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Methods Café 2024

Fri, September 6, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Pennsylvania Convention Center (PCC), 201B

Session Submission Type: Café

Session Description

The 2024 APSA theme, “Democracy: Retrenchment, Renovation, & Reimagination,” invites
political scientists to consider pressing questions about the state of democratic theory and
practice with an aim to increase the applicability of political research towards building resilient
democratic systems. Our proposed Methods Café speaks directly to that theme by bringing
together a set of scholars with broad-ranging interpretive methods, and pedagogical expertise in
areas ranging from indigenous and Black women’s interpretive approaches, research ethics, and
(civic) engagement and action, to interpretive analysis of political discourse and US social
movements. At the café, these scholars are available to anyone who wishes to seek advice, solve
problems, or discuss the topic they specialize in.
The café is not a panel or roundtable session where presenters prepare formal presentations on
their topics and speak in sequence. Instead, it is an informal setting—“a café” with multiple
tables and places to sit—that allows for one-on-one and group discussions, networking and
support. Here, cafe “visitors” will find several round tables set up in the café meeting room; each
table has a placard which displays the method being discussed at that table (e.g., “Interviewing”)
and one or two “specialists” in that research method sitting at that table. The café will also
include tables with journal editors and representatives from funding agencies who are familiar
with these methods. Topics and the names of the specialists are listed in the conference program,
and one or more hosts positioned at the room’s entrance helps people figure out who is sitting
where and further explain the process.
“Visitors” to the café are invited to arrive at any point in the time block allotted, visit any table
they like, and stay as long as they like. A visitor might approach a table, sit down, and ask the
specialist to talk about how they use the method on offer at that table. If a conversation is already
under way, others can join in or just sit and listen. One need not worry about having questions
that are “too elementary”—it is fine to ask anything about that method, at any level!—and
visitors may leave the table or room at any time. Altogether, we encourage visitors to circulate
among as many tables as they wish, and we ask only that they sign in at each table they
visit—our way of evaluating the demand for each topic.
Visitors at past cafés have ranged from doctoral students to full professors. The range of
questions is equally broad and might include:
● “What is X method?” or
● “I’m in the midst of analyzing my data and I’ve run into [describes a specific problem],
how should I handle it?” or
● “One of my committee members/reviewers/etc. doesn’t believe that interpretive methods
are valid. How can I respond to this challenge?”
First initiated by Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea in 2005, the Methods Cafe has
been a successful and well-attended part of APSA for eighteen years.
Robin L. Turner - Chair, Butler University, rlturne1@butler.edu
Biko Koenig - Chair, Franklin & Marshall College, bkoenig@fandm.edu

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