{"id":13,"date":"2015-10-26T17:03:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T21:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/interpretationandmethod.com\/?page_id=13"},"modified":"2022-09-25T16:57:45","modified_gmt":"2022-09-25T16:57:45","slug":"imm-conference-group-apsa","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/interpretationandmethod\/imm-conference-group-apsa\/","title":{"rendered":"IMM @ APSA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interpretive Methodologies and Methods<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>APSA 2022, Montreal<\/strong><\/p>\n

The American Political Science Association\u2019s Annual Meeting will be held on September 15-18, 2022 (in person) in Montreal, Qu\u00e9bec, Canada. IMM events at the 2022 meeting include:<\/p>\n

IMM short course<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Ethnography and Interpretive Methods in Studies of Belonging and Migration<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Wed, September 14, 9:00am to 1:00pm, Palais, 522A<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Session Description<\/h4>\n

This year\u2019s workshop focuses on ethnography in theoretical and empirical studies of belonging and migration. Scholars at any stage of their research are welcome to attend.<\/p>\n

Political Theory and Ethnographic Methods
\nDr. Yuna Blajer de la Garza (Loyola University Chicago)<\/p>\n

Within political science, ethnographic methods are typically listed among the tools of empirical scholars. But what kind of analytical possibilities are opened by deploying ethnographic methods in normative political theory? In the workshop part of the Methods Studio, Dr. Yuna Blajer de la Garza (Assistant Professor, Loyola University Chicago) will speak to the ways in which ethnographic methods and an interpretive sensibility can serve political theory research. In particular, she will discuss the richness provided by ethnographic methods for the study of democracies and democratic theory. Ethnographic methods carve space for scholars to understand the ways in which the institutions and ideas we have imagined are (mis)translated when appropriated by ordinary citizens. Making sense of that (mis)translation can help us elucidate the ways in which democratic promises have fallen short to the expectations of those who call democracies home, and the reasons behind the disenchantment of many ordinary people with democratic institutions, a disenchantment that haunts our current historical moment.<\/p>\n

Dr. Blajer de la Garza is a political theorist studying inequalities and oppression in democratic societies by focusing on the interactions between formal political institutions, the ideals that undergird them, and everyday practices and norms. In her first book manuscript, provisionally titled A House Is Not A Home: Citizenship and Belonging in Contemporary Democracies, Blajer addresses the interplay between the institutional and the everyday by examining the tension between citizenship and belonging in 21st-century democracies through the figure of the citizen who does not belong. The manuscript draws from insights gleaned through ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Paris and Mexico City between 2015 and 2017. Mexico and France illustrate two incomplete pathways toward democratic belonging. France boasts a strong state with a reliable bureaucracy that secures legal rights, while Mexico\u2019s is beset by corruption, inequality, and inefficiency. The literature on state strength and democratization would expect France to fare better than Mexico in guaranteeing the equal standing of its members\u2014and thus their equal belonging. Counterintuitively, Blajer finds that not to be the case.<\/p>\n

Ethnography and Empirical Studies
\nDr. Osman Balkan (Swarthmore College)<\/p>\n

Part 2 of the workshop will focus on power and positionality in ethnographic research. Participants will reflect upon how their own multiple social positions inform their ethnographies, from shaping the questions they ask, to the communities they engage with, to the data they collect, and the stories they share. We will discuss strategies for planning and conducting immersive fieldwork and participant observation as well as different approaches to ethnographic writing.<\/p>\n

Dr. Balkan\u2019s research and teaching interests cohere around the politics of global migration, borders, race, ethnicity, identity, and necropolitics. His first monograph, Dying Abroad: The Political Afterlives of Migration in Europe, explores in detail how immigrant communities navigate end-of-life decisions in countries where they face structural barriers to full citizenship and equal social standing\u2014a phenomenon Balkan terms \u201cdeath out of place.\u201d It argues that states, families, and religious communities all have a vested interest in the fate of dead bodies and illustrates how the quotidian practices attending the death and burial of minoritized groups in migratory settings are structured by deeper political questions about the meaning of home and homeland. Dying Abroad offers insight into the processes through which relations between authority, territory, and populations are managed at a transnational level.<\/p>\n

