Qualitative Thinking: Research Methods in Cultural Analysis

Description

Creating and maintaining communities in the world, are inescapable parts of being human. It is through language, images and actions that these online and offline communities are established and ideas of power and value are articulated. But the degree to which words are able to give precise meanings is open to dispute. Attempts to represent our individual and group identities, our social, cultural and political priorities in the real world are complex and multi-facetted. This course will introduce students to qualitative methods, cultural analysis, and critical discourse analysis by studying  a variety of phenomena such as language, politics, activism, health, museums and art, as manifested in online and offline communities. Teaching delivery: This module is taught in 10, two-hour weekly lectures and 10 one-hour weekly PGTA-led seminars. Indicative topics Language and reality Language and ideology Critical discourse analysis  Public health messaging Multimodality and museums  Cultural analysis of happiness Migration and museums Equality, diversity and inclusion in UCL: past and present Creating online communities. Module Aims and Objectives On successful completion of this module you should be able to: understand and appreciate a range of approaches to qualitative thinking and cultural analysis; examine how conceptions of culture, identity and communication are formulated within and between different disciplines;  raise questions about the relationship of quantitative and qualitative methodologies;  co-produce and present an original research-based group project applying methods in cultural analysis; Produce a critical, reflective individual report on the research-based group project. Intended learning outcomes: understand and appreciate a range of approaches to qualitative thinking and cultural analysis; examine how conceptions of culture, identity and communication are formulated within and between different disciplines;  raise questions about the relationship of quantitative and qualitative methodologies;  co-produce and present an original research-based project applying methods in cultural analysis; knowledge of notions of representation, power and value in everyday speech, behaviours and situations as well as within specialised languages;  a critical awareness and use of principles of qualitative methodologies and cultural analysis. Recommended readings Blommaert, Jan., 'Choice and determination', in: Jan Blommaert, Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 98-124. Ehn, Billy, et al. Exploring Everyday Life : Strategies for Ethnography and Cultural Analysis, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015. Machin, David and Andrea Mayr, How to do critical discourse analysis: a multimodal introduction. London: Sage, 2012, Chapter 1, pp.15-20, and Chapter 7, pp. 163-185.