Detailed notes of the lecture series "Methods of Cultural Anthropology and Geography" by Prof. Dr. Judith Schlehe and Prof. Dr. Annika Mattissek at the University of Freiburg for the Master's programme in M.A. Global Studies.
Methods of Cultural Anthropology and Geography
– Prof. Dr. Judith Schlehe/ Prof. Dr. Annika Mattissek (Thursday, 16.00-20.00)
Consequences of the limits of knowledge
- We cannot necessarily always trust our senses
- People tend to believe and/or see/understand what they believe to know already and thus
expect to experience:
o Influence of social belief-systems and stereotypes
o Feminist and postcolonial perspectives
Scientific knowledge production = combination of scientific theories and methods
Science as a process of knowledge construction
Paradigms in social science research
- Postpositivism/ critical rationalism
o Search for universal, causal explanations
o Reproducible (objective) empirical data
o Quantitative methods
- Interpretative and hermeneutical approaches
o Human action as meaningful behavior
o Understanding of subjective experiences
o Qualitative methods, interpretation
- Structuralist and Marxist approaches
o Social structures (capitalism) as determinants of social processes
o Historical analysis of the social condition
- Post-structuralism
o Social organization as the result of collective productions of meaning
o Discourses as power-knowledge formations
o Discourse analysis and deconstruction as critique
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Example: Immigration to Europe
Predecessors to Critical Rationalism: Positivism
- Auguste Comte (1798-1857): Knowledge is gained through pure observation and the
collection of data as detailed as possible (e.g. experiments), Generalization and induction:
formulation of general theories and laws from observations
Critical Rationalism
- Karl Popper (1902-1994): All knowledge is provisional, dogmatic thinking needs to be
prohibited, every observation is guided by theories (consciously or unconsciously)
Verification and falsification according to Popper
Hypotheses are assumptions that state a relationship between at least two variables
which is supposed to be tested empirically.
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Types of scientific hypotheses
Exercise: formulating hypotheses
Factors:
- City level: geography, topography, weather, urban design and density, costs, texture of
roads, safety, infrastructure
- Individual level: income, gender, children, age, health, environmental consciousness,
perception of safety, schedule, purpose, distance, social status
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