Expert Panel: Current Research Questions
\nAlongside co-presenters Dr. Blajer de la Garza and Dr. Balkan, a panel of experts on Interpretive Methodologies and Methods will take questions from audience participants regarding interpretive methods questions in their ongoing projects. This will enable fruitful discussion and audience engagement from which all participants can benefit.<\/p>\n

IMM panels<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Affect, Vulnerability, and Embodiment: Thinking Interpretively
\n<\/strong>Fri, September 16, 12:00 to 1:30pm, Palais, 524C<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adding Insult to Injury: Aesthetics of Vilification in Counter-Mobilization, Lisel S. Hintz, (Johns Hopkins University SAIS)
\nEmotions As Practices. WhatsApp, Emojis and Negotiations at the UNHRC, Jeremie Cornut (Simon Fraser University)
\nSensory Politics: Reimagining Embodied Knowing, Michelle Day Weitzel (University of Basel)
\nWomen\u2019s Progress and Vulnerability to Domestic Violence in Rural West Africa, Cathryn Evangeline Johnson (University of Louisville)
\nChair & Discussant: Aarie Glas (Northern Illinois University)<\/p>\n

New Interventions in Interpretive Research
\n<\/strong>Sat, September 17, 8:00 to 9:30am, Palais, 514B<\/strong><\/p>\n

These papers offer new interventions into interpretive research methods:
\nBringing Humanity Back In: Undergraduate Interpretivism with Contract Grading, Daniel T. Kirsch (Northern Virginia Community College)
\nInterpretation for Positivists, Richard<\/em>\u00a0Nielsen<\/em> (MIT) and Jasmine Hope English (MIT)
\nMaking the Personal Theoretical: Intersecting Gazes of Researchers and Subjects, Luis Escobedo (University of the Free State)
\nCrafting Conflict: A Genre Analysis of the Protest Music in the U.S. and Turkey, Audrey Ann Williams (George Mason University)
\nChair & Discussant: Anastasia Shesterinina (The University of Sheffield)<\/p>\n

Interpretive Approaches to Repression, Resistance, Rebellion
\n<\/strong>Sat, September 17, 10:00 to 11:30am, Palais, 514B<\/strong><\/p>\n

These papers explore repression, resistance and rebellion through interpretive approaches
\nHow the Protest Became the Riot: Answers from the Casefile, Renata Mustafina (Sciences Po\/Yale University)
\nNarration, Description, and Agency in Knowledge-Production on Yemen, Stacey Philbrick Yadav (Hobart and William Smith Colleges)
\nPerforming Disrespect: Semiotic Violence and the U.S. Capitol Insurrection, Mona Lena Krook (Rutgers University, New Brunswick)
\nThe Shifting Rhetorics of the Syrian Uprising: Politics of Sectarianization, Basileus Zeno (York University)
\nChair & Discussant: Nick Cheesman, Australian National University<\/p>\n

Another panel of interest<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Space Invaders in Comparative Politics? Feminist Women of Color Perspectives
\n<\/strong>Thu, September 15, 12:00 to 1:30pm, Palais, 524C
\n<\/strong>Women of color often are treated as \u201cspace invaders\u201d to the political science discipline (Alexander-Floyd 2015). Violating the unstated disciplinary norms of cisgender white manhood, our bodies are perceived to bias our research and reduce its generalizability. These perceptions are particularly fraught for women of color scholars who engage in comparative qualitative or interpretive research. Not fully at home among relatively women-friendly but overwhelmingly white comparative qualitative\/interpretive scholars nor with U.S.-focused feminist women of color scholars, we must navigate between multiple subfields of this heteropatriarchal white supremacist discipline. Our \u201coutsider-within\u201d location in comparative qualitative\/interpretive political science poses distinctive challenges but also presents the opportunity for novel insights on politics, the subfield, and the discipline. Our experiences can and should inform how the discipline works towards a more equitable, inclusive, and just post-pandemic political science. The diverse set of women of color qualitative scholars use autoethnography to map how each author navigates comparative politics and other subfields while also carving out possible spaces of belonging and imagining a more just and inclusive future for political science.<\/p>\n

