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Mediating Ethnography: Objectivity and the Making of Ethnographies of the Internet
- Social Epistemology
, 2004
"... This paper aims to contribute to current discussions about methods in anthropological (especially ethnographic) research on the cultures of the internet. It does so by considering how technology has been presented in turn as an epistemological boon and bane in methodological discourse around virtual ..."
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This paper aims to contribute to current discussions about methods in anthropological (especially ethnographic) research on the cultures of the internet. It does so by considering how technology has been presented in turn as an epistemological boon and bane in methodological discourse around virtual or online ethnography, and cyberanthropology. It maps these discussions with regards to intellectual traditions and ambitions of ethnographic research and social science, and considers how these views of technology relate to modernist discourse about the value of technology for producing a particular kind of objective knowledge. For this article, I have examined a number of monographs and methodological texts in which the internet, as both a new setting and a new technology for doing ethnography, is shown to raise new issues for ethnographic work and for theorising anthropological approaches. In this material, questions of presence, field relations (including trust and confidentiality), and new possibilities for observation are especially prominently discussed. Anxieties about whether the internet can be a field at all are also expressed. In my analysis, I place these issues and dilemmas facing the researcher in the context of the intellectual tradition of ethnography as applied to technology. The main themes found to subtend these discussions of ethnography’s ‘way of knowing ’ are the notion of ‘field’, technology, intersubjectivity and capture. The paper ends with a reflec-
It’s about time: Narrative and the divided self
- Qualitative Inquiry
, 1997
"... When I learned that my father had died while I was attending a national communication conference, two worlds within me-the academic and the personal-collided, and I was forced to confront the large gulf that divided them. In this article, I weave the story of that experience into the wider fabric of ..."
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Cited by 2 (0 self)
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When I learned that my father had died while I was attending a national communication conference, two worlds within me-the academic and the personal-collided, and I was forced to confront the large gulf that divided them. In this article, I weave the story of that experience into the wider fabric of disconnections that promotes isolation and inhibits risk taking and change within universities and academic disciplines. In the process, I question whether the structures of power constitutive of academic socialization are not as difficult to resist as those of one's family, and the consequences as constraining. I use personal narrative to show how storytelling works to build a continuous life of experience, linking the past to the future from-the standpoint of the present; to problematize the process of assigning meanings to memories via language; to draw attention to the significance of institutional depression in universities; and to blur the line between theory and story. I could not fall asleep. I tossed and turned in my bed, trying to ignore the anxiety churning through my stomach. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping when I'm away from home or when I'm apprehensive about a presentation. But this was different. It wasn't the hotel room or the upcoming convention that was keeping me awake. Something felt terribly wrong, but I didn't know what it was. Finally, at about 7:15 a.m., I got out of bed and headed for the shower. I don't recall how long I had been standing under the water when I heard the phone ring. A few seconds later, my roommate, Herb Simons, called me. "Art, it's your secretary, Sharon. She wants to speak to you. She says it's very important." My secretary would not call me at a conference unless the roof was caving in. I knew instantly that her call was personal not departmental. Grabbing a towel, I hurried to the phone, my heart beating rapidly, my mind sorting possibilities. Author's Note: I thank Carolyn Ellis for her keen and supportive criticism and Norman K. Denzin for his heartening encouragement.
Research Writing in Computer Science
, 1998
"... . 2. Introduction, including a literature survey. 3. Methodology, problem statement, theoretical approach taken and experimental procedures used. 4. Experimental results, including summary statistics. 5. Interpretation, using the results to argue for a particular hypothesis. 6. Conclusion, summ ..."
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. 2. Introduction, including a literature survey. 3. Methodology, problem statement, theoretical approach taken and experimental procedures used. 4. Experimental results, including summary statistics. 5. Interpretation, using the results to argue for a particular hypothesis. 6. Conclusion, summing up the experiment and its interpretation and the wider significance of the study. 7. References. 8. Appendices (if any) report details of the experimental results. 2.4 Rewriting and Rethinking As writing is thinking, rewriting is rethinking. No one can get a serious research paper right the first time. (I think. Someone has claimed this ability to me, but I fail to believe it.) But this is good news: the pressure is off! You can forget about wording things in just the right way or getting the relation between your evidence and your thesis just right at the beginning. Assuming you are not writing at 3 am the morning the paper is due, you will have plenty of time to rethink such matter...
