A doctoral course within the Research School in Peace and Conflict, co-funded by Welfare Working Life and Migration (VAM) programme of the Research Council of Norway.

  • Venue: Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Hausmanns gate 7, Oslo, Norway. Dates: 17–19 October 2012.
  • Lecturers: Jørgen Carling and Cindy Horst, Senior Researchers at PRIO.
  • ***Credits:***For participation and approved essay: 5 ECTS.
  • Deadline: 2 September. See the course page for information on admission.
  • Contact: Kristoffer Lidén, Research School Coordinator at PRIO, kristoffer@prio.no.

This course prepares participants for conducting fieldwork and using fieldwork data in social-science research. By ‘fieldwork’ we mean data collection through face-to-face interaction with people in their daily lives, using participant observation, interviews, or a combination of the two. The course pays particular attention to the challenges of doing fieldwork in challenging circumstances, such as those that are often encountered in research on peace and conflict, or in the contexts of migration and displacement. The sessions roughly follow the chronology from pre-fieldwork planning to post-fieldwork representation of data, and address both practical and principle concerns at each stage. Discussions of ethical challenges are integrated throughout. Rather than attempting to provide blueprint answers, the course seeks to help participants reflect upon the dilemmas and challenges of fieldwork and make informed decisions for their own research.

For more information, see http://www.prio.no/Research-School/Activities/Fieldwork-methodology-approaches-tools-and-ethics/