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Methods Cafe

Fri, September 11, 2:00 to 3:30pm MDT (2:00 to 3:30pm MDT), TBA

Session Submission Type: Café

Session Description

The 2020 APSA theme, “Democracy, Difference, and Destabilization,” invites scholars to investigate questions related to the threats and stresses experienced by democracies worldwide, the importance of diversity as a strength of democratic performance, the limits of achieving equity and inclusivity in heterogeneous publics throughout the globe, and their implications for the resilience of democratic institutions. Since political scientists’ research methods are crucial to this exploration, our proposed Methods Café brings together a group of scholars experienced in a variety of interpretive research methods, ranging from interviews to participant observation. At the café, these scholars are available to anyone who wishes to discuss the area of study or method they specialize in.

The café is not a panel or roundtable session where presenters prepare formal presentations on their topics and speak in sequence. Instead, it is an informal setting—“a café” with multiple tables and places to sit—that allows for one-on-one and group discussions, networking and support. Here, cafe "visitors" will find several round tables set up in the café meeting room; each table has a placard which displays the method being discussed at that table (e.g., “Interviewing”) and one or two “specialists” in that research method sitting at that table. The café will also include tables with book publishers, journal editors, and representatives from funding agencies who are familiar with these methods. Topics and the names of the specialists are listed in the conference program, and one or more hosts positioned at the room’s entrance helps people figure out who is sitting where and further explain the process.

“Visitors” to the café are invited to arrive at any point in the time block allotted, visit any table they like, and stay as long as they like. A visitor might approach a table, sit down, and ask the specialist to talk about how s/he uses the method on offer at that table. If a conversation is already under way, others can join in or just sit and listen. One need not worry about having questions that are “too elementary”—it is fine to ask anything about that method, at any level!—and visitors may leave the table or room at any time. Altogether, we encourage visitors to circulate among as many tables as they wish, and we ask only they sign in at each table they visit—our way of evaluating the demand for each topic. This year we are excited to add new tables such as Indigenous Interpretive Methods and Intersectional approaches to gender and sexuality.

Visitors at past cafés have ranged from doctoral students to full professors. The range of questions is equally broad and might include:

• “What is x method?” or
• “I’m in the midst of analyzing my data and I’ve run into [describes a specific problem], how should I handle it?” or
• “One of my committee members doesn’t believe that interpretive methods are valid. How can I respond to this challenge?”

First initiated by Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea in 2005, the Methods Cafe has been a successful and well-attended part of APSA for 14 years.

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