Course Description
Exploration of the history of engaged forms of research in the social and behavioral sciences. Graduate students will become familiar with different engagement paradigms or models, reflect on each with respect to wider critiques of engagement, and explore how to navigate the complexities involved in community engagement. Students will also examine similarities and differences in how engaged research is practiced across the social sciences.
Athena Title
Engaged Research (Praxis)
Prerequisite
ANTH 6520 or SOCI 6220 or SOCI 6010 or GEOG 4810/6810 or GEOG 8910
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
1. Be familiar with the major critiques of practice and applied/engaged forms of research from diverse social science disciplines (Anthropology, Geography, Sociology). 2. Be familiar with major engagement paradigms spanning the theory to practice continuum. 3. Gain sophistication in their ability to think and write reflexively about engaged research by exploring how the challenges raised by major critiques (e.g., positionality, multiple lines of accountability, risks to knowledge production, and marginalized groups, reflexivity) may be navigated within different engagement paradigms. 4. Be familiar with a wider array of methodologies for entering, contributing to (as participant, facilitator, documenter, critical observer) and maintaining reflexivity within engaged research and practice arenas.
Topical Outline
Part I: Critiques of Engagement i. Course introduction ii. Shady histories: The social sciences in colonialism and warfare iii. Objectivity, intellectual independence, and rhetorical freedom iv. Intersectionality (race, class, gender, and methodologies) v. Alternative epistemologies/ontologies vi. Complicity with structures of domination/inequality vii. Positionality, alignment, and reflexivity viii. The locus of control (understanding before engagement, the politics of representation, and the politics of knowledge) Part 2: Navigating the Complexities of Engagement I. Basic and applied research paradigms ii. Public Anthropology, Public Sociology, Community Geography, and their variants (e.g., Public Political Ecology, demand-driven research and practice) iii. Co-Learning and Innovation Models (participatory action research, adaptive collaborative management) iv. Critical pedagogies v. Embedded research geared towards social change (activist anthropology/ sociology/geography; radical applied social science; public participatory GIS)
Syllabus
Public CV