of carers' general experience of powerlessness, their inversion of this marginalised subject positioning, and the related possibilities for action. The paper concludes with a discussion of how Foucault's understanding of power may help define and enhance efforts to empower direct-care staff to provide person-centred care in formal dementia care settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirically informed ‘opinion paper’ reflects upon the use of observant participant as a qualitative research method during an applied, multilocal, ethnographic study of street-based injecting drug use (conducted throughout the south of England during 2006–2011). Throughout these studies, participant observation took place with frontline service personnel and observant participation occurred with people who inject drugs. As participant observation typically involves the acquisition of a new role in an unfamiliar setting for a given person, observant participation prioritises existing roles in order to conduct research within familiar/unfamiliar settings. In this study, the method of observant participation is compared and contrasted with participant observation as both methods were conducted in the aforementioned ethnographic study of street-based injecting drug use. This experience-based comparison is followed by a discussion that offers a theoretically informed explanation for the various success and outcomes attached to the study (and, specifically, to those obtained from the applied use of observant participation with people who inject drugs). The paper concludes that observant participation may be best used as a ‘synergising’ component within a wider qualitative research toolkit especially when dedicated to inquiries of sensitive issues or ‘hard-to-reach’ populations (such as those affected by drug dependence). In addition, the synergistic effect of observant participation may contribute towards a combined understanding of social problems that is perhaps greater than the sum of findings obtained from separate, disconnected methods of social research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Paramedics make important and increasingly complex decisions at scene about patient care. Patient safety implications of influences on decision making in the pre-hospital setting were previously under-researched. Cutting edge perspectives advocate exploring the whole system rather than individual influences on patient safety. Ethnography (the study of people and cultures) has been acknowledged as a suitable method for identifying health care issues as they occur within the natural context. In this paper we compare multiple methods used in a multi-site, qualitative study that aimed to identify system influences on decision making.Methods: The study was conducted in three NHS Ambulance Trusts in England and involved researchers from each Trust working alongside academic researchers. Exploratory interviews with key informants e.g. managers (n = 16) and document review provided contextual information. Between October 2012 and July 2013 researchers observed 34 paramedic shifts and ten paramedics provided additional accounts via audio-recorded 'digital diaries' (155 events). Three staff focus groups (total n = 21) and three service user focus groups (total n = 23) explored a range of experiences and perceptions. Data collection and analysis was carried out by academic and ambulance service researchers as well as service users. Workshops were held at each site to elicit feedback on the findings and facilitate prioritisation of issues identified.Results: The use of a multi-method qualitative approach allowed cross-validation of important issues for ambulance service staff and service users. A key factor in successful implementation of the study was establishing good working relationships with academic and ambulance service teams. Enrolling at least one research lead at each site facilitated the recruitment process as well as study progress. Active involvement with the study allowed ambulance service researchers and service users to gain a better understanding of the research process. Feedback workshops allowed stakeholders to discuss and prioritise findings as well as identify new research areas.Conclusion: Combining multiple qualitative methods with a collaborative research approach can facilitate exploration of system influences on patient safety in under-researched settings. The paper highlights empirical issues, strengths and limitations for this approach. Feedback workshops were effective for verifying findings and prioritising areas for future intervention and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although women's appearance is theorised as being central to their identity and social currency, much prior research has argued that as women age, other aspects of their lives assume a higher priority than their appearance. Nevertheless, they continue to invest time in appearance practices. In undertaking these various appearance practices, older women have to negotiate a range of conflicting social norms of age-appropriate appearance, such as managing the balancing act between 'letting themselves go', on the one hand, and looking like 'mutton dressed as lamb', on the other. This paper contributes to the growing literature on older women's attitudes to their appearance and related practices. Drawing on data from a two-year research project in a hair-salon catering primarily for older clients, I examine the question of the importance to women of their appearance through the lens of their hair-care practices. Focusing on a group of nine female clients aged 55–90 in a small hair-salon in southern England, I show how participants in their talk and embodied presentation display shifting orientations of investment/interest (or lack of interest) in their