The Process of Research: Theories and Methods: Schedule and Reading Instructions

The Process of Research: Theories and Methods:
Schedule and reading instructions

Fall 2015

Örjan Bartholdson

Kjell Hansen

DateTimeLecture room

Monday 31 August10-12To be announced later

Introduction

13-15To be announced later

Why do we need theory: the act of theorizing
Linking research problems, methodology and theory

Required Reading

Boghossian, Paul, A. 2010. Relativizing the Facts. In Relativism. A Contemporary Anthology. Pages 170-182. New York. Columbia University Press.

Inglis, David. 2012. An Invitation to Social Theory. Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 1-37

Latour, Bruno & Woolgar, Steve 1986: Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (excerpts)

Swedberg, Rickard. 2012. Theorizing in sociology and social science: turning to the context of discovery. In Theory and Society. Vol. 41: 1-40

Thursday 3 September10-12To be announced later

13-15To be announced later

Discussion seminar on the process of theorizing

Monday 7 September10-12To be announced later

The birth of social theory and the problems it addressed:
urbanism, social disintegration, class hierarchy, poverty, rural dispossession, from serfs to rural workers, rural change, possession of resources, colonialism

Required Reading

Bratton, John, Denham, David. 2014. Capitalism and classical social theory. Introduction: Why classical social theory? Pages 1-22. University of Toronto Press.

Inglis, David. 2012. An Invitation to Social Theory. Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 38-61

Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich 1848: Manifesto of the Communist Party. 53 pp

Recommended reading

Inglis, David. 2012. An Invitation to Social Theory. Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 189-207

Thursday 10 September10-12To be announced later

13-15To be announced later

Discussion on how to explore and analyze modern society

Monday 14 September10-12To be announced later

How people make sense of their own life worlds:

hermeneutics and phenomenology

Required Reading

Frykman, Jonas & Nils Gilje 2003: Being There. In Frykman, Jonas & Nils Gilje (eds.): Being There. New Perspectives on Phenomenology and the Analysis of Culture. Lund: Nordic Academic Press. Page 7 – 49

Jackson, Michael. Introduction. In Things as They Are. New directions in phenomenological anthropology. Indiana University Press. Page 1-50

Sharrock, Wes & Button, Graham 1991: The social actor: social action in real time. In: Button, Graham (ed.): Ethnomethodology and the human sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (p 137 - 171)

Stewart, Kathleen 1996: Chapter 4: Chronotopes. In: A Space on the Side of the Road. Cultural Poetics in an "Other" America. Princeton: Princeton University Press ( p 90 - 116)

Recommended reading

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. The Interpretation of Culture. New York. Basic Books. Pages 412-454.
(check with Lars H. if he has any other text)

Inglis, David. 2012. Phenomenological paradigms. The symbolic interactionist paradigm. In An Invitation to Social Theory. Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 86-128

Jackson, Michael. 2013. Chapter 1, chapter 3. Lifeworlds. Essays in existential anthropology. Chicago. The University of Chicago Press. Pages 51-74.

PovrazonovicFrykman, Maja 2003: Bodily Experiences and Community-Creating. Implications of Transnational Travel. In Frykman, Jonas & Nils Gilje (eds.): Being There. New Perspectives on Phenomenology and the Analysis of Culture. Lund: Nordic Academic Press. Page 53 – 74

Schutz, Alfred 1967: The Phenomenology of the Social World. Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.

