PhD seminar in Writer's Workshop

Title: PhD Seminar: Writer's Workshop with Hellen Verran: Ethnographic Stories and Generative Research

Organizer: Maria Duclos Lindstrøm and Anne Kathrine Vadgaard Nielsen

Lecturer: Hellen Verran

Course description:

Ethnographic writing is a profoundly relational form of knowledge production. We are present in the field, our vision, understanding and personality interfere with the data, and even after we are done do our stories continue to intervene with the social and have effects.

This workshop embraces the fact that ethnographic texts in this way can be understood as research interventions as Helen Verran (University of Melbourne/Charles Darwin) has famously put it. The purpose of this workshop is to devote two days to reflect on and practically work with the issues of validity and normativity, which this idea of generative research gives rise to.

Helen Verran will be conducting the workshop, which will introduce participants to the conceptual and philosophical vocabulary of generative research in order to reflect on its implications for our own research.
We will then continue to do practical text work based on our draft ethnographic descriptions to stimulate participants to integrate this layer of methodological reflexivity in the writing process. For this purpose, participants are required to present an ethnographic description from own research (2-5) pages in English, as well as a few lines about how you would hope your research intervenes in the social and/or your ideals about validity, normativity and intervention.

Will you create your own course website? No.

Dates of the course: November 26th and 27th.

Location: IT University of Copenhagen.

Time: -

Exam: There will be no formal exams.

Credits: 3 ECTS.

Literature: The texts (in English) must be ready two weeks prior to the course.

Availiable spaces: The workshop is limited to 15 participants with priority given to PhD students from IT University and Department of Sociology, Copenhagen University.

Sign up: Deadline for registration November 1st to Maria Duclos Lindstrøm. If you have any questions before deciding to sign up, feel free to contact the organizers.