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uva.nl
Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR) AIHR

On Ethnography: Basics and Beyond

This course is designed for PhD researchers who have intentions to conduct ethnographic research in the humanities, cultural studies, and the social sciences, or who are interested in deepening their understanding of the skills and methods required to produce rigorous and ethically sustainable cultural theories. In so doing, the course will provide a basic toolkit of ethnographic research methods, while stressing their implications in terms of knowledge production, risk assessment, and ethics.

How do cultural theorists “craft” their knowledge? How do they design, strategize, and conduct their research activities? What do they concretely do during so-called “fieldwork” research and what is unique about their methodological approach toward vastly diverse cultures and societies? What are the ethical limits of cultural research, and how such limits can be effectively addressed and challenged through ad hoc methods? These and more questions will be addressed in this course. 

You will learn about classic ethnographic research skills and practices: field access, rapport building, toolkit, reflexivity, community and practice mapping, data collection, triangulation and analysis, ‘abductive’ theorisation, research ethics, and moral dilemmas. In addition, we will explore different ethnographic approaches and review different ethnographic writing styles.

Course details
  • Course objectives

    By the end of the course, you should be able to:

    1. Understand the scope and effectiveness of ethnographic research methods, as well as the pivotal role they play in the “craft” of cultural theory.
    2. Design and conduct research projects through appropriate ethnographic methods.
    3. Define and apply the techniques of data collection and analysis employed by professional ethnographers, including participant observation, unstructured and semi-structured interviews, life stories collection, digital ethnography, and basic notions of field notes recording and management.
    4. Show ethical considerations toward ethnographic activities that involve human subjects, while successfully assessing and preventing conditions of ethnographic risk.
  • Ethnographic exercises

    There will be in-class and/ or take home exercises on participant observation, interviews, risk assessment and incorporating new ethnographic approaches in your research topic.

  • Intake form and course readings

    After you register for this course using the registration form, you will receive an intake form via email. Please fill this in as soon as possible.

    The reading list and the exercises for the course will be shared with you at a later stage.

Course dates & Registration
  • Course dates Academic Year 2024-2025

    The next round of this course is in academic year 2024-2025. The course dates will be published on the website at the start of the new academic year. You will be informed through your local research school when registration opens.

  • Lecturer
    Dr. J.E. (Johanna) von Pezold

    Faculty of Humanities

    Capaciteitsgroep Media & Cultuur

    j.e.vonpezold@uva.nl