Research Seminar (DSXXI)

Teaching Methods

The unit is organized in seminar sessions, of three hours each. These include an initial presentation by the lecturer/professor in charge or by a guest speaker. This is followed by a discussion, open to all participants, on the topic of the session. Reading materials are made available online before the session. The final hour of each session consists of the presentation and discussion of methodological questions related to thesis projects. The sessions will be complemented by individual meetings of the lecturer/professor in charge with students.

Learning Outcomes

This unit seeks to provide a space where students may engage with and discuss innovative methodological orientations within different disciplinary and trans-disciplinary areas of the social sciences, as well as their use and adequacy for their own thesis projects.

Students are expected to acquire a basic knowledge of a range of methodological orientations and of their links to current epistemological debates in the social sciences, and, in particular, within the interdisciplinary field of studies on Democracy, as well as to develop the skills required for the appropriation of those orientations in relation to the specific problems and objects of their thesis projects. It is expected as well that students will acquire the skills necessary for identifying and discussing ethical dilemmas and issues related to research and how to incorporate these into their projects.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

The topics dealt with in this unit include:

1) What is a dissertation

2) Writing a text

3) Fieldwork and case study design

4) Life stories and biographies

5) Qualitative analysis

6) Quantitative research in the social sciences

7) Creative habits and reflective practice

8) Working with graphic representations

9) Critical discourse analysis

Head Lecturer(s)

Maria Paula Guttierrez Meneses

Assessment Methods

Evaluation
participation in general discussion: 30.0%
presenting and discussing the methodological design of the thesis project: 70.0%

Bibliography

Becker, Howard S. (1998) Tricks of the Trade. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Faubion, James D.; Marcus, Geoge E. (eds.) (2009). Fieldwork Is Not What It Used to Be. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Law, John (2004) After Method. London: Routledge.

Mignolo, Walter (2010) Desobediencia Epistémica: Retórica de la Modernidad, Lógica de la Colonialidad y Gramática de la Descolonialidad. Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Signo.

Passos, Eduardo; Kastrup, Virgínia; Escóssia, Liliana da (0rgs.) (2010) Pistas do Método da Cartografia. Porto Alegre: Sulinas, 2010

Santos, Boaventura de Sousa; Meneses, Paula (orgs.) (2009) Epistemologias do Sul. Coimbra: CES/Almedina.

Sandoval, Chela (2000) Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press