Home and Other Figments: Qualitative Approaches to Exile and Immigration

This course will introduce students to the major forms of qualitative research—discourse analysis, participatory action research, case studies, and grounded theory, among many others—by exploring psychological inquiries into the topics of exile and immigration. The unique experience of uprootedness provides an opportunity to ask questions about home, identity, and the transmission of the past and also provides the space to reflect upon the psychological methods used to understand such complexities. We will inquire into the relationships between epistemology and method, between language and experience, and between researchers and “participants.” Course readings will be drawn from classic and contemporary qualitative research on various diasporas, reflecting a critical eye toward how research may conceptualize, frame, and liberate exiles and immigrants.