[Interpretationandmethods] Interpretive Masters/Phd Proposals

Sun Jul 6 09:33:47 EDT 2008

Speaking for myself I get nervous about graduate students -- or anyone  
else -- who comes to me and says things like "I want to do a piece of  
interpretive / critical research" (except, of course, for students in  
my methodology courses who are given assignments in those terms). The  
style of research, I strongly feel, ought to follow from the kind of  
research question, and not the reverse. In my teaching I distinguish  
between topics and questions, such that any topic can yield a variety  
of questions; methodology enters at the question-level, and sets the  
research agenda from that point on. Setting out to do a piece of  
interpretive research is analogous to setting out to do a piece of  
Marxist research, or a piece of rationalist research: it puts an  
unquestioned and unquestionable set of substantive presuppositions  
before the research itself, and thus makes itself unable to ask the  
broader question of whether or not those substantive assumptions are  
the appropriate ones for the task at hand.

That said, in practice scholars gravitate towards one or another  
methodology, at least in my experience -- which means that the kinds  
of questions that they characteristically ask fit more easily into  
some methodological boxes than they do into others. There's a fine  
line between selecting a methodology on ideological grounds and  
researching questions that arise from a certain methodological  
tradition to which one feels drawn; I'm pretty sure that no one does  
either of these things purely, but I think it's important to go  
through the exercise of grounding research in questions derived from  
topics rather than in methodologies. Otherwise we just end up with  
semi-autonomous circles of scholars plugging away at abstruse issues  
of interest only to themselves and the fifteen other people who  
actually read their articles and books -- at least a topic could in  
principle be of interest to other scholars, even if they didn't like  
the way it was cashed out in a particular methodological manner.

Once the research question is formed, I'm with Dvora: every social- 
scientific research proposal contains about the same things. Lit  
review (sketch of the scholarly conversation one wishes to join and  
location of one's own research within it -- so both a literature  
summary and a literature critique); initial guess about what you  
expect to find (because you have one, you really do -- might as well  
be explicit about that up front); methodology and methods section  
about how you plan to go about answering the research question and  
evaluating that initial guess (note that not all guesses are  
hypotheses, since hypotheses imply testing and a whole bunch of other  
things that only make sense if one makes a set of dualist assumptions  
about the relationship between the mind and the world -- initial guess  
is a broader category, and also encompasses propositions that one sets  
out to interactively improve or attempt to validate, not just to  
falsify). If a proposal didn't have these elements I'd be hard-pressed  
to call it a social-scientific research proposal in the first place.

PTJ

On Jul 6, 2008, at 4:55 AM, Dvora Yanow wrote:

> Hi Judy!  Great question; thanks for posting it.
>
> But I'm a bit confused:  are you referring to the overall structure  
> of a research proposal?  And if so, in what way(s) should it be  
> different from a more positivist one?
>
> I'm thinking that a proposal for any kind of research would begin by  
> developing the parameters of the research area (a.k.a. research  
> question), pointing to the relevant epistemic community whose  
> conversation the proposer wishes/intends to join (signalled  
> typically through both terminology/concepts and citations), followed  
> by a methods section.
>
> Is it in the latter area that you're seeking templates -- meaning,  
> specifically, how one talks about research that is not based on  
> hypotheses and their testing?
>
> Thanks in advance for the clarification,
> Dvora
>
> Prof. dr. Dvora Yanow
> Strategic Chair in Meaning and Method
> Faculty of Social Sciences
> Vrije Universiteit
> De Boelelaan 1081
> 1081HV Amsterdam
> THE NETHERLANDS
>
> d.yanow at fsw.vu.nl
> webpage: english.fsw.vu.nl/Organization/index.cfm/ 
> home_subsection.cfm/subsectionid/8734A0A6-9F25-39C9-729E10151292879E
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: interpretationandmethods-bounces at malagigi.cddc.vt.edu on  
> behalf of Judy Brown
> Sent: Sun 06-Jul-08 06:37
> To: interpretationandmethods at malagigi.cddc.vt.edu
> Subject: [Interpretationandmethods] Interpretive Masters/Phd Proposals
>
> Hi All
>
> I have just joined this list on my return from the (very  
> stimulating) 3rd Interpretive Policy Analysis Conference at Essex  
> University.
>
> I am keen to foster post-graduate students interested in  
> undertaking  Masters/PhDs using interpretive and critical methods.   
> One challenge we have encountered is finding examples of  
> interpretive/critical thesis proposals (traditionally most of the  
> proposals presented have followed positivist templates).
>
> Would any list members be able to send me copies of interpretivist/ 
> critical thesis proposals or point me in the direction of any  
> resources for writing up such proposals that I can pass on to  
> students?
>
> I will, of course, also encourage students working in this area -  
> one is about to start a PhD on information systems from an  
> interpretive perspective - to join the list.
>
>
> Best regards
> Judy Brown.
>
>
> Judy Brown
> Professor of Accounting
> School of Accounting and Commercial Law
> Victoria University of Wellington
> PO Box 600
> Wellington
> New Zealand
> _______________________________________________
> Interpretationandmethods mailing list
> Interpretationandmethods at listserv.cddc.vt.edu
> http://listserv.cddc.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/interpretationandmethods
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Interpretationandmethods mailing list
> Interpretationandmethods at listserv.cddc.vt.edu
> http://listserv.cddc.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/interpretationandmethods

===
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson
Director, General Education Program, American University
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of International Relations and Development
http://profptj.blogspot.com | http://www.kittenboo.com
calendar: http://ical.mac.com/onyxdr/Patrick

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://listserv.cddc.vt.edu/pipermail/interpretationandmethods/attachments/20080706/49e0fefb/attachment.html 