scholarly journals Local and Transnational Identity, Positionality and Knowledge Production in Africa and the African Diaspora

Field Methods ◽  
2022 ◽  
pp. 1525822X2110515
Author(s):  
Kudus Oluwatoyin Adebayo ◽  
Emeka T. Njoku
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Trust Building ◽  
Data Generation ◽  
National Belonging ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
Home Based ◽  
Shed Light

How does shared identity between researcher and the researched influence trust-building for data generation and knowledge production? We reflect on this question based on two separate studies conducted by African-based researchers in sociology and political science in Nigeria. We advanced two interrelated positions. The first underscores the limits of national belonging as shorthand for insiderness, while the second argues that when shared national/group identity is tensioned other intersecting positions and relations take prominence. We also show that the researched challenge and resist unequal power relations through interview refusal or by evading issues that the researcher considers important, but the participant perceives as intrusive. We shed light on the vagaries, overlaps, and similarities in the dynamics of belonging and positionality in researching Africans in and outside Africa as home-based researchers. Our contribution advances the understanding of field dynamics in the production of local and cross-border knowledge on Africa/Africans.

scholarly journals Hard-to-Survey Populations and Respondent-Driven Sampling: Expanding the Political Science Toolbox

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 509-526
Author(s):  
Rana B. Khoury
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Methods ◽  
Respondent Driven Sampling ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Multimethod Research ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Population Inference ◽  
Shed Light

Survey research can generate knowledge that is central to the study of collective action, public opinion, and political participation. Unfortunately, many populations—from undocumented migrants to right-wing activists and oligarchs—are hidden, lack sampling frames, or are otherwise hard to survey. An approach to hard-to-survey populations commonly taken by researchers in other disciplines is largely missing from the toolbox of political science methods: respondent-driven sampling (RDS). By leveraging relations of trust, RDS accesses hard-to-survey populations; it also promotes representativeness, systematizes data collection, and, notably, supports population inference. In approximating probability sampling, RDS makes strong assumptions. Yet if strengthened by an integrative multimethod research design, it can shed light on otherwise concealed—and critical—political preferences and behaviors among many populations of interest. Through describing one of the first applications of RDS in political science, this article provides empirically grounded guidance via a study of activist refugees from Syria. Refugees are prototypical hard-to-survey populations, and mobilized ones are even more so; yet the study demonstrates that RDS can provide a systematic and representative account of a vulnerable population engaged in major political phenomena.

Collaborative Governance and Civic Empowerment: A Discussion of Investing in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in Collaborative Governance

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 605-607
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Deneen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Shed Light

Whether as a solution to problems of political legitimacy or social mistrust, as a way of involving civil society, or as a method of crafting more effective “third way” policies, collaborative governance has been a topic of renewed interest for political scientists and policy intellectuals. Carmen Sirianni's Investing in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in Collaborative Governance (Brookings, 2009) is an important new book that raises many of these issues. Perspectives on Politics is a forum for raising questions of interest to a broad range of political scientists. In this symposium, we have asked a number of prominent political scientists and policy analysts to assess the book and to address two broader questions: in what ways does the book draw from and add to political science scholarship, and in what ways does political science scholarship help to shed light on the book's core themes?

scholarly journals The Communication of Ideas across Subfields in Political Science

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (02) ◽  
pp. 468-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin R. Graham ◽  
Charles R. Shipan ◽  
Craig Volden
Keyword(s):  
Network Analysis ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Diffusion Processes ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Levels Of Integration

ABSTRACTWhat factors inhibit or facilitate cross-subfield conversations in political science? This article draws on diffusion scholarship to gain insight into cross-subfield communication. Diffusion scholarship represents a case where such communication might be expected, given that similar diffusion processes are analyzed in American politics, comparative politics, and international relations. We identify nearly 800 journal articles published on diffusion within political science between 1958 and 2008. Using network analysis we investigate the degree to which three “common culprits”—terminology, methodological approach, and journal type—influence levels of integration. We find the highest levels of integration among scholars using similar terms to describe diffusion processes, sharing a methodological approach (especially in quantitative scholarship), and publishing in a common set of subfield journals. These findings shed light on when cross-subfield communication is likely to occur with ease and when barriers may prove prohibitive.

Introduction

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Sabl
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Political Disagreement ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Practical Politics ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Or History

This introductory chapter discusses how David Hume's political ideas shed light on a host of questions in political theory, political science, and practical politics that would otherwise seem intractable. Aspects of Hume's work that might seem either hard to understand or of questionable modern relevance when treated with the methods of philosophy or history both fall into place and prove their continuing importance when viewed through the lens of political theory. Political theorists can find in Hume an innovative, unfamiliar way of understanding and addressing political disagreement. Hume's “liberalism of enlargement” suggests that moral factions divide the members of polities; whereas political interests, suitably defined and creatively accommodated, unite them.

An Empirical Investigation of Internet Users' Perceptions towards National and International e-Shops

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaggelis Saprikis
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Shopping Behavior ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Costly Communication ◽  
Online Stores ◽  
Shed Light

Nowadays, the broad Internet utilization and the advancement of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have greatly changed the way goods and services are bought and sold. As a consequence, even more online users prefer not only to shop online, but also purchase abroad taking advantage of Internet's limitless feature. Thus, technology's success has stimulated the process of cross-border e-shopping, allowing fast, less costly communication, as well as access to a wider variety of goods and services. The purpose of this consumer-oriented approach paper is to examine the perceptions of Greek Internet users concerning e-shops. In specific, it aims to reveal if there are differences on users' perceptions regarding Greek versus international e-shops, as even more individuals visit non-domestic online stores for their e-purchases. Hence, it provides tangible results to an under-explored area of online shopping and shed light on the difficulty of understanding important aspects of e-shopping behavior; presenting vital implications to both academia and practitioners.

