PhD Courses in Denmark

Programme

September 8th

9.00 – 10.15: Welcome and presentation round. Be prepared to give a 5 minute presentation of yourself and your project.

10.15 – 11.15: Eric Komlavi Hahonou: What is ethnography?

11.15 – 11.30: Coffee break

11.30 – 12.45: Jette Ernst: Starting from scratch and constructing theory underway. Outline: The lecture concerns the practical and analytical gradual learning of a new field setting based on Jette’s ethnographic experiences from a hospital department. First, what are the routes, techniques and methods you can use to learn a strange setting and absorb the experiences as a stranger? Second, based on practice theoretical approach, how do put your theoretical tools to work from the beginning of fieldwork and let theoretical insights develop as you progress? The practice theoretic tools of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu are ideally suited to inform a research process where knowledge generation happens in a continuous moving back and forth between the empirical field and the trying out of theoretical ideas. Jette explains how Bourdieu’s pillar concept of field, in particular, but also habitus and capital were used as baseline concepts to ‘spot’ the problematics of the field and develop new analytical insights.

12.45 – 13.45: Lunch, fresh air and mingling

13.30 – 14.30: Thematic discussion 1: ´Points and modes of access´ o Gaining access and commencing fieldwork. o How does original access influence ongoing access? o How do relations to gate keepers affect access?

14.30 – 15.00: Coffee break and leg stretching

15.00 – 16.15: Guest lecturer 1 (Potentially Charlotte Jonasson, Århus University) ‘Doing ethnography in the private sector’.

16.00 – 18.00: Workshop one: Taking and processing fieldnotes – Potentially by Charlotte Jonasson.

September 9th

9.00 – 9.15: Wrapping up from yesterday / Jette Ernst

9.15 – 10.30: Eric Hahonou: ‘Emotions as method’ – how do you acknowledge your presence in the field and its significance for the production of empirical data? Outline: The lecture examines how emotions can be used as a method to explore meaning-making activities in bureaucratic settings where public servants’ behaviours follow practical norms that deviate from both official norms and social norms. As a supplement to other techniques associated with long-term field research, the use of obtrusive participant-observation is arguably a relevant and fruitful methodological tactic. The author argues that giving space to the ethnographer’s empathy while doing participant-observation enables a deeper understanding of bureaucratic behaviours by bringing emotions back into the analysis of empirical findings and deepening reflexivity. Whereas the lecture examines some ethical issues associated with this method in contexts where the ethnographer is confronted with abuse of power in health bureaucracies, the lecturer suggests that emotions as method can be a fruitful approach to the ethnography of organizations at large.

10.30 – 10.45: : Coffee break

10.45 – 12.00: Thematic discussion 2: Peer to peer feedback on your project outlines in groups of three

12.00 – 13.00: Lunch, fresh air and mingling

13.00 – 13.45: Thematic discussion 2 continued

13.45 – 14.30: Discussing positionality / Film session (excerpt from the movie followed by discussion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Stories)

14.30 – 15.00: Coffee break, break and leg stretching

15.00 – 16.00: Workshop 2: How can I revise my project outline / research question and project outline to include what I have learned? / Jette Ernst and Eric Hahonou

16.00 – 17.00: Wrapping up and course evaluation