https://at-ceu.studyguide.timeedit.net/modules/INTR5078?type=COREInterpretive research is distinct in its focus on how social actors interpret their world, and thus emphasises contextual understanding, subjectivity, and the co-constitution of meanings between researcher and participant. Interpretive research in IR is, fundamentally, an endeavour to unpack and reconstruct the life worlds and meaning-making of political actors, with the researcher as an engaged and reflexive co-constructor of knowledge. It is a form of situated knowledge production. It puts context and meaning-making at the centre of research engagement, which shapes data generation logics and strategies. This seminar accordingly focuses on the study of politics 'from below' and 'from within' to make sense of the social makeup and power relations in particular political settings. It will help plan for theory-informed empirical projects which require investigation into the meanings of specific concepts and the constitution of political practices. The overall objective of the course is to develop hermeneutic sensibility and reflexivity, that is, capacities to recognise the contingency and multiplicity of meanings and to situate one's own interpretive standpoint, over the pursuit of objectivity, replicability, and universal correctness. The methodological aim of the seminar is twofold. First, it explains the vocabulary, processes, and criteria of excellence in interpretive research as motivated by the premise that an interpretive project should be evaluated by how convincingly it reconstructs meaning in context and reflects on its own conditions of possibility, not by its approximation of a model of neutral measurement. The sessions will accordingly: (1) cover components of interpretive design; and (2) explain the interpretive and critical approach to field and discursive work. We will do a lot of work on construction of research questions in particular. Second, the seminar engages interpretive and critical research practice by in-class exercises and simulation, as well as analysing published scholarship, conducting a practicum, sharing research experience, and discussing work in progress of the participants. While no extensive prerequisite knowledge of interpretive tradition is required, general familiarity with, openness to, and curiosity about different ways of knowing and doing research are necessary for fruitful and inclusive participation.