appearance. Comparing participants' appearance practices , with their talk in two sequential environments in which a possible interest in appearance is made particularly salient, I argue that these shifting orientations reveal participants' subtle negotiation of competing social norms of appearance for older women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnography is increasingly being used in the evaluation of quality improvement and change initiatives in healthcare settings, particularly in the form of 'focused' and 'rapid' ethnographies. This new ethnographic genre is tailored to suit narrower enquiries within clinical pathways. However, the application of ethnography to the evaluation of quality improvement is not straightforward or free from reductionist bias, particularly in hospital settings where interventions take place during a limited period of time and instigate change in busy and sensitive settings. This paper discusses problems and emergent solutions involved in conducting an ethnographic process evaluation of co-design projects in lung cancer and intensive care unit services in two hospitals in England. The mixed-methods ethnographic evaluation consisted of observations of the co-design process and triangulation of findings with interviews, questionnaires, participant reflective diaries and service improvement logs. Limitations of observational time and distance from 'the field' were overcome by making most of the pre- and post-event observational periods, situating quality improvement within the wider context of clinical practice, achieving attunement with local clinical cultures and engaging participants in collaboratively guiding observational and interview design. This approach led to a focused ethnographic evaluation that accommodated ethnographic principles to obtain rich insights into quality improvement processes despite the limitations of short-timeframes and the hospital setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased emphasis on the child's voice and point of view in care and treatment has led to an expansion in the development of methods to access and identify their perspectives. Drawing on our experiences in a study of children with leukemia in hospital, this article explains the challenges and opportunities that arise in the use of five commonly used methods in a study of hospitalized children's experiences with health care professionals, including the "Draw and Write" technique, a sticker activity, a paper–person exercise, informal interviews, and participant observation. Each of these methods was examined with regard to ease of use, data generation, and utility of data for accessing children's perspectives and development of initial clinical guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on child-initiated pedagogy that is based on the process of co-construction of learning experiences between children, adults and the environment, being part of longitudinal research project that analyses child-initiated pedagogies in formal early years settings with 3–6-year-old children. Drawing on an ethnographic approach this paper explores children's own views of the relationships between their own and adults' decisions. Twenty-four participating teachers, in 14 different early years settings in three countries (Finland, Estonia and England) used interviews with puppets and video methodologies to document children's views on how decisions are reached, what kinds of things are decided, and who decides. The data suggest that children embrace the feel of control. They also acknowledge, at a level, acting and taking control within boundaries. Given an opportunity, the children are skilful in sharing the responsibility of control with peers and adults. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper emerges from an ethnography of the economic and cultural life of Rye Lane, an intensely multi-ethnic street in Peckham, South London. The effects of accelerated migration into London are explored through the reshaping and diversification of its interior, street and city spaces. A ‘trans-ethnography’ is pursued across the compendium of micro-, meso- and macro-urban spaces, without reifying one above the other. The ethnographic stretch across intimate, collective and symbolic city spaces serves to connect how the restrictions and circuits of urban migration have different impacts and expressions in these distinctive but interrelated urban localities. The paper argues for a trans-ethnography that engages within and across a compendium of urban localities, to understand how accelerated migration and urban ‘super-diversity’ transform the contemporary global city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Older people living in long-term facilities (nursing and residential homes providing 24-hour care) spend the majority of their time inactive, despite the known health and wellbeing benefits of physical activity and reduced time spent sedentary. In order to successfully embed interventions that aim to increase physical activity or reduce sedentary behaviour, it is necessary to understand the features of the care environment that influence residents’ routine patterns of movement. Drawing on an organisational perspective, this paper explores the structures and mechanisms that shaped different care practices concerning residents’ movement in two contrasting care homes in the north of England. This study adopted an ethnographic approach, using a combination of qualitative observations, informal conversations and interviews. A grounded theory approach to data analysis was adopted. The findings illustrate the importance of translating espoused values of care into tangible and acceptable care practices, systems of management, staff training and development, and the use of care planning in residents’ routine patterns of