Handbook

In this course you will reflect on the practice of key social research methods for investigating culture and society. You will address the relationship between methods and methodology and recognise the importance of understanding the historical, theoretical and philosophical contexts from which particular research methods have emerged. Social researchers do not apply a set of neutral techniques to the issues they investigate, but rather research is part of a dynamic, engagement with social and cultural worlds with often deep connections to colonial thought and power. A heightened sense of the strategies used in researching culture and society enhances reflexivity among social researchers: that is, the capacity to reflect upon who we are, what we are doing; and the ethics of accountability. You will find that central to this course is the proposition that social research is a form of intervention in the social and cultural world, which may have major consequences on people’s lives. So too you will develop an understanding of your ‘subjective positioning’ and will come to find ways to decolonise your practice both through methods and methodologies. To do this you will engage with a wide source of information and knowledge and address decolonising principles and praxis.