The aim of this course is to introduce and build capacity for Interpretivist Methods in Political Science.
Instructor
Dr. April Biccum is co-convener of the Interpretive Methods Research Group (IMRG) at the Australian Political Studies Association. Previously, April was co-convener of the Interpretation Method Critique Research Cluster at the Australian National University. These groups have the aim of raising the profile of Interpretivist and Critical methodologies in Political Science. April’s research is framed by the Global Politics of Knowledge with a combined focus on how the categories Empire/Imperialism and Global Citizenship are used, theorised and understood in both the public and scholarly domain.
The aim of this course is to introduce and build capacity for Interpretivist Methods in Political Science. Interpretivist methodology is a longstanding tradition in the social sciences going back to Max Weber and Wilhelm Dilthey. Latterly, political science has seen a variety of calls for methodological pluralism in its major research associations. Interpretivist methodology has been a growing area of political science adopting and adapting for political science the methodologies from different areas of the social sciences. Interpretive methodologies take a philosophically informed constructivist approach to social ontology, rejects the application to the social sciences of methods drawn from the natural sciences and begins inquiry from the socially constitutive role of language, meaning and communication. Interpretive methods are neither quantitative nor qualitative but are rather oriented toward focused observation on the social and political role of meaning making. Individual analytical and methodological techniques in Interpretive Methods tend to be qualitative but this does not preclude the use of quantitative techniques so long as the research shares the basic ontological presuppositions of Interpretive Methodologies.
The course will provide an overview of and foundations for Interpretivist Methodology before providing students with an orientation toward specific methods and analytical techniques, such as ethnography, Virtual Ethnography, Varieties of Discourse Analysis, with some indication of the range of other approaches that can be taken such as genealogy, narrative analysis, Interpretive Policy Analysis, the interpretive approach to interviewing etc.
The overall aim of the course is to raise capacity for researchers choosing to take an interpretive approach, with a particular emphasis on:
- how to present interpretivist research and explain the rationale for interpretivist research design;
- what counts as robust Interpretive Research; and
- some introduction to the range of methods and analytical techniques used by interpretivists.
This course is presented as part of the ANU Online Summer School in Political Analysis
Image
|
This is an introductory course, no prior knowledge of interpretive methods or hermeneutics is required.
- Debates in the Philosophy of Science: What distinguishes the interpretivist approach?;
- Constructivist social ontology? An introduction to Hermeneutics and the Sociology of Knowledge;
- Reflexivity and Reason: the position of the researcher and the Interpretive approach to theory;
- Specific Interpretive Methods: varieties of situated observation;
- Specific Interpretive Methods: varieties of meaning making analysis.
Learning outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Understand the philosophical, conceptual and methodological origins of Interpretivist Methodologies;
- Identify the socially constitutive role of language, meaning and communication with sharpened observational skills;
- Understand the rationale for, defense of and differences in design of Interpretive Research vis a vis other modes of inquiry;
- Understand the differences between different specific interpretive methods and how they apply to specific research settings;
This course will be run in one session per day running over over 5 days.
The course hours are 9.30am - 12.00pm each day
This course is being held online via Zoom and run on Australian Eastern Daylight Time (GMT +11)
This is an introductory course, no prior knowledge of interpretive methods or hermeneutics is required.
Pachirat, Timothy. 2015. Ethnography and Interpretation. Edited by Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. New York: Routledge.
Lynch, Celia. 2016. Interpreting International Politics. Edited by Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. New York: Routledge.
Yanow, Dvora. 2003. "Interpretive Empirical Political Science: What makes this not a subfield of qualitative methods." Qualitative Methods (Fall):9-13.
Rabinow, Paul, and William M. Sullivan, eds. 1979. Interpretive Social Science: A Reader. Berkley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Rabinow, Paul, and William M. Sullivan. 1988. Interpretive Social Science: A Second Look. Berkley: University of California Press.
Bevir, Mark, and Jason Blakely. 2018. Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Natrualist Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fujii, Lee Ann. 2018. Interviewing in Social Science Research: A Relational Approach. Edited by Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. London and New York: Routledge.
Soss, Joe. 2021. "On Casing a Study versus Studying a Case." In Rethinking Comparison: Innovative methods for Qualitative Political Inquiry, edited by Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith. Cambridge Mass: Cambridge University Press.
Bevir, Mark, and R.A.W. Rhodes, eds. 2016. The Routledge Handbook of Interpretive Political Science. London and New York: Routledge.
Yanow, Dvora, and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea. 2012. Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes. Edited by Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. New York: Routledge.
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus. 2006. "Making Sense of Making Sense: Configurational Analysis and the Double Hermeneutic." In Interpretation and Method, edited by Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea. ME Sharpe.
Yanow, Dvora, and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea. 2010. "Perestroika Ten Years After: Reflections on Methodological Diversity." Political Science and Politics (October):741-745.
Yanow, D., and P. Schwartz-Shea, eds. 2006. Interpretation and Method. New York: M.E. Sharpe.