By Daisy Sanchez Villavicencio It’s 2:10 pm on a Friday and rather than finding a comfy seat in a lecture hall, I face a panel of rectangular screens with students in varying settings and others’ black/blank. Since the pandemic, I’ve attended countless online lectures and feel myself instinctually take my position as a traceless attendee … Continue reading
Category Archives: Ethnography of the University
Undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in ANT473 and ANT 6200 Ethnographic Practicum: The University, together with other members of the Ethnography Lab have been investigating various aspects of life at the University of Toronto. The purpose of the course is for students to learn how to conduct an independent ethnographic inquiry, analyse data, and write it up as an original contribution to knowledge. Data comes from observations, archives, interviews, photos and other methods, as students spend time in field sites in a range of venues across campus. They use weekly meetings for brainstorming, sharing insights, coming up with provisional analysis, and allocating tasks for individuals or sub-groups to work on in the week ahead. The resulting blog posts and final papers are archived here.
On Coping With Ethnographic Disappointment
By Cameron Miranda-Radbord It is a real loss for future generations of students in ANT 473 that Professor Li is retiring, but if the course continues to be taught, I have a scintilla of what I think is wisdom: your ethnography may not be everything you hoped it was. When I researched “anthropology disappointment” and … Continue reading
Staff Turnover
By Cameron Miranda-Radbord What the heck happened to the staff who were supposed to conduct Signature Program Assessments? No, really – as I spoke to a Student Life staff member, I was perplexed by her explanation of why many of the Signature Program Assessments were not completed. Administrators, she told me, had moved departments. If … Continue reading
Fieldwork from above and below
By Cameron Miranda-Radbord Walk to Simcoe Hall, arrive at 9:10am – late, because administration doesn’t function on UofT time. Listen to financial update. Ask questions. Fight a losing battle against schoolwork that could have been done last night. I approached my ethnography of Accessibility Services from what I consider a unique standpoint – both “below” … Continue reading
“Constructing” Community and Leadership: An Ethnography of Student Clubs and ‘Third Space Professionals’ at UofT
Final Report By Amani Hassan “Student Life”: A New Profession for a New Institutional Priority International university ranking systems have increasingly shaped how institutions like the University of Toronto structure their priorities. Following an observed influence of student input on universities’ global ranking, a new profession emerged in many academic institutions that specifically intends to … Continue reading
Seeking Community in Normalized Isolation: A Reflection on the Importance of ‘Third Space Professionals’ in the Post-pandemic University
By Amani Hassan ‘Student Life’ (SL) and similar student experience-focused entities in universities emerged within the last decade, partly as a response to the importance of “student experience” as a category on international rankings. However, departments such as SL’s Clubs and Leadership Development (CLD) now have an additional significance in the post-pandemic university, as they … Continue reading
Symbiotic Ethnographies: Approaching Research at Two Connected Field Sites
By Amani Hassan Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange is central to ethnographic research. Ethnography typically involves participant observation, where the researcher immerses themself in a community to understand it from a culturally relative perspective. But how do you approach this when you are researching two groups and are also an active member … Continue reading
Are Leaders Found or Created?: The Myth of the “Ideal” Student Leader
By Amani Hassan The concept of the ‘ideal’ student is prevalent in universities, often shaped by expectations that reflect the institution’s prestige and effectiveness. The ideal student is typically understood as diligent, respectful, and engaged—traits that align with a ‘professional’ image. Universities further reinforce these qualities as desirable through scholarships, awards, and recognition. The University … Continue reading
Discourse vs. Practice: Ambiguity in Student Roles at Student Life
By Angelina Nguyen, Norah Rahman and Richard Wu Our collective fieldwork revealed some ambiguity concerning how student roles are portrayed in Student Life (SL) discourse and how they work out in practice. Below we discuss student roles as labourers, consumers, and advisors. Student as workers: SL employs hundreds of work-study students and spends over a … Continue reading
A Digital Labyrinth: Navigating Information on the Student Life Website
By Amani Hassan and Hanisha Mistry Staff at the Centre for Learning Strategies Support take pride in the resource library which offers PDF documents on various topics designed to support academic success and help students adapt to university-level learning. Accessing this library involves three straightforward steps: “Student Life Homepage > Departments > Centre for Learning … Continue reading