Faculty
Barbara Sutter MA at University of Basel. Barry Gibson Senior Lecturer in Medical Sociology, University of Sheffield. Esben Houborg, associated professor, RUC. Ester Barinaga, Kaspar Willadsen and Anders la Cour all associated professors at CBS. Jette Koefod, associated professor at DPU. Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen Professor at CBS. Olga Bioko MA at University of Sheffield.

Course Coordinator
Anders la Cour

The course is intended for PhD students. It presupposes some familiarity with poststructural theories and an interest in different forms of concrete empirical analysis. Even though it is an advantage to know something about what grounded theory is, it is not a requirement to be familiar with this research area. The important thing is that the PhD student shares the overall ambition of working with both poststructural theories and close empirical analysis. The PhD student must attend the whole course in order to receive the course diploma.

This course is about the relation between theory and practice. It tries to establish a middle ground between method and theory for discussions about how to combine the abstractness of various poststructural theories with the concreteness of grounded theory in empirical analysis. The aim is to make the PhD student better able to work with and reflect upon this analytical challenge of balancing between theoretically informed analysis and grounded theory in a quest for close inductive interpretations of reality. The course proceeds from the well-established post-structuralist idea that communication is a dynamic process with no stable foundation, and where structure merely reflects a temporary operational tendency that is open to various settlements at various times. How do we combine such abstract theories of emergence with the inductive claims derived from studies of a given contemporary phenomenon? While there is no evidence-based knowledge to determine the best way to do this, the course brings together a number of researchers who all share our overall ambition of developing the empirical sensitivity of poststructuralist approaches to social phenomena. The course faculty use different theories, such as Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems, Michel Foucault’s discourse analysis, and Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory (ANT), and they engage with a variety of empirical fields. Together we will try to find some common ground to deal with challenges that many PhD students are confronted with.

The course will run over three full days. Monday will begin with the presentations of the participants; this will be followed by an introduction to the course and why reflections on the combination between post-structuralism and grounded theory are important for scientific research. Prof. Barry Gibson will open the PhD Course by introducing grounded theory and its inductive ambitions. Prof. Niels Åkerstrøm will reflect upon the relationship between grounded theory and the development of a concrete analytical strategy.

The PhD course does not offer an general introduction to the mentioned poststructural theories, neither is it a broad introduction to various forms of ethnographic methods about how to write fieldnotes or how to design and carry out an ethnographic interview. Rather it focuses on how to develop various strategies for combining analyses that are informed by poststructural theories with close empirical interpretations guided by grounded theory. The ambition is to establish a middle ground between method and theory and to make the PhD student better able to work with and reflect upon this challenge.

Lecture plan

Time/period	Faculty	Title
Monday 23 November
10.00 - 10.30	Anders La Cour	Introduction
10.30 – 11.15	Barry Gibson	Why grounded theory?
11.30 – 12.15	Niels Åkerstrøm	Grounded Theory end Analytical strategies
12.15 – 13.15		Lunch
13.15 – 14.15	Barry Gibson	Grounded theory and possible linkages to post-structuralism
14.30 – 15.30	Olga Boiko	System theory and analysis of everyday communication
Tuesday 24 November
10.00 – 11.00	Kaspar Villadsen	Grounded theory and discourse analysis
11.15 - 12.15	Barbara Sutter	Grounded theory and studies of governmentality
12.15 – 13.15		Lunch
13.15 – 14.15	Esben Houborg	Grounded theory and ANT
14.30 – 15.30	Niels Åkerstrøm	Grounded theory and semantic analysis
Wednesday 25 November
10.00 – 11.00	Ester Barinaga	Grounded theory and Wittgenstein
11.15 – 12.15	Jette Koefod	Grounded theory and Deleuzian thinking
12.15 – 13.15		Lunch
13.15 – 14.15	Anders la Cour	Grounded theory and system analysis
14.30 – 15.30	Barry Gibson	Grounded theory and poststructuralism
15.45 – 16.30	Anders la Cour	Ending and evaluating the course

The presentations will take their point of departure in the general theme of the course, but in a manner that shows how the abstract challenge of combining poststructural theories with the ambitions of grounded theory turns up within their particular research field. The ambition is to make the discussions as concrete as possible, by drawing on the researchers’ different experiences with this issue. Every presentation is followed by at least half an hour of discussion, in which the PhD students are expected to relate their own experiences or concrete challenges to the given presentation.

Barinaga, Ester (2009) “A performative view of language – Methodological considerations and consequences for the study of culture.” In FQS Special Issue on Qualitative Research on Intercultural Communication.

Clarke, Adele E. (2003) “Situational Analyses: Grounded Theory Mapping After the Postmodern Turn”, in Symbolic Interaction, vol. 26, no. 4., pp 553 – 576.

Foucault, M. (1971) “The Order of Discourse” in: R. Young, ed. Untying the Text (1971), pp. 52-64.

Hacking, Ian (2004) “Between Michel Foucalt and Erving Goffman: between discourse in the abstract and face-to-face interaction” in Economy and Society no. 3 vol. 33. Pp. 277-302.

Latour, Bruno (2000) “When things strike back: a possible contribution of ‘science studies’ to the social science”, in British Journal of Sociology, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 107-123.

Luhmann, Niklas (1990) “ The Cognitive Program of Constructivism and a Reality that Remains Unknown” in W. Krohn (eds.) Selforganization. Portrait of a Scientific Revolution. Klüwer Academic Publishers. Pp. 64 – 85.

Luhmann, Niklas (1992) “Observing and Describing Complexity” in Karl Vak (eds.) A Cultural and Technological Perspective. Pp. 251- 256.

Rose, Nikolas & Miller, Peter (1992) “Political Power beyond the State: Problematics of Government”, in The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 43, no. 2, pp 173-205.

Strauss, Anselm & Corbin, Juliet (1990) Basic of Qualitative Research – Grounded Theory and Qualitative research. Sage Publications. Pp. 15 – 47.

Please send your application to Julie Siezing ( jsi.lpf@cbs.dk) no later than 23 Oktober 2009.