230148 SE Social Science Research Methods in STS (2012W)

Research methods are the tools social scientists employ to study and understand the social world, in our case the relations between science, technology and society. Picking the right method to study a research question is crucial for doing successful research, and requires in depth knowledge of the different tools available, and of their possibilities and limits.
However, particularly for STS scholars, using and developing methods needs to involve more than just finding the ‘right tool for the job’.
One of the most central goals of STS is to study how sciences and their methods construct the way we understand and act upon the world, and the political consequences this has. Hence, a central challenge for ‘STSers’ is to reflect how our own use of methods impinges on how we account for our own objects of inquiry. Hence, which versions of reality are foregrounded and which are rendered invisible by particular ways of describing the ‘social reality’. As such, learning how to do methods in STS always also entails working on one’s own reflexive capacities and epistemological positions.
Focussing on methods of qualitative research, this course will give students the opportunity to gain an overview of some of the main tools available to social scientists, to discuss how STS scholars have applied these tools, to critically evaluate the possibilities and limits of these approaches, and also to gather some very first experiences in practically applying them.