Welcome!
The Kule Research Cluster in Advancing Social Research Methods and Training for Social Change is a group of interdisciplinary scholars at the University of Alberta committed to advancing knowledge and training in social research methods. We are working to build a cross-disciplinary network of researchers, students, and community organizations at and beyond the University of Alberta with the goal of promoting knowledge and rigor in the understanding, application, and teaching of social research methods aimed at making a difference in the world.
Our joint initiative addresses the question, Given the rapidly changing world of data, evidence, and method, how can we retool research methods and training to better support social justice, reduce inequality, and produce real change?
On this site you will find information about relevant research methods courses offered at the University of Alberta at both the undergraduate and graduate level, information about upcoming seminars on research methods, and more as our project unfolds.
NEXT SEMINAR:
December 6, 2024
Scrolling, Shopping, Sewing: An Ethnography of Slow Fashion
Friday, December 06, 2024
2:00 pm-3:00 pm
Hybrid Seminar
in person: Tory Building 12-15 (Political Science CoLab)
virtual: Zoom link
This seminar offers a detailed description of the creative, multi-modal, multi-sited ethnographic practice employed in research on the slow fashion movement and community in the US and on Instagram. It outlines how slow fashion practitioners were followed across digital and in-person spheres, which was framed around central community practices: (1) scrolling, (2) shopping, and (3) sewing. This method builds on one of digital anthropology’s most recent and exciting methodological transformations: ‘immersive cohabitation’ (Bluteau 2021). Further, the discussion examines the methodological tensions the use of social media and creative practice brought up during fieldwork through the exploration of three questions: (1) What happens when your field site is algorithmically designed to addict you? (2) What happens when your field site encourages overconsumption? (3) What happens when your ethnographic practice becomes a performance? In pursuing answers to these questions, this talk discusses the possibilities and complexities facing digital ethnographers in the present moment.
Jimil Ataman, PhD
Professor of Human Ecology, University of Alberta
Dr. Jimil Ataman is an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Innovation in the Global Fashion Industry in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of Alberta. Dr. Ataman completed her PhD in Cultural Anthropology and Education at the University of Pennsylvania in 2024. Using creative and digital ethnographic methods, her research follows the slow fashion community on Instagram and in the Pacific Northwest through their daily work to transform how clothing is made, bought, and sold. She explores how the transformative potential of slow fashion is not without contradiction and traces how consumers, makers, industry professionals, and online community members navigate these constraints.
Please click on the article below to read more about ethnographic methods with Instagram.
This project is funded by the Kule Institute for Advanced Study in collaboration with the University of Alberta.
Advancing Social Research Methods for Change 