400003 SE Seminar für DissertantInnen: Methoden (2014W)

This course, which is geared for the methods chapter of PhD students’ who will be using fieldwork for their PhD projects, aims to prepare them to conduct field research (in anthropology as well as in neighboring disciplines) and to embark on their initial analysis. It offers a general preface to the challenges of fieldwork, its canon and the continuities and discontinuities in this canon; of participant-observation, taking field notes, conducting ethnographic interviews; of making use of policy papers and analyzing collected data. At the end of the course, students will be expected to:
1) be able to design fieldwork with doable research work programs.
2) be familiar with the key distinction between different forms of interviews, and be proficient, comfortable and confident in their ability to design, carry out and analyze collected data to extend to theory
3) be familiar with a variety of participant observation techniques and their limitations.
4) be aware of the pitfalls of reducing fieldwork to participant observation and ethnographic interviews.
5) be reflexive about their own positionality in the field and begin constructing arguments based on data gathered using these techniques.