Monday, November 12, 2007
(Re)negotiating access
Anne Foley and Jessica Paddock presented to the Postgrad Cafe on Wednesday 31st of October 2007. The theme of this is cafe was the negotiation and renegotiation of access to the field. Anne Foley's talk entitled 'Jumping on the Gypsy Wagon: Getting and Sustaining Access with ‘Hard-To-Reach-Groups’ gave a brief overview of the issues of access that Anne has encountered during her research on Gypsies and Travellers. Anne discussed how she found access to be a constant process of negotiation and renegotiation and also told us about some of the strategies she adopted in trying to gain and maintain quality access! Jess Paddock talk ('It's Not as Easy as it Seems: Accessing Reliable Data Over the Internet') gave an overview of the project Jess conducted for her masters dissertation, which involved undertaking a newspaper content and discourse analysis over the period of three months across the spectrum of broadsheet and tabloids. Jess then discussed some of the issues involved in conducting secondary research as potential time saver, as gaining access to reliable data across the board ironically took far more time and far more trees than originally anticipated.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Qualitative Inquiry: Philosophical Foundations and Disciplinary Trajectories
Greg Dimitriadis, who is currently Associate Professor in Educational Leadership and Policy at Buffalo presented at the PostGrad Cafe on 23rd May 2007. His research interests include critical ethnography, urban education, educational policy, popular culture, cultural studies and postcolonial music, art, and literature. He has published on a range of subjects including hip hop culture and the social groupings of young black American men. For this session he presented "Qualitative Inquiry: Philosophical Foundations and Disciplinary Trajectories". In this brief presentation, he gestured towards some of the key philosophical concepts and traditions central to the various theories, approaches, and strategies of qualitative inquiry. I then
highlighted how these concepts and traditions have unfolded in the disciplines of sociology and anthropology over time and place. Finally, Greg discussed how "qualitative inquiry" has emerged as a trans-disciplinary meta-discourse now driving research across many
different (often so-called "professional") disciplines and schools.
highlighted how these concepts and traditions have unfolded in the disciplines of sociology and anthropology over time and place. Finally, Greg discussed how "qualitative inquiry" has emerged as a trans-disciplinary meta-discourse now driving research across many
different (often so-called "professional") disciplines and schools.
Sociology of the local: bringing the small group back in.
The Postgrad Cafe 2007 was joined by guest speaker Professor Gary Alan Fine on Thursday 10th May. Gary Fine, Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, has published widely on an extremely broad range of topics including high school debating teams, restaurant work, fantasy games, little league baseball, and meterologists. His areas of interest include social psychology, sociology of culture, sociology of science, qualitative sociology, social theory, and collective behaviour. He has been in Cardiff visiting QUALITI and also presented at the school seminar series. For our PostGrad Cafe meeting he presented "Sociology of the Local: Bringing the Small Group Back In".
Professor Gary Fine was pleased with the turnout and the thoughtful and wide-ranging questions posed by those who attended.
Professor Gary Fine was pleased with the turnout and the thoughtful and wide-ranging questions posed by those who attended.
PostGrad Cafe Conference - an overview
The First PostGrad Café Conference
As many members of the postgraduate community in SOCSI are aware, the PostGrad Café is an informal discussion group where postgraduates can present aspects of their work in a supportive peer environment, reflect upon shared experiences and issues, and socialise with other postgraduates. Although the PostGrad café predominantly consists of postgraduates from the School of Social Sciences, we have recently been joined by members of other schools such as JOMEC and CPLAN, resulting in presentations that capture the interest of those studying in different disciplines, and prompting discussions regarding the shared issues at stake in interdisciplinary research.
On Tuesday 27th February, SOCSI hosted the first annual PostGrad Café Conference, which was organised by members of the PostGrad Café team both past and present. The PostGrad Café is an informal discussion group where postgraduates can present aspects of their work, reflect upon shared experiences, and socialise with other postgraduates. Although the PostGrad café predominantly consists of postgraduates from the School of Social Sciences, we have recently been joined by members of other schools including JOMEC and CPLAN, resulting in presentations that capture the interest of those studying in different disciplines, and prompting discussions regarding shared issues.
Many postgraduate students are anxious about presenting their work at formal academic conferences, and this conference was envisaged as a means of providing an opportunity for postgraduates, at various stages of the research process, to practice giving presentations in a supportive and constructive peer environment. In fact, 16 postgraduate students took the opportunity to present at the event, many of whom were presenting their research for the first time. Furthermore, 68 other students and academic staff members attended the conference held in the Glamorgan Building, to show support to their presenting colleagues, ask questions, and provide constructive feedback on the array of presentations.
The structure of the day comprised of six themed sessions, of which two ran concurrently. The first session, entitled ‘Contested Knowledges’ featured papers from 3 SOCSI students, Catherine Butler, Dennis Eady and Martin Weinel, discussing the common theme of controversy regarding the nature of knowledge in social science. The second session contained presentations from another three of SOCSI’s postgraduates: Robin Smith, Anne Foley and Vicki Eaton all presented papers on the difficulties they had encountered in their research projects in locating research participants.
The third session of the conference was themed ‘Learning for Labour’ and featured papers from SOCSI’s Gerbrand Tholen and SONMS’ Jane Ryan, discussing the role of learning in the context of knowledge economies and male undergraduate nursing students respectively. The fourth set of papers focused on technology: Jackie Needs of CESAGEN presented a paper on the experience of people at risk of genetic illness, and Alison Elderfield of SOCSI discussed social networks and mobile phone use.
