Charting New Territory for Qualitative Methods: Practicing new modes of Fieldwork, Headwork and Textwork to capture new realities of work Summer School
Aims
The main objectives of this course are:
- To gain knowledge of new approaches to qualitative data collection, analysis, and presentation
- To practice key techniques and become proficient in their use in personal research projects
- To reflect on the strengths and limitations of different methods in the context of different strands of literatue
Information
Research methods must first and foremost be able to accurately capture and represent the world we study. How have qualitative research methods kept up with the new realities of work and the theoretical phenomena we are interested in? This course charts the territory of novel qualitative methods for data collection, analysis and presentation, or - as Van Maanen (2011) calls them: “fieldwork”, “headwork” and “textwork”. We will devote one day to each of these research phases.
For each phase, we will:
- Review the methodologial literature as well as seminal applications to different strands of theory-building
- Try different methods through hands-on, practical exercises
- Reflect on personal experiences and apply new insights to your individual research projects
- Share “tricks of the trade”, i.e. the practical fixes that seem too mundane to make it into most papers, but can make or break your research project
Specifically, each section will consider questions like:
Fieldwork
- How can new methods more fully capture our phenomenon of interest? (audio/video ethnography, heartrate monitoring, eyetracking devices, social media feeds...)
- How can we use traditional methods (interviews, observations, documents...) more effectively?
- How do we gain entry and access (trust and acceptance) in our research site?
- How do we select and manage our role in the field?
- What role can different type of data play in the theoretical context of our project?
- How do we handle new ethical dilemmas that arise with new technologies and methods?
Headwork
- What ontological choices do our methods imply?
- Are some data more ‘real’ than others?
- How can we share the burden of analytical work?
- How can we make the most of the data we got?
- Grounded Theory
- Gioia Method
- Insider/outsider analysis
- Discourse analysis
- Computer-supported analysis
Textwork
New technologies and approaches not only offer new possibilities for collecting and analysing data, but also presenting it:
- How can we represent rich qualitative data in journal articles?
- What new possibilities for data presentation exist (photo, video...)?
- How do we leverage new data to engage new audiences?
- How do we maximize impact theory and practice?
A basic understanding of qualitative research is useful, but not required. We will revisit some of the foundations in the context of more recent methodological innovations.
Assessment
In the first week of June you will receive a set of papers to read and a set of exercises that have to be completed before the course starts (the amount of work is 1 ECTS).
After the course you will have to complete a final exercise (to be handed in by July 23). More details will be provided during the course.
Materials
A literature list will be send to participants in the first week of June
Additional info
After registration please send the following information to the lecturer:
- What methodological challenge would you like help with?
- If you are planning or conducting a qualitative research project:
- At what stage will your project be at the time of the course (access negotiation, data collection, data analysis, writing up…)?
- What is your (planned) primary data collection method(s)?
- What analytical method are you using or planning to use?
- What theoretical lens are you applying or planning to apply?
For the timetable of this course, please click here.
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To register, ERIM participants can take the following steps:
1. Go to SIN Online and log in with your ERNA credentials if required.
2. Click in the checkbox next to the course title and click Save Changes.
3. Your registration is complete. You will receive an automatic confirmation e-mail.
External (non-ERIM) participants are welcome to this course. To register, please fill in the registration form and e-mail it to summerschool@erim.eur.nl by 4 weeks prior to the start of the course. Please note that the number of places for this course is limited.
This course is free of charge for ERIM members (faculty members, PhD candidates and Research Master students). For external participants, the course fee is 250 euro per ECTS credit.
