International KWALON Conference 'Is Qualitative Data Analysis Software really comparable?'

April 22-23, 2010
University for Humanistics, Utrecht, The Netherlands

"In this 2-day conference we want to explore the use of analysis software in a more methodological sense. The main theme of the conference is the intertwinement of qualitative data analysis, the use of software and the person analyzing. To that end, we've invited developers and users of qualitative analysis software to reflect on the use of CAQDAS. Developers of data analysis software will be presenting the results of their participation in an experiment we designed for them. Users of software present their experiences in working with software.

Press the link for further information about the Conference.
Paper proposals can be submitted untill November 15, 2009. See the Call for Papers link above for further information. Registration for the Conference is open now and can be done with the online registration form above. The Conference fee is 165 Euro for Early Birds (untill November 30, 2009), and 225 Euro from December 1, 2009 onwards."

CRESC Conference 2010 CFP: The Social Life of Methods

http://www.cresc.ac.uk/events/conference2010/callforpapers.html

6th Annual Conference 2010: The Social Life Of Methods
31 August - 3 September, St Hugh's College Oxford

CFP

During the past century and longer, social scientific methods have come to be extensively deployed in government, administration and business, as well as in academic research. Maps, enumerations, surveys, interviews, indicators, software and visualizations proliferate. The aim of this conference is to consider how we can best understand the agency of social science methods in both shaping, and themselves being affected, by economic, social and cultural change, both historically and in the current context when digitalization poses specific challenges to established repertoires of social science methods.

Mindful of the ideas developed within Science and Technology Studies, which show how objects in the natural and medical sciences can be social agents, we seek to broaden this agenda to focus more particularly on methods within the social sciences and humanities. Papers are invited from interdisciplinary audiences addressing the following issues:

• Is it useful to explore how agency can be located in certain kinds of social scientific methodological repertoires?
• What kinds of methods succeed and which fail? What are the respective powers of different sorts of qualitative and quantitative forms of analysis? How can we explain why certain sorts of methods become hegemonic in certain domains, and what consequences follow from this?
• What is the role of the visual in social science methods? How is this changing?
• With the proliferation of digital data, are we currently seeing a crisis of standard social science methods based around the sample survey and the interview, and what does this portend for our understanding of socio-cultural change? Does the idea of a descriptive turn offer a useful way of grasping the role of these new methods?
• What is the transformative and critical potential of social science research methods, both historically and today?

We are interested in using reflecting theoretically about how actor network theory, genealogy, complexity theory, feminist theory, anthropological studies of expertise, ecological studies of knowledge, political economy and field analysis can be used to understand and illuminate these issues. There will be four themes which will structure the sessions of the conference:

1: The device: what kinds of device have come to play an important historical role, and which have failed? How can we better understand the histories of nations, social groups, individuals and organizations through a focus on devices?
2: The challenge of digital data: what is the implication of the proliferation of digital information for the ordering of economic, social, political and cultural knowledge?
3: Envisaging the visual: how have visual methods historically competed with textual and numerical methods, and how far is their role changing in the current context?
4: Transformative practice: history, discipline and movements: how can methods be mobilized to critique and challenge dominant methodological repertoires, focusing especially on the role of historical analysis, ethnographic, feminist, and subaltern methods?

Please submit either (a) proposal for individual papers, or (b) panel proposal including 3 papers by the end of February 2010.

CRESC Conference Administration, 178 Waterloo Place, Oxford Road, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, Tel: +44(0)161 275 8985 / Fax: +44(0)161 275 8985

Two Reflexivities in Current Social Science: Remarks on an Absent Debate

Andreas Langenohl (Deutschland):
Zweimal Reflexivitaet in der gegenwaertigen Sozialwissenschaft: Anmerkungen zu einer nicht gefuehrten Debatte

http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs090297

Langenohl, Andreas (2009). Zweimal Reflexivität in der gegenwärtigen Sozialwissenschaft: Anmerkungen zu einer nicht geführten Debatte [25 Absätze]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 10(2), Art. 9, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs090297.