movement. Understanding how organisational factors shape routine movement among care home residents will help inform the development of embedded and sustainable interventions that enhance physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviour. This study is part of a wider programme of research developing and testing a complex intervention, embedded within routine care, to reduce sedentary behaviour among care home residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organ donation is constructed in the UK as a public responsibility, but more particularly as an obligation for members of minority ethnic communities. This paper draws attention to the ways in which ‘ethnicity’ has been made problematic by the allocation practices of transplant medicine, health promotion discourses and policy developments. Taken together, they have served to culturalise and racialise the procurement of organs. As the problem of organ donation is as much made inside medicine as outside it, this paper argues greater attention ought to be paid to these institutional practices and processes. Drawing on ethnographic work in the north of England, and with a specific focus on the organ consent encounter, this paper shows how categories of ethnicity in organ transplantation are an outcome of biopolitical and institutional practices. It argues that organ donation is best thought of, less as a discrete temporally-bounded act of decision-making, and more as a set of variegated situated practices that, in all manner of ways, problematically produce the publics that transplant medicine has come to rely upon so profoundly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how people living in two socially contrasting areas of Stockton on Tees, North East England experience, explain, and understand the stark health inequalities in their town. Participants displayed opinions that fluctuated between a variety of converging and contrasting explanations. Three years of ethnographic observation in both areas (2014–2017) generated explanations which initially focused closely on behavioural and individualised factors, whilst 118 qualitative interviews subsequently revealed more nuanced justifications, which prioritised more structural, material and psychosocial influences. Findings indicate that inequalities in healthcare, including access, the importance of judgemental attitudes, and perceived place stigma, would then be offered as explanations for the stark gap in spatial inequalities in the area. Notions of fatalism, linked to (a lack of) choice, control, and fear of the future, were common reasons given for inequalities across all participants. We conclude by arguing for a prioritisation of listening to, and working to understand, the experiences of communities experiencing the brunt of health inequalities; especially important at a time of austerity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the methodological issues I faced during my research as a ‘returning native’ in an English secondary school. The empirical research took the form of a three‐year case study and used some ethnographic methods, as it comprised interviews carried out over a period of three academic years in the school in which I was once employed as a teacher. I was also given the opportunity to work in the school as a consultant in the lead‐up to and during its Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (OfSTED) inspection. This enabled me to conduct interviews, observe, interact in informal conversations and participate in the inspection week. In this paper I explore the unique role of the insider‐researcher, or returning native. Not only was this a school in which I had previously worked, but actually participating in the inspection added new layers of complex loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cemeteries garner considerable academic attention as anthropologists, landscapers, archaeologists, sociologists, geographers and historians examine their layout, purpose and use. Emerging from these studies is a body of literature that considers cemetery and burial ground design, memorialisation, mourning behaviour and ‘dark tourism’. Beyond interdisciplinary journals such as Mortality and edited multi-disciplinary books however, the insight generated in this literature can be fragmented through publication in discipline specific periodicals. As a result cemeteries are often analysed and presented as places that contain, for example, design or tourism and heritage or emotion and mourning. Framed by concerns over the sustainability of cemeteries nationwide, this paper considers the contemporary English cemetery as a simultaneous space of emotion, commerce and community. Using data from an ethnographic case study of a cemetery in East London, it illustrates the contestation that can result from these concurrent contrasting interpretations. The paper concludes that care needs to be taken when implementing initiatives and policy to balance the varying demands and expectations of a cemetery's purpose and use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of male strip shows marketed towards heterosexual women has called into question the idea that only men can 'gaze' or be 'sexual scrutinizers' in public leisure spaces. This paper details the findings of an ethnographic study of a male strip event 'Cheeky's',1 located in the Midlands, England. Utilising observation, informal interviews and photography, the paper describes the physical environment and the atmosphere of the event, and analyses interview data with female customers. The paper questions what spaces such as Cheeky's mean for female sexualities, sexual roles and desires. The findings are twofold. On the one hand the club was a relatively novel sexual space, as some women spectators experienced it as an 'empowering' space in