This course is aimed at researchers from various disciplines who draw on methodologies rooted in oral history and ethnography. Its main objective is to help them navigate the numerous challenges they face, and introduce them to debates that emerged following a previous reading group series (September – December 2024).
The course will do so by organising four workshops. These are aimed at encouraging participants to share their own valuable experiences and insights, and to critically reflect on methodological difficulties, including questions on the relational and socio-political ethics of doing ethnographic research. The course focuses on three questions: (1) who are the gatekeepers of historical knowledge production; (2) how can historians use ethnographic methods in an ethically responsible way; and (3) how can we both theoretically and pragmatically approach the positions of ‘expert’ and ‘participant’?
The doctoral school, co-organised by CESSMIR and TAPAS at Ghent University, consist of four sessions, each with a different expert in the field, and a final conference day. In each of the workshops, the expert will combine an explanation of their own research and experiences with an interactive platform in which we go deeper into specific, personal questions, difficulties, challenges in your own research. In this way, we will be learning from each other and each other’s work, guided by an expert on the topic. The purpose is that your input is of important relevance, in a way that the workshops will try to really interact with your work, and formulate ‘answers’ to challenges present at your work. During the conference day in may, participants to the doctoral school present their research and come into contact with others who work on similar topics. In a panel formula, you will be able to go deeper into different topics related to the methodological and ethical reflections on the co-creation of knowledge.
Program
12/02, 2-5 PM – Workshop session I — Tina Degendt
Tina De Gendt is a public historian who mainly focuses on the history of the city of Ghent. Migration, urbanity, heritage, superdiversity and social struggles are recurring themes. Public space, oral history and fundamental participation are core methods. During her last project, The Square Kilometer (for the Ghent City Museum STAM), she developed a new methodological framework for participatory heritage work in superdiversity: negotiating narratives. Currently, a big overview exhibition is ongoing in the Ghent City Museaum STAM and her book on her work on the urban gates has just been published!
26/02, 2-5 PM – Workshop session II — Karolina Kluczewska
Karolina Kluczewska was an FWO postdoctoral researcher at the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies (GIES) and a research associate at the Institute of Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus Studies, University of St Andrews (UK). She is currently starting a new job in a German research institute. Her current research explores evolving understanding of welfare in Poland and Tajikistan. Her expertise for this doctoral school stems from her own research and more specifically the chapter for an edited book project on “cooperative research” she is currently involved in.
12/03, 2-5 PM – Workshop session III — Lieselot De Wilde (Ghent University)
Lieselot De Wilde has conducted extensive historical pedagogical research on for example the last Ghent orphanages and family histories of Congolese decolonial activists. Her work shows her expertise in navigating the complex intersection of personal memory, archival research, and institutional history and her ability to add to discussions about the ethical, theoretical, and socio-political dimensions of historical research, particularly in contexts involving vulnerable populations. Besides being an excellent researcher, prof. dr. De Wilde is also an excellent teacher in the field of historical pedagogy, philosophy of education and fundaments of pedagogy (historische, algemene en wijsgerige pedagogiek).
26/03, 2-5 PM – Workshop session IV — Lise Zurné (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Lise Zurné is a lecturer at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication. Her PhD project explored the representation of modern war history in re-enactment practices and focuses on how reenactors engage with sensitive pasts, including decolonization, women in war and the embodiment of suffering. Her expertise for this doctoral school stems from her own research in which she did participative field work and where she gained expertise on how to relate to your interlocutors. During her work, she also experienced sexual harassment, which lead her to write about this and to create the working group ‘Safety in the Field’.
14/05, 9.30 AM – 6PM – Conference/colloquium
More info here. Registrations for the doctoral school and/or for the final conference here! Questions? Feel free to contact