Workshop with Mercator Fellow Vitor Sèrgio Ferreira „Methodological, positional, and ethical reflexivity“

The workshop is only for members of the research training group. Mercator Fellow Vitor Sèrgio Ferreira (University of Lisbon) will focuse the following topic:

In a context of social, theoretical, and methodological profusion, how is the reliability of data, particularly data of a qualitative nature – be it narrative, observational, or visual, among others -, is thought and guaranteed. I advance the arguments that the reliability of qualitative data is guaranteed, above all, by criteria of methodological, positional, and ethical reflexivity of the researcher throughout his or her research path. This means that the reliability of the data is not associated with a supposed status of neutrality guaranteed by the method, but, on the contrary, to the objectification with rigor by the researcher him/herself of the conditions of social production of these results and analyses which he reached, identifying and justifying the various options and decisions which he took in the course of action underlying the research process. Thus, the discussion on these issues has to be part of the writing process of any methodological chapter.