979508 Research in International Studies

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.

Subject level:

Postgraduate

Description

The subject is designed to equip students for independent, creative and ethical research through the development of the critical, analytical and methodological skills required to complete the planning and proposal stages for a small-scale piece of original research within an international context. It introduces students to qualitative and quantitative social science and humanities research data-gathering methods (field work and archival) appropriate to international studies research.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

This subject engages with the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs), which are tailored to the Graduate Attributes set for all graduates of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (INT = International Studies CILOs):

• Graduates demonstrate the application of international knowledge as highly adaptable, flexible and resourceful practitioners. (1.2)
• Graduates are able to creatively and independently design and conduct a substantial, specialised, engaged and ethical body of research in and about other cultural contexts and societies. (2.1)
• Graduates possess advanced-level critical problem-solving and research-led analytical skills into international and intercultural change. (2.2)
• Graduates have the capacity to reflect upon and contextualise Indigenous peoples’ experiences and circumstances to integrate the knowledge of Indigenous Australians to professional situations as and when appropriate. (4.1)
• As informed, engaged and ethical international citizens graduates demonstrate cosmopolitan openness, with an awareness of, and commitment to, ethical practices. (5.1)
• Graduates possess a high-level of oral and written communication skills in English and will be able to communicate effectively in at least one other language. (6.1)

Teaching and learning strategies

Research in International Studies is conducted as a seminar/workshop, which means that students are expected to be active participants in every class and the teacher will act principally as a facilitator to guide discussion, highlight key concepts and provide additional information. Classes will combine group work, discussions, student presentations, hands-on workshops and plenary sessions, some of which may be conducted by guest lecturers. In preparation for each class, students should complete the required readings or other assignments and be ready to contribute to class learning, for instance by having some notes or questions prepared about the readings.

This subject is based on Problem Based Learning, which means that students will be presented with a problem to be solved in the form of a real-life research scenario. They will solve it (i.e. design a research project to answer the questions asked in the scenario) by assessing the tools and knowledge they already have and outlining what they still require or need to learn. They will in turn build their skills/knowledge base in these areas and apply them to the problem before developing a comprehensive response.

Content (topics)

International Studies is an articulation of language, culture and comparative studies in an international context. It crosses national and discipline boundaries and allows people to think outside the squares of the nation-state and ethno-nationalism. Students focus on the critical, analytical and methodological skills required to complete original humanities and social science research within an international context. To this end, a range of qualitative and quantitative, cultural studies and social sciences research methodologies are presented. Research methodologies and issues will focus on current aspects of research that are being undertaken within International Studies, also reflecting on the role of experience while conducted research in a different culture.

RIS is divided into 4 parts:

1. What is research? What is research in International Studies? Here we will discuss definitions of research. We will further contextualise research inside the field of International Studies, and in particular its Cultural Studies-based version.
2. How have others done research? Here we will explore and critique International Studies research that has been done by scholars from a variety of disciplines and about many different cultures. Each class will involve discussing research that employs a particular type or set of methodologies (quantitative methods, discourse analysis, visual analysis, observation, etc.), identifying the possibilities and limitations of the research methods employed and analysing the appropriateness of the chosen methodology to the research problem or question identified by the researcher.
3. Hands-on workshops. Research requires various skills, such as information literacy (library skills) and the ability to effectively use our chosen methodologies. Through interactive workshops that involve role play and a hands-on session in the library, students will familiarise themselves with and practice the skills they will need to effective International Studies researchers.
4. Research, Power, Others and Minorities. This section will develop around the a case scenario, and it will involve designing a research project into an Indigenous community of a foreign (fictional) country. This will require engagement with more data-gathering methods (semi-structured interviews, oral history, surveys, focus groups, observation) and a series of methodological and theoretical problems (ethics, self-reflexivity, dialogism, power dynamics in research, grouping and ‘othering’, politics of research).

