Workshop 1: Redesigning the observer
February/March 2008
Goldsmiths, University of London
Professor Les Back (Sociology, Goldsmiths) and Paul Halliday
(a filmmaker, digital artist and Convenor of Goldsmiths’ MA Photography and Urban Cultures programme)
This first workshop will outline the structure and aims of the course as a
whole. It will be largely practice- based but will also provide an
introductory intellectual framework for thinking about qualitative
research as representation.
This workshop will:
- introduce the aims of the course as whole, locate in the context of on-line methods in qualitative social research (including questionnaires, interviews, virtual ethnographies and the use of data-bases) and introduce the project-based nature of the course
- introduce the philosophical underpinnings of sociological representation, and outline how understandings of representation inform the epistemology of ethnographic social research
- explore the opportunities that new media offer for research participants to become observers of their own lives
- take participants through a series of practical exercises to develop the use of digital photography and sound recording in social research.