which they could be 'sexually aggressive'; on the other hand, the character of the club was actively and adeptly manufactured by the Master of Ceremonies (MC), and male dancers, so as to encourage - and even to coercively elicit - extrovert behaviour from women customers. Despite shifting normative gendered expectations of women's sexual behaviour to some extent, ultimately the club structured women's sexual experiences around traditional heterosexist lines. The club did not encourage women's autonomous sexual expression, and many women claimed they had not found it a very 'sexy space'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the experiences of pupils and professionals who are affected by actual or threatened permanent exclusion (what used to be called being expelled) from school. An ethnographic study based on the writer's employment within secondary schools and the Children's Services department of an urban local authority in England explores the idea that professionals may be forced to make decisions about pupils in the face of powerful competition between the politically unchallengeable concepts of tolerance, inclusivity, attainment, and choice. The paper argues that the tensions of multi-agency working are focussed within what will be called the contested space of the pupil's 'extended body'. Permanent exclusion, along with its tendency to prompt a pathological reading of a pupil's issues, is therefore seen as an authoritarian strategy designed to ameliorate the inherent paradoxical tension experienced by the various professionals working within an education system dedicated to the concept of 'full inclusion' but measured and funded on the grounds of academic league tables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the issue of practical knowledge for enabling participation. Participation as a strategy for change is widespread in community, health and human service contexts. Research to date has focused on the mechanisms of beneficiaries' participation (e.g. identity, empowerment, activity, gender, space). However, participation as an engagement strategy is action oriented and requires high levels of interaction between those creating the conditions for participation and those participating. These conditions need to be continuously adjusted and outcomes are often unpredictable. This process of 'working with' is often dealt with as a technical issue and captured in metaphorical language. Less emphasis has been given to the type of knowledge modalities that might be necessary in order to enable participation. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of participation in a youth inclusion programme the paper explores the role of stories as potential indicators of practical knowledge. The paper argues that enabling young people's participation requires intuition and imagination, patience and perseverance, and judgement for acting under uncertainty. It concludes that stories only partially fulfil their potential as indicators of such knowledge modalities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an academic subject of study, death has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. Yet unlike other topics in the social sciences, death occupies a rather unique status as a research topic. A universal concern that affects everyone, this paper asks whether it is therefore ever possible to achieve a scholarly 'critical distance' from studying a place or people associated with death. Drawing on the author's experience of undertaking an ethnographic study of a London cemetery, the paper reflexively recounts the ways in which the author managed their own critical distance both in and outside of the field. The paper concludes that it is somewhat unrealistic to suggest that a scholar researching death can maintain a complete sense of detachment in light of their awareness of the mortal human condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bangladeshi diaspora in East London exists in a rapidly changing social geography. Drawing on fieldwork conducted with Bangladeshi mothers in East London over a period of 18 months (2003-2004), this paper explores the different ways in which becoming a mother is conceptualised, and examines the cultural claims that mothers make through their narratives of motherhood. The research focuses on health and motherhood because they are important points where personal experience, social institutions and notions of 'culture' all intersect. Through examination of the different sources of information these women used to build their narratives, debates around ethnicity and class are brought into sharper focus, as are the potential challenges in providing services to mothers that successfully deal with both with diversity and social inequality. In investigating the complexity and possible contradictions within personal narrative, this paper also highlights some of the practical challenges involved in providing services for diverse populations in a manner that recognises difference at both a community and an individual level. Finally, by utilising biographical research more fully, this paper argues that it is possible to investigate critically the role of ethnicity in the provision of services more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on case study research with Lee who had been permanently excluded from an urban secondary school in England. It begins with two extended extracts from the case study in order to illustrate the challenges the principal researcher, Deon, faced in the day-to-day conduct of the work. The section that follows engages in a reflexive consideration of these 'discomforts' in research. The discussion interlaces post-structural analysis of identities, and how these relate to being excluded from school, with indications about methodology. The paper ends with