Research Design in Social Movements Studies

The aim of this course is to provide a common space to the PhD students of the first three years, working on social movements, environmental sociology and processual perspectives, to present and discuss the development of their thesis projects to an audience made of professors, post-doctoral fellows as well as of their peers. Besides improving reciprocal knowledge and potential networking, the research design course aims at discussing, with reference to the specific projects, the main steps in the development of a research design: from the selection of the central research questions, to their theoretical framing, the case selection, the choice of the empirical methods of investigation, the challenges of fieldwork, and the analysis and presentation of the results. Involving participants at different stages of their academic experiences, the seminar also offers the opportunity to develop PhD’s skills in not only discussing, but also constructively contributing to each other research, both during the sessions and in successive informal, face-to-face or small groups, occasions, that are in part already on-going and that we hope to stimulate further. Participants are asked to present parts of their own research