Explore the vast range of titles available.

In ethnographic research, data collected through surveys, interviews, or questionnaires in the fields of sociology and anthropology often appear in diverse forms and languages. Building a powerful database system to store and process such data, as well as making good and efficient queries, is very challenging. This paper extensively investigates modern database technology to find out what the best technologies to store these varied and heterogeneous datasets are. The study examines several database categories: traditional relational databases, the NoSQL family of key-value databases, graph databases, document databases, object-oriented databases and vector databases, crucial for the latest artificial intelligence solutions. The research proves that when it comes to field data, the NoSQL lineup is the most appropriate, especially document and graph databases. Simplicity and flexibility found in document databases and advanced ability to deal with complex queries and rich data relationships attainable with graph databases make these two types of NoSQL databases the ideal choice if a large amount of data has to be processed. Advancements in vector databases that embed custom metadata offer new possibilities for detailed analysis and retrieval. However, converting contents into vector data remains challenging, especially in regions with unique oral traditions and languages. Constructing such databases is labor-intensive and requires domain experts to define metadata and relationships, posing a significant burden for research teams with extensive data collections. To this end, this paper proposes using Generative AI (GenAI) to help in the data-transformation process, a recommendation that is supported by testing where GenAI has proven itself a strong supplement to document and graph databases. It also discusses two methods of vector database support that are currently viable, although each has drawbacks and benefits.

This research analyses an ongoing struggle between continually evolving forms of the Chinese Party-State’s religious geopolitics, its repression of the Falun Gong, and FLG followers’ self-cultivation and strategies of resistance to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PhD begins with a discussion of the Party-State’s strategies of sovereignty and governmentality, drawing upon the works of Foucault and Agamben, and using a documentary analysis. It then examines the FLG’s discursive strategies by comparing scriptures before and after the ban in 1999 to examine how collective subject formation is continually evolving in ever changing political and social contexts. The second part of the study develops Foucault’s discussion about self-care in an Eastern religious context, and is based upon original ethnographic data about FLG cultivators in Dublin, Taiwan and Hong Kong (2012-14). I adopt Foucault’s work on the ‘care of self’, which includes self-examination, self-mastery, to analyse how individuals choose teachings to guide themselves, exercise the power to modify and improve themselves, and also care for others. Through the voices of more than 62 participants and including participatory observation, the study illustrates how individual FLG followers cultivate and transform themselves into spiritual or divine beings. Both Foucault and Master Li Hongzhi, the founder of the FLG, are sceptical about hierarchical power-relationships and pastoral care. FLG cultivation is characterised by individualised actions of self-care, selfmastery and ungovernability, which challenges the Party-State’s religious governmentality. In addition, the CCP’s oppressive sovereignty and legitimacy are confronted by FLG’s reactive ‘telling-truth/saving-life’ activities, which include the use of urban landscapes, the internet, media, artistic peformances and the UN Human Rights system. These projects are mostly organised by individuals and are based upon global cooperation among FLG followers. The PhD demonstrates how FLG’s alternative geopolitical practices of truth-telling at multiple scales, while based upon the principle of caring for others, is integrated into a perpetual and dynamic process of individualised self-cultivation.