(Foto: freerangestock.com)
Frida Poulsen
25/01/2022
Setrið Námsvísindadeildin
Print

PhD course: Planning or working with a PhD-project

This May, the University of Faroe Islands will host a PhD course, together with researchers from Aalborg University and Syddansk University. Course participants will engage with Situational Analysis (SA) in practice in order to equip themselves with tools for thinking through their PhD project

The course is for PhD students, those planning a PhD project and also for other researchers who may benefit (up to a maximum of 25 participants). Participants who complete the course gain three ECTS-points.

 

Stine W. Adrian, PhD, Associate Professor at Aalborg University, and Dorthe Brogaard Kristensen, PhD and Associate Professor at Syddansk University, will lead the course, which aims to enable PhD students working in a qualitative tradition, to think through their project, and gain ways to work methodologically with their empirical material. Participants will work on their research projects, in relation to the course topics, in groups of 4-5 students, and will be expected to present their projects through a mapping exercise, and to engage in peer discussions.

The content of the course will be:

  • To discuss the theory/method approach of Situational Analysis (SA) developed by the sociologist Adele Clarke.
  • To provide tools to work with the project from the initial research design until the final stages of analysis.
  • To analyse complex situations through mapping methods conceptualized in terms of situations, social worlds, and positions.
  • To encourage the researcher to think creatively in methodological matters, and to think across micro-, meso- and macro-levels of analysis.
  • To think through different forms of qualitative material, including written and visual sources, often from multiple sites.
  • To provide the theoretical and methodological background for PhD students to work with situational analysis in practice in their own projects.
  • To introduce the theoretical genealogy of the method as shaped by Symbolic Interactionism, Grounded Theory, Social World Arena theory, Foucault, Critical Race Theory, STS and feminist theory.
  • To enable PhD students to work in practice with mapping methods and thereby think through their research project and develop their analysis during their project.

The course will consist of a combination of relevant presentations, workshops, and assignments where  participants work with refining their research strategies. During the course, students will have to work with Clarke’s methodology by applying the mapping approach in relation to their own project design and/or empirical data.

Read the course description here (below).

The course will be held on Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th May, from 9am–4pm and Wednesday 25th May from 9–12.30. Participation will be without cost for participants from the University of Faroe Islands and, will have a fee of 2,000 Danish Krone for others. Lunches and coffee/tea will be provided. Participants will be asked to advise regarding any special dietary requirements.

The application deadline is the 1st of March, 2022.

The application together with an abstract (1 page in danish or english) of the planned research should be sent to nad@setur.fo.  Prior to the course, the participants will get more detailed information about the course and a request to send a ‘messy map’ of the project to the course organizers. If any questions, do not hesitate to contact Elsa Maria Højgaard, coordinator, elsamh@setur.fo.