Autumn School
›The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse‹
(SKAD)
University of Augsburg (Germany), September 22-24, 2022
Organisers:
Prof. Dr. Reiner
Keller (University of Augsburg) and
Prof. Dr. Wolf Schünemann (University of Hildesheim)
Please visit www.diskurswissenschaft.de for up-to-date
information and details concerning registration, venues, etc.
Following the success of
the last three international workshops with participants from different
countries spanning from Indonesia to Brazil, from Japan to the Neth-erlands,
from Scotland to Poland and from Canada to Russia, there will be a fourth
introductory workshop in English on the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to
Discourse (SKAD) at the University of Augsburg in September 2022. The
organiser invites novice as well as experienced academics from a wide range of
disciplines, including but not limited to sociology, ethnology, political
science, cultural studies, linguistics, education, and other humanities, to
explore the potential of this ap-proach to studying discourses in the context
of their own projects and research. Please note that in case of overbooking the
autumn school gives priority to partic-ipants without a strong German language
background.
Discourse studies today
cover a large field of approaches across the social sci-ences, ranging from
work inspired by Foucault to Critical Discourse Analysis and through to
hegemonic stability theory, corpus linguistics, and on to more interpre-tive
approaches. The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse draws from Berger
& Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge, the interpretive paradigm in
prag-matist sociology, and core Foucauldian concepts in the analysis of regimes
of power/knowledge, discourses & dispositifs. In doing so, SKAD re-directs
discourse research towards Foucauldian research interests about questions of
social relation-ships of knowledge & knowing and politics of knowledge
& knowing. Doing dis-course research refers, according to SKAD, to elements
of qualitative research designs (like theoretical sampling, sequential
analysis, analysis by contrasting cases, category building, discourse
ethnography) and interpretive analytics.
Since the late 1990s, the
Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD) has been established in
discourse & dispositif research in Germany and many other countries. Today,
it informs a large amount of discourse & dispositif orientated research projects and
publications across fields and disciplines. Workshops intro-ducing theory,
methodology, and methods of SKAD research have been estab-lished in Germany for
more than 20 years. Workshops in French and English have followed suit in the
last years (e.g., in the United States, Switzerland, Austria, France, Denmark,
Belgium, United Kingdom, Romania).
The Augsburg autumn
school builds on the broad international interest in SKAD and introduces core
issues of the concrete doing and practice of SKAD based dis-course research. It
addresses colleagues from the Social Sciences and the broad range of the
Humanities who are interested in learning about SKAD and its profile within the
field of discourse studies as well as in doing SKAD research/using SKAD
methodologies in their own discourse-oriented research.
The workshop will discuss the following topics:
- What is at stake when using SKAD in discourse research?
- SKAD theory: discourses & dispositifs – and how to conceptualise them
- Research questions and conceptual tools in SKAD
- The methodology of interpretive analytics
- Getting into the field: methods of data collection and analysing data
- Getting out of the field: from data analysis to comprehensive diagnostics
- Digital data and analysis in SKAD based discourse research
- Special interest sessions (optional): SKAD applications in sociology and the humanities & SKAD application in political science
Special interest session A: sociology & humanities (Reiner Keller)
The session discusses specific questions on SKAD based discourse and dispositif research (for example, the analysis of visualisations, materiality, the ethnography of dispositifs) and allows for an in-depth discussion of SKAD applications in various disciplines (subject to selection if necessary). Participants are invited to discuss SKAD in relation to their own research interests and work.
Special interest session B: political science (Wolf Schünemann)
Discourse-oriented approaches have gained relevance in political research. This in-depth section of the SKAD autumn school will provide space to discuss basic questions and approaches of SKAD based political research. It will cover all parts of the research process: from data collection via data management and analysis to the integration and presentation of results. All steps and phases will be illus-trated using examples from empirical research (previous SKAD research as well as participants’ presentations).
The workshop includes
data analysis sessions. Furthermore, participants are in-vited to present their
individual research project for group discussion.
