90453 - IL FIELDWORK NELLA RICERCA SOCIALE

Learning outcomes

The course introduces the students to the results of empirical research in the fields of migration and urban studies. At the end of the course the students will be able to critically analyze complex phenomena using some key analytical framework, including the intersectional approach.

Course contents

FIELDWORK IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

FIELDWORK

The course will focus on the ‘field’ as a site and as a practice. Students will learn that fieldwork data are not ‘collected’ but ‘produced’ within different historical, geographical, and political contexts and circumstances; they are the result of the relationship between the researcher and the informants. Students will also learn that relationships formed on the field are shaped by external elements such as the policies of funding institutions, and the researcher’s characteristics such as gender, class, ethnicity, and age. The challenges of multi-situated fieldwork and the urge to connect the local with the global will also be debated.

MY FIELDWORK

Researchers with a rich field experience, together with the instructor, will present their fieldwork, highlighting its relational and critical aspects, and connecting it with the theoretical debate.

1. EMOTIONS IN MY FIELDWORK IN TANZANIA

√ the role of emotions in conducting research, often left to the margins of academic literature.

√ the researchers’ positionality in relation to their research life and the emotionality co-created in the research process.

2. ETNOGRAPHY IN PRISONS

√ researchers facing paradigms that legitimize imprisonment and strategies deployed by the institutions aiming at squeezing the researcher into a functional stance.

√ this is potentially in conflict with the values that the researcher necessarily brings with them when defining hypotheses and marking the boundaries of the research field.

3. ‘THE PRODUCTION OF RACE AND GENDER’ IN MY FIELDWORK IN AGRICOLTURE AND SLAUGHTERHOUSES

√ the vertical and horizontal conflicts and the ‘production of race and gender’ surfacing when the ethnographic field is conducted in the workplace

√ analysis of the work process, with a focus on agriculture and meatpacking

4. ETHNOGRAPHY FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS AND REFUGEES

√ the dilemma of transforming research ON vulnerable social groups – as for instance refugees and the institutions dealing with them – into a research FOR refugees, i.e. a research that transforms its research object into its main user.

5. ETHNOGRAPHY OF URBAN NATURE

√ the ethnographic field conducted among urban beekeepers in France and Singapore who promote urban biodiversity, aimed at investigating how a notion is transformed into measure

6. MY FIELDWORK IN STIGMATIZED TERRITORIES

√ the issue of the territory's stigma – referred to the Neapolitan suburb of Scampia – both in terms of how the actors of a stigmatised territory deal with local problems, and in terms of the local actors producing themselves a stigmatised narrative of the territory.

7. MY FIELDWORK IN A PANDEMIC ERA

√ How the pandemic is affecting ethnographic research to the point that researchers are forced to drastically modify their ethnographic practices or, in some instances, abandon the field.

Link to further information

https://unibo.academia.edu/antonellaceccagno

Readings/Bibliography

√ THE FIELD

√ Ward Keeler, 2020, ‘The Incitement to Fieldwork’ Social Analysis, 64 (1), 80–101.

EMOTIONS IN AND AROUND THE FIELDWORK

Stanley e Wise, 1993, ‘The Research Process’ in Breaking Out- Feminist Ontology and Epistemology, Taylor & Francis, chapter 6.

ETNOGRAPHY IN PRISONS

√ Sbraccia A. e Vianello F. (2016) Introduzione. Carcere, ricerca sociologica, etnografia’, Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa, 2, 183-210.

√ Ferreccio V. e Vianello F. (2016) La ricerca in carcere in Argentina e in Italia, Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa, 2, 321-342.

ETHNOGRAPHY IN AGRICOLTURE AND SLAUGHTERHOUSES

√ Andrea Bottalico e Valeria Piro (2020) ‘L’etnografia del lavoro e il lavoro dell’etnografia’, Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa, 5-29.

√ Valeria Piro (2014) ‘Che cos’e’ la giusta paga? Negoziazioni sul prezzo del lavoro in una serra siciliana’, Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa, 2, pp. 219-243.

ETHNOGRAPHY FOR AND WITH ASYLUM SEEKERS AND REFUGEES

√ Giuliana Sanò e Francesco Della Puppa (2020) ‘Il prisma della (im)mobilità. Pratiche di appaesamento e esperienze di immobilità di richiedenti asilo e rifugiati, in un’etnografia multisituata tra Nord e Sud Italia, Studi Emigrazione, 220, pp. 582-598.

√ Omid Firouzi Tabar (2020) “Le pareti permeabili dell’accoglienza e la “continuità” dei Decreti Salvini’, Studi Emigrazione, 220, pp. 528-546.

