Before fieldwork: ethical and methodological reflections

Seminar paper

Suggested to 2nd year students of the PhD Programmes in "Political Science and Sociology and in "Transnational Governance".

Optional for the 4th and 5th year students of the MA Programme in "Politics, Economics and Sustainability"

The goal of this seminar is to provide especially 2nd year PhD students with a space for discussion, elaboration and learning regarding the planning and implementation of their fieldwork. Similarly to what the “After fieldwork” seminar does for the latter stage of the PhD, this seminar aims at discussing how to prepare and conduct qualitative fieldwork. The course aims at providing PhD students in the early stages of their fieldwork with ethical and methodological guidelines and knowledge about approaches and practices to guide their research on the field. A part of the seminar will be dedicated to methodological reflections on qualitative interviewing, ethnography/participant observation and other field-based methods, discussing how to negotiate access to the field, how to sample participants, how to deal with anonymity and informed consent, and so on. The remaining hours will be dedicated to discuss ethics and risk management in qualitative research. Part of the time will be devoted to hands-on sessions, where students will learn to develop an ethical self-assessment, draft an informed consent form, elaborate a risk assessment, and reflect upon potential mitigation strategies to face challenges stemming from fieldwork. The structure of the seminar will be based on the attendee’s own research work and needs, providing the possibility to discuss in class the ethical and methodological implications of their planned fieldwork.