Never Fully Belonging, Always at Risk of Violence: Women of Color Perspectives, Natasha Behl (Arizona State University)
\nReflections on Multiple Consciousness and Space Invasion in Comparative Politics, Robin L. Turner (Butler University)
\n<\/span>Do as I Say, Not as I Did? Being a Unicorn in a Tough Job Market, Erica Townsend-Bell (Oklahoma State University)
\n\u201cDon\u2019t You Just Study Filipinos? How Is This Political Science?\u201d: Reflections, Ethel Tungohan (York University)
\nChair: Robin L. Turner (Butler University)
\nDiscussants: Zachariah Cherian Mampilly (Baruch College, CUNY) and Sean Yom (Temple University)<\/p>\n

Methods Caf\u00e9<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Methods Caf\u00e9 2022
\n<\/strong>Fri, September 16, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Palais, 516C<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Methods Caf\u00e9 features a series of tables staffed by specialists with expertise in a range of interpretive methods and approaches, as well as publishing and securing IRB approval for these types of research projects. The Caf\u00e9 is an informal setting allowing for one-on-one and group discussions, networking, and support in which visitors are encouraged to arrive at any time, sit at any table they like, and move among tables as they wish. Doctoral students with questions about their research are encouraged to attend, as well as faculty with questions about researching and\/or teaching these subjects.<\/p>\n

Tables and specialists include:<\/p>\n

Analyzing Political Discourse
\n<\/u>Eric M. Blanchard, State University of New York-Oswego<\/p>\n

Black Women\u2019s Interpretive Approaches<\/u>
\nNadia E. Brown, Georgetown University
\nTakiyah Harper-Shipman, Davidson College<\/p>\n

Comparative Interpretive Methods<\/u>
\nErica S. Simmons, University of Wisconsin-Madison
\nNicholas Rush Smith, City College, City University of New York<\/p>\n

(Digital) Interviewing<\/u>
\nCarolyn E. Holmes, Mississippi State University
\nSamantha Ann Majic, John Jay College, City University of New York<\/p>\n

Engagement and Action
\n<\/u>Regina A. Bateson, University of Ottawa
\nEthel Tungohan, York University<\/p>\n

Indigenous Interpretive Methods<\/u>
\nUahikea Maile, University of Toronto<\/p>\n

Interpreting US Social Movements<\/u>
\nJoseph E. Lowndes, University of Oregon
\nDeva Woodly, New School for Social Research<\/p>\n

Interpretive Analysis of Violence<\/u>
\nMilli Lake, London School of Economics
\nSusan M. Thomson, Colgate University<\/p>\n

IRBs and Research Ethics
\n<\/u>Sarah E. Parkinson, Johns Hopkins University<\/p>\n

Political Ethnography
\n<\/u>Osman Balkan, Swarthmore College
\nJillian Schwedler, Hunter College, City University of New York<\/p>\n

Positionality, Reflexivity, and Embodiment
\n<\/u>Jessica Soedirgo, University of Amsterdam
\nRobin L. Turner, Butler University<\/p>\n

Publishing
\n<\/u>Natasha Behl, Arizona State University
\nDara Z. Strolovitch, Yale University<\/p>\n

Teaching Interpretive Methods
\n<\/u>Tanya Brooke Schwarz, Pi Sigma Alpha
\nNick Cheesman, Australian National University<\/p>\n

Organizers<\/em><\/p>\n

Robin Turner \u2013 Chair (Butler University)
\nBiko Koenig \u2013 Chair (Franklin & Marshall College)
\nB Stone – Host, (The CUNY Graduate Center)<\/p>\n

IMM Business meeting<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Virtual Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Business Meeting
\n<\/strong>Sat, September 17, 12:00 to 1:00pm, Zoom.
\n<\/strong>Register <\/strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Connect with IMM<\/strong><\/p>\n