Monday, October 25, 2010
GS2321: PM Seminar #3
This seminar will be held on Thursday, October 28 at the School of Global Studies.
GS2321: Report from Exercise on Participatory Methods and Action Research
The report will be made on Thursday, October 28 from 10.00-12.00 at the School of Global Studies.
Exercise directions are included in the PowerPoint on "Transdisciplinary Research Methods" and are posted on GUL (https://gul.gu.se/courseId/41279/courseDocsAndFiles.do).
Exercise directions are included in the PowerPoint on "Transdisciplinary Research Methods" and are posted on GUL (https://gul.gu.se/courseId/41279/courseDocsAndFiles.do).
GS2321: Introduction to Exercise in Policy and Project Evaluation
This introduction will be held on Tuesday, October 26 from 13.00-15.00 in SA 326. The following directions are posted on GUL (https://gul.gu.se/courseId/41279/showMessage.do?id=495029&tableSortBynoticeboard=lastChanged):
Exercise IAGG: Evaluation Design
Anna Persson & Martin Sjöstedt
With the point of departure in Sida’s Evaluation Manual “Looking Back, Moving
Forward”, design an evaluation of one of the development policies described in the
document “Government Communication 2004/05:4 – Sweden’s Global Development
Policy”. The proposed evaluation design should include purpose, evaluation criteria (i.e.
effectiveness, impact, relevance, sustainability, or efficiency), specific evaluation
questions, design, methodology, and material. The assignment should be carried out in
the groups described below. Each participant should contribute to the assignment and
each group should be prepared to orally present their evaluation in front of the class on
October 29th (15 minutes per group maximum).
Exercise IAGG: Evaluation Design
Anna Persson & Martin Sjöstedt
With the point of departure in Sida’s Evaluation Manual “Looking Back, Moving
Forward”, design an evaluation of one of the development policies described in the
document “Government Communication 2004/05:4 – Sweden’s Global Development
Policy”. The proposed evaluation design should include purpose, evaluation criteria (i.e.
effectiveness, impact, relevance, sustainability, or efficiency), specific evaluation
questions, design, methodology, and material. The assignment should be carried out in
the groups described below. Each participant should contribute to the assignment and
each group should be prepared to orally present their evaluation in front of the class on
October 29th (15 minutes per group maximum).
Sunday, October 24, 2010
GS2321: Borrowing Methods from Unexpected Sites
Christine Sylvester
- Professor Sylvester is a visiting chair who will be at the School of Global Studies for this academic year.
- She is a social scientist who has combined her research interests in international relations with her love for the arts.
The Social Science/ Humanities Divide
- Social science tends to separate itself from the humanities.
> This can be traced back to the Enlightenment.
> The social sciences only recently integrated quantitative methodology.
- Art was inappropriate because it was seen as the realm of the sublime, the emotional.
- Many people employ "throw-away" expressions in the social sciences such as "the art of diplomacy" or "the art of war."
> These terms do not signal a relationship between art and the social sciences.
> These terms, however, do imply that there are places where social science methodologies cannot go.
- Art is the gap between what the social sciences know and what it doesn't.
- Art/ Museums: International Relations where you least expect it
> Professor Sylvester wrote this book to address the (artificial) divide between the social sciences and the humanities.
> One of her arguments is that the site of the Twin Towers will always by the museum of international relations in the early 21st century.
- Today we will discuss how art can add humanity to your research.
Art and the Social Sciences
- Art gazing is a form of seeing, feeling, and visiting a work of art.
> It is differentiated from reading and listening.
- James Elkins, Painting in Tears
- Who and what is the art? The painting/ play/ sculpture or the audience and their reactions?
Fiction/ Literature and the Social Sciences
- Experiencing reality is often comparable to inhabiting a novel.
- A major problem in social science research is that written words cannot replicate the feelings and textures of lived experience. Literature, however, has the power and ability to do this.
- "People themselves are bits of imaginations, imagined by other people." (Zimbabwe author in exile)
- How can you let your informants speak and get away from you researching you researching them?
- Sylvester overcame this problem by borrowing from post-colonial literature by local authors.
> These works allowed her to give voice to her informants in Zimbabwe.
> Sylvester employs this method in Producing Women in Progress in Zimbabwe.