The University of
Augsburg is located in the city of Augsburg in southern Germany, which is 60
km/40 miles from the Bavarian capital Munich and can be easily reached by train
or by flight via Munich (MUC) airport. Hotel rooms are available from 40-90
Euro per day. The workshop organisers will provide more information after
registration.
The workshop
• The workshop starts on September 22/2022 at 4 pm and ends on September 24/2022 at 6 pm. • The number of participants is limited to 25 people max. Depending on the number of participants who wish to present their work, the organisers may need to select amongst the individual projects for discussion. • Special interest sessions “sociology & humanities” / “political science”• Additional program: open space time slots for questions and discussion, dinner, pubcrawl • Venue: University of Augsburg Campus; for more information see www.diskurswissenschaft.de , “Travel and Hotel Information”.
Workshop fee
The workshop fee is 70 Euro per person (includes
refreshments during the work-shop). This fee does not cover travel,
accommodation, or meals, which are the responsibility of each individual
participant. A reduced fee (35 Euros) might apply for participants arriving
from Non-European ‘low income’ countries without insti-tutional coverage of
participation.
Registration
Please register by e-mail
at skad@phil.uni-augsburg.de. This should include the
following elements:
- Last name, first name, e-mail
- Private address or address at your institution
- Current position
- If applicable: your current research project in discourse analysis and whether or not you are interested in presenting and discussing your own research/data at the workshop.
- Choice of special interest (A: sociology & humanities / B: political science)
After your
registration you will receive a preliminary confirmation. We will also send you
an invoice for the participation fee to be paid. The registration becomes fully
effective when the participation fee has been received on our booking account.
Withdrawing from the
workshop is possible until four weeks before the event; can-cellations after
this time will not be refunded. There will be a waiting list in case the event
is fully booked.
Please note
that depending on the Corona situation in September 2022, particu-lar
university campus regulations (such as proof of vaccinations, obligatory mask
wearing) might apply.
Preliminary Workshop
Program
Thursday (22/9/2022)
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4.00 pm
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Registration
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4.30 pm
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Welcome from the organisers + Introduction
of the participants
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The Arena of Discourse Studies
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SKAD: What’s it all about?
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7.00 pm
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Welcome reception with food & drinks
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Friday (23/9/2022)
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9.00 am
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SKAD: Theory & Methodology
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10.45 am
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Break
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11.00 am
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SKAD: Research process and methods
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12.30 am
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Lunch
(not included)
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1.45 pm
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SKAD goes digital
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3.15 pm
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Break
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3.30 pm
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Data analysis sessions I & II (parallel
sessions)
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5.30 pm
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Break
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5.40 pm
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Open Space
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6.15 pm
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---End of Day 2---
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7.00 pm
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Dinner
(not included)
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Saturday (24/9/2022)
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9.00 am
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Data analysis sessions I & II (parallel
sessions)
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11.00 am
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Break
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11.15 am
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Discussion of participants projects
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12.30 am
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Lunch
(not included)
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1.45 pm
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Special interest sessions
A (sociology & humanities) or B (political
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|
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science) (including discussion of
participants projects)
|
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3.00 pm
|
Break
|
|
3.15 pm
|
Special interest sessions
A (sociology & humanities) or B (political
|
|
|
science) (including discussion of
participants projects)
|
|
5.00 pm
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Break
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5.20 pm
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Open Discussion
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6.00 pm
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---End of Workshop---
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7.00 pm
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Dinner
& optional pubcrawl (not included)
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The
Organisers
Prof. Dr. Reiner Keller is Professor of Sociology at the University
of Augsburg; co-director of the Centre for Transnational Studies and member of
the executive board of the German Sociological Association (DGS). From 2011 to
2016 he headed the sociology of knowledge division of the DGS. He started
working on and with SKAD in the 1990s. He has longstanding experiences in
discourse workshops as well as a long list of publications in discourse
research. His work & research inter-ests include social science discourse
research, sociology of knowledge and culture, qualitative methods, and analysis
of contemporary societies. He has a longstand-ing experience in conducting and
directing collaborative research projects. Keller was a member of the Munich
Centre for Reflexive Modernization from 1999 to 2010 and has just finished
co-directing a comparative research on French and German history of
sociological knowledge production since the 1960s, funded by the Ger-man
Research Foundation (DFG). Current projects include DFG-funded research on
politics of knowledge and knowing in the field of hydraulic fracturing
(2017-2021), energy transition (2018-2022) and regulatory conflicts surrounding
prosti-tution (2018-2022), respectively. See http://www.uni-augsburg.de/keller
Prof.