Recommended reading

Evans-Pritchard. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Chapter 1 and chapter 8. Oxford. Clarendon Press. Pages 1-17, 120-145

Thursday 17 September10-12To be announced later 13-15

Discussion seminar on how people organize and make sense of their life worlds

Monday 21 September10-12To be announced later

The Marxist tradition: basic categories, base, superstructure, mode of production, ideology, primitive accumulation

Required Reading

Inglis, David. 2012. Marxist and Critical Theory Paradigms. In An Invitation to Social Theory. Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 62-85

Thompson, E.P. 1993. Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism. Customs in Common. Penguin Books. Pages 352-403

Wolf, Eric. 1982. Modes of Production. The Fur Trade. In Europe and the People Without History. Berkely. University of California Press. Pages 73-100, 158-194

Recommended reading

Ferguson, James and Ghupta, Akhil. 2002. Spatializing states: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality. In American Ethnologist. Vol. 29(4): 981-1002

Inglis, David. 2012. Structuralist and post-structuralist paradigms. Post-modernist paradigms. In An Invitation to Social Theory. Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 165-207

Thursday 15 October10-12To be announced later

13-15To be announced later

Discussion seminar on governmentality and assemblages

Monday 19 October10-12To be announced later

To listen to the voice of others: from structuralism to post-structuralism

Required reading

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1987. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press. Page: 22-30, 87-95

Clifford, James. 1986. Introduction. Partial Truths. In Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (ed. Clifford, James.; Marcus, George, E. 1986). University of California Press. Pages 1-26

Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. Small Places, Large Issues. An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology. Pluto Press. Page: 102-105

Inglis, David. 2012. Structuralist and post-structuralist paradigms. In An Invitation to Social Theory. Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 165-188

Thursday 22 October10-12To be announced later

13-15To be announced later

Discussion seminar on structuralism, post-structuralism and statistics

Monday 26 October10-12To be announced later

From gender relations to a feminist theoretical approach

Required reading

Lovell, Terry. 2003. Resisting with Authority: Historical Specificity, Agency and the Performative Self. In Theory, Culture & Society. Vol. 20(1): 1-17

Moore, Henrietta. 1994. Kinship, labour and household: Understanding Women’s work. Feminism and Anthropology. Cambridge. Polity Press. Page 42-73

Ortner, Sherry. 2005. Chapter 1: Making Gender. Chapter 2: Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? Making Gender. The Politics and Erotics of Culture. Boston. Beacon Press. Pages 1-42

Recommended reading

Alcoff, Linda. 1994. Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory. Culture/Power/History. A reader in contemporary social theory (ed. Direk, N.B., Eley, G., Ortner, S.B.) New Jersey. Princeton University Press. Pages 96-122.

Thursday 29 October10-12To be announced later

13-15To be announced later

Discussion seminar on gender and feminist theoretical approaches

Friday 30 October

Deadline exam 4 pm

Literature

You will only have to purchase the books marked with a *, that is, the first book mentioned on the list below.

Books:

*Inglis, David. 2012. An Invitation to Social Theory. Cambridge. Polity Press.

Excerpts of Books:

Boghossian, Paul, A. 2010. Relativizing the Facts. In Relativism. A Contemporary Anthology. Pages 170-182. New York. Columbia University Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre; Wacquant, Lois. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Pages: 94-135, 167-173. Cambridge. University of Chicago.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1987. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press. Page: 22-30, 87-95.

Bratton, John, Denham, David. 2014. Capitalism and classical social theory. Introduction: Why classical social theory? Pages 1-22. University of Toronto Press.

Dean, Mitchell 2009: Governmentality. Power and Rule in Modern Society.Basic concepts and themes. London: Sage. Pages 16-51.

Foucault, Michel 1991: Governmentality. In: Burchell, G.; Gordon, C; Miller P. (eds.): The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Foucault, Michel 2011: 5 January 1983. First Hour. In Foucault Michel: The Government of Self and Others. Lectures at the College de France 1982 - 1983. Pages 1-21

Frykman, Jonas & Nils Gilje 2003: Being There. In Frykman, Jonas & Nils Gilje (eds.): Being There. New Perspectives on Phenomenology and the Analysis of Culture. Lund: Nordic Academic Press. Page 7 - 49Inglis, David. 2012. Phenomenological paradigms. The symbolic interactionist paradigm. In An Invitation to Social Theory. Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 86-128

Giddens, Anthony. 1986. Agency, Structure. Central Problems in Social Theory.Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis. Hong Kong. MacMillan. Pages 49-73.