- Development studies never considers that poor, disempowered people are creating art in their minds.
> Social scientists often simply envision women in developing countries as poor, uneducated, wretched problems.
- Excellent book: Writers Writing about Conflicts and War in Africa
> The introduction is amazing.
> Art interacts with society and society with art.
- Professor Sylvester is a visiting chair who will be at the School of Global Studies for this academic year.
- She is a social scientist who has combined her research interests in international relations with her love for the arts.
The Social Science/ Humanities Divide
- Social science tends to separate itself from the humanities.
> This can be traced back to the Enlightenment.
> The social sciences only recently integrated quantitative methodology.
- Art was inappropriate because it was seen as the realm of the sublime, the emotional.
- Many people employ "throw-away" expressions in the social sciences such as "the art of diplomacy" or "the art of war."
> These terms do not signal a relationship between art and the social sciences.
> These terms, however, do imply that there are places where social science methodologies cannot go.
- Art is the gap between what the social sciences know and what it doesn't.
- Art/ Museums: International Relations where you least expect it
> Professor Sylvester wrote this book to address the (artificial) divide between the social sciences and the humanities.
> One of her arguments is that the site of the Twin Towers will always by the museum of international relations in the early 21st century.
- Today we will discuss how art can add humanity to your research.
Art and the Social Sciences
- Art gazing is a form of seeing, feeling, and visiting a work of art.
> It is differentiated from reading and listening.
- James Elkins, Painting in Tears
- Who and what is the art? The painting/ play/ sculpture or the audience and their reactions?
Fiction/ Literature and the Social Sciences
- Experiencing reality is often comparable to inhabiting a novel.
- A major problem in social science research is that written words cannot replicate the feelings and textures of lived experience. Literature, however, has the power and ability to do this.
- "People themselves are bits of imaginations, imagined by other people." (Zimbabwe author in exile)
- How can you let your informants speak and get away from you researching you researching them?
- Sylvester overcame this problem by borrowing from post-colonial literature by local authors.
> These works allowed her to give voice to her informants in Zimbabwe.
> Sylvester employs this method in Producing Women in Progress in Zimbabwe.
- Development studies never considers that poor, disempowered people are creating art in their minds.
> Social scientists often simply envision women in developing countries as poor, uneducated, wretched problems.
- Excellent book: Writers Writing about Conflicts and War in Africa
> The introduction is amazing.
> Art interacts with society and society with art.
GS2321: Action Research
Stellan Vinthagen
Lecture Outline
- Today we will discuss a slightly unusual and unconventional form of research: action research.
- We will first talk about the basics and then I will tell you about my (Stellan's) own experiences.
Action Research: The Basics
- Action research is not very well established and, as a result, is not as systematized as other research avenues.
- The suggested literature for this lecture can give you some ideas of how to use action research in your master’s thesis.
- Action research is the way that we experience and study the world, or at least that's what Stellan thinks.
- The action research cycle: plan, act, review/ reflect, repeat (This is how children interact with the world around them.)
- It is an exploratory method that combines both action and research.
- This may seem strange since traditional research methods discourage researcher/ subject interaction.
- However, a researcher can find out more through intervention then passive observation.
- Action research combines planned intervention with the resulting responses.
- The researcher necessarily involves his or herself in the process.
- This is the best way to find out how a social system really works.
- However there are problems. For example, how do you differentiate between your intervention(s) and the normal functioning of a social organization?
- Action research allows the researcher to take in information and challenge that information as well as the contradictions.
- Is action research ethical? In other words, is it ethical to intervene and/or challenge a social organization? Is it ethical to check up on the space between what people say they do and what they actually do?
> These are difficult questions to answer. However, you may overcome these ethical dilemmas by trying to help people and/or to support groups in achieving their goals.
- Action research is a method for reaching a deeper understanding of what's really going on.
- By challenging laws/ rules/ customs, you can make social norms visible.
- You don't know how strong a norm is until you challenge it. (Example: Buffet experiment in Norway.)
- Action research opens up a new world, a new approach to research.
- We live with the basic dichotomy of research as external observation--- this is the traditional approach taken from the natural sciences--- versus self-reflective practice--- this has long been regarded as an illegitimate research approach even though self-reflection is inherently social and human.