A buffet lunch was provided for all of the presenters and attendees of the conference, before the final pair of postgraduate presentations. The fifth session, entitled ‘Children, Gender and the Media’ featured papers from Kelly Buckley of SOCSI who discussed the representation of the female body in celebrity gossip magazine Heat, and two presenters from JOMEC, Corbett Miteff and Ann Luce who covered cartoons and press coverage of childhood bullying and suicide respectively. The final session was themed ‘work experience’ and featured two papers: the first was by Amanda Ehrenstein and discussed workers in the visual arts, and the second was by Pam Robinson, who focused on the labour conditions in the banana fields of Costa Rica.
The successful day ended with a plenary session which took the usual relaxed and informal form of the PostGrad café. Dr. Ingrid Geesink and Dr. David Mellor reflected on their experiences of the PhD process and completing a thesis. Ingrid shared with the group her experiences of the demands on the time of a PhD student, and strategies for dealing with this. Furthermore, Ingrid highlighted one of the issues that unites all work-burdened PhD students: avoidance strategies. Ingrid’s handout of popular avoidance strategies highlighted that there are many things that the PhD student has to battle, and that often we are all experiencing the same things. David discussed the emotional labour of the PhD process, in particular his recent experience of the viva. Also, the all too common feelings of isolation and unworthiness experienced by PhD students provided a basis for a further group discussion after the plenary sessions.
The day was successful on many levels: it offered postgraduates the opportunity to present a paper at a conference within a supportive peer environment, to share views and knowledge on the subject in question, to listen to two presenters who have experienced the full process, but, most importantly, to build the foundations for a postgraduate community in SOCSI and its sister schools.
If you would like more information about the PostGrad Café Conference or any other PostGrad Café events please contact the team at postgradcafe.cf.ac.uk
As many members of the postgraduate community in SOCSI are aware, the PostGrad Café is an informal discussion group where postgraduates can present aspects of their work in a supportive peer environment, reflect upon shared experiences and issues, and socialise with other postgraduates. Although the PostGrad café predominantly consists of postgraduates from the School of Social Sciences, we have recently been joined by members of other schools such as JOMEC and CPLAN, resulting in presentations that capture the interest of those studying in different disciplines, and prompting discussions regarding the shared issues at stake in interdisciplinary research.
On Tuesday 27th February, SOCSI hosted the first annual PostGrad Café Conference, which was organised by members of the PostGrad Café team both past and present. The PostGrad Café is an informal discussion group where postgraduates can present aspects of their work, reflect upon shared experiences, and socialise with other postgraduates. Although the PostGrad café predominantly consists of postgraduates from the School of Social Sciences, we have recently been joined by members of other schools including JOMEC and CPLAN, resulting in presentations that capture the interest of those studying in different disciplines, and prompting discussions regarding shared issues.
Many postgraduate students are anxious about presenting their work at formal academic conferences, and this conference was envisaged as a means of providing an opportunity for postgraduates, at various stages of the research process, to practice giving presentations in a supportive and constructive peer environment. In fact, 16 postgraduate students took the opportunity to present at the event, many of whom were presenting their research for the first time. Furthermore, 68 other students and academic staff members attended the conference held in the Glamorgan Building, to show support to their presenting colleagues, ask questions, and provide constructive feedback on the array of presentations.
The structure of the day comprised of six themed sessions, of which two ran concurrently. The first session, entitled ‘Contested Knowledges’ featured papers from 3 SOCSI students, Catherine Butler, Dennis Eady and Martin Weinel, discussing the common theme of controversy regarding the nature of knowledge in social science. The second session contained presentations from another three of SOCSI’s postgraduates: Robin Smith, Anne Foley and Vicki Eaton all presented papers on the difficulties they had encountered in their research projects in locating research participants.
The third session of the conference was themed ‘Learning for Labour’ and featured papers from SOCSI’s Gerbrand Tholen and SONMS’ Jane Ryan, discussing the role of learning in the context of knowledge economies and male undergraduate nursing students respectively. The fourth set of papers focused on technology: Jackie Needs of CESAGEN presented a paper on the experience of people at risk of genetic illness, and Alison Elderfield of SOCSI discussed social networks and mobile phone use.
A buffet lunch was provided for all of the presenters and attendees of the conference, before the final pair of postgraduate presentations. The fifth session, entitled ‘Children, Gender and the Media’ featured papers from Kelly Buckley of SOCSI who discussed the representation of the female body in celebrity gossip magazine Heat, and two presenters from JOMEC, Corbett Miteff and Ann Luce who covered cartoons and press coverage of childhood bullying and suicide respectively. The final session was themed ‘work experience’ and featured two papers: the first was by Amanda Ehrenstein and discussed workers in the visual arts, and the second was by Pam Robinson, who focused on the labour conditions in the banana fields of Costa Rica.
The successful day ended with a plenary session which took the usual relaxed and informal form of the PostGrad café. Dr. Ingrid Geesink and Dr. David Mellor reflected on their experiences of the PhD process and completing a thesis. Ingrid shared with the group her experiences of the demands on the time of a PhD student, and strategies for dealing with this. Furthermore, Ingrid highlighted one of the issues that unites all work-burdened PhD students: avoidance strategies. Ingrid’s handout of popular avoidance strategies highlighted that there are many things that the PhD student has to battle, and that often we are all experiencing the same things. David discussed the emotional labour of the PhD process, in particular his recent experience of the viva. Also, the all too common feelings of isolation and unworthiness experienced by PhD students provided a basis for a further group discussion after the plenary sessions.
The day was successful on many levels: it offered postgraduates the opportunity to present a paper at a conference within a supportive peer environment, to share views and knowledge on the subject in question, to listen to two presenters who have experienced the full process, but, most importantly, to build the foundations for a postgraduate community in SOCSI and its sister schools.
If you would like more information about the PostGrad Café Conference or any other PostGrad Café events please contact the team at postgradcafe.cf.ac.uk
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