After fieldwork: Methodological reflections

Anno accademico 2021/2022
Docente Lorenzo Bosi

Didattica integrativa

Esercitazioni

Modalità d'esame

Relazione di seminario

Prerequisiti

Only for 4th year PhD students 

Programma del corso

Overview of the course: the aim of this seminar is to assist IV year PhD students in thinking through the many aspects of moving from data collection, for quantitative and/or qualitative research, to writing their thesis dissertation. In particular, this seminar is oriented to reflecting on the fieldwork experience, unpacking the fieldwork material, implementing methodological reflections on the outcome of ongoing/already accomplished research fieldwork, highlighting the difficulties we all have in making analytical sense of the fieldwork material, and starting to structure the dissertation. Wishing to establish the link between the concrete fieldwork and more abstract theoretical and methodological assumptions, this seminar engages IV year PhD students who are producing/have produced fieldwork research and discuss how this aspect of their PhD work relates to their theoretical framework. The seminar is NOT aimed to provide one solution in the shift from fieldwork to PhD dissertation writing. If anyhow helpful its main aims are a) to get in depth peer-to-peer and teachers feedbacks; b) the possibility to learn about each other reflections on research fieldwork and how to move to work on the writing of the dissertation.

 

Course format: The seminar will have a workshop format, which means that participating IV year PhD students will be required to be active during the course and present and discuss each other’s work. Before the beginning of the seminar each participant will need to send a 5 pages paper outlining their fieldwork, in terms of: a very brief outline of the project (half page, no more); provide an overview of all the empirical material collected or closed to be collected (2 pages, no more); possible issues that have emerged during the fieldwork (including problems) (2 pages, no more); what next and which dilemmas (half a page, no more). Deadline for submission will be one week before the start of the seminar. The text should be submitted in a Google drive folder opened by the teacher. The intent of this 5 pages paper is to prompt each IV student to reflect and consider their own fieldwork experience. Each participant is then asked to re-write their first paper in a longer and more polished version (15 pages) on the basis of the seminar sessions undertaken. The paper should be submitted 26 November in the Google drive folder. During the last two sessions of the seminar participants will present their papers and we will discuss them with the help of Prof. Marco Giugni (University of Geneva).

 

 

 

 

Schedule

 

 

Session N. 1 Introduction

(5/11/2021, h. 15-17)

In the first session we will focus on the presentation of the seminar, on how to organize and work with fieldwork material.

 

Session N. 2 Fieldwork experience  

(9/11/2021, h. 15-17)

In the second session we will examine each other ongoing or recently finished fieldwork experiences, discussing, for example: how the fieldwork challenges our literatures; possible problems we have experienced while conducting fieldwork research; how we have adapted the fieldwork research during the pandemic; the emotions and feelings that one experiences while doing fieldwork; how we leave the fieldwork; and so on.  The discussion will be based on comments from peers and the teacher on the pre-circulated texts.

 

Session N. 3 Fieldwork unpacking

(12/11/2021, h. 11-13)

In the third session we aim to unpack the fieldwork material: presenting the data collected so far; asking how the data have been collected; did these answer the research questions; filtering social realities and transform them into relevant data; connecting these to analytical concepts; thinking of risks involved and ethical challenges in publishing the gathered data after the fieldwork; and so on. The discussion will be based on comments from peers and the teacher on the pre-circulated texts.

 

Session N. 4 Fieldwork research and software

Guest lecturer: Alice Mattoni, Università degli Studi di Bologna, alice.mattoni@unibo.it

(16/11/2021, h. 11-13)

The fourth session will address the use of software in the fieldwork process and in the analysis.  

 

Session N. 5 Structuring the dissertation and the first publications

(23/11/2021, h. 11-13)

The fifth session will look at how to structure a PhD dissertation and the first publications.

 

Session N. 6 Presentations and discussion

Guest discussant: Marco Giugni, University of Geneva, Marco.Giugni@unige.ch

(2/12/2021, h. 10-12:30 14:30-17)

This session will focus on the presentation and discussion of each partipant’s papers (15 pages). The paper should be submitted 26 November in the Google drive folder.

 

 

Session N. 7 Presentations and discussion

Guest discussant: Marco Giugni, University of Geneva, Marco.Giugni@unige.ch

(3/12/2021, h. 9:30-12:30 16-18)

This session will focus on the presentation and discussion of each participant’s paper (15 pages). The paper should be submitted 26 November in the Google drive folder.

 

Riferimenti bibliografici