The topic for this year’s course was language, youth, and identity, explored through ethnographic methodologies. The PhD students engaged in the practical issues of conducting ethnographic fieldwork: of planning and collecting data, of doing digital ethnography, and of turning data into ethnographic text. The course had three themes :
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Ethnography as (a set of) methods (for researching identity)
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Language and identity: ways of analysing identities in linguistic ethnographic data
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Digital ethnography – youth practices and identities
The program consisted of both lectures and literature and data seminars. Lectures were given by Professor Rickard Jonsson (University of Stockholm), Professor Unn Røyneland (MultiLing, UiO), Professor Bente Ailin Svendsen (MultiLing, UiO), Associate Professor Elisabeth Staksrud (Department of Media and Communication, UiO), and Postdoctoral fellow Kristin Vold Lexander (MultiLing, UiO), all experienced and leading researchers in the field. Apart from the lectures, plenty of time was devoted to analysing data from the participants’ own ongoing research projects and to relate these data to the presented theoretical perspectives.
It has been a very inspiring week. MultiLing is grateful to all the participants who engaged in great conversations and discussions!