Methodological practices in social movement research

Relazione di seminario

Optional for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students of the PhD Programme in "Political Science and Sociology"

Optional for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students of the PhD Programme in "Transnational Governance"

Optional for the 4th and 5th year students of the MA Programme in "Political and Social Sciences"

Format: The seminar sessions will be based on the chapters of a Cosmos book on methodological practices in social movement research. The volume aims at introducing main methods of data collection and data analysis as they have been used in research on social movements. The specificity of the course is in its  the emphasis on the how-to-do-it (rather than, e.g., on review of existing research using specific methods). Each author is in fact invited to write on a method s/he is very familiar with, having used its extensively in his/her own work. Each chapter presents specific discussions on each steps of research using a certain method: from research design to data collection and the use of the information. In this, dilemmas and choices are presented, and illustrated (mainly with materials from the author’s own research).

Each session will be introduced by chapter’s contributor and discussed by one or more researchers. All researchers who attend the workshop will be asked to read and comment the assigned readings focusing on the potential use of each specific method for his/her research. They will be asked to write short positional papers, to be discussed during the sessions.

Reading: Donatella della Porta (ed.), Methodological practices in social movement research, Oxford University Press, 2014.

Syllabus (provisional)

Session 1: Fieldwork

Readings:                                  

Field work in the Context of Violent Conflict and Authoritarian Regimes, by Stefan Malthaner

Session 2: Grounded theory

Readings:                                  

The potential of Grounded Theory in the study of social movements, by Alice Mattoni

Working with images, by Nicole Dorr

Session 3: Participant observation

February 12, 15:30-17:30

Readings:                                  

Participant observation, by Philip Balsinger and Alexandre Lambelet

Session 4: Network Analysis

Readings:                                  

Social network analysis, by Manuela Caiani

Session 5: Using archives

Readings:                                  

Historical Methodologies: Archival research and oral history in social movement research, by Lorenzo Bosi and Herbert Reiter

Session 6: Protest Event Analysis

Readings:                                  

Protest events analysis and its Offspring, by Swen Hutter

Session 7: Qualitative interviews

Readings:                                  

In-depth interviews, by Donatella della Porta

Life histories, by Donatella della Porta

Focus groups, by Donatella della Porta

Session 8: Using surveys at demonstration

Readings:                                  

Surveying Protestors: Why and how, by Massimiliano Andretta and Donatella della Porta

Session 9. Discourse analysis

Readings:                                  

Discourse and frame analysis: in depth- analysis of Qualitative data, by Lasse Lindekilde

Session 10: Comparative historical research

Readings

Comparative historical analysis, by Daniel Ritter 

Reading: Donatella della Porta (ed.), Methodological practices in social movement research, Oxford University Press, 2014. plus articles and chapters to be assigned