Syllabus

DATE TOPIC READINGS (please read before class) SLIDES
Thu 8/23/12 What is Qualitative Research? 01_introduction
Tue 8/28/12 Components of Research Design – Becker, Epistemology of Qualitative Research (handed out in class, and available here)

Optional:
– Haraway, Situated Knowledges
– Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, Appendix
– my notes on Habermas (shortcut and for those who are confused)

02_research_design
Thu 8/30/12 Sampling and Corpus Construction – Lofland and Lofland, Chap. 1-3 [download]
– Becker, ‘Sampling’ from Tricks of the Trade [CR]
– Bauer and Aarts, ‘Corpus Construction’ [CR]
03_corpus_construction
Tue 9/4/12, Thu 9/6/12 Observation, Participation, and Ethnography For Tuesday:
– Blomberg et al., ‘An Ethnographic Approach to Design’ (pgs. 965-973) [CR]
– Lofland and Lofland, on logging data
– The UC Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects the Belmont Report

For Thursday:
– Geertz, ‘Thick Description’ [CR]
– Clifford, ‘On Ethnographic Authority’ [CR]
– Rosaldo, ‘Subjectivity in Social Analysis’ [CR]

questions for the readings

04_participant_observation

05_ethnography

Tue 9/11/12 Discussion of Observation Exercise
Thu 9/13/12 Locating Fieldwork: Multi-Sitedness and Virtuality in Ethnographic Research – Marcus, ‘Ethnography in/of the World System’ [CR]
– Burrell, ‘The Fieldsite as a Network’ [CR]
– WRITING EXAMPLE: Boellstorff, Selections from Coming of Age in Second Life [CR]
06_virtual_ethnography
Tue 9/18/12 Discussion of Observation Exercise
Thu 9/20/12 Analysis Practices – Coding and Generating Themes – Charmaz, ‘Invitation to Grounded Theory’ and ‘Coding in Grounded Theory Practice’ [CR]
– Lofland and Lofland, chap. 9
08_grounded_theory
Tue 9/25/12 Analysis Workshop 1 [come prepared with your note cards]
Thu 9/27/12 After Analysis: Writing Up Based on Participant-Observation Work – WRITING EXAMPLE: Spitulnik, Zambian Radio Culture [CR]
– WRITING EXAMPLE: Hutchins and Klausen, Distributed Cognition in an Airline Cockpit [CR]
Tue 10/2/12 Guest Speaker: Stuart Geiger, speaking about the challenges of doing an ethnography of Wikipedia – Geiger, S. and D. Ribes, Trace Ethnography – available here
– Geiger, S. and D. Ribes, The Banning of a Vandal – available here
10/4/12 Class Cancelled (Prof Out Of Town)
Tue 10/9/12 Interviewing 1 – Introduction
[Assignment 1 due]
– Weiss, introduction to Learning From Strangers [CR]
– Suchman and Jordan, ‘Interactional Troubles in Face-to-Face Survey Interviews’ [CR]
– Lofland and Lofland, on designing interview guides (Chapter 5, section III)
comments on the Suchman and Jordan article (by statisticians, survey researchers, a conversation analyst, plus a rejoinder by Suchman and Jordan)
10_interviewing
Thu 10/11/12 Focus Groups and Expert/Elite Interviews (Panel discussion) Required:
– Morgan and Krueger, ‘When to Use Focus Groups and Why’ [CR]
– Thomas 1995, ‘Interviewing Important People in Big Companies’ [CR]

Optional:
– Albreecht et al., ‘Understanding Communication Processes in Focus Groups’
– Odendahl and Shaw, 2002, ‘Interviewing Elites’

Tue 10/16/12 Workshop – Critique of Interview Techniques 11_interviewing2
Thu 10/18/12 Projective Interviewing – Harper, ‘Talking about Pictures: a case for photo elicitation’ [CR]
– Young and Barrett, ‘Adapting Visual Methods: action research with Kampala street children’ [CR]
– Anderson et al, ‘Numbers have Qualities Too: Experiences in Ethno-Mining’ [CR]
12_projective_interview
Tue 10/23/12 The Role of Document Analysis in Field-Based Research – Garfinkel, ‘Good Organizational Reasons for ‘Bad’ Clinical Records [CR]
– WRITING EXAMPLE: Heath and Luff, ‘Documents and Professional Practice’ [CR]
Thu 10/25/11 Discussion of Interviews
Tue 10/30/12 The Role of Image Analysis in Field-Based Research – Rose, Content Analysis [CR]
– Rose, Semiology [CR]
15_image_analysis
Thu 11/1/12 Design Ethnography – Blomberg et al., ‘An Ethnographic Approach to Design’ (pgs. 973-984) [CR]
– Dourish, ‘Implications for Design’ [CR]
– Suchman, Lucy “Anthropology as ‘Brand’: Reflections on Corporate Anthropology” [here]
16_ethno_for_design
Tue 11/6/12 Evaluating Qualitative Research
[Assignment 2 due]
– Bauer and Gaskell, ‘Towards Public Accountability: beyond sampling, reliability, and validity’ [CR]
– Kvale, ‘The Social Construction of Validity’ [CR]
– Jordan and Dalal, ‘Persuasive Encounters: Ethnography in the Corporation’ [CR]
17_evaluation
Tue 11/8/12 Ethics – Thorne, “You Still Takin’ Notes?” Fieldwork and problems of informed consent.” [CR]
– Bruckman, “Studying the Amateur Artist: A Perspective on Disguising Data Collected in Human Subjects Research on the Internet,” in Ethics and Information Technology. [CR]
– de Laine, “Ethical Dilemmas: the demands and expectations of various audiences,” in Fieldwork, Participation, and Practice: Ethics and Dilemmas in Qualitative Research. [CR]
18_ethics
Thu 11/13/12 Guest Speaker: Kathi Kitner, Senior Researcher/Anthropologist, Intel Labs/IXR/XIL
Thu 11/15/12 Project Discussion and Thoughts on Writing Up – Lofland and Lofland, on writing up
– Kvale, ‘improving research reports’ [here]
20_analysis_pointers
Tue 11/20/12 Big Data – Boyd and Crawford, “Critical Questions for Big Data” in Information, Communication & Society [CR]
– The Ethnographer’s Complete Guide to Big Data (series of blog posts at ethnography matters) – by Jenna Burrell [Part I] [Part II] [Part III]
21_big_data
Thu 11/22/12 Thanksgiving – NO CLASS
Tue 11/27/12 The Role of Recording Technologies in Data Collection – Nafus and Anderson, ‘The Real Problem: Rhetorics of Knowing in Corporate Ethnographic Research’ [CR]
– Hasbrouck and Faulkner, “Why are you taking my picture?” Navigating the Cultural Contexts of Visual Procurement [CR]
Thu 11/29/12 Discussion and Exercise – (reread) Becker, Epistemology of Qualitative Research. Available here.