led by Georgina Thacker and Thanh Cong Nguyen, PhD students at the University of Stirling
Ethnography is about studying people’s lives by ‘being there’, becoming immersed and embroiled in the ‘lifeworld’ of your participants. A fundamental question is what can we learn from ‘being there’ that cannot be learned otherwise? In this full-day workshop, you will hear tales about collecting data in the field, the often messy and creative process of making sense of that data and the exciting challenge of molding that into a PhD thesis. To help you navigate this thriving field, the workshop is discussion and experience-based, and we will provide you with some short pre-workshop materials to help you get prepared for the workshop as well. Many of these discussions and experiences will involve ‘back-to-basics’ practicalities such as getting an ethnographic project off the ground, dealing with ethics, and getting a first-hand taste of doing ethnography by observing people around the beautiful University of Stirling campus for a bit of ‘micro-ethnography’. The aim of this workshop is to help you become emotionally prepared for doing ethnography and essentially getting into an ethnographic ‘frame-of-mind’. Ethnographic research is messy, a reflection too, of the often messy, unpredictable life of collecting data in the field. Yet, throughout this messiness, we also hope you, as a researcher, find a stillness in ethnography, an appreciation for the mundane, quiet moments in the people we study, the things that can easily be overlooked or pass us by, yet can make up so much of people’s lived experiences and everyday lives.
Who is it for?
This workshop is suitable for anyone interested in studying the everyday lives and lived experiences of people from any discipline. It is also open to students who have already considered or even embarked on an ethnographic study in the early stages of their PhD project and need more help and support in understanding doing ethnographic research. For this reason, it is ideally suited for students in their first or second year of study, or students contemplating how to write up their ethnographic data.
What do I need to know?
The venue is accessible for wheelchair users. There is also a Muslim prayer room and Chaplaincy for those needing to pray or meditate.
- Speak to Thanh for access to Muslim prayer room and directions to the Chaplaincy.
- The campus has automatic doors and plenty of bathrooms for wheelchair users.
- Please advise us if you have any other additional requirements.
- Please bring a notepad and pen for the ‘micro-ethnography’ element of the workshop, where you will observe people go about their day in public spaces around the university.
- A pre-workshop welcome breakfast will be provided comprising of tea, coffee and pastries.
- Tea, coffee and snacks will be provided throughout the day and a voucher for lunch will be provided to use on any campus food venue.
Welcome drinks and registration will take place between 9:30 and 10:00. The workshop begins at 10:00.