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Institute of Archaeology

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Critical Heritage Research Skills

This module equips students with expertise in designing and evaluating heritage research, including key sources, methodologies, practical frameworks used in qualitative research in heritage studies.

This module equips students with expertise in designing and evaluating heritage research, including key sources, methodologies, and practical frameworks used in qualitative research in heritage studies. These include ethnography in theory and practice, research ethics, object-based methodologies, archival science, participant observation, internet ethnography, and spatial methodologies. Throughout, the emphasis is on linking theory with practice across a variety of global and situational contexts, and equipping students to think critically about their dissertations. Students will learn to engage with the methods underpinning current research, as well as to develop and defend their own methodological decisions. The module will help students develop professional skills through in-class work and assessments, which include a research-based policy pitch to a heritage organisation and a grant application to a research funding body. 

Aims and Objectives of the module

  • Engage students with different kinds of source material (textual, visual, material, spoken, and spatial), their contributions, demands, and limitations.
  • Provide conceptual and practical ability in current qualitative research methods in heritage studies and archaeology.
  • Develop critical faculties to assess (in debate and in writing) inter-disciplinary research, focusing on theory, practice, and quality of evidence.
  • Introduce students to major ethical debates in heritage studies and archaeology.
  • Examine the ways in which evidentiary sources and their treatments vary across global and situational contexts.
  • Equip students to design research projects that are methodologically rigorous and ethically sound.

Learning Outcomes

  • Critical engagement with primary and secondary sources
  • Reference skills, especially pertaining to diverse sources and their relevant institutions
  • Hands-on learning skills
  • Observation and critical reflection
  • Translating current research into policy for heritage organisations
  • Designing and writing proposals (from the project proposal assignment)

Teaching Methods

This course is assessed by means of a total of 4,000 words of coursework, divided into one presentation of 1,000 words and a PowerPoint, and one grant application of 3,000 words.

Module information

  • Code: ARCL0189
  • Credits: 15
  • Coordinator: Nadia Bartolini 
  • Prerequisite: Only available to those accepted onto the MA in Cultural Heritage Studies
  • Handbook: open»

For registered students

Availability

  • Running in 2023-24