Low control designs: Field Research

Course goals

After completing this course, students:

• have practical, theoretical and philosophical knowledge about methods that can be used while working with low control designs;  
• can reflect on their own experiences of getting access to an organisation and to one or more research participants;
• are knowledgeable about and able to carry out different data collection methods, e.g. shadowing, interviewing, participatory photography, participant observation, online ethnography and sensory ethnography;
• are aware of ethical and political issues that can arise while doing fieldwork;
• will be able to use different ways of writing up data, e.g. transcriptions of interviews, making an observation report and writing field notes;
• are able to reflect on the advantages, disadvantages and differences between several methods for collecting data within field research;
• are able to organise data for analysis.

Content

Ethnographic fieldwork is ‘in the moment’ observation of and engagement with unfolding phenomena in their natural setting. In this course you will learn to conduct field research in organisations: to design, gain access, gather data and organise data for analysis. You will be sensitised to the politics and ethics of fieldwork, which given the close proximity of the researcher to the object of study, can be particularly vexing.

In several meetings you will employ different ways of collecting data through small assignments. We will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each method, the implications of the chosen theoretical framework on data collection and ethical issues that can arise while conducting qualitative research.
In another part of the course you will enter the field. Assignments entail that you have to gain access to an organisation and engage in participant observation, interviewing, participatory photography and sensory ethnography. The collected data will be presented for discussion in class.