This PhD course is part of the thematic path "Urban and Regional Studies" of the PhD programme in Urban and Regional Development. The course provides a first introduction to qualitative research methodologies and methods in Urban Studies. The overall goal is to offer researchers conceptual tools that can enable them to critically approach research design, with particular attention to the relationship between epistemologies, methodologies and methods, and the ethical implications of qualitative research. Beyond this, the course is designed to offer a basic understanding of a number of research methods, including focus groups and interviews, participant observation, visual inquiry and analysis, storytelling and other discoursive approaches. Hints around the analysis of qualitative data will also be provided in each lecture. The course includes two monographic parts, the first on 'feminist methodologies', and the importance of situated understandings and auto-ethnographic practice; the second on 'engaged methods' and the relationship between research and activism. At the end of this course PhD researchers will be able to critically approach the question of 'qualitative methods' in Urban Studies; to have a basic understanding on how to qualitatively analyse contemporary urban spatial and social phenomena; to move within the international academic literature concerned with questions of methodologies in the broader field of critical Urban Geography; and to think critically at the methodological assumptions and ethical implications of their own research.

None

The course will be organised into 6 modules of three hours each (composed of a two-hour lecture, and a one-hour seminar) and a final workshop of two hours: 1) Going qualitative: cultural turn and the challenge of ethics. The cornerstone of every conversation around methodologies and methods needs to be around the ethical implication of doing qualitative research in and beyond cities. This lecture provides an overview of some of these implications, offering tools to analytically and critically approach these matters. Students will also be introduced to the requirements of the Polytechnic and of the European Union related to obtaining ethical approval for their research. 2) Interviews, focus groups and discoursive approaches. A first introduction to some of the most obvious, yet challenging, qualitative methods in urban studies. The aim of this lecture is to offer students the tools to questions their assumptions around interviewing, and to offer some hints on creative approaches in this regard. Part of the lecture will be dedicated at offering a first overview on how to approach transcribing and the analysis of written text. 3) Participant observation and the craft of ethnography. Ethnography cannot be defined as a method, but as a particular epistemological take on what it means to do research and how. The lecture aims to provide students with this understanding, and also to allow them to appreciate how ethnography so understood can relate to the study of the urban. We will discuss about participant observation and its challenges, as well as read different ethnographic writing to appreciate the role of storytelling in the ethnographic project. 4) Visual methods. This lecture aims to provide an entry point into the fascinating world of the 'image' from a semiotic point of view. Students will be introduced to the basics of deconstrucing visual meaning, and on the specific use of photography in urban research. We will watch short clips taken as examples of visual video methods, and use them to discuss about the opportunities and challenges of 'going visual'. 5) Focus on: Feminist and indigenous approaches. Feminist and indigenous approaches to urban research will be introduced to students, focusing in particular on notion of situated research and related implications on self-reflexivity, positionality and commitment. The relationship between the researcher, the researched and the research will be discussed, and, on the basis of selected readings, students will be invited to think about the opportunity of introducing auto-ethnographic methods in their research. 6) Focus on: Participatory and engaged research. After an introduction around the nuances and challenges posed by engaged forms of research, we will watch bits of a documentary around forced evictions in Bucharest, Romania, and discuss collectively the wider methodological choices that lead to its production and the related scholarly and activist engagement surrounding it. 7) Final workshop: In this final workshop, each PhD researcher will be asked to present to the class for 5 minutes on how they plan to tackle the major ethical implications of their research. The presentation will have to include a critical discussion of the researcher's own privilege, positionality and responsibility towards their research field and research participants.

On site

Oral presentation

P.D.2-2 - March