Undergraduate Course: Collaborative Ethnography of Edinburgh (SCAN10102)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | In Collaborative Ethnography of Edinburgh you will work together with peers and community groups to developed a map of the everyday experience of the city of Edinburgh. We will use ethnographic techniques to design a project, gather data, digitally archive that data and then curate and display the material for diverse audiences around the city. |
| Course description |
How can we observe, engage and document the places in which we live? What is the texture and the poetry of the everyday that makes up the social and cultural life of a city like Edinburgh? In this course, students will work collaboratively with Edinburgh residents and university staff to build an ethnographic account and archive of the everyday life of Edinburgh. Students will learn how to record, analyse, archive and present the diverse and changing experience of everyday life in the city. Through a series of practice-based projects ranged over two semesters, students will construct a snapshot of a pocket of the city, drawing on anthropological theories of ethnographic research and representation and the legacies of Mass Observation projects in interwar Britain. Students will then learn how to present their outputs for digital archiving and work creatively to make these publicly sharable. Students will be supported to consider different creative and expressive methods for documenting and communicating findings in ways that are appropriate to research participants and interlocutors. The outcomes of the course will be publicly available through the online repository and website that accompany the course. Ongoing collaboration with the Edinburgh Museum for curation and exhibition will provide a further real-world context for students to learn experientially as they develop their projects for knowledge exchange events. Self-reflexive approaches to understanding your learning and engaging your immediate environment in your practice are central in this course.
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Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 20 |
| Course Start |
Full Year |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 8,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Fieldwork Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
148 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
30% Short Essay (1500 words)
20% Collaborative Research proposal (1000 words)
20% Fieldwork report (1500 words)
0% Archiving exercise & data deposit
30% Curation & exchange |
| Feedback |
Feedback on all assessed work shall normally be returned within three weeks of submission. Where this is not possible, students shall be given clear expectations regarding the timing and methods of feedback. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of theories, methods, and debates related to the history of ethnographic research in anthropology and Mass Observation projects in Britain and understand how these might be used in the context of Edinburgh.
- Apply the relevant skills for executing a qualitive research project within Edinburgh, in collaboration with local community groups, and understand how those can be used in other settings.
- Critically understand modes of data management, including the preparation of research data for archiving and effectively using digital infrastructures for depositing and sharing research findings.
- Imaginatively use a variety of curation and presentation skills to communicate ethnographic insight about Edinburgh to a range of stakeholders and audiences in the university and in the community.
- Work effectively in groups of peers and with community interlocutors to develop, execute and present qualitative research projects in equitable, transparent and professional manners.
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Reading List
Harrisson, Tom and Charles Madge. 1939. Britain by Mass-observation. London: Penguin Books.
Taussig, Michael. 2011. I swear I saw this: Drawings in fieldwork notebooks, namely my own. London: University of Chicago Press.
Müller, Katja. 2021. Digital Archives and Collections: Creating Online Access to Cultural Heritage. United Kingdom: Berghahn Books. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
This experiential learning course will allow students to gain the following graduate attributes that they will take into the world with them:
Mindset: This course will challenge and equip students to engage in sensitive and purposeful ways with those who live and work within their immediate surroundings; respectfully and responsively taking an interest in and responsibility for the collective spaces we inhabit.
Skills: This course will allow students to imaginatively use a range of communication forms to express, share and make accessible the knowledge and insight they develop through their engagement with those in their immediate surroundings. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Lotte Hoek
Tel: (0131 6)50 6970
Email: lotte.hoek@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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