Dr. Wolf Schünemann is a political scientist, he currently holds a position as assistant
professor for Internet and Politics at Hildesheim University. He is the founder
and leader of the Data Science Lab and a member of the directorate of the
Center for Digital Change at Hildesheim University. His research interests
cover various questions concerning the governance of digitalisation, including
data pro-tection, AI regulation or the fight against hate speech and disinformation.
In recent works, he has presented a theoretical explanation for
re-nationalisation in online content control and developed measurement
techniques for transnational commu-nication flows. Since his doctoral studies,
Wolf has applied SKAD in a successive number of studies to different research
objects in the realm of politics. In an at-tempt to drive methodological
development further, he combines SKAD with quan-titative discourse analysis as
well as network analytical methods for the empirical inquiry into online
discourse and communication, using large amounts of data. See https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/fb1/institute/institut-fuer-sozialwissenschaf-ten/politikwissenschaft/mitglieder/professorinnen-und-professoren/poli-tikschuenemann/
References
Keller, R. (2011): The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse
(SKAD). In: Human Studies, 34 (1), pp. 43-65.
Keller, R. (2012):
Entering Discourses: A New Agenda for Qualitative Research and Soci-
ology
of Knowledge. In: Qualitative Sociology Review, Vol. VIII Issue 2, pp. 46-55.
Keller, R. (2013): Doing Discourse Research. An Introduction for the
Social Sciences. London:
Sage.
Keller, R. (2014): Comparing Discourse Between Cultures. A Discursive
Approach to Move-ment Knowledge. In: Baumgarten, B., Daphi, P., Ulrich, P.
(Eds.): Conceptualizing Culture in Social Movement Research. Hampshire:
Palgrave, pp. 113-139 (with P. Ullrich).
Keller,
R./Hornidge, A./Schünemann, W. (Eds.) (2019): The Sociology of Knowledge Ap-proach
to Discourse. Investigating the Politics of Knowledge and Meaning-Making.
London: Routledge.
Keller, R. (2023): The Sociology of Knowledge
Approach to Discourse. A Research Agenda. New
York: Springer (translated from the 3rd German edition, in prep).
Focus on political science:
Schünemann, W. (2017). Almost the same stories: Narrative patterns in
EU treaty refer-endums. National Identities, 19(2), pp. 199-214.
Wu,
A.X. (2012). Hail the independent thinker: The emergence of public debate
culture on the Chinese Internet. International Journal of Communication, 6, pp.
2220-2244.
General
conditions for participation
- Participants who have received preliminary confirmation must pay all fees as-sociated with workshop participation within four weeks after initial confirma-tion. Should payment not be received at this time, their right to participate is forfeit.
- Paying the appropriate fee within the allocated timeframe grants participants access to a workshop. Participants may transfer their right to participate to another person with the organisers’ permission.
- Participants may withdraw from workshops up to 4 weeks before the event. Participants will receive a refund in this case. Fees cannot be refunded if a participant withdraws after this time.
- In case that the workshop must be cancelled by the organisers due to force majeure, all fees will be refunded.
- The organisers take no responsibility for damage to or loss of electronic and other equipment.
- Exceptions for international applicants: Non-EU residents may ask to pay their fees in cash upon commencement of the workshop if the costs incurred by in-ternational money transfers are unreasonably high. Please indicate that you require this exception within 10 working days of receiving your preliminary con-firmation. The organisers may require further information or guarantees to be provided for participants to qualify. The decision to grant this exception lies solely with the organisers.
- Please note that depending on the Corona situation in September 2022, partic-ular university campus regulations (such as proof of vaccinations, obligatory mask wearing) might apply.
