Objectives
This workshop aims at providing a perspective on social science research on the Indian society that has been dominated by borrowed concept from western theories and practices, which if not applied carefully, often miss out the nuances of plurality, saliences of diversity and other unique features of the Indian society. This workshop is focused on qualitative methods and intends to provide a perspective on qualitative research in India’s context. It aims at imparting training on the practical aspects of application of various qualitative methods and expose the participants towards the limitations of blind application of text book knowledge to the field, especially in India’s settings.
Training Modules
1: Understanding qualitative research and Specificities of Indian society
2: Preparing the researcher for qualitative research and introducing different methods
3: Selecting the field: deconstructing the debate of own society vs. others societies
4: Relating with field: blurring the boundaries of outsider and insider
5: Field research: selection of respondents; family tree and biographical notes of respondents; retrieving the memories; semi structured and un-structured interviews (Baat-se-baat methodology); focused group discussions (FGDs) to validate the facts and fill in the incomplete stories; field diary, notes and queries of observations; capturing the silence, murmuring, half sentences
6: Data analysis: transcription; reading the field notes; inclusion of left out resources (proverbs, folk stories and songs); content analysis and discourse analysis; understanding the caste-orality
7: Visual representation of qualitative data
8: How to write social stories