a call for ethnographic study in educational/social research and in the study of exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current theories concerning the social and material construction of time and space have little to say concerning the specific things and people involved. For example, how do times and spaces get made on a train—with passengers, train seats, tables, and views through the window? Through a travelogue of one train journey across England, this paper explores the art and craft of train travel, and the making of a particular time and space. The paper draws together science studies approaches to socio-material relations, and geographical concerns with socio-spatiality, to discuss passengers as spatially distributed persons and property. Reflecting on ethnographic evidence in the form of quotations and photographs woven through the text, it demonstrates how these heterogeneous passengers craft their travel times as an effect of their travel time use; how socio-material interactions with pens, papers, puzzles and electricity pylons make time. Following Michel Serres, it also suggests how passenger time is not a simple flow but a percolation, and how these passenger times coalesce in train carriages to form communities. The paper is itself a journey, in the form of words and images, which begins and ends with the imaginary, social, and material work of making a destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the diversity in patients' experience of biomedicine and contrasts it with the normative view characteristic of health professionals. Ethnographic fieldwork among Polish migrant women in London, Barcelona and Berlin included interviews about their experiences with local healthcare and health professionals. Themes drawn from the narratives are differences between the cities in terms of communication between patients and health professionals, respect for patients' choices and dignity, attitudes to pregnancy and birth (different levels of medicalization), and paediatric care. It is argued that patients continuously negotiate among their own views and expectations based on previous experiences and knowledge from personal communication; internet forums and publications; and the offer of medical services in the countries of their settlement. Patients experience pluralism of therapeutic traditions within and outside bio-medicine. In turn, representatives of bio-medicine are rarely aware of other medical practices and beliefs and this leads to various misunderstandings. By highlighting the pluralism of medical practices in European countries and the increasing mobility of patients, this case study has useful implications for medical anthropologists and health professionals in a broader Western context, such as raising sensitivity to different communication strategies and a diversity of curing traditions and expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The UK National Health Service Health Checks programme aims to reduce avoidable cardiovascular deaths, disability and health inequalities in England. However, due to the reported lower uptake of screening in specific black and minority ethnic communities who are recognised as being more at risk of cardiovascular disease, there are concerns that NHS Health Checks may increase inequalities in health. This study aimed to examine the feasibility and acceptability of community outreach NHS Health Checks targeted at the Afro-Caribbean community.Methods: This paper reports findings from an ethnographic study including direct observation of four outreach events in four different community venues in inner-city Bristol, England and follow up semi-structured interviews with attendees (n = 16) and staff (n = 4). Interviews and field notes were transcribed, anonymized and analysed thematically using a process of constant comparison.Results: Analysis revealed the value of community assets (community engagement workers, churches, and community centres) to publicise the event and engage community members. People were motivated to attend for preventative reasons, often prompted by familial experience of cardiovascular disease. Attendees valued outreach NHS Health Checks, reinforcing or prompting some to make healthy lifestyle changes. The NHS Health Check provided an opportunity for attendees to raise other health concerns with health staff and to discuss their test results with peers. For some participants, the communication of test results, risk and lifestyle information was confusing and unwelcome. The findings additionally highlight the need to ensure community venues are fit for purpose in terms of assuring confidentiality.Conclusions: Outreach events provide evidence of how local health partnerships (family practice staff and health trainers) and community assets, including informal networks, can enhance the delivery of outreach NHS Health Checks and in promoting the health of targeted communities. To deliver NHS Health Checks effectively, the location and timing of events needs to be carefully considered and staff need to be provided with the appropriate training to ensure patients are supported and enabled to make lifestyle changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have recently witnessed the emergence of a range of naturalistic studies concerned with work, interaction and technology in complex organisational environments. In this paper we examine a seemingly individual and isolated activity, which involves the use of relatively basic technology to guide a vehicle in accord with a highly regulated signalling system. The paper considers the ways in which operating a vehicle is systematically co-ordinated with the actions of others. These actions, whether by passengers or colleagues, are only 'visible' by virtue of various technologies; technologies that offer