Critical methodologies engage and problematize global approaches in social sciences, humanities, and cultural studies in dialogue with perspectives from the margins on research practice across disciplines and in cross-cultural contexts with regional and local cases in the global South and beyond. The course provides insights from research in interdisciplinary environments such as studies of urban space, critical heritage, migration, human rights, religion, music, and diversities. The course provides PhD students with new insights into critical methodologies aiming for dialogue across structural, physical, and disciplinary boundaries challenging binary thinking by learning and unlearning and thinking otherwise. Southern and decolonial perspectives imply a dialogue and critical interrogation of the politics of knowledge and research methodologies in various contexts across the world. We reflect critically on the politics and ethics of knowledge, research design and impact, inequalities, power relations, coloniality, intersectionality, positionality, reflexivity, and the unforeseen and failure in doing research.

SKILLS

The candidate:

• Formulates theoretically grounded problems using critical methodologies to plan and carry out interdisciplinary research in their own field at an international level.
• Employs and makes use of critical methodologies across social, political and cultural contexts, challenging established knowledge and practices in a way that qualifies for international, peer-reviewed publication.
• Can identify and analyze the need for knowledge development and change in established research approaches within the cross-cutting areas of social sciences and humanities.

GENERAL COMPETENCE

The candidate:

• Critically discusses and evaluates methodological questions in their own and others’ projects, communicating such evaluations to peers and the academic community.
• Can disseminate research results on critical methodologies and interdisciplinary research through national and international publication channels where academic production is scrutinized by critical peer-reviews.
• Can identify knowledge gaps and reformulate research questions in innovative ways that contribute to new thinking in critical methodologies in ways that are relevant to their research area and relevant fields of practice.
• Can identify ethical and political challenges in methodological approaches, conducting research with academic integrity.
• Can manage complex professional tasks in research, identifying struggles in dominant approaches and contributing to new thinking in research methodologies.