> I think (act, react, rethink), therefore I am.
- Action research is research through action.
- Action research is also known as social experimentation, collaborative research, and experiential learning.
- Action research is a way of doing research that creates a lot of data.
> It is messy and time consuming and thus is not always appropriate.
- In action research, it is necessary to be clear about what you are studying, the aspects on which you will focus, existing theories and models, and then initiate a creative intervention.
- For Stellan, action research is a way of making a contribution toward democracy, equality, liberty, and social change.
- How can you make action research acceptable?
> It's risky.
> People will inevitably criticize your involvement.
> But you can do things to help yourself out like reflecting on your assumptions and where you can find contradictory evidence which speaks against your assumptions; find several sources of data and methods for data gathering; when you have completed a preliminary analysis, go to the people you are studying and elicit their feedback; continuously engage in planning, action, and reflection.
Stellan's Action Research Experiences
- Non-violent direct action against arms factories and military bases
> Stellan and friends destroyed/ disarmed weapons at various locations.
> At the time, Stellan didn't see this as a form of research but it could have been.
> Later, this activist group formed a research group which made Stellan realize that research and action could be combined.
> Stellan wrote a book as a result of his involvement in this organization.
- Nonviolent resistance in South Africa
> Stellan interviewed members of the nonviolent resistance as well as the armed resistance--- which was an attempt to generate contradictory evidence.
> Stellan did his research as a non-participate.
> However, he had quite a lot of knowledge of the activities undertaken by the activists he interviewed because he had engaged in similar activities.
- World Bank/ IMF protests in Prague
> Stellan was a distant participant.
> He only focused on his research interests.
> He protested but he also took notes and photographs.
> In other words, he tried to observe and participate.
> He used his own experiences as an activist to help him understand what was going on.
> It became clear that one needs to be familiar with the activist culture in order to understand it.
> In other words, it is vital to be familiar with the environment you study.
Lecture Outline
- Today we will discuss a slightly unusual and unconventional form of research: action research.
- We will first talk about the basics and then I will tell you about my (Stellan's) own experiences.
Action Research: The Basics
- Action research is not very well established and, as a result, is not as systematized as other research avenues.
- The suggested literature for this lecture can give you some ideas of how to use action research in your master’s thesis.
- Action research is the way that we experience and study the world, or at least that's what Stellan thinks.
- The action research cycle: plan, act, review/ reflect, repeat (This is how children interact with the world around them.)
- It is an exploratory method that combines both action and research.
- This may seem strange since traditional research methods discourage researcher/ subject interaction.
- However, a researcher can find out more through intervention then passive observation.
- Action research combines planned intervention with the resulting responses.
- The researcher necessarily involves his or herself in the process.
- This is the best way to find out how a social system really works.
- However there are problems. For example, how do you differentiate between your intervention(s) and the normal functioning of a social organization?
- Action research allows the researcher to take in information and challenge that information as well as the contradictions.
- Is action research ethical? In other words, is it ethical to intervene and/or challenge a social organization? Is it ethical to check up on the space between what people say they do and what they actually do?
> These are difficult questions to answer. However, you may overcome these ethical dilemmas by trying to help people and/or to support groups in achieving their goals.
- Action research is a method for reaching a deeper understanding of what's really going on.
- By challenging laws/ rules/ customs, you can make social norms visible.
- You don't know how strong a norm is until you challenge it. (Example: Buffet experiment in Norway.)
- Action research opens up a new world, a new approach to research.
- We live with the basic dichotomy of research as external observation--- this is the traditional approach taken from the natural sciences--- versus self-reflective practice--- this has long been regarded as an illegitimate research approach even though self-reflection is inherently social and human.
> I think (act, react, rethink), therefore I am.
- Action research is research through action.
- Action research is also known as social experimentation, collaborative research, and experiential learning.
- Action research is a way of doing research that creates a lot of data.
> It is messy and time consuming and thus is not always appropriate.
- In action research, it is necessary to be clear about what you are studying, the aspects on which you will focus, existing theories and models, and then initiate a creative intervention.
- For Stellan, action research is a way of making a contribution toward democracy, equality, liberty, and social change.
- How can you make action research acceptable?
> It's risky.
