Universität Wien

400027 SE Comparative Ethnography in Development Studies (2022S)

SE Methods for Doctoral Candidates

Continuous assessment of course work

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 15 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes

30.05.2022 12.00-16.00
31.05.2022 09.00-13.00
01.06.2022 12.00-16.00
03.06.2022 12.00-16.00
04.06.2022 10.00-14.00

Ort: Sensengasse 3, Stiege 1, SG3, 1090 Wien


Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This course begins by reading carefully and critically two examples of ethnography: an urban ethnography in the Chicago School tradition and a comparative ethnography in the extended case method tradition. We will then discuss the methodological and analytical strategies of these two paradigms of ethnographic research, paying particular attention to the importance of comparison. The next set of readings deals with the logic of sampling, casing, comparison, inter-subjectivity and interviews, concept formation, theoretical reconstruction, ethical and political issues in doing ethnographic fieldwork. Throughout the course, we will use examples of comparative ethnography in development studies for illustration.

Assessment and permitted materials

Active Participation, Reading Assignments
Seminarpaper

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Examination topics

Reading list

Day 1 Comparative Ethnography: Why, What, How? An example on labor
Reading:
Michael Siciliano, Creative Control: the Ambivalence of Work in the Culture Industries. Columbia University Press, 2021
Howard Becker, How I Learned What a Crock Was Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 22(1): 28-35.

Day 2 Comparative Ethnography: an example on labor & development, and the extended case method
Ching Kwan Lee, Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt, University of California Press, 2007
Michael Burawoy, The Extended Case Method in Ethnography Unbound. University of California Press, 1991.

Day 3 Theoretical sampling and Comparative analysis
Barney Glaser and Anslem Strauss, Theoretical Sampling in The Discovery of Grounded Theory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1967.
Mario Small, How Many Cases Do I Need? Ethnography 10(1): 5-38, 2009.
Charles Ragin, The Comparative Method. UC Press, 1987, Chapters 2,3,4.
Ching Kwan Lee, An Ethnography of Comparative Ethnography: Pathways to Three Logics of Comparison in Beyond the Case, eds. By Corey Abramson and Neil Gong. Oxford University Press, 2019.

Day 4 Techniques: ethnographic interviewing, writing, editing, analyzing fieldnotes, concept formation and casing
Joseph C. Hermanowicz, The Great Interview: 25 Strategies for Studying People in Bed, Qualitative Sociology, 25(4), 2002.
Marcos Emilio Perez, Life Histories and Political Commitment in a Poor People’s Movement, Qualitative Sociology 41: 89-109, 2018.
Elliot Mishler, The Joint Construction of Meaning, in Research Interviewing: Context and Narrative. Harvard, 1986, pp. 52-65.
Robert Emerson et al., Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago, 1995. Chs 2-4.
Robert Blauner, Problems of Editing First-Person Sociology, Qualitative Sociology 10(1): 46-64, 1987.
Strauss and Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research, 2nd edition, (2008) selection.
Michael Burawoy, Reconstruction of Social Theory in Ethnography Unbound, 1991.

Day 5 Power, Informed Consent and Reflexivity
Troy Duster et al., Field Work and the Protection of Human Subjects, The American Sociologist 14: 136-142, 1979.
Philippe Bourgois, Confronting Anthropological Ethics: Ethnographic Lessons from Central America, Journal of Peace Research 27(1): 43-54, 1990.
Judith Stacey, Can There be a Feminist Ethnography? in Sherna Gluck and Daphne Patai (eds) Women's Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History. Routledge, 111-119, 1991.
Paul Lichterman, Interpretive Reflexivity in Ethnography, Ethnography 18(1):35-45, 2017.
Michael Burawoy. Critical Sociology: A Dialogue between Two Sciences Contemporary Sociology 27(1): 12-20, 2001

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Th 05.05.2022 10:50