Sylabus
PART I: INTRODUCTION TO THE ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACH
1. March 6: The history of the social sciences Immanuel Wallerstein - What are we bounding, and whom, when we bound social science research
2. March 6: Methodological pluralism Donatella della Porta & Michael Keating – Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences
3. March 7: Doing ethnography John D. Brewer – What is ethnography? Nisaratana Sangasubana – How to Conduct Ethnographic Research
4. March 7: Thick description Clifford Geertz - The interpretation of cultures: Thick Description
5. March 8: Fields Neil Fligstein & Doug McAdam - Toward a General Theory of Strategic Action Fields
6. March 8: Relational ethnography and networks Matthew Desmond – Relational ethnography PART II: GLOBAL ETHNOGRAPHY AND GLOBAL FINANCIAL MARKETS
7. March 18: Transnational and global perspectives Andreas Wimmer & Nina Glick Schiller – Methodological nationalism and beyond Salvatore Babones – Conducting Global Social Research
8. March 18: Multi-sited ethnography George Marcus - Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography
9. March 19: Global ethnography Burawoy – Reaching for the global
10. March 19: Global ethnography II Michael Burawoy – The extended case method
11. March 20: Case study global financial markets: Karen Ho – Liquidated (Introduction, chapters 1+7)
12. March 20: Conclusion
Anotace
Lecturer: Dr Christoph Sorg (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Ethnography as the systematic study of people in naturally occurring settings constitutes the principal research method in social anthropology and has recently become increasingly popular in other social sciences.
This course will introduce students to general methodological issues at the intersection of global studies and ethnography. They will learn the basics of ethnographic approaches and transnational perspectives, from methodological theory to the mechanics of data-collection.
The issues will include but are not limited to:
• global studies and methodological nationalism
• the structure and history of social sciences
• different ontological, epistemological, and methodological approaches
• “relational”, “multi-sited” and “global” ethnographies
• micro-macro debates
• etc.
At the end of the class, we will reflect on some of these debates when reading an ethnography of global financial markets.
The course aims at students of different social science disciplines and assumes no prior knowledge on the subject.