restricted and even distorted access to people and their conduct. In one sense, therefore, the essay is concerned with explicating the socially organised and interactionally sensitive 'intelligence' which features in the day-to-day work of drivers on London Underground; a rapid urban transport system which carries more than a million passengers a day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health and illness beliefs of Greek Cypriots living in London This paper describes some of the findings of a qualitative study into the health and illness beliefs of Greek Cypriots living in London. Data were collected through group and individual in-depth interviews and were analysed using the grounded theory approach of constant comparison and saturation. Two of the six themes which were identified are discussed in this paper. The findings provide the reader with important insights into Greek Cypriots' beliefs of health and illness. The paper argues that the understanding of such beliefs from a cultural perspective is vitally important for all those involved in the provision of health care to this group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the role of fieldwork in folklore studies and anthropology. By speculating on the fieldwork experience of Ernesto de Martino in Lucania, we consider the figure of the Gramscian Fieldworker commenting on Stephen Olbrys Gencarellas proposal for a critical folklore studies. An imaginary de Martino, one that never existed, is seen as the precursor for such a figure, built around the scenario of the "end" as depicted by Heidegger and embodying the Gramscian proposition of the Organic Intellectual. The second part of the article grounds such a figure in the authors ethnographic experience of London, offering an examination of the current state of British multiculturalism through the case of an East London singer-songwriter. A practical example of how to interpret the fieldwork tactic pioneered by an imaginary de Martino in Lucania is presented as a way for social sciences and the humanities to overcome the predilection for text analysis of deconstructionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The UK aims to reduce the carbon emissions in the building sector so as to achieve nearly zero-carbon new buildings by 2020. In 2010, a 25 per cent reduction of carbon emissions was mandated in England and Wales. The aim of this paper is to reveal how the design teams were coping with the energy regulation changes in 2010 in England and Wales. Design/methodology/approach – An ethnographic methodology was selected to investigate in-depth the real-time design process in four architecture practices. The study was analysed in detail and compared the design process of six non-domestic buildings in England and Wales. The data collection methods included interviews, non-participant observation and document analysis and were conducted for a period of 12-21 months per case study. Findings – The field findings suggest the disconnections between the project driver and the policy agenda and reveal what the design teams do to embed energy performance in routine project design. Research limitations/implications – Due to the in-depth nature of the data, no claims for generalisation or representativeness are made. However, the detailed analysis of the real-time design process reveals the designers’ enactment of the policy agenda, which is in essence a timeless phenomenon about policy intervention and performance-based regulations. Originality/value – The designers’ enactment of and responses to the policy changes become an analytical tool to infer lessons that can be learned from the process and lead to the achievement of expected carbon reductions and the success of the policy intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England, health inequalities policy shifted during the Labour term (1997–2010) from initially strong commitments to tackling the ‘upstream’ social determinants of health to a technically-driven emphasis on lifestyle risk factors and healthcare access. This multi-sited study, based in and around Westminster (2006–2007), extends our understanding of how political context influences policy-making by drawing from anthropological studies of policy. Qualitative material from central government is put into conversation with theory concerning policy as zones of practices. The paper explores the bristly process through which public health, healthcare and corporate interests vied to shape the political agenda for health inequalities; the selective use of evidence by civil servants in accordance with their perceptions of what politicians conceive to be electorally palatable; the silencing of critique of the dominant narrative about evidence-based policy; and how technical aids developed a life of their own – as a result of which, health inequalities policy ended up being depoliticised. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In September 2010 I began an ESRC CASE Studentship in the School of Education, University of Manchester, and Kingswood High School, UK (anonymised name). This paper presents a reflexive analysis of the first year of the studentship, with a particular emphasis on working both inside and outside of the university and school. I worked with my supervisor and school personnel to design and implement a baseline data collection process, and using this data I reported to the school on key findings to support policy making and to begin negotiations on my PhD project. I will use my research diary to provide a thematic account of the first year, specifically I will examine both practical and philosophical issues regarding learning about my identity as a researcher who moves between similar and different institutions, professionals and organisational purposes. I will present a theorising of