Emotion and Affect in Ethnography
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2014-08-29
Author(s)
Abstract
The end of apartheid in South Africa brought an end to formal segregation in the education system. Especially at historically white Afrikaans universities (HAU), however, the search for modes of successful coexistence across ‘cultural’ divides proves to be difficult and conflictual. This paper presents an ethnographic case study which aims to understand why student residences of an HAU that were only recently integrated resist organizational efforts to create ‘inclusive diversity’. The members of each of these residences form a clearly bounded group with its own idioculture, a culture that repeatedly refers to the history of the residence that is celebrated on various occasions. The paper argues that at the core of the cultural reproduction is a micro-hierarchy consisting of emotional and affective relations. In certain contexts, routines that perpetuate ethnically specific practices and symbols in ‘banal’ ways—and which are usually tolerated by most residence members—become the focal point of conflicts and arguments. The emotionally and affectively charged micro-hierarchy allows a faction of the students to present these practices as symbolically valuable for the residence and thus to sustain them. The paper deals with the difficulties of conceiving, reconstructing, and analyzing emotional and affective relations based on interviews and participant observation.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SHSS - Kulturen, Institutionen, Maerkte (KIM)
Refereed
No
Event Title
#Ethnography: Trends, Traverses and Traditions
Event Location
Amsterdam
Event Date
27.-29.08.2014
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
237439