BCULST 501, Winter 2009

COURSE SCHEDULE

PART I: From EPISTEMOLOGIES to THEORIES to METHODOLOGIES

 

Week 1 (Jan 6): Approaches to the study of people and culture

Denzin and Lincoln’s introductory chapter describes some common differences in the epistemologies of qualitative and quantitative research, and offers a history of how qualitative approaches have changed over the course of “eight moments” of qualitative research.  Denzin and Lincoln’s historical account has been widely influential in shaping a common vocabulary for contemporary interdisciplinary qualitative research.

 

Reading:

·        Denzin and Lincoln. “Introduction: The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative Research.”Ch. 1 in both Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials and Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry.

 

 

Week 2 (Jan 13): Whose Side are you On?

 

5:45-7:30 pm: Class Meets in the Library for Literature Review Workshop with Jackie Belanger and Karen Rosenberg (LB1 222). We will move back to our classroom at the break.

 

The readings for today expose and discuss some common tensions and disagreements among contemporary qualitative researchers. While most established qualitative researchers now reject “naïve” realism and positivism, qualitative researchers differ widely on what they see as their ultimate research purpose (and hence their research strategies and alliances).

 

Readings:

·        Martyn Hammersley. 2001. “Which Side was Becker on? Questioning Political and Epistemological Radicalism.” Qualitative Research 1 (1), 91-100. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

·        Lerum, Kari. 2001. “Subjects of Desire: Academic Armor, Intimate Ethnography, & the Production of Critical Knowledge.” Qualitative Inquiry 7 (4), Pp. 466-483.) In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

·        Paul Atkinson and Sara Delemont. “Analytic Perspectives.” Ch. 9, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

·        Norman K. Denzin. “Emancipatory Discourses and the Ethics and Politics of Interpretation.”  Ch. 14, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

 

 

PART II: ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS

 

Week 3 (Jan 20): Participatory Action Methods

Instructions for Research proposal provided

 

Readings:

(Group 1) Participatory Action Research

·        Stephen Kemmis and Robin McTaggart. “Participatory Action Research: Communicative Action and the Public Sphere.” Ch. 10, Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry.

·        Fields, Jessica, Isela Gonzalez, Kathleen Hentz, Margaret Rhee, and Catherine White. 2008. “Learning From and With Incarcerated Women: Emerging Lessons from a Participatory Action Study of Sexuality Education.” Sexuality Research and Social Policy 5 (2): 71-84. In E-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

·        See also the Participatory Action Research Collective: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/che/start.htm

 

 

(Group 2) Photovoice

·        Wang, Caroline and Yanique Redwood-Jones, 2001. “Photovoice Ethics: Perspectives from Flint Photovoice,” Health, Education and Behavior 28 (5). 

·        Read about the Wyoming Sage Photovoice project: http://www.photovoicewyoming.com/

·        Sonke Gender Justice Network’s Fatherhood and Child Security Project. 2008. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

·        See also Sonke Gender Justice Digital Stories: http://www.genderjustice.org.za/sub-project/view-the-digital-stories.html

 

Week 4 (Jan 27): Visual and Online Ethnographies

Readings:

(Group 3) Visual Ethnography

·        Douglas Harper. “What’s new visually?” Ch. 6, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

·        Sarah Pink, “Planning and Practising Visual Methods: Appropriate Uses and Ethical Issues.” From Doing Visual Ethnography. London: Sage. Pp. 30-46. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

·        Douglas Harper. 2003. “Framing photographic ethnography: a case study.”  Ethnography 4 (2), 241-266. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

 

 

 

(Group 4) Online Ethnography

·        Annete N. Markham. “The Methods, Politics, and Ethics of Representation in Online Ethnography.” Ch. 8, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

·        Gary Dowsett, et al. 2008. “’Taking it Like a Man’: Masculinity and Barebacking Online.” Sexualities 11 (1-2), 121-141. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

 

 

Thursday, Jan. 29: MACS Career Night

 

 

Week 5 (Feb 3): Experimental and Mapping Ethnographies

DUE: CITI online student training

 

5:45-7:15 pm: Workshop on Performing Ethnography with Professor Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren

 

Readings:

