w88 casino News Network (provided by the w88 casino of Government)On December 10, 2023, the "Between Field and Theory" Youth Roundtable Forum on Qualitative and Case Studies hosted by the w88 casino of Government of the w88 casino (hereinafter referred to as the "w88 casino of Government") was grandly held. The conference invited five young scholars who have long been well-known and active in the field of qualitative and case studies to jointly conduct online discussions. Teachers and students from public administration, sociology, political science, economics and other disciplines from many universities, party schools (administrative schools) and scientific research institutes across the country participated in this conference through Tencent conferences and live webcasts. Among them, nearly 750 people participated in the Tencent conference.
Teacher Gantian, the host of the meeting
At the opening ceremony, Professor Lu Weixia, Vice Dean of the w88 casino of Political Science and Management, delivered a speech on behalf of the organizer. She first extended a warm welcome to the guests, teachers and classmates. In her speech, she pointed out that the w88 casino of Political Science and Management attached great importance to the teaching and research of qualitative and case studies, and established a research team led by two young teachers, Gan Tian and Xu MengmengThe "Qualitative and Case Study" scientific research and education team, this forum is also an important part of scientific research and education activities. Later, she reviewed the development history of the w88 casino of Political Science and Management. The predecessor of the college was the Department of Customs Management established in 1974, and it has a history of 49 years. Currently, the college is closely following the needs of national development and optimizing the layout of disciplines, hoping to make greater contributions to the great journey of Chinese modernization.
Vice President Lu Weixia’s speech
Subsequently, five young scholars shared and discussed around the theme of this forum.
Assistant Professor Zhong Zongju, w88 casino of Public Administration, Southwest Jiaotong University"Fieldwork: From responding to major practical needs of national governance to theoretical concerns" gave a keynote speech. He first pointed out that the reason why we go to the field is not only related to the need to be dissatisfied with second-hand data and seeing is believing, but also to the unique interest of scientific research in low-exposure phenomena, anomalies, etc. It is also related to the post-positivist paradigm's abandonment of universal truths and its embrace of explanations based on specific facts. On this basis, he further pointed out that the reason why emergency management goes to the field is that this field is mainly oriented to the disordered state of social systems in risk societies, and field research can accurately capture the operating status of the government and related subjects when the social system is in a disordered state. Later, he pointed out the cognitive misunderstandings in fieldwork, such as "the mentor's field is not your field" and "partial faith leads to darkness", etc. In the second part, he focused on "how to go into the field", emphasizing the need to focus on opening up channels, building trust, and focusing on the credibility of field data. In the final section, he uses emergency management as an example to discuss how fieldwork responds to governance needs and theoretical concerns. He pointed out that emergency management has practice-oriented characteristics, and one of the important practical needs is the professionalization of stability assessment. Fieldwork can distill general knowledge through exposure to specific, variable practices.
Teacher Zhong Zongju’s keynote speech
Li Chunsheng, assistant professor at the w88 casino of Public Administration, Hunan University"Evidence-based fieldwork: How do fragmentary daily observations piece together a complete theoretical picture?" The report was launched with the title. He first pointed out that ideal fieldwork often does not exist, such as "highly consistent with the interpretation of existing theories", "the research subjects will tell you everything in detail", and "there are enough events for you to choose to observe". When first entering the field, people usually encounter confusions such as "being led away by the research subjects", "being led away by book knowledge", and "the research is just a quick glance". Since case studies have the attribute of knowledge production, and knowledge has multiple attributes and types in practice, fieldwork produces "practical knowledge" or "local knowledge." Finally, he focused on the recent study published in the Journal of Public Administration, "Vertical Expansion of Departments with Hidden Technological Control Desire—Taking the Urban Management Department of District P as an Example," and pointed out that qualitative and case studies are the process of "interactive reproduction of field and theory." Entering the field requires sufficient theoretical preparation, discovering the confusion in observation, and associating the inspiration of the theory. However, this process is not smooth sailing and requires many trials and errors. Therefore, fieldwork requires constant shuttling back and forth between the field and theory, and ultimately tells the story of the knowledge behind the case.
Teacher Li Chunsheng’s keynote speech
Wu Jianyi, Assistant Professor, w88 casino of Public Administration, Southwest Jiaotong UniversityMake a keynote report on the topic of "Theoretical Issues or Practical Issues? Problem Conversion and Balance in the Field". He first pointed out that the disconnect between theoretical issues and practical issues is an issue worth pondering. Currently, the two are in an unhealthy state of "looking at each other and hating each other." This topic actually reflects two major challenges faced by public administration, namely the crisis of disciplinary identity and development and the debate between basic theories and "big issues". When combing through the history of public management thought, we will find that important representatives are often both practitioners and theorists. However, nowadays, the “discourse circle” and “academic circle” allow scholars to become professional researchers but alienate themselves from practice. This is also an important reason for the disconnect between theoretical issues and practical issues. Therefore, the key to changing this status quo lies in "the transformation and balance of theoretical issues and practical issues." Based on this, he pointed out that the current classic "theoretical problem research design" and "practical problem research design" have their own shortcomings. He advocated achieving the balance and transformation of theory and practice through "problem transformation", "psychological transformation", "discourse transformation" and other methods, so as to identify the causal mechanism through field evidence and carry out philosophical transformation and upgrading. Finally, based on the paper "Offside of Responsibilities of Grassroots Departments and Its Institutional Logic - Observation on the Field of Market Supervision" published in the Journal of Public Administration, he pointed out that field surveys should not "just look at the flowers", "believe in the dark", "just watch what they say", and don't "stop at the point".
