Category Archives: Updates

Co-Creating Knowledge: Ethnography With, Not Of, Interlocutors
Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Co-Creating Knowledge: Ethnography With, Not Of, Interlocutors

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By Hanisha Mistry When I first imagined going into the field as an ethnographer, I envisioned something akin to Bronisław Malinowski’s arrival in the Trobriand Islands. I pictured myself stepping into a space where ethnography was an unfamiliar word, and my interlocutors, unacquainted with the methods of anthropology, would meet my questions with unfiltered answers. … Continue reading →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

How U of T’s Student Life drastically differs from student affairs organizations at three competing universities

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By Daisy Sanchez Villavicencio From conversations with ANT473 peers, focus groups, and friends, I have concluded that Student Life (SL) has a reputation for offering a complex range of services that can overwhelm students and deter them from accessing the support they were promised. According to an SL staff interlocutor, SL has ten units and … Continue reading →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Auditing Impact at Student Life

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By Daisy Sanchez Villavicencio In the early weeks of ANT473, Professor Li assigned students  “Coercive Accountability: the rise of audit culture in higher education” by Cris Shore and Susan Wright (2003), which brought our attention to the effects of technological practices as they interact with social life and cultural change. Audit technologies, which I understand … Continue reading →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Liminality within Higher Education: OISE Master’s Students Experience Contradictory Identities

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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 →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

On Coping With Ethnographic Disappointment

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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 →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Staff Turnover

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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 →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Fieldwork from above and below

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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 →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Seeking Community in Normalized Isolation: A Reflection on the Importance of ‘Third Space Professionals’ in the Post-pandemic University

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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 →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Are Leaders Found or Created?: The Myth of the “Ideal” Student Leader

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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
Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Discourse vs. Practice: Ambiguity in Student Roles at Student Life

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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 →