Ethnography and Qualitative Research Methods

F&ES 70003

This course is an investigation of qualitative research methods in social science. It provides both theoretical and practical knowledge of the research process and explores the various phases of qualtitative research design and practice. The emphasis is on identifying a research problem, posing research questions that advance knowledge about the problem, developing a research methodology to answer those questions, conducting field research, and analyzing the results of that research. These are, in essence, the basic components of a research proposal, and the final product for this course will be a research proposal, ideally one that students will use as the basis for their own qualitative research program.

Course readings explore the epistemological bases for approaches in qualitative research (phenomenolgy and hermeneutics, in contradistinction to the positivist underpinnings of quantitative research), discuss the science of qualitative social science, and investigate various approaches in qualitative research method across a spectrum that ranges from ethnography and participant observation to rapid appraisal and survey techniques. We also address questions of technique (how to conduct an interview, how to take fieldnotes), ethics (the politics of representation, the compromised nature of participatory approaches, the disciplinary norms governing research on human subjects), and the relationship between conducting research and writing about it. Data analysis, including grounded-theory approaches and qualitative data analysis software, are examined in detail.

The course is principally concerned with qualitative methods. The focus on qualitative, as opposed to quantitative, data raises important issues. For instance, what sorts of assumptions underlie quantitative approaches to social science research that might be overcome through a qualtitative approach? How are qualitative approaches limited? Is it possible, for example, to extrapolate from a case study to a more general population? How do interpretive research paradigms account for issues of representation and power?

The course is designed for students working on environmental problems, interpreted broadly, and will explore the question of interdisciplinarity in detail.