Basic information

Format: Six All-Day Workshops, fortnightly ( exept for festivals) on Mondays: 11 to 6.

Dates: 13 February, 27 February, 12 March, 26 March, 16 ! April, 23 ! April 2012.

Timing:

• 11-1 : Morning Session
• 1 - 2: informal lunch together, and / or private study as we progress
• 2- 5: Afternoon Session, with a break at 3:30
• 5 - 6: informal get-together ( = avoid rush-hour [spits] and start fusing [Clinic]

Instructor: Gerd Baumann

Aims and Purpose

The emphasis of the Qualitative Methods Clinic A focuses on ethnographic and qualitative Ph.D. projects which mainly rely on participant observation, in-depth interviewing, and detailed case studies. Useful inputs from quantitative and structure-orientated methodologies such as sampling, flow charts and network analysis are also included, but these are discussed primarily with a view to adapting them to qualitative approaches.

We will concentrate on those methodological problems that occur in the everyday research processes as they develop, and we will try, by mutual discussion (hence the word ‘Clinic’) to distill and refine the individual research agenda of the participants. The aim is two-fold: in the short term, it helps you to submit your report of work after your first semester or 9 months [ a so-called 9th-month-paper ]. In the medium-term, it gives you thinking technologies, so as freely to re-think your methodological choices as your empirical work progresses or takes unexpected turns in the course of fieldwork.

Theory of Practice

All methodological choices are implicitly theoretical choices. Hence, three practices are crucial : first, to stimulate mutual reflections on the effects of choosing particular qualitative methods for your own empirical plannings ; second, to re- think issues of crafts and skills in everyday empirical research ; third, to fuse your different knowledges, different disciplinary contributions, and complementary skills to make each other better. In a good Clinic, students are not patients, but each other’s doctors.

For that you write two assignments to all, every two weeks, and we all read each other’s assignments before we meet to help everyone contribute to everyone’s research design and field practice. The learning practice moves from frontal teaching [ - when instructor teaches you stuff - ] via horizontal learning [ - when YOU are in the driving seat - ] to a community of scholars [ - where disciplinary boundaries are transcended, unless they prove useful - ].

Practice of Practice

Each of us reads All of us. Therefore, we keep assignments short and strictly-to-the point. There are techniques for this which you will learn : conceptual triangles, strategic sampling matrices, tactical network analyses, causal flow charts, case study techniques such as situational analysis, and various combinations of these as we progress. We also deal with practical matters, such as how to combine teaching duties with research, pre- or re-structuring the large form of a Ph.D.Thesis, and publishing while you are researching.

The workload is intense [ - hence 12 ECTs - ], but so are the solidarity and the social, sociable, and intellectual benefits we get for each other. The core literature and a collection of Work Sheets for you will be made available in a Reader [ cost ca. 20 E ].

Enrolment

1. You get in contact with G.Baumann@uva.nl and attach a draft of your project sheet [see attached].
2. Baumann will then liaise FOR you with the Secretariat of the AiSSR-GSSS, so as to clarify any questions that you or they might raise.
3. Baumann will then circulate all  participants’ details and contacts to us all, so that we can ALL prepare early and well for our first session.