(Group 5) Autoethnography

·        Stacy Holman Jones. “Autoethnography: Making the Personal Political.” Ch. 7, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

·        Ronai, Carol Rambo. 1998. Sketching with Derrida: An Ethnography of a Researcher/Erotic Dancer. Qualitative Inquiry 4 (3), 405-415. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

(Group 6) Social Mapping

·        Erica Lehrer, with Hannah Smotrich. 2007. “Jewish? Heritage? In Poland?: A Brief Manifesto & an Ethnographic-Design Intervention into Jewish Tourism to Poland.” Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal. 12 (1)(Fall): 36-41. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

·        Kusenback, Margarethe. 2003. “Street phenomenology: The go-along as ethnographic research tool.” Ethnography 4(3): 455-485. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

 

Friday, Feb. 6: TOWN HALL & PARTY 5.30-9 pm

 

 

 

 

Sat Feb 7: Workshop on interviewing w/ Professor Diane Gillespie (time & place TBA)

Readings:

·        Andrea Fontana and James H. Frey. “The Interview: From Neutral Stance to Political Involvement.” Ch. 4, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

·        Irving Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

·        Susan E. Chase. “Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices.” Ch. 2, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

 

 

PART III: TEXTUAL METHODS

 

Week 6 (Feb 10):

5:45-7:15 pm: Writing workshop with Richard Gold, Pongo Publishing http://www.pongopublishing.org/

Readings:

·        John Beverley. “Testimonio, Subalternity, and Narrative Authority. “ Ch. 9, Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry.

·        Laurel Richardson and Elizabeth Adams St. Pierre. “Writing: A Method of Inquiry.” Ch. 15, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

Also Recommended:

·        Maeve, M. Katherine. 2000. “Speaking unavoidable truths: Understanding early childhood sexual and physical violence among women in prison.” Issues in Mental Health Nursing 21: 473-498. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

 

7:45-9:45 pm: Workshop on coding and analyzing your interviews  w/ K. Lerum

Readings:

·        Anssi Perakyla, “Analyzing Talk and Text.” Ch. 11, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

·        Kathy Charmaz. “Grounded Theory in the 21st Century: Applications for Advancing Social Justice Studies.” Ch. 7, Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry.

 

Week 7 (Feb. 17):

5:45-7:15 pm: “Beginning with Language” Workshop with Professor Jeanne Heuving

Readings:

·         Giorgio Agamben ,  The Coming of Community. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

·        Ivan Brady. “Poetics for a Planet: Discourse on Some Problems of Being-in-Place.” Ch. 16, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

 

7:45-9:45 pm Pre-Proposal Workshop (MACS faculty TBA)

 

 

PART IV: PERFORMANCE-BASED METHODS

 

Week 8 (Feb 24):

Performance Workshop with Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren

Readings:

·        Susan Finley. “Arts-Based Inquiry: Performing Revolutionary Pedagogy.” Ch. 3, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

·        D. Soyini Madison. “Critical Ethnography as Street Performance: Reflections of Home, Race, Murder, and Justice.”  Ch. 8, Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry.

·        Bryant Keith Alexander. “Performance Ethnography: The Reenacting and Inciting of Culture.” Ch. 3, Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry.

 

Also recommended:

·        Dwight Conquergood. 2003. “Performing as a Moral Act: Ethical Dimensions of the Ethnography of Performance.” In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

·        Johnson, E. Patrick. 2003. Selections from Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity. Duke University Press. In e-res: http://eres.uwb.edu

 

PART V: ESTABLISHING YOUR THEORETICAL, ETHICAL, & POLITICAL POSITION AS A RESEARCHER

Week 9 (March 3)

Sharon el Sayed from the UW Human Subjects Division will join us for part of the discussion to talk about the institutional review procedures and concerns for academic research.  Bring to class your IRB paperwork in process

 

Readings:

·        Julianne Cheek. “The Practice and Politics of Funded Qualitative Research.” Ch. 2, Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry.

·        John K Smith and Phil Hodkinson. “Relativism, Criteria, and Politics.” Ch. 12, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

·        Ernest R. House. “Qualitative Evaluation and Changing Social Policy.” Ch. 19, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials.

 

Week 10 (March 10): Presentations of student research proposals  

Written research proposals due by Thursday March 12th