Winter 2019
Different Eyes:
Critical reflexivity in rapid site-switching ethnography
Speakers:
Dr. Jacqueline A. Choiniere, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, at York University.
Dr. Jim Struthers, Professor Emeritus in Canadian Studies at Trent University, and member of the Trent Centre for Aging and Society
Time: Wednesday, January 16th, 2019, 12:00pm-1:30pm*
Location: HS 208, 155 College St.
Abstract: We offer insight into using rapid site-switching ethnography in our exploration of promising practices in long-term residential care. Our different eyes belonged to 26 interdisciplinary and international colleagues, and several graduate and postgraduate students, as we conducted research in 6 different countries. Our reflexivity informed how we set up the project, and how we conducted our research (including ethics issues), and documented our findings. In our presentation we will draw on the example of how an Historian and RN/sociologist – starting from very different places – came to see much more – and see it differently – by the end of the project than we had at the beginning. We strongly suggest that what we learned has relevance beyond this particular method – rapid site-switching ethnography – and contains important lessons for all qualitative research initiatives.
*As a beginning-of-term celebration, CQ will be providing lunch after the seminar at 1:30pm
‘You’re going to traumatize me and bring back all these bad memories’: Hearing about harmful research practices in a national qualitative study about ethical issues in sex work research
Speakers: Dr. Adrian Guta, School of Social Work, University of Windsor & Dr. Victoria Bungay, School of Nursing, University of British Columbia
Time: Tuesday, February 12th, 2019, 12:00pm – 1:30pm
Location: HS 208, 155 College Street
Abstract: This presentation revisits longstanding debates in the empirical research ethics and qualitative methods literature about whether asking sensitive questions to vulnerable participants is harmful. We draw on findings from a national study about ethical issues in sex work research which included in-depth interviews with 17 university-based sex work researchers, 16 representatives of sex worker organizations and 53 community members with lived experience of sex work. With a focus on the narratives of the community-members, we explore their understanding of what constitutes ethical engagement and research practice and identify tensions between community norms and standard research practices. In addition to presenting findings from the study, we explore methodological challenges with asking about ethics and the conflict we experienced over how to respond to requests from organizational and community participants to intervene on their behalf to stop what they deemed to be harmful research.
Troubling ruling discourses of health:
Teaching, doing, and writing institutional ethnographies
Speakers: Drs. Fiona Webster (IHPME, University of Toronto) and Eric Mykhalovskiy (Sociology, York University), and Colin Hastings (PhD Candidate, Sociology, York University)
Time: Friday, March 22nd, 2019, 12:00pm-1:30pm
Location: HS 208, 155 College St.
Abstract: Forthcoming
Don’t mind the mess:
Reflections on doing a Foucauldian discourse analysis of pandemic influenza news coverage
Speaker: Dr. Laena Maunula (2017-18 Dissertation Award Honourable Mention)
Time: Tuesday, April 23, 12:00pm-1:30pm
Location: HS 208, 155 College Street
Abstract: Foucauldian discourse analysis is characterised not by a prescribed set of analytic steps, but rather by using Foucauldian theoretical frames which lead to asking certain questions rather than others. Drawing from a study of risk discourses within H1N1 coverage in the Canadian print news media, in this session I reflect on the methodological ‘messiness’ of Foucauldian discourse analysis, with a special focus on generating a meaningful yet manageable study sample from news media data.