ETHNOGRAPHY OF STIGMATIZED TERRITORIES

√ Carolina Mudan Marelli (2019) ‘The commodification of territorial stigma’, Urban Research & Practice, DOI: 10.1080/17535069.2019.1683600

‘FIELDWORK’ IN AN ERA OF EPIDEMIC

√ Giuliana Sanò, 2020, ‘Fare etnografia al tempo del Covid-19. Continuità e fratture alla luce delle misure adottate per far fronte all’emergenza sanitaria’, Illuminazioni n 53, supplemento n 9 http://www.rivistailluminazioni.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Selenia-Marabello-

√ Selenia Marabello, 2020, ‘Tracciare le distanze, sorvegliare il contagio’ Illuminazioni n 53, supplemento n 9 http://www.rivistailluminazioni.it/2020/10/19/giuliana-sano-2/

√ Magdalena Góralska, 2020, ‘Anthropology from Home. Advice on Digital Ethnography for the Pandemic Times’, Anthropology in Action, 27, no. 1, pp. 46–52.

√ Richard Vokes and Gertrude Atukunda, 2021, ‘Fieldwork through the Zoomiverse. Sensing Uganda in a Time of Immobility’, Anthropology in Action, 28, no. 1 (Spring 2021) pp. 73–78.

√ Andrew Dawson and Simone Dennis, 2021, ‘Workplace Intimacy’, Anthropology in Action, 28 (1): 1–7.

√ Adam Roth, Niroshnee Ranjan, Grace King, Shamim Homayun, Rebecca Hendershott and Simone Dennis, 2021, ‘Zooming in on COVID: The Intimacies of Screens, Homes and Learning Hierarchies’, Anthropology in Action, 28 (1): 67–72.

FURTHER READING

√ Abu-Lughod, L. (2000) ‘Locating ethnography’ Ethnography, 1(2), 261–267.

√ Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (1997) ‘Discipline and practice: “The field” as site, method and location in anthropology’ In A. Gupta & J. Fergusson (Eds.), Anthropological locations. Boundaries and grounds of a field science (pp. 1–46). Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.

√ Abu-Lughod, L. (2000) ‘Locating ethnography’ Ethnography, 1(2), 261–267.

√ Huopalainen and Satama (2019) ‘Mothers and Researchers in the Making: Negotiating ‘New’ Motherhood within a ‘New’ Academia’ Human Relations 72 (1), 98-121.

√ Low, S.M., Merry, S.E. (2010) ‘An Introduction to Supplement 2. Engaged Anthropology. Diversity and Dilemmas’ Current Anthropology, 51: 203-226.

√ Sanò G; (2017) ‘Inside and outside the reception system. The case of unaccompanied minors in Eastern Sicily’, in Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa 1, pp. 121-141.

√ Wacquant, L. (2002) ‘The curious eclipse of prison ethnography in the age of mass incarceration’ Ethnography, 3 (4): 371–397.

√ Vila, P. and Avery-Natale E. ( 2020) ‘Towards an affective understanding of processes of racialization’, Ethnicities, 1-19.

√ Xiang B. (2013) ‘Multi-scalar ethnography: An approach for critical engagement with migration and social change’, Ethnography 14/3, pp. 282–299

  

Teaching methods

Lectures and discussions in class, including watching and discussing images and videos. Students are strongly encouraged to participate in the discussion.

Assessment methods

Student initiative in articulating themes and connecting different presentations and articles, including visual materials, in the class will be positively evaluated.

Students will take an oral exam on the course reading and presentations. Questions will aim at testing the student ability to critically address the proposed topics and build an argument with an appropriate language.

The assessment will take into consideration:

1. Proper knowledge of the subjects
2. Ability to critically analyze and connect concepts and fieldwork experiences
3. Competences in the use of appropriate terminology

Alternatively, students attending classwork can write a 1,500 word paper on a topic related to conducting fieldwork in the social sciences (the topic should be agreed upon with the instructor).

Please send your papers by email

 DEADLINES FOR DELIVERING THE ESSAY

To be evaluated at the exam of June 1st, 2021: deadline for sending the paper is May 19, 2021.

To be evaluated at the exam of June 29, 2021: deadline for sending the paper is June 16, 2021

To be evaluated at the exam of September,7, 2021: deadline for sending the paper is August 24, 2021.

An email from the instructor will confirm that your essay has been received.

Teaching tools

Readings, video materials, and guest lecturers.

Office hours

See the website of Antonella Ceccagno