DLGP

Doctor of Leadership in Global Perspectives: Crafting Ministry in an Interconnected World

Doing Sensory Ethnography

By: on September 20, 2013

Reading Doing Sensory Ethnography, by Sarah Pink is a great eye opener to see where I need make changes in my approach to ministry and a great tool for my future research. I appreciate that Pink clearly depict the limitation of classical observational methods for ethnography. Sara Delamount, defines of ethnography as something done by…

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Re-Discovering the Human Experience

By: on September 20, 2013

Yesterday I was talking with a colleague about their experiences while living in Minnesota. During the discussion the topic of lutefisk came up. For those not familiar with lutefisk, it is fish soaked in lye. The lye preserves it, makes it gelatinous, and depending on the type of original fish, for example cod, can be…

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Re-Discovering the Human Experience

By: on September 20, 2013

Yesterday I was talking with a colleague about their experiences while living in Minnesota. During the discussion the topic of lutefisk came up. For those not familiar with lutefisk, it is fish soaked in lye. The lye preserves it, makes it gelatinous, and depending on the type of original fish, can be particularly pungent. Lutefisk…

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Visual Ethnography and Reality

By: on September 20, 2013

I shot the photograph above while on a trip to East Africa. The context in which the image was taken in is extremely meaningful because it is profoundly familiar, significant and it evokes many emotions. In an effort to understand more about visual ethnography and reality, I decided to study the photo of colorful T-shirts…

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Climate Change

By: on September 20, 2013

“How do you create a climate where the truth is heard?  (74)  This question, asked by Jim Collins, the author of the book Good to Great intrigued me.  Especially as it relates to a question one of my college students in my “World Religions” class asked me recently.  He wanted to know, after studying all…

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Smells, Sights and Sounds …

By: on September 20, 2013

I have a confession.  This book had me before I reached the end of the first page in the Introduction.  Three simple words: place, memory, and imagination did it for me.  If sensory ethnography includes these things then I am “in.”  When we think about senses we think of the five senses we grew up…

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The Falling Hedgehog

By: on September 20, 2013

In the spring of 1997 I married my college sweetheart Naomi.  Like many newlyweds, our first few months were spent learning new an interesting details about your spouse.  Not long into our second month, Naomi shared that she had a hedgehog by the name of Loofa, which she was keeping  at her classroom at the…

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Poker Cards

By: on September 20, 2013

Rick Warren recently preached a sermon comparing life to a game of poker, highlighting the types of cards life deals. The five he proposes are chemistry, connection, circumstance, conscience, and choices. I would like to highlight the latter card – choices. Choices can be unexpected game changers. When determining someone’s capacity for greatness, Jim Collins…

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Using your five senses in Ethnography

By: on September 20, 2013

Using your five senses in Ethnography Pink, in her book Do Sensory Ethnography, encourages the researcher to move from just observing the culture or society they are studying to actively immersing themselves in the society. When the researcher experiences the culture through their own senses it gives them a greater sense of reality and understanding…

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The Sensational in the Sensual

By: on September 19, 2013

To the person who is new to the field of ethnographic practice, in the book Doing Sensory Ethnography, Sarah Pink presents a multi-dimensional approach to doing ethnography.   Sensuality in ethnography is recognizing and encompassing the natural multisensory nature of the ethnographer and those participating in the research project (p.1). In both of her books, visual…

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Coffee, Community, and Copacabana

By: on September 19, 2013

Ethnography continues to be such a new term and action for me, but as one of my classmates pointed out this week, I am now constantly looking to see what is in front of me in a different light. When first picking up Doing Sensual Ethnography, I was a little skeptical. How can you possibly…

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The Commodification of Information

By: on September 19, 2013

Doctorow’s book left my head swimming in a sea of I’s and O’s!  I felt like he was trying to help me to grab hold of a wet greasy fish that was very much alive and wiggling to get free!  I usually take some notes as I work through a book but at the end…

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Peanut Butter & Jam Sandwiches

By: on September 19, 2013

For the last five years we sent teams to El Salvador. Short term teams, 8 days, with the specific purpose of building homes for those who have been displaced by earthquakes and hurricanes. Each morning, as the sun climbs above the mountain peaks, our team heads to the worksite, excitement and anticipation always accompany us…

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Anti Excellence – pro participation

By: on September 19, 2013

In his book „Good to great. Why some companies make the leap and others don’t“ Jim Collins presents the results of an intensive research process. Joined by a large team, Collins studied why some average companies become major leaders and others fail. He looked at a period of 15 years and compared his selected companies…

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Defining Greatness in Leadership

By: on September 19, 2013

In his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, business management researcher Jim Collins attempts to define what separates good organizations from great ones.  By researching companies that have had strong success against those who have merely been good, or only had outstanding success for a season, or simply…

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Engaging the senses for more engaging research

By: on September 19, 2013

Pink’s book, Doing Sensory Ethnography, is a clever handbook for the traditional ethnographer who wishes to engage in new and additional multi-faceted methods of research. Or should I say, multisensory. For me, Pink exposes additional branches on the tree of research, which in turn provide the ethnographer with tools for producing greater fruit in one’s…

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A Great Church?

By: on September 19, 2013

Good to Great examines what makes the difference between a good company and a great company. While I do think the church is not first and foremost a business, I do think there are many points that Collins touches on that can greatly help churches not necessarily be great but be faithful. For we are…

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Collins’ Spinning Flywheel

By: on September 18, 2013

After 8 years in the private sector I had returned to full-time ministry.  One of the reasons I was excited about the church where I was going to serve was because of its professionalism – in other words, it was run like the business I had recently left.  As part of our job descriptions, those…

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Commence the Commensality!

By: on September 18, 2013

Sarah Pink (2009) writes with emotion and humanness in her book Doing Sensory Ethnography.  Her primary thesis is that to do ethnographic studies wisely, the ethnographer must be open to looking inside herself (reflexivity) as well as looking into the lives of others.  Sensory Ethnography demands a commitment to hands-on research that dives beneath the…

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Face Forward Leadership

By: on September 18, 2013

This last week I went to a conference called the Community Project presented by “the C4 group”. There practitioners who were involved with caring for their cities gave testimonials about how their efforts brought forth change for the good of their community. It began with a leader talking to us about the church being outward…

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