Research Design

Course goals

At the end of the course the students will be able to:
1. Formulate a scientific research question that is situated within relevant scholarly debates;
2. Analyze relevant anthropological and interdisciplinary debates in order to develop a cohesive literature review;
3. Operationalize a research question into subquestions, interview questions, topic lists, etc.;
4. Critically reflect on the ethics of conducting ethnographic fieldwork;
5. Create a research proposal that comprises of a coherent research plan and idea: a research question, sub-questions, a methodological approach, research location, and research population, etc. 

Content

Conducting any type of research demands thorough design and planning beforehand. In this course, you will focus on writing your research proposal. In addition to a few plenary sessions, this course primarily entails independent work and consultations with your supervisor. You will complete drafts of this research proposal by the end of the course in consultation with your supervisor with whom you will have regular meetings. At the end of this course, you will have completed a research proposal that will guide your fieldwork and eventual thesis writing.