240011 PS Qualitative Research Methods (2019W)

Im Rahmen des Proseminars Qualitative Forschungsmethoden werden die Studierenden die Möglichkeit bekommen, zentrale Forschungsmethoden der Sozialanthropologie in der Praxis selbständig anzuwenden. Der Fokus wird dabei auf Beobachtungsverfahren (teilnehmende Beobachtung), Interviewverfahren (unterschiedliche Arten der Interviews), Verschriftlichung (Schreiben von Feldnotizen, Transkription, Erstellen von Beobachtungs- und Gesprächsprotokollen, Schreiben von analytischen Memos) und Auswertungsverfahren gelegt. Reflexion und Diskussion über relevante Fragen des Forschungsprozesses (Zugang, Positionierung des Forschenden, ethische Fragen wie z.B. Arbeit mit sogenannten "vulnerable groups" oder Fragen der Repräsentation) werden uns das gesamte Semester begleiten.

General:

This course, which is geared for students preparing for a first encounter with qualitative methods and particularly ethnographic fieldwork provides an introduction to some of the principal methods for conducting field research in anthropology. It offers a general preface to what fieldwork is, its challenges, participant-observation, taking ethnographic field notes and keeping an ethnographic diary, conducting ethnographic interviews; making use of archives and policy papers and analyzing collected data. It accompanies the students through the first stages of constructing texts premised on ethnographic research. Constructed as an interactive process, the course combines the assigned the course material literature with hands-on field experience on the part of course participants.

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of the semester, students will:

1) be fluent in the location of ethnographic fieldwork in anthropology and the key concepts and issues used in designing ethnographic fieldwork, and be able to use them properly in their own attempts to formulate research questions with poignant, doable research work programs.

2) be reflexive and pragmatic about procedures associated with entering the ethnographic field, establishing balanced, useful and effective contacts with gate-keepers, informants and knowledge brokers in the field, and have a sense of how versions of their own identity as researchers are produced and circulated within the community.

3) be familiar with the importance of and techniques used in keeping a detailed and faithful ethnographic diary, annotating it and reading and re-reading it in due course.

4) 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 open, semi structured and structured interviews and recognize the challenges of ethnographic interviews in the context of globalization.

5) be familiar with a variety of participant observation techniques and their limitations.

6) be aware of the pitfalls of reducing fieldwork to participant observation and ethnographic interviews.

7) be able to pragmatically and reflexively extract qualified data and begin constructing arguments based on data gathered using these techniques.

Course Structure:

The course structure will reflect the combination of covering different litarature on qualitative methods and hands on ethnographic research. It will combine lectures, presentations of the assigned literature and the group work on the assigned tasks, and their presentation, as well as their discussion.

The Qualitative methods will take students with topical interest in
Urban restructuring
Migration industries (NO migrant integration topics)
Cultural industries
Cultural policies
Transnational migration
Citizenship studies
Consumption
Popular culture
Labor
NO visual anthropology

Qualitative Forschungsmethoden mit Schwerpunkt auf Techniken und Arbeitsweisen, die in der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie aktuell zur Anwendung kommen. Im Zentrum steht erfahrungsbasiertes Erlernen von Erhebungs-, Dokumentations- und Auswertungstechniken.

Aufbau qualitativer Methodenkompetenz: Kenntnis der wichtigsten methodischen Zugänge ethnographischen Forschens und erste forschungspraktische Anwendung derselben. Fokussierung auf befragende Techniken (z.B. verschiedene Interviewformen) und beobachtende Techniken (z.B. teilnehmende Beobachtung), Überblick über weitere qualitative Erhebungstechniken und Methoden der Forschungsdokumentation. Auseinandersetzung mit unterschiedlichen Analysemethoden und ihre Umsetzung anhand des erhobenen Datenmaterials.

Die unterschiedlichen Erhebungstechniken der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie werden in der Lehrveranstaltung (mittels Vortrag und Literatur) erarbeitet und sollen zwischen den Präsenzeinheiten in der Praxis erprobt werden. Ausgehend von einem gemeinsamen Erhebungsgebiet, konkret in diesem Proseminar der 2. Wiener Gemeindebezirk, werden dabei in Kleingruppen Themen gefunden, detaillierte Fragestellungen entwickelt, in ein Erhebungskonzept gegossen und dann forschungspraktisch umgesetzt. Die Prozesse und Arbeitsschritte der Forschungsprojekte der Kleingruppen werden in den Präsenzeinheiten präsentiert, diskutiert und begleitet.

This intensive, practically oriented course aims to prepare you for conducting ethnographic research as a part of independent anthropological study. This include all stages of research from choosing a topic and a guiding research question, through planning the project, finding a field sight and connecting with the interlocutors, to dealing with obstacles and contingencies. A special place is given to collection and interpretation of the data, putting it into context and feeding back into the original research framework, reflection, as well as the strategies and practicalities of writing up. For a long time, ethnography as a method has not been taught under the assumption that one can only learn it by doing it. While this method always incorporates the unknown, the main available methods, techniques and solutions can successfully be learned to facilitate a project. However, first hand experience in all stages of participant observation remains necessary. The course thus contains two parts: the discussion of all stages of ethnographic research in a group, and students’ own involvement in, analysis and reflection on an ethnographic research of their own.
By the end of the course, the students will be able to:
Formulate an informed and feasible research question;
Plan and organise a research project;
Anticipate and deal with the contingencies of access, rapport and interlocutors’ trust;
Reflect on their and others’ positionality in the research;
Have an informed understanding of multiple modalities of participant observation, and be able to creatively adapt to different and unanticipated research settings;
Understand the subtleties of interviewing as a social process, and their own ethnographic persona in the field;
Have an experience in collecting, noting down, analyzing and storing research notes, and understand the danger of objectifying the data;
Understand the ethical dilemmas involved in the research;
Be able to work between the theory and ethnographic data as two mutually informing sides of the research;
Be familiar with the cognate techniques which can complement ethnography, such as oral history and archival research
Be able to independently interpret the data and write up ethnographic texts.