FIELD TRAINING SCHOOL AND RESEARCH SEMINAR
URBAN RESEARCH: THEORY AND METHODS
Montecatini Terme, Tuscany, Italy, 21-27 July 2023
Convenors: Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato, University of Kent, UK
This 7-day Field Training School brought together postgraduate students and postdoctoral scholars engaged in research in urban settings and in empirically-grounded analysis. The primary aim was to train junior scholars in the ‘art’ of conducting ethnographic fieldwork and develop the link between ethnographically-based analysis and social theory.
The School was organised and hosted by the International Urban Symposium-IUS in collaboration with an international group of senior scholars from leading universities. It addressed key issues; including, legitimacy and legitimation; governance, stereotype and stigma; informality; urban diversity; crisis, emergency and conflict; sport mega-events; rituals; vernacular landscape, heritage.
Targeted Observational Field Trips, on which participants reported at length, supplemented the in-class work.
The School concluded with one full-day Research Seminar during which junior scholars presented their own research papers and engaged in academic debate benefiting from expert feedback from the teaching staff.
The interactive learning environment encouraged productive discussion on the rationale and practices of traditional and new research methods and mainstream debates.
Social events benefited from the centrality of the location and its world-renowned SPA iconic establishments.
Expanded and revised versions of select Seminar papers will be published in outlets associated with the IUS, including the open-access, peer-reviewed journal Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography.
The Venue: Hotel Corallo, Montecatini Terme, Italy
