Interdisciplinarity in Methods: Learning Qualitative Research in the Humanities
Location
1048
Format Type
Event
Format Type
Paper
Start Date
January 2019
End Date
January 2019
Abstract
Learning qualitative research methods in the humanities, specifically Women and Gender Studies, posed a challenge. I received good training on the theoretical aspects of qualitative research but really struggled with the application. After four qualitative methods courses taken across disciplines including women’s studies, sociology, and psychology, I finally felt prepared to care for the data I would soon collect from my participants. For this study, I focused on the question: for a discipline that claims trans/interdisciplinarity in all aspects of scholarship, is women’s studies interdisciplinary in methods? To answer this question, I chose to analyze five years of scholarship published in three of the top women's and gender studies journals (Feminist Formations, Signs, and Frontiers) to compare variations in methods within these published works. This inquiry is meant to start a conversation about applied feminism and how well women’s studies as a discipline varies in method as much as it does in theory.
Keywords
women's and gender studies, interdisciplinary, qualitative methods
Interdisciplinarity in Methods: Learning Qualitative Research in the Humanities
1048
Learning qualitative research methods in the humanities, specifically Women and Gender Studies, posed a challenge. I received good training on the theoretical aspects of qualitative research but really struggled with the application. After four qualitative methods courses taken across disciplines including women’s studies, sociology, and psychology, I finally felt prepared to care for the data I would soon collect from my participants. For this study, I focused on the question: for a discipline that claims trans/interdisciplinarity in all aspects of scholarship, is women’s studies interdisciplinary in methods? To answer this question, I chose to analyze five years of scholarship published in three of the top women's and gender studies journals (Feminist Formations, Signs, and Frontiers) to compare variations in methods within these published works. This inquiry is meant to start a conversation about applied feminism and how well women’s studies as a discipline varies in method as much as it does in theory.
Comments
Breakout Session C