400008 SE Ethnographic methods for doctoral candidates (2022W)

This course introduces ethnographic methods to doctoral students thus it is aimed - though not exclusively - to those who have not carried out their fieldwork yet. The seminar delves into long-standing issues such as the politics of the ethnographic encounter, multi-sited and digital/in-person research modalities, collaborative and decolonial approaches. The seminar will begin with an analysis of the most relevant interventions on the methodological challenges that have emerged over recent years in order to map the landscape of the situations that doctoral students may face in their research.

These interventions feature both continuities and new problematics in the use of ethnographic methods as well as modalities and questions that the long-standing presence of the pandemic has generated across areas of research, and will help re-think and re-situate ‘classic’ approaches to ethnography and vice versa. Presentations required for this seminar will combine a reading from the syllabus that speaks to the student research project with a presentation on a methodological aspect(s) of such project that presents particular challenges. In this way, students will have the possibility to receive feedback on their methodological frameworks and take their projects further.