We will visit key research methodologies on the entanglements of the social, the spatial, the cultural, and the political as we explore some of the limitations of current practices in academia.
Drawing on critical, decolonial, and participatory perspectives, the course will discuss methods in practice in connection with decolonising research and endeavours to think otherwise. Tailored to students' own research interests, the course will address cross-disciplinary approaches such as visual, participatory, multisensory, decolonial, feminist, and Indigenous methodologies, and intersectional, musical, post-structural, and critical discourse analysis.
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.
The course is blended. It begins with digital lectures and seminars introducing the main research approaches in the field. In introductory seminars, PhD candidates work on their research projects with fellow students and academic staff. This is followed by an intensive five-day in-person week of lectures, seminars, and multisensory workshops at the University of South-Eastern Norway providing empirical research experiences in the field. Students will have the opportunity to present their own research in seminars, relating the research perspectives introduced in the course to their own research topics. The course will include participatory, decolonial, and multisensory workshops.
Requirements
This course is suitable for PhD candidates in the Humanities, Educational, and Social Sciences as it will strengthen their analytical ability to work with critical methodologies.
It is also open to students with a Master’s degree in such areas. Candidates from other relevant fields are also eligible.
Candidates from EDUC universities must apply at their home university. Scholarships are available for selected students.
Learning outcomes
Knowledge
The candidate:
- Is at the forefront of international research on emerging critical methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches from within and beyond the global margins on social, spatial, cultural, and political contexts within their own research field;
- Has in-depth knowledge of cultural, social, and political dimensions of knowledge production and its impact on methodologies;
- Can contribute to the development of new knowledge and interpretations of interdisciplinary and contested research approaches, challenging current academic limitations and fostering new methods in their field, such as visual, participatory, multisensory, decolonial, feminist, and Indigenous methodologies, and intersectional, musical, post-structural, and discourse analysis.
- Can assess the epistemological assumptions underlying different research and knowledge traditions, particularly in relation to critical and decolonial methodologies and interdisciplinary research related to their own research field.
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.
This course comprises
- Lectures with discussions and writing tasks – both digitally and in-person.
- Seminars with presentations, featuring discussions about the literature and the PhD candidate’s research topic
- Obligatory reading and preparatory work prior to seminars and lectures.
- Cross-disciplinary workshops drawing on artistic methods
- Multisensory small-scale fieldwork in various locations and local communities
Course requirements
- Research abstract (max 1500 words) of students research project, including a detailed plan of their research methodology;
- Participation in online group work;
- Seminar presentation of their tentative research methodology (in person USN Drammen)
- Participation in cross-disciplinary workshops and multisensory small-scale fieldwork
- Active participation in the course’s seminars and 80% attendance.
- Successful completion of the course is contingent on approval of the digital and in-person components and submission of the essay (examination).
Exam
PhD candidates are expected to write a short essay where they relate critical methodologies to their PhD research topic (3000 words max). The essay is a take-home exam. The essay must demonstrate that the candidate has achieved the learning objectives as described in the course description. It must also conform to academic standards regarding referencing and citation practices.
Application
- Please fill out this online form by 28 February: Blended Research Summer School at USN: Critical Methodologies (nettskjema.no)
- Also find further information for EDUC-students regarding this course in the EDUC Course Catalogue (courses.educalliance.eu)
Student testimonial
Get inspired by the students who participated in the Blended Research Summer School in Critical Methodologies in 2026: