From the desk of rethinking everything you've been taught...

Right up our course alley of rigorously questioning what is researched and from whose perspectives comes this cutting edge research from psychologist Carl Hart. Hart, a Black man who grew up poor in the South, was no stranger to seeing the ravages of drug, poverty, and abuse, but he has also been trained as a social scientist who has learned to question taken-for-granteds. He has shaped a research agenda that investigates the ways in which drug addicts are able to make decisions about drug use based on different contexts.

In essence, Hart's research shows that drug use and addiction are intimately connected to, even dependent on, societal conditions of poverty, safety, abuse, and trauma. The worse the context, the more rational drug use seems. This draws into question long-standing assumptions that crack methamphetamine use is 1) addictive, and 2) all but impenetrable to societal interventions. The war on drugs, in yet another study, is shown to be in some ways avoiding the core issues of poverty and discrimination that, in this case, makes drugs and drug use more prevalent.

As Pynchon once said, "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers."

Read the NYTimes article on Hart's work from 9/17/2013.

Instructions for 9/18 session

Hello All,

This class session, please view the program of "When the bough breaks" from Unnatural Causes. This segment on the interaction between society and individuals is an excellent example of how social problems can and must be interrogated from many different perspectives and also a fine example of exploratory research. As you watch the video, I'd like you to pay attention to how the research design goes through trial and error and how that stays in dialogue with the research question. Can you think of other factors and experiences that should be investigated from this video?

I'd like you to discuss the video with each other and post comments here so that I can also participate with you, virtually. Please do this during your discussion or directly after class.

You should also spend time in your writing groups, getting into a groove of working with each other with the primary goal of keeping each other writing and helping each other to think and communicate well via writing.

On September 25th we will focus intently on Indigenous experiences and perspectives on research. I recommend that your writing that week address the questions of Why this, why you, and why now. Those should be constant questions and ones that are revised, but it would be in keeping with your readings about standpoint and ethics that week to address it in your own writing.

I'll be on email so please don't hesitate to contact me with your questions,
leigh.

Resources from 9/11/2013 class

Hi Everyone

Here are a few of the references I was mentioning in class tonight:

Barbara Rogoff and Kris Gutierrez' piece on repertoires of practice is a useful framing of the interaction between individuals and culture

Per Linnell wrote about the written language bias in linguistics specifically but social science more generally.

Be well, and I'll post a short trailer and instructions this weekend for next week's class and viewing the Unnatural Causes segment.

leigh.

Welcome to advanced qualitative research

Welcome to all.

This will be our course website, where essential course information will be communicated, many materials accessed, and where you can contribute to the course themes and ideas.

Look around and make sure that you know how to post to this blog. You can post reflections, questions, links to articles, and media here - whatever you think is relevant and helpful to our collective.

To get us started, here is a now classic lecture by author Chimamanda Adichie on the danger of the single story. Single stories are something that textured, exploratory research should always work to complicate if not render inert.