LATAM 601:Seminar in the Methods of Latin American Studies (Fall 2009)

Instructors

Course objective

Latin American Studies 601 is designed to introduce MA students to: (1) qualitative and quantitative methods for social science research; (2) resources on Latin America; and (3) the process of constructing a valid research question that can be used to create a thesis proposal.

Our focus is research methods but we do not believe that they can be taught in a vacuum. Consequently, there is quite a bit of content as well as the focus on methods. Dr. Gerber is an economist and Dr. Perez is an anthropologist, so the content is drawn from those areas.

One of the most important goals for this course is to develop an appreciation for the uses of both quantitative and qualitative research methods. We do not favor one over the other as we think they both are useful, necessary, and complementary. We hope to convey this view to you.

We recognize that we cannot provide a thorough grounding in any particular method, so we recommend that you take an additional course or courses focused on the techniques and methods of analysis that will be most useful to you. Our intention is to introduce a wide variety of methods and data sources so that you can develop an understanding of what is available for use in writing a thesis about Latin America. This course will help you discover your interest areas and assist in the development of a thesis topic.

Requirements

Crossing the border...

is not a requirement. If you prefer not to, it will not affect your grade in any way whatsoever. Our research projects will be in Tijuana, but we will have options for anyone that does not want to go. We will discuss this in class, in detail.

Required Readings

All the following are required. Buy Lida now and read it. We will read the books in the following order.

Grading

Policy on incompletes. We do not give a grade of Incomplete (I) unless there are truly exceptional circumstances.

Grading of weekly assignments. Generally, this is done on a scale of 0-3, where 0 means you did not do it. Three is excellent, all points answered completely and writing is well done. It is evident you did the reading and you are able to apply it to the questions. Two is very good but missing a couple of ideas or not clear in its expression of the material. You did the reading but not as completely as we expect. One is for cases where you turn in the assignment and we cannot tell if you are relying exclusively on background information, or if you actually did the reading. In other words, there is no indication you read the material or that you understood it and can apply it.

Our expectations

The course only meets once a week. Consequently, we expect everyone to attend every class, to do the reading, and to be ready to discuss.

Course outline

September 1.
An introduction to the course and to each other Introduction to the course and each other.

We will try to learn something about each other. Dr. Perez and Dr. Gerber will give you an idea of the course and our objectives. Later in the semester we will break into teams to do a qualitative research project and we will talk about that as well. This week and in subsequent weeks we will discuss safety and our views of travel in Tijuana.

Homework: Log onto the following link, take the tutorial and bring your completed quiz to class on the 8th. http://infotutor.sdsu.edu/plagiarism/index.cfm

September 8
Journalistic accounts

Read Lida (whole book). Lida is a journalist and his Mexico City book is fairly new. You should look at how he talks about main social science topics such as urbanism, migration, inequality, social class, poverty, informality. For next week, bring to class 3-4 pages (see guidelines on writing assignments posted on Bb) that examine his information sources, ideas, and supporting evidence, for three main social science topics such as the ones listed in the previous sentence.

September 15
Phenomenological interviewing

Read Seidman, the whole book. We will discuss the book and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process, also known as human subjects. Bring to class 2 pages describing each of the 8 areas of the IRB discussed in Seidman and 2 pages comparing Seidman’s technique to Lida’s.

September 22
Census data

Review the census of population (often called a census of population and housing, or something similar) Website for a Latin American country of your choice. What kind of data is available? How is it organized? How often is the census taken? When is it taken? Over what period do they do it? What seems to be missing? Censuses come in all shapes and forms but the most common are Population and Housing, Economics (which are sometimes broken into parts--manufacturing, services, etc.--Agriculture Census, and a number of other specialty censuses, depending on the country and the year. You find direct links to the Websites of Latin American national statistical agencies through the Felipe Herrera Library (online) at the Inter-American Development Bank: http://www.iadb.org/library/eng/Statistics.html Bring to class 2-3 pages describing your census website.

September 29
Ethnographies: a community

Read Manz (whole book). This ethnography situates one community’s story within the larger issues of poverty, the cold war era and its impact on Latin America then and now, geography and its impact on development, and state terrorism against its own citizenry. Within these larger narratives are more finite stories on community identity, indigenous struggles for equality, death, survival, hope, and compassion. In no more than 6 pages, discuss which multiple disciplines and methodologies the author employed in acquiring the data and how they were used to develop the story. How is this different from Lida and Seidman? What is similar?

