BMET 27A71 - Qualitative Research with Elites: Challenges and Strategies

Course Description

The study of elites in the social sciences opens up a vast debate that ranges from classical elite theory, Bourdieusian sociology of power to the emergence of some recent ethnographies. Many authors have written about the importance of ‘studying up' and the use of qualitative research to understand powerful and dominant groups. However, there is a consensus in this literature that it is not simple to carry out qualitative research with political, economic and cultural elites. Exploring the methodological issues raised by the literature, the course aims to equip students with strategies for conducting empirical research with privileged groups. Strategies for accessing the field, producing field diaries, setting up interview scripts, compiling and analysing data will be presented and discussed.

Enseignants

Deborah FROMM

Type

Atelier

Language of tuition

English

Semester

Autumn 2023-2024

Course validation

Students will be required to carry out short exercises (5 exercises, 50%), based on the weekly bibliography of the course. Also, they will be requested to deliver a final essay (40%) at the last class. The engagement in readings and debates will be included in the final mark (10%).

Lectures conseillées / Recommended readings

Lectures principales / Main readings

Armytage, Rosita. "Elite ethnography in an insecure place". Focaal 2018.82 (2018): 80-93. < https://doi.org/10.3167/fcl.2018.820106>. Web. 1 May. 2023.

Lectures secondaires / Main readings

Bourdieu, Pierre. (1984) 2013. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Milton Park: Routledge.

Bourgouin, France. 2013. Money relations, ideology, and the formation of a cosmopolitan elite at the frontier of transnational capitalism: An ethnographic study of African finance professionals in Johannesburg. In Abbink and Salverda 2013a: 227–247.

Conti, Joseph A., and Moira O'Neil. 2007. Studying power: Qualitative methods and the global elite. Qualitative Research 7 (1): 63–82.

Elwood, Sarah A., and Deborah G. Martin. 2000. Placing interviews: Location and scales of power in qualitative research. Professional Geographer 52 (4): 649–657.

Gilding, Michael. 2010. Motives of the rich and powerful in doing interviews with social scientists. International Sociology 25(6): 755–777.