Friday, December 08, 2006

PostGrad Café Christmas Party

The PostGrad Café Christmas Party will be held on Wednesday, December 13th from 5pm in the Glamorgan Building (Senior Common Room).
Drink, Nibbles and Decorations!
Admission Free!
All Welcome!

PostGrad Café Committee

The PostGrad Café team would like to draw your attention to a recent change in the makeup of the Café committee. The new committee members are Kelly Buckley, Anne Foley and Helen Blakely. The PostGrad Café would like to thank Bambo Soyinka, Mark Connolly, Jamie Lewis and Andrew Bartlett for their past commitment and ongoing support.

1st Annual Postgraduate Café Conference

1st Annual Postgraduate Café Conference
February 27th, 2007

CALL FOR PAPERS
The New Generation of Social Science Knowledge

We are pleased to announce that the 1st Annual Postgraduate Café will be held in the Glamorgan Building at Cardiff University on Tuesday the 27th February, 2007. The conference, sponsored by the School of Social Sciences (SOCSI), is specifically for the presentation of postgraduate students’ work but is not limited to SOCSI PhD students.

The PostGrad Café Conference will provide all participants with the opportunity to present work-in-progress papers and discuss the research of others in a cross-disciplinary, supportive and constructive peer environment. All postgraduates wishing to attend this conference should register their interest with the organisers as soon as possible.

Papers are invited from postgraduate researchers working in, but not limited to, sociology, philosophy, journalism, nursing, psychology, planning, humanities, history, business, economics and law. The PostGrad Café Conference is free to attend, and a buffet will be provided. Information on the PostGrad Café’s regular events can be found at http://culturecafe.blogspot.com/.

In order to ensure that we have enough presentation rooms booked, the organisers ask postgraduates to e-mail bartletta@cardiff.ac.uk or lewisjt1@cardiff.ac.uk at the earliest opportunity stating their intention to attend the conference and whether they wish to present a paper.

Those wishing to present a paper should submit an abstract of 200 words (maximum) in either plain text or MS Word format by Wednesday 13th December to bartletta@cardiff.ac.uk or lewisjt1@cardiff.ac.uk. Papers should be around 20 minutes in length. Submissions should include: name and title, paper title, affiliation, department, email address, telephone number and postal address.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Research Ethics

The last PostGrad Café was be held in the Glamorgan Building Senior Common Room on Wednesday 29th, November at 5pm. The theme of this PostGrad Café was Ethics. Three postgraduates, Jackie Needs, Robin Smith and Alex Mylles discussed the ethical issues involved in their diverse fieldwork projects. This Cafe was provocative and stimulating, with the ideas and thoughts of many attendees discussed, not just those presenting.

Jackie Needs – Ethics and Consent issues in Social Studies of Health and Medicine

What are some of the barriers social researchers must negotiate to obtain ethical approval and participant consent for studies of health and medicine? Is it time for a Qualitative Research Register, and what advantages and/or disadvantages may become apparent? Examples of difficult ethics and consent situations encountered in a study of Genetics and Insurance, where ethical approval was given a while before the study began.

Robin Smith – Thinking On Your Feet; Ethical issues in researching public spaces

The talk discussed issues that have arisen in conducting ethnographic research in regenerated public spaces, in this case Cardiff Bay. It covered the relationship between theoretical conceptualisations of the subject of the research and ethics. The talk was mainly concerned with the possible need for flexibility when considering research ethics which becomes especially apparent when conducting research in uncontrolled and open environments. Robin discussed some of the issues that arise from conducting covert research in such settings.

Alex Mylles – The Politics of Consent

This talk outlined some of the issues with researching a group in which Alex was a participant prior to (and during) the research. His research centres on a heated and politically charged debate within an LGB organisation on whether it should widen its remit to include transgender people or not. As an active member of the organisation Alex was a participant in this debate and advocated the inclusion of trans people. Alex detailed the problems regarding certain people withdrawing their consent for his research and argued that their reasons for doing so could have been politically motivated, as those who withdrew consent were all advocating excluding trans people.