Hacking, Ian. 2000. Why Ask What? The Social Construction of What? Cambridge. Harvard University Press. Pages 1-35.

Jackson, Michael. Introduction. In Things as They Are. New directions in phenomenological anthropology. Indiana University Press.

Marcus, George E. Contemporary Problems of Ethnography in the Modern World System. Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (ed. Clifford, James.; Marcus, George, E. 1986). University of California Press. Pages 165-193.

Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich 1848: Manifesto of the Communist Party.

Moore, Henrietta. 1994. Kinship, labour and household: Understanding Women’s work. Feminism and Anthropology. Page 42-73

Moore, Henrietta. 1999. Whatever Happened to Women and Men? Gender and other crisis in anthropology. Anthropological Theory Today (ed. Moore, Henrietta). Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 151-171.

Ortner, Sherry. 2005. Making Gender; Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? Making Gender. The Politics and Erotics of Culture. Boston. Beacon Press. Pages 1-42

Hill, Polly 1995: Chapter 3: The Vain Search for Universal generalisations: 2. The poor Quality of Official Satistics. In: Development Economics on Trial. The anthropological case for a prosecution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (pp 30 - 50)

Sharrock, Wes & Button, Graham 1991: The social actor: social action in real time. In: Button, Graham (ed.): Ethnomethodology and the human sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (p 137 - 171)

Stewart, Kathleen 1996: Chapter 4: Chronotopes. In: A Space on the Side of the Road. Cultural Poetics in an "Other" America. Princeton: Princeton University Press ( p 90 - 116)

Latour, Bruno 2005: Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Introduction + Part 1 (=156 pp)

Outhwaite, William. 2009. Habermas. The Colonization of the Lifeworld.Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 80-105

Thompson, E.P. 1993. Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism. Customs in Common. Penguin Books. Pages 352-403

Wolf, Eric. 1982. Modes of Production. The Fur Trade. In Europe and the People Without History. Berkely. University of California Press. Pages 73-100, 158-194.

Articles:

Martínez, Maria, Laura. 2009. Ian Hacking’s Proposal for the Distinction between Natural and Social Sciences. In Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Vol. 39: 212-234

Rose, Nikolas & Peter Miller 1992: Political Power beyond the State: Problematics of Government. The British Journal of Sociology vol 43 (pp 173 – 205 = 29 pp)

Swedberg, Rickard. 2012. Theorizing in sociology and social science: turning to the context of discovery. In Theory and Society. Vol. 41: 1-40.

Note that some literature might be added to the list and some may be changed or omitted.

Reflection papers to be handed in each week

You will be part of a student group who will hand in a weekly written reflection paper. The group shall compose questions and at least two reflections based on the lectures and the literature. The reaction paper shall consist of an introduction to the questions and reflections, which makes it possible for the reader to comprehend the background of the questions/reflections and why the latter are important. The papers can focus on vital aspects of the literature/lectures, as well as important concepts and/or cases.

The papers shall amount to approximately 2-3 pages. The text must be in 12 pt. Times New Roman. The reflection paper needs to be handed in before 18.00 on Thursdays. The group will receive written feedback on the reflective papers.

Discussion papers

Discussion seminars will be held each Thursday, 10-12 or 13-15. At times the seminars will last 10-15 (excluding lunch), but these prolonged seminars will be announced well in advance

The students will be divided into small groups and each group will be responsible for organizing the seminars. The teachers will help the groups with questions and seminar forms, if needed.

Exam

The deadline of the exam is on Friday 4 pm on 30 October. The exam will take approximately one week to accomplish.You shall write a paper of about 6-7 pages or approximately 2 500 words. The content of the examination will be based on the literature and the lectures. The paper shall discuss a couple of central questions related to social theory. The questions to be answered will be provided by the teachers, but the students may also formulate one question of their own, which has to be approved by the teacher. The text must be double-spaced, and in 12 pt. Times New Roman.