Performativity in Financial Economics
"... ABSTRACT This paper describes and analyses the history of the fundamental equation of modern financial economics: the Black-Scholes (or Black-Scholes-Merton) option pricing equation. In that history, several themes of potentially general importance are revealed. First, the key mathematical work was ..."
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ABSTRACT This paper describes and analyses the history of the fundamental equation of modern financial economics: the Black-Scholes (or Black-Scholes-Merton) option pricing equation. In that history, several themes of potentially general importance are revealed. First, the key mathematical work was not rule-following but bricolage, creative tinkering. Second, it was, however, bricolage guided by the goal of finding a solution to the problem of option pricing analogous to existing exemplary solutions, notably the Capital Asset Pricing Model, which had successfully been applied to stock prices. Third, the central strands of work on option pricing, although all recognizably ‘orthodox ’ economics, were not unitary. There was significant theoretical disagreement amongst the pioneers of option pricing theory; this disagreement, paradoxically, turns out to be a strength of the theory. Fourth, option pricing theory has been performative. Rather than simply describing a preexisting empirical state of affairs, it altered the world, in general in a way that made itself more true.
10/15/06 Ron Mallon forthcoming in Philosophy Compass A Field Guide to Social Construction 1
"... If any term can raise small hairs on the backs of contemporary necks, it is ..."
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If any term can raise small hairs on the backs of contemporary necks, it is
Influences on the Experience of Everyday Nerves
"... ABSTRACT Before 1980, most people experiencing common nervous problems and who sought medical help complained of anxiety and were treated for anxiety. Similar experiences increasingly led to complaints of or treatment for panic attacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and to complaints of or treat ..."
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ABSTRACT Before 1980, most people experiencing common nervous problems and who sought medical help complained of anxiety and were treated for anxiety. Similar experiences increasingly led to complaints of or treatment for panic attacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and to complaints of or treatment for mood disorders by the mid-1990s. Today, such patients seem once again increasingly likely to complain of and be treated for anxiety. This paper reviews a series of mechanisms whereby company marketing can both transform the perceptions of physicians and shape the experiences of those seeking treatment and the self-understanding of those not in treatment. These include the standard ploys of company sales departments to increase demand for products, including celebrity endorsements, the sponsoring of educational events and a host of reminders. The portfolio of marketing manoeuvres has grown, though, by translating educational events and celebrity events into the arena of scientific research: clinical trials have increasingly become part of the marketing of disorders and their treatments; ghost-written scientific papers are authored by celebrity researchers. The portfolio of marketing manoeuvres has also grown to encompass new ways of creating fashion through medical activism, by setting up patient groups and disease awareness campaigns. The result is a transformation and growth in disorders tailor-made to fit ever more visible drugs.
WORK IN PROGRESS FOR WED WORKING PAPER SERIES: PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE
, 2003
"... The paper explores the conceptual and methodological issues entailed in using subjective measures of wellbeing, especially outside the Euro-American context in which they were developed. In the first part I define, situate and contrast subjective quality of life (QoL), subjective wellbeing (SWB), an ..."
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The paper explores the conceptual and methodological issues entailed in using subjective measures of wellbeing, especially outside the Euro-American context in which they were developed. In the first part I define, situate and contrast subjective quality of life (QoL), subjective wellbeing (SWB), and wellbeing. I also look at the conceptual and methodological shortcomings of subjective measures of wellbeing and suggest ways of overcoming these by combining different approaches. I then explore how an expanded concept of subjective quality of life fits into the theoretical framework of the UK-based Wellbeing in Developing Countries study (or WeD) , specifically how it will adapt the methodology of the WHOQOL group [1995; 1998] to produce a new measure of ‘development-related ’ QoL.