Fragmenting and connecting? The diverging geometries and extents of IR’s interdisciplinary knowledge-relations

2020 ◽  
pp. 135406612092260
Author(s):  
Stephen Aris
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Bibliometric Analysis ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Sociology Of Science ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Bibliographic Coupling ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Interdisciplinary Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Practice ◽  
The Relationship

IR has long been concerned about its claim on disciplinary status. This includes concerns about its differentiation from Political Science and a divide between scholars who advocate a narrow disciplinary approach and others who conceive of IR as a pluri-disciplinary concept. Although these dilemmas revolve around its position vis-à-vis other disciplines, the vast majority of the recent disciplinary-sociology debates have focused on the extent of IR scholarship’s intradisciplinary fragmentation, along epistemological, topical, national, status and other lines. However, the sociology of science literature stresses that disciplines are the product of not only internal practice but also their knowledge relations to and differentiation from other disciplines. In short, intradisciplinary fragmentation cannot be considered as detached from a discipline’s relations to other disciplines – and, by extension, the differentiated knowledge relationships held by distinct intradisciplinary fragments to other disciplines. Taking this into account, this article uses bibliometric analysis of journals as a proxy for analysing the relationship between IR’s intradisciplinary make-up and its interdisciplinary relations to eight cognate disciplines between 2013 and 2017. Three distinct modes of bibliometric analysis are operationalised to map three different aspects of interdisciplinary knowledge practice: (inter)disciplinary debates (direct citation), multidisciplinary knowledge bases (bibliographic coupling) and interdisciplinary knowledge production (co-citation). On this basis, the article asks, one, whether and how differences in the interdisciplinary knowledge relations practised by IR scholarship correlate with intra-IR lines of fragmentation. And two, what are the implications for how IR’s socio-intellectual composition is understood and its disciplinary status evaluated?

Engaged Political Science

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-262
Author(s):  
Matthew Wood
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Media ◽  
Shed Light

Political scientists are wary of engaging with ‘the public’ on mainstream and social media because they fear those mediums fail to get across the deep and nuanced argument they develop in their own research. This article suggests a way of justifying public engagement that begins not with debates about the ethical and political concerns of doing this in practice (of which there are many), but how we as political scientists justify public media engagement to ourselves on the basis of the ethical and political process of ‘doing’ political science. As such, this article identifies the disciplinary basis upon which we may justify media-driven public engagement as an integral part of political science as an academic enterprise. Drawing on current epistemological debates in political science, the article characterises moments of political research as impressionistic exercises, which require public engagement. This means making the public aware of the deep and valuable insights of political science, in a way that sketches out how the discipline can shed light on important social and political phenomena, thereby informing our own scholarly thinking, and that of those we engage with.

Bringing epistemology into intersectional methodology

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-426
Author(s):  
Alexie Labelle
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
Method Choice ◽  
Politics Of Knowledge ◽  
Queer People ◽  
Women Scholars ◽  
Ethical Responsibilities

Since its academic introduction in the late 1980s, the concept of intersectionality has made a staple contribution to feminist scholarship. However, its institutionalised popularity and apparent depoliticisation have led scholars to raise two major concerns: the lack of a clearly defined intersectional methodology; and the erasure of black women scholars in intersectionality scholarship, particularly in the discipline of political science. While the latter rightly addresses epistemology and the politics of knowledge production, the former has lacked a thorough discussion on the ways in which epistemology impacts intersectional methodology, focusing instead on methods and method choice. Drawing on my own experience studying lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer people of colour activism in Canada, I argue that we need to bring epistemology into intersectional methodology. Hence, this article demonstrates how reflecting on one’s positionality, one’s embodiment of privileges and one’s ethical responsibilities informs the ways in which researchers operationalise intersectional projects, thereby shaping methodology.

On Interpretation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. W. Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Data Generation ◽  
Hard Data ◽  
Interpretive Approach

An interpretive approach to political science provides accounts of actions and practices that are interpretations of interpretations. It is distinctive because of the extent to which it privileges meanings as ways to grasp actions. This chapter develops this argument using the idea of ‘situated agency’. It focuses on eight criticisms of this approach: an interpretive approach is mere common sense; it focuses on beliefs or discourses, not actions or practices; it ignores concepts of social structure; it seeks to understand actions and practices, not explain them; it is concerned exclusively with qualitative techniques of data generation; it must accept actors’ own accounts of their beliefs; is insensitive to the ways in which power constitutes beliefs; and is incapable of producing policy relevant knowledge. It shows that the criticisms rest on misconceptions about an interpretive approach and misplaced beliefs in the false idols of hard data and rigorous methods.

Danger: Information Ahead

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curry Ann
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
Nouvelles Technologies ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Information Professionals ◽  
The Right ◽  
Analyse De Contenu ◽  
Shed Light

In this address, Dr. Curry will discuss the implications of this philosophical disconnect between information professionals and those on university campuses; provide the results of her content analysis research into these silencing actions known broadly as the “heckler’s veto”, results that shed light on the influence of both the Right and the Left political movements; and examine the global cross-border nature of this phenomenon fuelled in part by our new communication technologies.Dans sa conférence, le Dr Curry discutera des implications de ce différend philosophique entre les professionnels de l'information et ceux qui vivent sur les campus universitaires ; elle fournira les résultats de ses recherches en analyse de contenu concernant les actions qui consistent à réduire les gens au silence, actions bien connues sous le nom de « droit de véto du perturbateur » ; résultats qui mettent en lumière la pression de mouvements politiques de droite comme de gauche, et qui examinent aussi la nature transfrontalière et mondiale de ce phénomène, alimenté en partie par nos nouvelles technologies de communication.

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