what it means to be simultaneously in and out, and between, and what this means for the development of a coherent project that meets the requirements of the school, university and the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To explore the views of older Australian and English care home and inpatient hospice staff on the physical environment of their workplace. Method: The paper reports on an issue that was highlighted during a larger ethnographic study of the inpatient environments in which older people receive end-of-life care. During visits to sixteen care homes and inpatient hospices-seven in England and nine in Australia-informal discussions were held with staff in which they described the challenges posed by the physical environment of their workplace. Results: Several of the staff, who were predominantly older female nurses, described the difficulties of working in a care environment that was not always fit for current purpose. For example, they found it tiring to have to walk long distances between tasks, and experienced difficulty with maneuvering heavy equipment on unsuitable floor surfaces. Conclusions: In order to promote the health of older, experienced care home and hospice staff and encourage them to remain in employment, it is important that the physical environment of the care setting is designed in a way that meets their needs. Older staff should be included in decisions about the refurbishment and rebuilding of care environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper examines the issue of parental engagement where children's services have brought court proceedings to protect children, from the perspective of specialist lawyers who represent parents. It draws on an in-depth, qualitative study of parents' representation conducted between 2008 and 2010. Parental non-co-operation with children's services is a common feature in these cases. Lawyers are partisans with duties to follow clients' instructions. They seek to build a trusting relationship and keep clients engaged in the process by giving advice, taking instructions and providing emotional support. Lawyers accept that parents have an absolute right to contest but use their power and authority to encourage their most vulnerable clients to concede. They are largely successful in keeping clients engaged in proceedings but parents rarely make the necessary changes in parenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the emotions highlighted by interactions between British migrants and Gulf nationals in the emerging global city of Dubai. Tracing the emotions that emerge in 'expatriate' handbooks, field notes, and interview narratives, I contribute to an emerging body of work that focuses on the embodied migrant and troubles the notion of privileged migrants as being detached from place. 1 demonstrate that attention to the emotions framing such interactions, in both geographical and temporal terms, can help us to better understand migrant encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions of 'aspiration' influencing contemporary education policy and practice are framed almost exclusively in terms of individual - or, at most, familial - ambitions towards economic prosperity. The failure to achieve 'social mobility' in British society is often posed as being due to the 'low aspirations' of working class children, particularly in formerly heavily industrialised areas. In a classic case of 'blaming the victim' the social exclusion that undoubtedly exists in such areas is blamed on those who suffer it. Things would be different, the argument goes, if only people aspired to 'get on'. This paper looks at material from an intergenerational ethnographic study of some former coal-mining communities in the north of England which are often popularly characterised as insular and lacking in ambition. In contrast to this stereotype, however, the data suggests that working class teenagers growing up in the impoverished and abandoned geography of Victorian colliery model villages, rather than suffering a failure of aspiration, often angrily and powerfully aspire - but for something contrary to the dominant model. Reviewing the ethnographic data in the light of a sociological and historical literature that attests to the exceptional nature of coal-mining communities, I suggest that such exceptionality impacts on young people's dispositions towards the educational project as a whole through a complex process of cultural transmission. A historically and locally situated notion of counter aspiration - that I call, here, resistant aspiration - is evident. I propose, in conclusion, that an acknowledgement of such resistant aspiration might help understand the widespread 'school disaffection' of working class youngsters not only in these former coal-mining communities but also in other post-industrial settings - nationally and internationally - that are similarly characterised by contested histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1910 Roger Casement was sent by the British government to investigate the alleged humanitarian abuses of the Peruvian Amazon Company in the Putumayo, a disputed border zone in North West Amazonia. Casement brought more than verbal and written testimony back to London. On 26 June, some six months after he returned from the Amazon, Casement collected two Amerindian boys - Omarino and Ricudo - from Southampton docks. This paper will reconstruct the brief period that these young men spent in Britain in the summer of 1911 and assess, in particular, to what extent they were treated as 'exhibits' by Casement, who not only introduced them to leading members of the British establishment but also arranged for them to be painted and photographed following contemporary ethnographic conventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]