October 6
Ethnographies: an organization

Read Beckman (whole book). Beckman describes the tension between the women’s movement, the state, and economic development. Write 4-6 pages discussing the following questions. What role do maquiladoras play in her story? How do they contribute or hinder economic development? Do you see the tension between leftist politics in Nicaragua and movements for greater gender equality and women’s power as peculiar to her organization--its time and place--or as a reflection of more fundamental forces?

October 13
Midterm: 50 minutes
Multilateral organizations

Read the Website of the multilateral organization you were assigned in class last week. Bring 3 pages discussing its purpose, organization, and activities. Most of the paper should talk about activities that reflect its purpose, with some indication of the size of the organization--funding, staff.

October 20
Human development

Read Amratya Sen. Pages TBD. Sen is an economist who was born in the part of India that became Bangladesh. He spent the bulk of his career teaching at Cambridge and Harvard, and won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his work on social choice, welfare distributions, and poverty. He can reference the Mahabharata, the Diamond Sutra, Aristotle, Voltaire, and Rawlsian theories of justice. He has published completely inaccessible mathematically based economic theory, and he writes regularly for the New York Review of Books, often on famine, poverty, and governance. He helped create the Human Development Index (HDI) and his recent book Identity and Violence is a frontal assault, in very scholarly terms, on the arguments of Samuel Huntington (that the US identity is white Anglo-Saxon protestant, i.e., WASP). Write 4-6 pages explaining Sen’s idea of development how it intersects with human freedom, democracy, women’s agency, and culture. In class we will discuss the work and also look at how the concept of "development" has become operationalized in the HDI.

October 27
Institutions and informality

Read Hernando De Soto. All, except Chapter 4. De Soto’s work caused a stir when it was released. Since then, it has grown in influence, resulting for example in the World Bank’s Website, Doing Business (www.doingbusiness.org) which attempts to measure and compare business practices in 181 countries. For class, write 4-6 pages comparing De Soto’s methods to those of Beckman, Manz and Seidman. Do Beckman and Manz refer to informality, and if so, then how so? How do they include it in their writing, and to what extent is it the obstacle to development hypothesized by De Soto? What kind of data does De Soto and the Doing Business Website rely on and how does it compare to the information gathered by Beckman, Manz, or Seidman?

November 3
Socio-Economic Data

Visit the Socio-Economic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean (SEDLAC) at http://www.depeco.econo.unlp.edu.ar/sedlac/eng/index.php. Click on “Institutional” in the left frame and read about the SEDLAC project. Explore the site a bit, then click on “Guide” and read the Methodological Guide (also available on the course Bb site). After reading the methodological guide, pick one of the eleven data subject areas (parts 2 through 13 in the guide) and write a 4-6 page paper comparing different countries in Latin America. November 10 Rituals, customs, and tradition Read Norget. Whole work. While this is an ethnographic work on death and its meaning among the clase popular in Oaxaca, it is also about the people that make up the clase popular. Write an analytic review of the text that incorporates the discussions on the interdisciplinary nature of Latin American Studies of 6 to 8 pages and discuss the following: How does Norget define the clase popular and what makes this group a subculture specific enough to warrant this kind of detailed research? How do they reflect the larger population(s) of Oaxaca and then how do they form a separate subculture? This work falls within the category of urban anthropology and also encapsulates rural to urban migration. How is the data from this work applicable in a comparative framework? What other disciplines or areas of research would find this work useful? In what way? One of Oaxaca’s primary economic resources is its culture. How does death become commodity and to what degree does the commoditization affect its meaning for the community in Norget’s work?

November 17
Economic development and economic policy from 30,000 feet

Read Birdsall, et. al. Read the whole book. The authors marshal a great deal of data and quantitative information to make a series of recommendations about ways to improve Latin America’s development policies. The style and approach are about as far from ethnography as you can get, yet they are still grounded in empirical research. Write 4-6 pages describing the following: (1) The role of theory in their recommendations; (2) How their recommendations, if followed, might affect the clase popular in Oaxaca, if at all; (3) Whether you think De Soto would agree with the ideas presented by Birdsall, et. al., and why.

November 24
Survey data

Read (1) Welzel, C. A Human Development View on Value Change Trends (1981-2006). PowerPoint presentation. Downloaded from the World Values Survey Website at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/; and (2) Latinobarómetro, Report 2007. Downloaded from the Latinobarómetro Website: http://www.latinobarometro.org. Turn in a 3-5 page comparison on some aspect of public opinion in the US with two Latin American countries of your choice. You should have a complete, finished essay, and it must include at least one table.

December 1
Group presentations

December 8
Group presentations

Last Update: April 6, 2010