Alumni-led Seminar on Research Methods: Reflections

This October, we were thrilled to welcome back two SIPS alumni, Susan Sakano and Chiara Polverini, to co-lead a research seminar on research methods for students at Soka University. Susan and Chiara graduated from the SIPS programme five years ago now, so it was wonderful to welcome them back to deliver this seminar after quite some time. Since graduating from SIPS, they have both put the knowledge that they gained from the programme into practice, undertaking research across a range of settings and topics.

Chiara’s academic background spans the interdisciplinary field of Peace Studies, as well as Anthropology and Middle Eastern studies. Her research has made use of multiple methods including participant observation and primary source analysis with the goal of producing knowledge and ideas around how we approach intractable conflicts locally and internationally. Susan is a Brazilian human rights lawyer who, since graduating from SIPS, has been completing a PhD in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Durham. Her current research uses participatory methods in collaboration with communities and NGOs, blending traditional and creative qualitative methods.

The research seminar was well attended by students across SIPS, the Faculty of Letters, and the Faculty of International Liberal Arts (FILA). Its conversational nature provided a rich opportunity for current Soka University students to share and reflect on their very diverse approaches to thinking about and doing research. Susan and Chiara gave an overview of different approaches to qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research projects – surveying the many tools we have available to us to answer the research questions that move us. From photovoice to autoethnography and even walking as a method, we explored different and creative ways that researchers can go about answering the questions that spark their curiosity. As Chiara and Susan emphasised, approaching questions of methods and methodology inspire more profound reflections on what it means to do ethical research that benefits everyone involved (as well as the wider knowledge communities that that knowledge will speak to). And the methods we choose also reflect our deeper philosophies about what we think knowledge is. Perhaps we believe that there is a single truth out there that can be uncovered and verified (positivism). We might rather understand the world as constructed by many different realities that can be interpreted and explored (constructivism). Indeed, whether we take a constructivist or positivist approach affects the kinds of methods we find helpful in our efforts to undertake research.

We were lucky to hear Chiara and Susan share from both their theoretical knowledge of methods and methodology, as well as their own firsthand experiences as student and professional researchers. Throughout our conversations in the seminar, we reflected on the challenges that emerge from trying to plan and complete interesting and ethical research which responds to ‘real life’ issues in an everchanging world. Research is not always easy. But that does not mean it is not worth undertaking! What is crucial, as Chiara and Susan emphasised, is that we take the time to consider these questions carefully right from the birth of our research projects – and that we keep coming back to these considerations throughout too.

We are thankful to Chiara and Susan for coming back and sharing their insights and post-SIPS journeys with us!

(This article is written by Dr. Lydia Hiraide, Lecture of SIPS)