Informazioni sul corso

What is global governance and how might it be investigated? Embracing an interpretivist epistemology, this course provides an overview of how to conduct research on global governance through a range of qualitative methodological approaches and tools. Throughout the course, students will be introduced to central theoretical debates that foreground global governance and the actors that constitute it as a social practice, a technopolitical project, a historical process, and a visual culture. As opposed to disembodied rational-legal structures, diverse global governance actors (including but not limited to intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, expert bodies, international courts) will be unpacked as complex social environments defined by a political desire to problematize and govern matters of global concern. Transgressing disciplinary boundaries, this course showcases ethnography, interviewing, archival research, document analysis, and visual analysis as heuristic methodological entries into the worlds of global governance. Approaching scientific research as a social practice like any other, students gain practical experience on how to prepare for fieldwork and write fieldnotes, how to develop an interview guide, and how to approach institutional archives. Students will also develop sensibilities and competencies for handling ethical issues and power dynamics endemic to the research process.