996006 Methods Class: Understanding – the researchers’ perspectives and knowledge production (S) (SoSe 2022)

The basic issue of understanding in academic research often goes hand in hand with ideas of objectivity or neutrality, with the researcher’s standpoint from above. At the same time, everyday experience in academic exchange shows us that researchers’ perspectives vary very much and that it is in fact the multitude of perspectives that helps us to get a broader view on a particular research problem. That is exactly what makes interdisciplinary and international exchange fruitful and inspiring – if challenging. Taking a certain perspective allows the researcher to take a direction in order to pursue her project consistently. However, to solve research problems, we need many perspectives.

Basic sources of researchers’ perspectives are their personal experiences, i.e. cognitive experiences (like things they have learned), bodily or sensory experiences (like things they have gone through), and social or cultural experiences (like where they come from). In this Methods Class, we want to explore the epistemological and social contexts of ‘subjective’ experiences and deliberate how they can be made fruitful for one’s own research.

The Methods Class lasts two days. During the first day, we want to figure out how the relation of understanding, perspective, and experiences is shaped in different research strands. During the second day, we will apply the gained knowledge to different kinds of research material such as pictures, a letter, and a journalistic article. Your own previous experience with the use of qualitative or hermeneutic methods is welcome but not mandatory.

It is expected that you read the texts below very carefully. You find the texts by Bourdieu, Crenshaw and Harding in the 'Lernraum' and the text by Whitehead online.

Bibliography

List of literature

Pierre Bourdieu 1999: Understanding. In. Bourdieu, P. et al.: The Weight of the World. Social Suffering in Contemporary Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 607-626

Kimberlé Crenshaw 1989: Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. In: University of Chicago Legal Forum: Vol. 1989: Iss. 1, Article 8.

Sandra Harding 2008: Introduction: Why Focus on Modernity? In: Harding: Sciences from below. Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities. Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 1-19

Alfred North Whitehead 1938: Lecture Three: Understanding. In: Whitehead, A.N.: Modes of Thought. New York: Macmillan, pp. 58-87 Available under: https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Whitehead/Whitehead_1938/1938_03.html