Points 1-4 cover what is required in terms of knowledge of research methods and approaches for students who are planning to spend six months in In-Country Study (Masters), and provide a coherent and applicable set of knowledges for students who have RIS as an exit point (Diploma).

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Literature Review

Assessment task 2: Essay

Assessment task 3: Scenario Analysis

Minimum requirements

Attendance at tutorials is important in this subject because it is based on a collaborative approach, which involves essential workshopping and interchange of ideas with other students and the tutor. An attendance roll will be taken at each class. Students who fail to attend 85% of classes may be refused to have their final assessment marked.

Required texts

All readings are accessible via UTS Online.

References

Atkinson, David, and Denis Cosgrove (1998) ‘Urban Rhetoric and Embodied Identities: City, Nation and Empire at the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument in Rome 1870-1945.’ Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88(1): 28-49.
Bank, L. (2006), ‘Beyond the Verandah: Fieldwork, Locality and Understanding Urbanism in a South African City’, in S. Michale Coleman and P.Collins (eds.) Locating the Field: Space, Place and Context in Anthropology, Oxford, Ney York: Berg: 43-66.
Bell, P. (2001), 'Content Analysis of Visual Images', in C. Jewitt & T. Van Leeuwen (eds), Handbook of Visual Analysis, Sage Publications, London: 10-34.
Bennett, A. and Kahn-Harris, K. (2004) 'Introduction', to After Subculture: Critical Studies in Contemporary Youth Culture, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan: 1-18.
Benton, Tim (1999) ‘From the Arengario to the Lictor's Axe: Memories of Italian Fascism.’ In Material Memories, Marius Kwint, Christopher Breward and Jeremy Aynsley,Oxford (eds.) New York: Berg: 199-218.
Clifford, J.; Marcus, G.E. (eds.) (1986), Writing Culture: The poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley : University of California Press.
Coulthard, M. (1985) An Introduction to Discourse Analysis, London: Longman.
Crapanzano, V. (1980) Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
De Certeau, M. 1988 ‘Walking in the City’, in The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkley, Los Angels and London: University of California Press: 91-110.
Fowler, E. 1996, ‘Interviewing: Memory as Oral History’, in San’ya Blues: Laboring Life in Contemporary Tokyo, Cornell University Press, Ithaca: 231-238.
Liamputtong, P. and Ezzy, D. (2006) ‘In-Depth Interviews’ in P. Liamputtong and D. Ezzy, Qualitative Research Methods, QUP.
Lister, M. & Wells, L. (2001), 'Seeing Beyond Belief: Cultural Studies as an approach to analysing the visual', in C. Jewitt & T. Van Leeuwen (eds), Handbook of Visual Analysis, Sage Publications, London: 61-91.
Massey, D. (1994) ‘A Global Sense of Place’ in Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press.
Perks, R. and Thomson, A. (2006) The Oral History Reader, New York: Routledge.
Read, P. and Wyndham, M. (2008) ‘Putting Site Back into Trauma Studies: a Study of Five Detention and Torture Centres in Santiago, Chile’, Life Writing, 5(1): 79-96.
Saukko, P. (2003) Doing Research in Cultural Studies. London: Sage.
Schlunke, K. (2009) ‘Home’, South Atlantic Quarterly 108(1):1-26
Scollon, R. and Scollon., S.W. (2003). Discourse in Place: Language in the Material World. London and New York: Routledge.
Smith, L.T. (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies, Dundedin: University of Otago Press. Chapter 1: 19-41.
Stewart, D and Rook, D (2006) Focus Groups: Theory and Practice, London: Sage.
Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009) Practices of Looking. An Introduction to Visual Culture, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 10.
Van Dijk, T.A. (2001), 'Critical Discourse Analysis', in D. Tannen, D. Schiffrin & H. Hamilton (eds), Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Blackwell Oxford: 352-371.
Young, J. E. (1992) ‘The Counter-Monument: Memory against Itself in Germany Today.’ Critical Inquiry 2, 18: 267-96.