Workshop: Everything you´ve always wanted to know about Ethnography (in your own Research)

WORKSHOP in the GGS Teaching Assistantship Programme 2018:

Dr Ana Ivasiuc: Everything you´ve always wanted to know about Ethnography (in your own Research)

(registration needed until June 13, via e-mail to info@ggs.uni-giessen.de)

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

Objectives

The participants will:

-familiarize themselves with ethnography as a method of research;

-acquire knowledge on the principles of ethnographic research, its methodological tenets and ethical issues;

-explore creatively ways to embed ethnography in their own research projects;

-identify methodological and ethical pitfalls in their own research and learn how to avoid them in practice.

Content

The workshop is aimed at undergraduate students, as well as Master and PhD students who are either already planning to use ethnographic research in their own projects, or are exploring the possibilities that this method offers. The workshop will build on the participants’ research topics and questions, to conjointly identify ways in which ethnography can be embedded in their own research process. In the first part of the workshop, we will explore the main tenets of ethnographic research, its principles, its applications, as well as some of the ethical issues that can be encountered, and some of its most recent applications, such as digital ethnography performed on social media content. The second part will be devoted to exploring, in an interactive way, creative research methods based on ethnographic engagement with the research topics of the participants. We will explore the benefits of ethnography for each research project, and find creative ways to embed it in the research process. We will also discuss the methodological and ethical pitfalls of the ethnographic engagement in each particular project, and devise strategies to minimize risks.