UMass Boston

Course Overview

Description

This course introduces students to the basic premise of scientific inquiry as a process of knowledge generation and production that transpires in a field of power relations. It focuses on the relationship among knowledge, power and representation, and their constitutive role in shaping epistemology: 'the theory of knowledge,' or 'how we know what we know,' and ontology: 'our assumptions about the form and nature of reality.' The aim of the course is to develop an awareness of how knowledge is constructed, critically examined, evaluated, and transformed, by communities and individuals. The course introduces students to theory as it emerges from particular knowledge claims. It reviews the construction of concepts, the use of concepts in social inquiry, and the inherent challenges of representation, and focuses on the key decision point of formulating a research question as it emerges from theory and articulates concepts, or a conceptual framework. It also introduces students to a range of epistemologies in the interdisciplinary social sciences that explicitly address issues of positionality, reflexivity, power, the lived experience of those we study, and critical consciousness. These epistemologies include critical theory, decolonial studies, postcolonial studies, feminist perspectives, critical race theory, indigenous theory, queer theory, institutional politics, disability theory and others. Discussions address the many ways in which power influences the research process at every step. Further, this course emphasizes a public scholarship approach to research in contemporary times, which produces knowledge that is available outside of the academy, useful to relevant stakeholders, and vital to the democratization of research. The themes of global inclusion and social development permeate all key concepts of the course.