> People will inevitably criticize your involvement.
> But you can do things to help yourself out like reflecting on your assumptions and where you can find contradictory evidence which speaks against your assumptions; find several sources of data and methods for data gathering; when you have completed a preliminary analysis, go to the people you are studying and elicit their feedback; continuously engage in planning, action, and reflection.
Stellan's Action Research Experiences
- Non-violent direct action against arms factories and military bases
> Stellan and friends destroyed/ disarmed weapons at various locations.
> At the time, Stellan didn't see this as a form of research but it could have been.
> Later, this activist group formed a research group which made Stellan realize that research and action could be combined.
> Stellan wrote a book as a result of his involvement in this organization.
- Nonviolent resistance in South Africa
> Stellan interviewed members of the nonviolent resistance as well as the armed resistance--- which was an attempt to generate contradictory evidence.
> Stellan did his research as a non-participate.
> However, he had quite a lot of knowledge of the activities undertaken by the activists he interviewed because he had engaged in similar activities.
- World Bank/ IMF protests in Prague
> Stellan was a distant participant.
> He only focused on his research interests.
> He protested but he also took notes and photographs.
> In other words, he tried to observe and participate.
> He used his own experiences as an activist to help him understand what was going on.
> It became clear that one needs to be familiar with the activist culture in order to understand it.
> In other words, it is vital to be familiar with the environment you study.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
GS2321: PM Seminar 2
The following instructions can be found in the course guide:
The students shall continue to think through their research interests (and passions!) and their proposed research project for their Master's thesis. They should come prepared to the seminar with at least two A4 pages in which they have (re)formulated their research area, research problem and some possible research question(s). Additionally, the students should begin to think through their theoretical framework (as motivation for the research problem and question? As guideline for the operationalization of their research question?) We suggest that the students have begun reading (or rereading) relevant literature to help them with this task. If, for example, a student wants to write about processes of democratization, then literature on theories of democracy and democratization would be appropriate. At the seminar, we will discuss these and begin to play with the chosen research question and theoretical framework in relation to text analysis. What happens to the research question when, for example, the chosen method is discourse analysis? What kinds of texts would be most appropriate? What kinds of questions would one ask of a text? The students shall think about their research interests (and passions!) and formulate... [sic]
***Please note that all groups are meeting at the School of Global Studies from 10.00-12.00 on Thursday, October 21.***
The students shall continue to think through their research interests (and passions!) and their proposed research project for their Master's thesis. They should come prepared to the seminar with at least two A4 pages in which they have (re)formulated their research area, research problem and some possible research question(s). Additionally, the students should begin to think through their theoretical framework (as motivation for the research problem and question? As guideline for the operationalization of their research question?) We suggest that the students have begun reading (or rereading) relevant literature to help them with this task. If, for example, a student wants to write about processes of democratization, then literature on theories of democracy and democratization would be appropriate. At the seminar, we will discuss these and begin to play with the chosen research question and theoretical framework in relation to text analysis. What happens to the research question when, for example, the chosen method is discourse analysis? What kinds of texts would be most appropriate? What kinds of questions would one ask of a text? The students shall think about their research interests (and passions!) and formulate... [sic]
***Please note that all groups are meeting at the School of Global Studies from 10.00-12.00 on Thursday, October 21.***
GS2321: Exercise Report in Discourse Analysis and Argumentation Analysis
The following instructions are posted in the course guide:
Students will divide up into small groups of 3-6 people and conduct first an argumenentation analysis and then a discourse analysis on the same short text (to be posted on the course portal).
Here is the text (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24992):
Good morning. I'm Laura Bush, and I'm delivering this week's radio address to kick off a world-wide effort to focus on the brutality against women and children by the al-Qaida terrorist network and the regime it supports in Afghanistan, the Taliban. That regime is now in retreat across much of the country, and the people of Afghanistan -- especially women -- are rejoicing. Afghan women know, through hard experience, what the rest of the world is discovering: The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists. Long before the current war began, the Taliban and its terrorist allies were making the lives of children and women in Afghanistan miserable. Seventy percent of the Afghan people are malnourished. One in every four children won't live past the age of five because health care is not available. Women have been denied access to doctors when they're sick. Life under the Taliban is so hard and repressive, even small displays of joy are outlawed -- children aren't allowed to fly kites; their mothers face beatings for laughing out loud. Women cannot work outside the home, or even leave their homes by themselves.