Teacher Wu Jian’s keynote speech
Teacher Ling Zheng from Zhou Enlai w88 casino of Government, Nankai UniversityMade a keynote speech on the topic of “The ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Truth’ of Fieldwork”. He first pointed out that since its birth, the field of public administration has encountered doubts about its ability to respond to major practical needs. In view of this, researchers must understand governance research from a broader perspective, rather than just viewing research as a process of concept creation and data collection, and methods represented by empirical research have become an important paradigm for solving public management problems. He believes that research such as cooking, methods and fieldwork are the relationship between recipes and ingredients. Later, he pointed out that case studies explore causal relationships and emphasize causal mechanisms, and are also the "craft" of discovering and refining causal relationships or mechanisms. Compared with quantitative research, the difficulty of qualitative research lies in the search for evidence. He further pointed out that field research should pay special attention to the existing "illusions", including "rich written materials", "lively field trips" and "real meetings and exchanges", because the reality is that fields are often artificially constructed, and the authenticity of the materials needs to be carefully screened. Finally, he pointed out that the truth of fieldwork is that field objects have a tendency to "avoid harm." Field subjects will interfere with the daily lives of field individuals. "Short and quick" fieldwork may not be recognized by field objects, and they will not easily feedback the truth. At the same time, he also pointed out that the core of "integrating" with field objects through long-term solid work in the field is not the long time, but gaining the trust of field objects. Since the real field has "benevolent cognitive bias" and faces three major problems: "long-term process", "complex content" and "environmental indifference", we must not underestimate the difficulty of field investigation.
Teacher Ling Zheng’s keynote speech
Mr. Ye Zhipeng, w88 casino of Public Administration, East China Normal University, surrounded by teachers"Theoretical Growth in Fixed-site Field Survey" expands the theme report. He first pointed out the tradition and characteristics of fixed-point fieldwork, believing that fixed-point fieldwork is "tracking research on a specific spatial scale (county, city, street, town, village), a specific unit or a specific group." This investigative tradition originates from anthropology and sociology, and its classic representative is the well-known scholar Professor Fei Xiaotong. The methodological implication of this investigative tradition is to realize the back-and-forth and spiral symbiosis between field and theory through reflective inheritance; to achieve a balance between unity (overall) and locality (local) in terms of theoretical innovation and practical enlightenment. He also pointed out that fixed-point fieldwork has the characteristics of "tracing, seeing the whole picture", "locality, observing changes", "small incisions, big problems", "penetration, thick theory". Later, he introduced his own experience of fixed-point field work. On the one hand, he has been paying attention to the development of Wenzhou for a long time, and this field experience began in 2012 and continues to this day. On the other hand, he has been paying attention to the southern Jiangsu region for a long time, starting from 2014 and persisting until now. As a result, he produced a series of fruitful research results. He believes that there are three ways for theory growth, including proposing analytical concepts, proposing new theoretical explanations and proposing new causal mechanisms. At the same time, in the attempt to grow theory, the same field survey data can "flower and bear fruit" in different theoretical branches. Specifically, researchers can first select the theoretical field, which is the backbone; secondly, select the research perspective, which are the branches; and finally, select the field objects, which are the leaves. In the same theoretical field, field objects can be analyzed from different research perspectives, thereby achieving different theoretical growth goals for the same field material. Finally, he proposed the research thinking of fixed-point fieldwork, which not only includes choosing an important fixed-point case, choosing an important research field, deeply participating in the development practice of fixed-point fieldwork and becoming a practical expert in it, but also including making full use of existing social network resources, accumulating personal social networks, and accumulating field time. It also includes shuttling back and forth between fieldwork and theory, and constantly revising theory during submission and review.
Teacher Ye Zhipeng’s keynote speech
During the round table discussion and audience question session, the five teachers said goodbye"Conflicts and anxieties about research ethics in qualitative and case studies", "Confusion about coding the same field data in multiple papers", "Techniques of theoretical accumulation", "The path and contribution of KKV" and other aspects were discussed and responded to in depth.
Finally, Gan Tian, a teacher from the w88 casino of Political Science and Management, summarized the meeting. He first expressed his sincere gratitude to the five participating guests on behalf of the organizer, and pointed out that this conference has easily attracted great attention from the academic community and achieved good social response. He also pointed out that the key to fieldwork isTo "have a natural attitude towards life" and "respect the common sense and logic of life", we must not only take root in the field and be profound, but also have a broad vision in theoretical thinking, so as to jump out of the "field" and realize the leap from the field to theory.
The w88 casino of Government will continue to launch a series of academic seminars next year and looks forward to the participation and attention of more teachers and friends.
Forum photo
