Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Conference Group
Call for Papers APSA 2011
Closing date: December 15, 2010
2011 Program Chair: Ido Oren, University of Florida
(<(oren /at/ ufl.htm)>(oren /at/ ufl.edu) <mailto:(oren /at/ ufl.edu)> )
This Conference-related Group provides a forum for the discussion of
methodologies and methods related to interpretive research, as well
as issues arising from their location within contemporary political science.
Interpretive methodologies and methods are informed by philosophical
traditions such as hermeneutics, phenomenology, pragmatism, and
symbolic interaction. Notwithstanding their differences, these
traditions presuppose that the meaningfulness and historical
contingency of human life sets the social realm apart from nature.
Although diverse in their modes of accessing and analyzing data,
research processes in the interpretive tradition are typically
characterized by an empirical and normative prioritizing of the
lived experience of people in research settings (what Clifford
Geertz referred to as "experience-near" research), a focus on the
meaning(s) of acts, events, interactions, language, and physical
artifacts to multiple stakeholders, and a sensitivity to the
historically-contingent, often-contested character of such meanings.
We call for papers, panel, and roundtable proposals that explore
interpretive methodological issues or that apply interpretive
methods (e.g., political ethnography, ethnomethodology, discourse
analysis) in ways that demonstrate their "comparative advantage" for
empirical research across the subfields of political science.
Proposals that reflect on how political science itself is situated
in the webs of meaning and historical context that it studies will
be especially welcome.
