Foreign Policy and Ethnography: Researching European Expertise (2)
PhD Workshop with Merje Kuus at University of Amsterdam
The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the methods and challenges of doing fieldwork in foreign policy settings. Special guest is Merje Kuus from the University of British Columbia, visiting professor at ACCESS EUROPE in June 2014
Kuus, a political geographer, draws insights from international relations, anthropology and sociology for her analysis of how the geopolitical knowledge that informs EU foreign policy is created and circulated.
In her work on foreign policy bureaucracies, Kuus has focused on everyday practices in the European Quarter in Brussels and the foreign policy of the EU. Geopolitics and Expertise: Knowledge and Authority in European Diplomacy, her book on diplomatic knowledge and geopolitical expertise just published by Wiley-Blackwell, is based on a large empirical study involving over hundred interviews with policy professionals at the EU over recurrent visits to Brussels over seven years, covering the establishment of the European External Action Service (EEAS). In a recent article in Geopolitics, Kuus makes a plea for a more realistic appreciation of the value and the limitation of fieldwork in foreign policy bureaucracies, discussing more specifically the logistical and intellectual difficulties of the ethnographic study of foreign policy, and foregrounding the methodological dilemmas involved.
Opportunity for PhD students
The workshop provides an opportunity for PhD candidates and early career postdoctoral researchers to present work-in-progress, with a focus on their fieldwork experience and methodological challenges. Possible themes for discussion include:
- The everyday practice of foreign policy and related bureaucracies
- EU knowledge production and expertise, and the circulation thereof
- Challenges of conducting fieldwork inside foreign policy (e.g. access, secrecy and gender issues)
- Ethnographic research, foreign policy and power relations
- Notions of authority and agency in mundane bureaucratic processes.
Registration
Please register by sending an email to Marijn Hoijtink: m.hoijtink@uva.nl. Participation is free.
Organisers
This workshop is organised by Marieke de Goede (UvA), Marijn Hoijtink (UvA), Virginie Mamadouh (UvA) and Wolfgang Wagner (VU), and is part of the activities of the ‘Europe in the World’ research theme of ACCESS EUROPE.