On this page you will find examples of different types of method discourse. The examples are not presented as the "right way to do things," but rather as indicative of the diversity of discussions of method across humanities, social sciences, philosophy, natural sciences, and artistic practices.

While some believe that any talk of "method" is the characteristic preoccupation of scientific discourses, others hold that the discourse on method has multiple genealogies, including poetry, education, art and philosophy that are not reducible to the natural sciences but emerge independently.

Some of these readings will be recommended during the course, and some - most actually - will be left to your own discretion to decide whether you wish to read them or not. These texts sit in tension with each other. They are examples of ways of thinking about doing enquiry. They are not “correct” or “the most important”. They are simply entry points into contradictory and diverging perspectives on doing enquiry. They are also not exhaustive. These are just some possible starting points, not final destinations.

In reading some of these texts, you might wish to consider:

(i) What are the different ways the term “method” is being used across different texts?

(ii) Are all the texts that you chose to read working at a general level, or do some work at a more limited level, where the claims and ideas presented are limited to specific projects or programmes of research?

(iii) Are some of the texts you read not really addressing questions of ”ways of doing research” but something else, something substantially different?

SOURCES

1.  Hartman, Saidiya (2019) Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval,   "A Note On Method"Links to an external site. 

2. Harding, Sandra (1987) “Introduction: Is There a Feminist Method?Links to an external site.in Sandra Harding (ed.) Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1‐15.  This text is a classic contribution to USAmerican feminist debates on science and the politics of knowledge.  Also available here: http://rzukausk.home.mruni.eu/wp-content/uploads/harding.pdfLinks to an external site.  

3. Unsworth, John (2005) “New Methods for Humanities ResearchLinks to an external site.”, The 2005 Lyman Award Lecture November 11, National Humanities Center Research Triangle Park, NC, USA.

4. Christina Sharpe (2019) “Beauty Is a Method,” eflux Journal, #105, December.Links to an external site.  This text proposes beauty as a way of doing something, as a method. What do you think ‘beauty’ means here? What is beauty doing here?

5. Rorty, Richard “Method, Social Science, and Social Hope”,Links to an external site. excerpted from Consequences of Pragmatism (Essays: 1972-1980), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 191-210. This text problematizes a Eurocentric tradition of knowledge and method talk from within that tradition. What way is the word ‘method’ used here? What is the basic argument about ‘method’ here?

6. Zavala, Miguel (2013) “What Do We Mean by Decolonizing Research Strategies? Lessons from Decolonizing, Indigenous Research Projects in New Zealand and Latin AmericaLinks to an external site.,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society Vol. 2, No. 1. 55-71.  This text is an example of a claim that ways of working (methods) are not the centrally relevant issue, but rather the wider strategic setting when seeking to do decolonizing work. What is the difference between “strategy” and “method” as the words are used in this text?

7. Latour, Bruno (2004) “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern” In Critical Inquiry: Special issue on the Future of Critique, Vol. 30 No. 2. 25-248, Winter. Republished in Harper’s Magazine April 2004. 15-20. Republication reprinted in Bill Brown (editor) Things, Chicago : The University of Chicago Press. 151-174.  This text is an example of a researcher critical of the dominant cultural account of how scientific ‘fact’ is produced who re-examines his own general way of working when faced by changed circumstances of popular skepticism against scientific research claims. What do you think this text might contribute to a discussion of method and methodology in research, especially in research that might not seek to produce ‘facts’ nor operate as ‘science’ as such?

8. Bloomberg, Dale et al. (2008) Chapter 3 “Presenting Methodology and Research Approach” in Completing Your Qualitative Dissertation: A Roadmap from Beginning to End, SAGE. Available in GU Library. This text is an example of a social science advice on writing a report on a ‘qualitative’ research project for a PhD exam. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this guideline? How might the other texts interact with this guideline approach?

9. Gordon, Avery (1997) Chapter 1 “Her shape and his hand”, Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 3-30.  This text is a sociological research contribution that centers on the figures of haunting and the ghostly. It is an example of a researcher inventing a way of working that is specific to her topic of research – specific to what is being worked upon/with. It is included here by way of indicating that some research contributions are primarily contributions of ways of working that can be transferred to other research projects, even as these ways of working begin as situated responses to specific local problems.  https://muse.jhu.edu/book/27669

10. Brandzel, Amy L. (2020) “Fighting the Impulse to Save the “Other”: A Feminist Methodologies Graduate Seminar Syllabus” in Feminist Formations, Vol. 32, Iss. 1, Spring. 75-87. This text is a short reflection on teaching a research methodologies course, that may be of interest as a comparison and source of references.

https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2020.0006 Access is through Gothenburg University Library or through your own university library online resources.

11 Moten, Fred (2016) A Poetics of the Undercommons, Butte & New York: Sputnik & Fizzle. This text has an ontological focus rather than a methodological focus. However, its arguments have consequences for how questions of method are worked through and/or resisted.