Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Qualitative Research

The next PostGrad Café will be held on Wednesday 25th October in the Glamorgan Building Senior Common Room at 5pm. The theme will be qualitative research. Susanne Langer and Inna Kotchetkova of QUALITI, and Maggie Gregory, the reviews editor of Qualitative Research, will discuss the resources and opportunities available to postgraduate students. Outlines of the talks are provided below.

The talks will be followed by questions and a general discussion. Snacks and drinks will be provided. All postgraduate students with an interest in social research are welcome.

Dr Susanne Langer and Dr Inna Kotchetkova, Research Associates, QUALITI, Cardiff School of Social Sciences
This event will be dedicated to qualitative research - a term that hides a bewildering diversity of questions, methods and traditions. Drawing on the work of QUALITI - the Cardiff node of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods - and our experience as early career researchers, we will introduce some of the research done by social scientists working within a qualitative research paradigm. The event will also introduce postgraduates to ways of using their growing academic skills for more than just writing a thesis.

Dr Maggie Gregory, Research Fellow, CESAGen, Cardiff School of Social Sciences
Maggie Gregory is the Reviews Editor of Qualitative Research, a journal edited by Paul Atkinson and Sara Delamont of the School of Social Sciences. Writing book reviews is part of an academic career, both broadening knowledge and critical reading skills, and maintaining a steady stream of published writing. Maggie will discuss the book review process and invite postgraduate students to contribute book reviews to Qualitative Research. Maggie will also discuss the establishment of a qualitative research reading group to encourage the re/visitation of methodological issues throughout academic research careers.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Aliens in the Field

The PG Cafe team are pleased to announce that the first meeting of the Autumn semester will take place in the Glamorgan Building Senior Common Room on Wednesday 11th October at 5pm. Entitled, "Aliens in the Field", PhD students Pam Robinson and David Mellor will discuss their doctoral research in fieldwork situations where they were conspicuous outsiders.

Outlines of the talks are provided below.

Look forward to seeing you there.

The PG Team.

Pam Robinson - Researching in the Field: Literally!
In this brief talk I will share some of the experiences of researching in thebanana fields of Costa Rica, where I was investigating the labour conditions ofworkers who help supply one of the most popular fruits to the UK. I willdescribe what it was like to be a researcher in an environment that waschallenging both physically and culturally. I will outline a few of my copingstrategies for dealing with the mozzies, spiders and snakes, living in a newlanguage and the creation of a 'self' that helped gain the respect andcollaboration of my informants.

David Mellor - Researching with children: practices and problematics
In this short talk I will address the central issues about doing research with as opposed to 'on') children. In doing this, I will unpack and critique ideas about children's participation in research, and the argument that the ethnographer should adopt the 'least adult' role when doing fieldwork with children. I will also explain why it is vital for ethnographers to forefront children's own cultures of communication when trying to understand subjectivity and solidarity in their everyday worlds.