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SOCA1330 - Observation Methods
[A. • 30 Th. • 3 ECTS - credits]
| Lecturer :
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Schaut Christine |
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| Language of instruction :
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The course is taught in French |
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| Learning outcomes :
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« Observe the street, sometimes perhaps with a somewhat systematic view.
Apply yourself. Take your time.
Note the location…
Note what we sees. The significant things that happen. Can we see what is significant? …Nothing strikes us. We cannot see.
We must go more slowly. Almost stupidly. Force ourselves to write down what has no significance, what is most obvious, most boring», G. Perec, (1974), Espèces d'espaces, Paris, Galilée.
The general objective of this course is, on the one hand to familiarise the students with the observation methods integrated in fieldwork, and, on the other hand, to bring them to put this method into practice through a fieldwork conducted in sub-groups, on the theme of “popular culture in all its areas”.
The achievement of this double objective implies:
- precise and theoretical knowledge of the method, its history, the techniques it involves, its favourite objects, its unthoughts, its limits, its relations to theories and to other methods, as well as the epistemology it underpins
- knowledge of the research that mobilised the method. Such knowledge should allow the students to grasp the scientific importance of a method that often appears as hazardous and risky
- the enactment of the fieldwork method and the analysis of the collected information;
- a questioning of the implications of this enactment, from an epistemological, ethical even political point of view, and a questioning of what sociologist and anthropologist learn from this methods about their place in the social world
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| Prerequisites :
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Officially there are no prerequisites. However, the students are expected to have a prior knowledge of the qualitative methods studied previously (research approaches and methods in social sciences).
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| Course contents :
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As it is written above, the course is based on three axes:
1. The presentation of the method, especially its genesis and its evolution. This way we will discuss its birth and its contemporary uses, the malinowskian turn, its “sociologising” with the School of Chicago, the contribution of interactionists and of the pragmatic sociology of action…
We will introduce the important research works that based themselves on fieldwork, such as that of Loïc Wacquant in a boxing hall in the black ghetto of Chicago, those of Michel Verret and Oliver Schwartz about the working-class world, or that of Howard Becker about jazzmen… We will also focus on the method of the method. Therefore we will study its different stages: from selecting the studied subject to its analysis that suggests the construction and mobilisation of analytical categories both from the field and from existing theories, through observation as such, description and writing.
2. The presentation of the theme on which the fieldwork will be based. This year, the theme is “popular culture in all its areas”. The presentation of the theme serves to support theoretically the work in sub-groups that will be responsible for verifying the news of anthropological studies conducted on this subject in the 70s and 80s around research objects such as popular campsites, popular housing, the question of cultural hybridisation in housing through the process of economic immigration, houses of the people, popular bars, popular gardens…
3. We will question the ethical, even political stance that such a data collecting method suggests. In other words, we will have to watch ourselves observing.
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| Mode of delivery :
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- Lecture
- Intervention of researchers who practice the method
- Work in sub-groups helped by the teacher during a mid-term assessment;
- There is no syllabus but a reading portfolio includes both articles of authors who have used the method and articles of an ethical and epistemological nature as well as course outlines handed out to the students before each class.
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| Assessment methods and criteria :
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The assessment will be based on:
- An individual work of observation. This year, the observation theme is “city slices”;
- A written work conducted in group which will receive a critical review during the oral examination;
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| Recommended or required reading :
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a) On the method
ARBORIO, A.-M. et FOURNIER, P. (1999). L'enquête et ses méthodes : l'observation
directe, Paris: Nathan - 128.
Beaud S., Weber F., (1998), Guide de l'enquête de terrain, Paris, La Découverte.
BECKER H., (2002), Les ficelles du métier, Paris, La Découverte,.
CALLON M., (1999), « Ni intellectuel engagé, ni intellectuel dégagé : la double stratégie de l'attachement et du détachement », Sociologie du travail, 41, p. 65-78.
CEFAÏ D., (2003), L'enquête de terrain, Paris, La Découverte-Mauss.
DE SARDAN O, (2008), La rigueur du qualitatif, Bruxelles, Académia-Bruylant
DE SARDAN O, (2000), Pratiques de description, Paris, Enquête : éditions de l'EHESS.
DODIER, N. et BASZANGER, I. (1997). "Totalisation et altérité dans l'enquête
ethnographique." Revue Française de Sociologie,38: 37-66.
Ghiglione R., Matalon B., (1998), Les enquêtes sociologiques, Théories et pratiques, Paris, A. Colin, 1998.
Grosjean M., Thibaud JP, (2001), L'espace urbain en méthodes, Ed.Parenthèses, Marseille.
HUGHES E., (1996), Le regard sociologique, Paris, Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en sciences sociales.
LAPLANTINE F., (2005), La description ethnographique, 2ème édition, Paris, Armand Colin, 128.
LATOUR B., (2006), Changer de société. Refaire de la sociologie. Paris, La Découverte.
B) On the thematic: “popular culture in all its areas”
- VERRET M., (1979), L'espace ouvrier, Paris, A. Colin.
- DE CERTEAU M., (1990), L'Invention du quotidien, 1. Arts de faire, Paris, Gallimard.
- HOGGART R., (1970,) La culture du pauvre, Paris, Ed. de Minuit.
- PETONNET C, (1979), On est tous dans le brouillard, Ethnologie des banlieues, Paris, éd. Galilée.
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| Other information :
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A detailed outline of the course and a reading file will be handed out to the students. The iFusl website. |
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