Social Research and Reflexive Writing (ARTS90002)

This subject will cover the following topics:

1) Writing evidence: How does one write about the acquisition and accumulation of data? What are social and cultural realities? How crucial are notions of subjectivity, experience, enmeshment and perspective in making the social and the cultural different from the ‘natural’ or the ‘physical’? Are there differences between social and cultural realities and can they be approached in the same way? How does one write about the different modes of relating to the world as a researcher and what are their ramifications on what one produces as accounts of reality?

2) Writing analysis: How does one write an analysis of one’s research experience? What does it mean to be rigorous when writing about data? What do explaining, deducing, providing proof, exemplifying mean as writing strategies in a PhD context.

3) Writing Theory: How and why should one read theory? How does one integrate it in one’s work? Evaluating the usefulness of a theoretical perspective? How to make theory speak to social and cultural realities and vice versa. What does critiquing means? How to think with a multiplicity of theories. How to develop one’s own theories.