About Us
What is PERCS?
The Program for Ethnographic Research and Community Studies, or PERCS, is a combination teaching-research program dedicated to conducting and assisting in ethnographic research locally, nationally, and globally. PERCS is a resource for faculty who want to initiate or further develop the incorporation of field research and community studies in their classes and for students who are or plan to conduct fieldwork.
Our goal is to foster field research grounded in established methods and consciously-held ethical frameworks, helping students engage real-world issues and needs, whether in the Arts & Sciences, Business, Communications, or Education. See our Resources page for what PERCS has to offer.
What is Ethnography?
Ethnography is a method of studying the social and cultural dimensions of human interaction. Its goal is to understand communities and cultures from an insider’s perspective, and then translate that understanding to outsiders. Ethnography focuses on what people do in face-to-face interaction and depends heavily on participation, observation and interviewing. This methodology is grounded in the same principles behind experiential learning—that we can understand the world by participating and engaging with other groups.
Ethnography is as useful for studying local communities as it is for global ones. It can also be applied to assessing and helping people address problems and needs in their organizations and communities. With ethnography, the range of areas, issues and communities one might study is vast. For some of the projects PERCS has been involved in, see our Projects page.
Who We Are
PERCS is an interdisciplinary program, housed in the Sociology/Anthropology Department at Elon University.
Coordinator:
Tom Mould
Email: tmould@elon.edu
Phone: 336-278-5746
Committee Members:
- Amy Allocco, Religious Studies
aallocco@elon.edu ext. 6484, AVRP 211
- Geographic Area: India, especially South India
- Methods & Theories: ethnographic methods, performance theory, ritual studies
Interests: gender and religion; personal narratives and life histories; possession and embodiment; ritual innovation and religious change
- Projects: contemporary Hindu women's ritual practices; snake goddesses and fertility rituals; ancestor worship, lineage deities and possession by the dead
- Anne Bolin, Anthropology bolina@elon.edu ext. 6443, LIN 212-C
- Geographical Area: Oceania (Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia); Indigenous Australia, United States
- Topics: ethnography; gender; women; men and masculinity, gender identity, embodiment, sexology; developing interests in culture and food, and a critical anthropology of study abroad.
- Lee Bush, Communications lbush3@elon.edu, ext. 5778, McEwen 201B
- Interests: Brand marketing and integrated communications
- Methods: Ethnography in trend analysis and brand development
- Projects: Applied research in media and communications
- Alexa Darby, Psychology adarby@elon.edu, ext. 6405, Long 109C
- Methods & Theories: ethnographic methods, mixed methods, discourse
analysis, and conversational analysis
- Interests: program evaluation, teachers emotions in NCLB, academic
service learning, teaching qualitative methods
- Projects: First Year Teacher Emotions, Program Evaulations of American
Red Cross, Emotions in Academic Service Learning, and teaching
undergraduates methods in program evaluation
- Ken Hassell, Art hassell@elon.edu ext. 5719, HG13 1021
- Interests: Art and Photography (aesthetic, conceptual and technical),
Documentary Photography/Visual Anthropology, Critical Theory in Photography,
Representation of Other Cultures, Oral History, Appalachian/Mountain Culture
and Coal Mining Culture, Labor/Factory Workers
- Projects: A Life of Coal is a long-range documentary photography project
examining coal mining and Appalachian culture in southwestern Virginia, West
Virginia and eastern Kentucky. My work has been exhibited in galleries and
colleges throughout the country. Currently collaborating with author Lee
Smith on a monograph.
- Kim Jones, Anthropology kjones14@elon.edu ext. 6403, LIN 209-C
- Interests: Ethnographic Methods, Anthropology of Development (Public Health Care, Tourism, Labor,
Aging), Medical Anthropology, Gender, Local and Global Service Learning, Brazil
- Projects: Life Histories of Ex-Steel Workers in Pittsburgh; Oral Histories of Ethnically Diverse Elders in a Senior Center in Jamaica, Queens, NYC; Mixed Method Team Project on the Struggles of Female Healthcare Workers in Brazil; A Qualitative Analysis of Student Outcomes in Study Abroad, With and Without Service; Service-Learning in a Community of Aging in Central North Carolina
- Tom Mould, Anthropology tmould@elon.edu ext. 5746, LIN 209-A
- Methods & Theories: ethnographic methods, peformance theory, indigenous hermeneutics
- Interests: folklore, oral traditions, prophecy, southern culture
- Projects: American Indian narrative, North Carolina pottery, African American stepping, Latter-day Saint prophecy
- Aaron Peeks, Sociology apeeks@elon.edu ext. 6445, LIN 212-D
- Methods & Theories: Mixed methods (combining quantitative and qualitative), feminist and conflict theories although I am open to any theory that applies
- Interests: Sexual aggression, pornography, and anything that you are interested in
- Projects: Guilt felt by males in sexual relationships, research on (dis)abilities, and sexual aggression
- Lisa Marie Peloquin, Sociology
artemis@elon.edu, ext. 6413, LIN 212-D
- Methods: comparative historical methods, archival research, ethnography
- Interests: social movements, alternative healing, gender, embodiment
- Projects: North Carolina countercultures 1960s-present, Liberation theology and Latino migration, Emergent Studies of faith, healing and community praxis in Australia and Indonesia
- Bird Stasz, Education
bstasz@elon.edu, ext. 5881, Mooney 301 B
- Interests: ethnography as it relates to preservation of community and narrative.
- Projects: Most recent book: And That’s the Way of It: life in a Maine Village 1907-2002
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