Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POC3136: Field Trip

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.

Module Aims

This module is intended to familiarise you with using ethnographic fieldwork within a safe and controlled setting, and under the supervision of staff, to develop and expand your independent scholarship. The course highlights the interconnections between space and politics through an exploration of various social and geographical spaces that form the background of political activity in a field trip location. It does so by enabling you to visit symbolic spaces of commemoration, negotiation, learning and debate. You will gain the capacity to integrate field methods such as participant observation of everyday events and sites, exploratory conversations with community members, situated analyses of grassroots organizations and visual, aesthetic, spatial, and economic analyses of politicised spaces and public forums. You will learn how to keep an ethnographic notebook of your travels, collect photos of meaningful sites, and carefully observe the landscape (‘natural’ and built environment). You will visit places such as museums and memorializations, community organizations, and practice approaching these sites through various lenses, working in student groups organized around substantive theoretical, practical and methodological research themes.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. demonstrate in both oral and written work substantive knowledge of major political dynamics affecting a field trip location, across multiple scales, in the various subfields we examine; 2. demonstrate in the field and in assessments the ability to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different research methods in oral and written work; 3. demonstrate in written and oral work the ability to apply a range of theories about politics and change to historical and contemporary debates;
Discipline-Specific Skills	4. demonstrate in oral and written work the ability to apply political concepts and theories to specific case study sites; 5. synthesize field observations and research to support critical engagements with and extensions of existing literatures; 6. demonstrate in your oral and written work understanding of the implications of new evidence for a given political perspective; 7. demonstrate in your oral and written work that you understand different methods of research in the field and their implications for findings;
Personal and Key Skills	8. work independently and in groups, including presentations for class discussion, and in spontaneous discussion and defence of arguments in class, and to manage conflict; 9. demonstrate analytical, creative, critical and organizational capacity in essays, group presentations and group discussion; 10. write essays and complete assessments to a deadline.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, particularly in response to students’ own research interests, it is envisaged that the taught syllabus will cover at least some of the following material, in a mix of seminars and methods workshops before and after the field trip and through students’ extensive self-directed study.

The precise location of the field trip will vary from year to year and will be subject to UK Government travel restrictions. Should the trip not be deliverable as specified (e.g. in Online Module Selection or marketing) then you will be notified of the alternative delivery that nonetheless meetings the ILO of the module.

Politics in Place: Cities, Urbanism, and Urbanization
Whose Politics and Whose Place?: Dominant Narratives and Critical Orientations
Fixes and Flows: The Complex Economies of Cities
Postcolonial, Settler-Colonial, and Decolonial Cities
The Aesthetic City: Feeling Sensing Living Breathing Wearing Creating Politics
Building the Good Life: the Built Landscape

Field Trip:
A six day field trip, including visits to iconic sites, sites of community differentiation and determination, and sites of aesthetic enactments such as museums . Content of the field trip will vary from year to year, depending on the current political climate.

Methods Workshop 1: Field Work Ethics and Public-Engaged Research
An introduction to power relations in politics research, reviewing key concepts such as voluntary informed consent, research bias, anonymity, confidentiality and the dignity of research participation. Focuses on the politics of “public” research, from engaging with community organizations and marginalised people to structuring interview questions and participating in shared knowledge production.

Methods Workshop 2: Ethnography, Data Diversity and Research Reflexivity
A seminar on interdisciplinary approaches to the politics of ethnographic research, including participant observations, ethnographic walking, photography/visual recording, rhythmanalysis and other methods. Students will learn about using multiple forms of data gathering and keeping effective records of fieldwork.

*Training provided through the methods workshops is mandatory for participation in the field trip. Participation will be monitored, and those students who miss the seminar will have to retake it.

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
22	238	40

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching activities	22	The module will be taught through 6 seminars of 3 hours each, and 2 methods workshops of 2 hours each
Placement/Study Abroad	40	The module will include one field trip under staff supervision. Hours include field research, keeping field guide, and participating in field-based seminar discussions.
Guided Independent Study	60	Private study reading and preparing for seminars/workshops
Guided Independent Study	60	Private study guided and independent research around field trip sites and thematics, before and after trip
Guided Independent Study	118	Researching, creating/writing assessments: planning and writing presentation, portfolio and critical essay.

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).