The severe repression and brutality against women in Afghanistan is not a matter of legitimate religious practice. Muslims around the world have condemned the brutal degradation of women and children by the Taliban regime. The poverty, poor health, and illiteracy that the terrorists and the Taliban have imposed on women in Afghanistan do not conform with the treatment of women in most of the Islamic world, where women make important contributions in their societies. Only the terrorists and the Taliban forbid education to women. Only the terrorists and the Taliban threaten to pull out women's fingernails for wearing nail polish. The plight of women and children in Afghanistan is a matter of deliberate human cruelty, carried out by those who seek to intimidate and control.
Civilized people throughout the world are speaking out in horror -- not only because our hearts break for the women and children in Afghanistan, but also because in Afghanistan we see the world the terrorists would like to impose on the rest of us.
All of us have an obligation to speak out. We may come from different backgrounds and faiths -- but parents the world over love our children. We respect our mothers, our sisters and daughters. Fighting brutality against women and children is not the expression of a specific culture; it is the acceptance of our common humanity -- a commitment shared by people of good will on every continent. Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. They can listen to music and teach their daughters without fear of punishment. Yet the terrorists who helped rule that country now plot and plan in many countries. And they must be stopped. The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.
In America, next week brings Thanksgiving. After the events of the last few months, we'll be holding our families even closer. And we will be especially thankful for all the blessings of American life. I hope Americans will join our family in working to insure that dignity and opportunity will be secured for all the women and children of Afghanistan.
Have a wonderful holiday, and thank you for listening.
Students will divide up into small groups of 3-6 people and conduct first an argumenentation analysis and then a discourse analysis on the same short text (to be posted on the course portal).
Here is the text (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24992):
Good morning. I'm Laura Bush, and I'm delivering this week's radio address to kick off a world-wide effort to focus on the brutality against women and children by the al-Qaida terrorist network and the regime it supports in Afghanistan, the Taliban. That regime is now in retreat across much of the country, and the people of Afghanistan -- especially women -- are rejoicing. Afghan women know, through hard experience, what the rest of the world is discovering: The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists. Long before the current war began, the Taliban and its terrorist allies were making the lives of children and women in Afghanistan miserable. Seventy percent of the Afghan people are malnourished. One in every four children won't live past the age of five because health care is not available. Women have been denied access to doctors when they're sick. Life under the Taliban is so hard and repressive, even small displays of joy are outlawed -- children aren't allowed to fly kites; their mothers face beatings for laughing out loud. Women cannot work outside the home, or even leave their homes by themselves.
The severe repression and brutality against women in Afghanistan is not a matter of legitimate religious practice. Muslims around the world have condemned the brutal degradation of women and children by the Taliban regime. The poverty, poor health, and illiteracy that the terrorists and the Taliban have imposed on women in Afghanistan do not conform with the treatment of women in most of the Islamic world, where women make important contributions in their societies. Only the terrorists and the Taliban forbid education to women. Only the terrorists and the Taliban threaten to pull out women's fingernails for wearing nail polish. The plight of women and children in Afghanistan is a matter of deliberate human cruelty, carried out by those who seek to intimidate and control.
Civilized people throughout the world are speaking out in horror -- not only because our hearts break for the women and children in Afghanistan, but also because in Afghanistan we see the world the terrorists would like to impose on the rest of us.
All of us have an obligation to speak out. We may come from different backgrounds and faiths -- but parents the world over love our children. We respect our mothers, our sisters and daughters. Fighting brutality against women and children is not the expression of a specific culture; it is the acceptance of our common humanity -- a commitment shared by people of good will on every continent. Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. They can listen to music and teach their daughters without fear of punishment. Yet the terrorists who helped rule that country now plot and plan in many countries. And they must be stopped. The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.
In America, next week brings Thanksgiving. After the events of the last few months, we'll be holding our families even closer. And we will be especially thankful for all the blessings of American life. I hope Americans will join our family in working to insure that dignity and opportunity will be secured for all the women and children of Afghanistan.
Have a wonderful holiday, and thank you for listening.
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