Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

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Co Requisite Comment

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Aims

POL 8024 Ethnographic Methods in the Political World aims to help postgraduate students:
• Build on their core knowledge of politics by investigating different research techniques used by political ethnographers, including such methods as participant observation, interviews and the use of the camera
• Use ethnography to access the political world, including the experiences of elected leaders and their political parties, the dynamic life of elections and law-making, and the impact of grassroots and global activism
• Apply this methodological approach to their own study of political life and culture so they experience conducting research as a political ethnographer

Outline Of Syllabus

An ongoing pandemic. Inequality and violence leading to social uprisings. Major elections changing the leadership of several of the world’s most powerful nations. This course reflects on this extraordinary time in global politics to ask: how can political ethnographers help us make sense of political outcomes, structures and cultures? POL 8024 Ethnographic Research in the Political Field will facilitate rich conversations about contemporary political and popular culture and prepare final-year undergraduate students and postgraduate students to confidently employ ethnographic methods in their dissertation research and beyond. In addition to providing on-demand lectures that compliment a range of advanced-level scholarly materials, postgraduate students will participate in rigorous debate about politics as examined by ethnographers and will build on their knowledge by conducting their own ethnographic research using written and visual materials.

Students enrolled on POL 8024 may explore topics such as (but not limited to):
• How does ethnography help us locate and explore the contemporary political world?
• Explore the ethnographic methods used by political researchers, including observation and participant observation, interviews and focus groups, and approaches using film, photography and sound
• Positionality and the relationship between researcher, the research subject and the research field
• “Doing” ethnographic fieldwork, including preparing a research plan, keeping a field diary, recruiting and interacting with informants, storing research data and preparing a field report
• The reflexive nature of ethnographic fieldwork and the ethical responsibilities of political researchers
• The growing role of cameras and smart phones in fieldwork, data analysis and presentation of findings
• How to communicate qualitative findings for academic and general audiences

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

By the end of the semester, students will have an advanced understanding of:
• The historic and contemporary interdisciplinary uses of ethnography, including the development of ethnographic research methods over time and the widely used techniques employed by social science researchers today
• The responsibilities and methodological considerations of modern political ethnographers
• The importance of positionality and reflexivity in ethnographic research
• The exciting possibilities for political research that incorporates written and visual data, texts and images based on their advanced course readings and workshop participation, as well as their own practical experience as a political ethnographer

Intended Skill Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students will have sophisticated skills in:
• Locating and exploring the political world through ethnography
• Accessing and critically engaging with political figures, networks, structures and practices through the use of ethnographic research methods
• Understanding and critiquing the theoretical, methodological and ethical issues involved in carrying out ethnographic research, gathered through first-hand experience in the political field
• Confidently applying these methods in their own independent research during the semester, into their dissertation research projects and beyond

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The online lectures, in-person workshops and assigned weekly readings will offer students the chance to explore and critique the use of ethnography in political research from a number of expert perspectives, including their own. Maintaining a balance of theory with first-hand practical experience, POL 8024 will rely heavily on the weekly workshops as a creative and collaborative space within which students learns from their lecturer and each other about the practicalities of conducting research in the modern political landscape. As a course that’s responsive to the dynamics of “the political” as a vast fieldsite, POL 8024 provides students with the practical experience needed to not only successfully carry out their dissertation projects but will offer a chance to sharpen a wide range of marketable skills like communicating with a varied audience, problem solving, working with contemporary technology and conducting research in our current political and social climate. Online materials will present a foundation to each week’s topic that the in-person sessions build on through in a skills-based workshop format. Students will be offered a chance to conduct their own short fieldwork project, an opportunity to work with digital camera, and to prepare assessments that reflect important stages of this qualitative research process.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Postgraduate students will have two main assessments on this course – one which serves as a mid-point reflective piece that examines their fieldwork experiences and a second that builds on these notes by incorporating the camera as a means of both collecting data and presenting findings. Students will be required to reflect on their fieldwork experiences, in conversation with the concepts, and assigned and supplemental texts from the semester, and will receive feedback on their work to help prepare for their final assessment.

General Notes

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