Defense and Illustration of Ethnography Lecture at AUB

Attend the Defense and Illustration of Ethnography lecture at AUB vy Didier Fassin. Fassin is a professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study of Princeton and Director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris/

Ethnography, which is the celebrated method of anthropologists but is practiced as well by sociologists, sometimes political scientists or legal scholars, has been the object of attacks from insiders (social scientists), outsiders (other scientists) and natives (populations studied), which have raised important epistemological, political and ethical issues about ethnographic practice. Part of the critique has involved the opposition between qualitative and quantitative research and the lack of evidence-based approach of the former.

The lecture will examine these questions and propose, on the basis of a study conducted on urban policing at the time of the riots in France, a defense and illustration of ethnography.