30 Minute Meeting - Skylar Kaat

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skylar’s zoom: https://teacherscollege.zoom.us/j/2695476417

Syllabus

Week 2 (June 5) Ethics, Sensitivity and Care in Research

In social science, theory, methods, and ethics are deeply intertwined. This week, we explore what it means to conduct research with care for the people we learn from and with. We will discuss how ethical practice goes far beyond institutional review boards (IRB) - it involves developing our own sense of responsibility and accountability that is specific to context of your reserach. We will explore strategies on how to navigate the social complexities of fieldwork, build trust, and remain reflexive about power, representation, and impact throughout the research and writing process.

• Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1996. “Writing Against Culture.” In Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present, edited by Richard G. Fox, 137–62. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.
• Aho, James. 1990. The Politics of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism. University of Washington Press.
• Bangstad, Sindre. 20108. Doing Fieldwork among People We Don’t (Necessarily) Like. Anthropology News. 58(4), e238–e243. https://doi.org/10.1111/AN.584 (Weldon Library periodicals GN2.A227)
• Innes, Martin, Colin Roberts, Alun Preece, and David Rogers. 2017. “Of Instruments and Data: Social Media Uses, Abuses and Analysis.” In The SAGE Handbook of Online Research Methods, edited by Nigel Fielding, Raymond M. Lee, and Grant Blank, 108–124. London: SAGE.
• Lareau, Annette. 2011. “Appendix: Common Problems in Fieldwork: A Personal Essay.” In Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, 2nd ed., 197–233. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Robbins, Joel. 2013. “Beyond the Suffering Subject: Toward an Anthropology of the Good.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19 (3): 447–62.
• Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 2000. “Ire in Ireland.” Ethnography 1 (1): 117–40.

meeting location: 327.1 Lehman Social Sciences Library in School of International and Public Affairs

Lehman Social Sciences Library | Columbia University Libraries

List of Centers and Institutes | Columbia University in the City of New York

Week 3 (June 12) Working Across Language

Translation is never a neutral act. This week, we will talk about how working across languages (whether named-languages or community languages) shapes the meanings we produce in research. We will discuss the politics of voice, the challenges of working with interpreters or translated texts, and how language mediates what can be known, felt, and shared.

• Marnie Thomson and Kyle Hunteman, “Why I Ask My Students to Swear in Class,” SAPIENS, May 31, 2023, https://www.sapiens.org/language/gendered-insults/.
• Kelley, Elizabeth. 2014. "Translating the Arab World." Dissertation. Please read Chapter 1 (the Introduction) and Chapter 4 "G in Gihad."
• Benjamin, Walter. "The Translator's Task."
• Achebe, C. (1965). English and the African writer. Transition, (18), 27-30.
• Hanks, William F., and Carlo Severi. "Translating worlds: the epistemological space of translation." HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4, no. 2 (2014): 1-16.
• Hasyim et al. 2021. "Artificial Intelligence: Machine Translation Accuracy in Translating French-Indonesian Culinary Texts."
• Hirschauer, Stefan. "Puttings things into words. Ethnographic description and the silence of the social." Human Studies 29 (2006): 413-441.
• Asad, Talal. "The concept of cultural translation in British social anthropology." In Writing culture, pp. 141-164. University of California Press, 2020.
• Ingold, Tim. "The art of translation in a continuous world." In Beyond boundaries, pp. 210-230. Routledge, 2020.
• Agar, Michael. "Making sense of one other for another: Ethnography as translation." Language & Communication 31, no. 1 (2011): 38-47.

meeting location: room 309, Gottesman Library, Teachers College

Gottesman Libraries | Teachers College, Columbia University

Week 4 (June 18) Coding and Interpreting Qualitative Data

After you have collected data, how do you begin to make sense of it? What are interesting, and why? What counts as data in your writing, and what should get left out? This week we will talk about data analysis, not as a step-by-step guide but as a process of discovery. You will begin to figure out how to identify patterns, build themes, and make analytical choices that stay grounded in your research questions.

• Bazeley, Patricia. 2013. Qualitative Data Analysis: Practical Strategies. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
• Ghodsee, Kristen. 2016. From Notes to Narrative: Writing Ethnographies That Everyone Can Read. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Harper, Douglas. 2002. “Talking about Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation.” Visual Studies 17 (1): 13–26.
• Lawrence-Lightfoot, Sara. 2005. “Reflections on Portraiture: A Dialogue Between Art and Science.” Qualitative Inquiry 11 (1): 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800404270955
• Pink, Sarah. 2021. “The Ethnographic Hunch.” In Experimenting with Ethnography: A Companion to Analysis, edited by Andrea Ballestero and Brit Ross Winthereik, 31–40. Experimental Futures. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Turner, Edith. 2007. “Introduction to the Art of Ethnography.” Anthropology and Humanism 32 (2): 108–16. https://doi.org/10.1525/ahu.2007.32.2.108.
• Wortham, Stanton, and Angela Reyes. 2015. Discourse Analysis beyond the Speech Event. New York: Routledge.

Notes for 6/18

Week 5 (June 26) Writing for an Academic Career - chinatown location

Grant proposals, conference abstracts, publication pitches and manuscripts. These are the kinds of writing many researchers dread... This week, we demystify these genres by breaking down their purposes, audiences, and conventions. Whether you’re just getting started or revising a draft, we’ll look at how to craft clear, compelling writing that communicates your ideas and helps build your academic career.

Week 6 (date TBD) Research Communication beyond Academia - barnard zine library

Your cool project doesn’t just belong in journals! This week, we ask: How can you share your research with people beyond academia? How do you report back to the interlocutors who generously shared their stories and lives with you? And, ultimately, who is your research really for? We will workshop creative, public-facing ways to communicate social science research: through zines, exhibitions, story maps, podcasts, and more.

• Afonso, Ana Isabel. 2011. “New Graphics for Old Stories: Representations of Local Memories through Drawings.” In Working Images: Visual Research and Representation in Ethnography, edited by Sarah Pink, László Kürti, and Ana Isabel Afonso, 66–83. London and New York: Routledge.
• Lundström, Markus, and Tomas Poletti Lundström. 2021. “Podcast Ethnography.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 24 (3): 289–99.
• Theodossopoulos, Dimitrios. 2022. “Graphic Ethnography on the Rise.” Theorizing the Contemporary, Fieldsights, July 28. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/series/graphic-ethnography-on-the-rise.

Data Workshop

Each week, one student will bring a carefully selected piece of data from their project to the meeting. The presenter should give a brief, informal introduction to the data and provide any necessary background information. Then the group will offer suggestions and insights. The goal of this exercise is to offer constructive feedback on each other’s methods and analyses, and to help students develop skills in peer review.

week 2 June 5 - Elaheh

week 3 June 12 - Audrea

week 4 June 19 - Xinyan

week 5 June 26 - Anisha and Angelica

week 6 date tbd -