Centre for Narrative Research

What is Methods in Dialogue?

An ESRC Seminar Series Exploring The Limits And Conditions Of Interactive Social Science

Organised by London East Research Institute and the Centre for Narrative Research, University of East London

Public support for social research increasingly depends on its ability to deliver scientifically valid and reliable studies to guide policy and practice. The theoretical foundations of such research, however, are in a critical state. Evidence generated by both qualitative and quantitative methods is more and more seen to be conflicting, open to many interpretations, and lacking in scientific objectivity.

Questions about the 'subjective' interactions between and among researchers and informants, and about the and inter-disciplinary dialogues now involved in much social research - are at the heart of this debate.

• Who and what is social research for, and whose voices does it represent?
• What are social researchers’ and participants’ interpretative rights over their data and each other?
• How does thick description and the rich social interpretation it affords relate to the need for precise methods of explanation and generalisable conclusions ?
• What special problems of research design or delivery arise when attempts are made to ‘empower’ informants , to enable them to interrogate, and even co-construct the research story ?

Exploring these questions is a priority within the larger project of making what social scientists do more meaningful, more useful and more accountable. At present, however, such understanding is partial: pursued at the margins of research projects when time and resources allow, and rarely shared. Moreover, theoretical debates about problems of method have become dissociated from practical questions of research design, delivery and dissemination. In this seminar series we are especially concerned to explore how these issues play out when research is conducted across different methods, modalities and disciplines – using quantitative as well as qualitative methods, or conducting virtual investigations as well as face-to-face research; or drawing on research traditions which privilege structure, process or action.

For this purpose the seminar will bring into conversation researchers from a wide variety of disciplines : sociology, anthropology, psychology, linguistics, history, demography and cultural studies; and also from a diversity of research approaches: critical theory, phenomenology, narratology, psycho-analysis, network analysis , action research, policy studies, and social survey research.

In addition our aim is to draw in participants working in a variety of research contexts: those working in government departments, local authorities, policy think tanks, research institutes and other public bodies, as well as from the voluntary sector, and from universities. The series will have an international flavour, with regular participation from a group of European and US social researchers. Finally it is aimed at people at various stages in their research careers, from post graduate students, to senior scholars.

Summary of Aims and Objectives

This seminar programme aims to:

• Initiate a regular discussion forum across a series of themed day events involving the same set of researchers from different kinds of research project and theoretical orientations
• Negotiate a common conceptual vocabulary for addressing problems of method
• Verb needed here ‘produce’ or ‘develop’ would suffice a shared conceptual map of possible approaches to interactive social science, with special reference to dialogic and reflexive methodologies, and with due attention to variations caused by method, modality, discipline and professional and national research contexts.
• Develop detailed understandings of particular research cultures’ engagements through the presentation of specific examples within the series
• Identify aspects of contemporary interactive research that encourage methodologiclaly rigorous and theoretically innovative work, and that widen public access to the conduct, understanding and use of social research.
• Describe transferable research skills in interactive social science and explore ways in which these skills might be transmitted.

For further details, please contact:
Eleni Kasapi, Programme Coordinator
Email: methods_in_dialogue@yahoo.co.uk

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© 2008