Search results

Ethnographic strategies for making the familiar strange: Struggling with "distance" and "immersion" among Moroccan students

Ethnographic fieldwork is a balancing act between distancing and immersing. Fieldworkers need to come close to meaningfully grasp the sense-making efforts of the researched. In methodological textbooks on ethnography, immersion tends to be emphasized at the expense of its counterpart. In fact, ‘distancing’ is often ignored as a central tenet of good ethnographic conduct. In this article we redirect attention away from familiarization and towards ‘defamiliarization’ by suggesting six estrangement strategies (three theoretical and three methodological) that allow the researcher to develop a more detached viewpoint from which to interpret data. We demonstrate the workings of these strategies by giving illustrations from Machteld de Jong’s field- and text-work, conducted among Moroccan-Dutch students in an institution of higher vocational education.

Behind the policy frontline in the Netherlands during the Corona crisis

From the onset of the Corona crisis, a specific policy challenge was identified in the Netherlands: How to motivate young people to adhere to the behavioral measures, such as physical distancing? Young people have an important role to play in stopping the virus from spreading, but they may be more difficult to reach and less motivated and able to adhere to the guidelines than adults. Mid-March, Moniek Buijzen was invited to consult the behavioral unit of the Dutch national health institute (RIVM) on communication and behavioral change among youth. She immediately called together the Dutch Young Consumer Network, which consists of scholars with expertise in communication directed at children and adolescents. Over the months, our network has been approached by policymakers, campaign developers, and journalists and engaged in a wide variety of advice activities. Even though the crisis is not over yet, we would like to share the collaborative approach that we took to harness our expertise and, most importantly, the specific tool that we used to share it.

Scaling social impact

This research aims to contribute to a better understanding of strategic collaborations between work-integration social enterprises (WISEs) and for-profit enterprises (FPEs) with the joint objective to improve labour market opportunities for vulnerable groups. We find that most collaborations strive towards integration or transformation in order to make more social impact.

Influence of online collaborative learning on social network and academic performance of medical students: lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction: The social distancing restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have changed students’ learning environment and limited their social interactions. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the influence of the social distancing restrictions on students’ social networks, wellbeing, and academic performance. Methods: We performed a questionnaire study in which 102 students participated before and 167 students during the pandemic. They completed an online questionnaire about how they formed their five peer social networks (study-related support, collaboration, friendship, share information, and learn-from) out-of-class. We performed social network analysis to compare the sizes, structures, and compositions of students’ five social networks before and during the pandemic, between first- and second-year students, and between international and domestic students. Additionally, we performed Kruskal–Wallis H test to compare students’ academic performance before and during the pandemic. We performed thematic analysis to answers for two open-end questions in the online questionnaire to explore what difficulties students encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic and what support they needed. Results: The results showed that the size of students’ social networks during the pandemic was significantly smaller than before the pandemic. Besides, the formation of social networks differed between first- and second-year students, and between domestic and international students. However, academic performance did not decline during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we identified three key areas in which students experienced difficulties and needed support by thematic analysis: social connections and interactions, learning and studying, and physical and mental wellbeing. Conclusion: When institutions implement learning with social distancing, such as online learning, they need to consider changes in students’ social networks and provide appropriate support.

The architecture of social distancing for dementia

Television’s undoing of social distancing

At this critical moment in time, April 2020, when we are living with the cataclysmic event of Covid-19, television – a medium declared almost dead at the beginning of this millennium – has become a vital resource for solace, daydreaming, social ritual, knowledge and storytelling. In conditions of lockdown, we turn towards television, not away from it (Ellis, 2020; Negra, 2020). We are checking news on national channels, and tuning to live broadcasting for campaigns to help the health services and communities in need, such as with the globally broadcast One World: Together At Home special. We are curling up on the sofa to engage with gripping drama, like Ozark streaming on Netflix, re-watching favourite series from the beginning, such as Buffy or Breaking Bad, and taking part in television quiz shows like Pointless, even watching repeats, to recreate a pub quiz atmosphere in the living room. On a darker note, we are also overloaded with corona news; the ritual evening news bulletin can be a source of anxiety and a cause of sleeplessness. Television infrastructure can break down, from broken satellite dishes to lost remote controls, which are tricky to fix when technicians are not so readily available to help; and television can be an economic burden. The cost of streaming Breaking Bad can push the limits of monthly contracts and data packages. Television both lightens and darkens the mood of domestic spaces and social relations in lockdown culture.