Students will gain hands-on experience with qualitative research by designing and conducting individual research projects, with the support and mentorship of the course instructor, Dr. Leslie Dwyer, and our partner organizations, Volunteers in Asia (VIA) and Sanata Dharma University. Students will participate in classroom discussions on research methodology with Dr. Dwyer, as well as meetings with VIA’s Indonesia Director, Ms. Elizabeth Rhoads, a Ph.D. candidate at King’s College, London. Students will also participate in a range of activities, including visits with local NGOs and community-based groups, Indonesian language lessons, trips to cultural sites, and guest lectures with Indonesian academics and activists. Indonesian graduate research assistants support program participants in planning and carrying out research activities. The program concludes with a public presentation of student work.
Jogjakarta is located in Central Java, Indonesia, and is renowned as Indonesia’s “city of students” and “city of the arts.” Students will have ample time to explore this fascinating city and pursue topics of particular interest to them. Past student research projects have explored a variety of issues, including Indonesian Islamic politics and inter-religious tensions, transnational feminist movements, the arts as an activist tool, the challenges facing Indonesia’s LGBTQI communities, environmental conflicts, reproductive justice, minority religious identity, and conflicts over land and labor rights.
During our four weeks together in Jogjakarta, Indonesia we will be pursuing some interrelated goals:
- To seriously consider the relationship between social science research and social justice/conflict resolution work.
- To gain theoretical and practical skills in qualitative social science research methods. Participants should come away with practice in research design, proposal construction, interviewing, participant-observation, life history, oral history, and survey methodology.
- To consider social science research methods in a new light.
- What are the issues at stake when researching and working across cultural contexts? This course is designed to offer students a deeper sense of the complexities of culture and conflict, and to provide some of the context necessary for carrying out meaningful research in Jogja.
This course is not a lecture course. Nor is it a course designed to offer a programmatic “how to” guide for any and all research. Although we will be intensively engaged in “doing” by crafting and carrying out actual field research, we will be giving equal attention to putting our methodological choices and actions in analytic perspective, recognizing them as choices that produce specific ways of knowing and may authorize certain forms of intervention. By the end of the course, students should be better positioned to craft a feasible and innovative thesis/dissertation topic, and to design a methodological approach to the question(s) they seek to answer.
Dates of Course: June 26 to July 22, 2017 (Arrive in Indonesia by Sunday evening, June 25, leaving the U.S. by Friday, June 23. Free to depart Indonesia Saturday, July 22.) Students should book travel to Jogjakarta (airport code JOG).
Mandatory Pre-Trip Meeting Date: May 26 from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the Arlington Campus, Metropolitan Building, Room 5183. Remote participation will also be available.
Cost of Course: $4,850. Program cost includes 6 credits of coursework; students choose two of the following courses: (CONF 610, CONF 625, CONF 695, CONF 727, CONF 812, CONF 813 ), housing at local guesthouse, cultural activities, visiting speakers and instructors, transportation to program activities, and some communal meals. Airfare is not included.
Instructor: Dr. Leslie Dwyer
Registration Deadline: May 12, 2017
Deposit Due: $500 deposit due no later than May 19, 2017
Final Payment: Remainder of course payment due no later than June 9, 2017
Dr. Leslie Dwyer (S-CAR faculty) will lead this program. Dr. Dwyer is an anthropologist with 23 years of experience working in Indonesia. She has long-standing connections with Indonesian community-based organizations and human rights groups. Her most recent projects have focused on post-conflict social repair and transitional justice in Indonesia. She has special interests in gender, gender inequality and gender-based violence in conflict and post-conflict settings.
Students interested in the Research in Indonesia course should contact Dr. Leslie Dwyer at [email protected] or Lisa Shaw at [email protected].
