Master class with Brooke Ackerly (Vanderbilt University): “Grounded Normative Theory: Methods for Human Rights Research and Theory”

Normative theorists and political philosophers have always wanted to be relevant to the real world. However, there is increasing recognition that the real world is relevant to normative and political philosophy, particularly when questions of structural injustice such as global justice, human rights, and climate change are at stake. What does this mean for how we do normative theorizing that matters in the real world? What does responsible grounded normative theory require? 

In this master class, Professor Ackerly will share the thought processes behind the key methodological steps of her book with Mujibul Anam on climate justice, human rights and philanthropy. Students will be invited to prepare by reading a draft chapter from the book (“Theorizing about Climate Justice in place: implementing feminist Engaged and Grounded Normative Theory and Practice in Bangladesh”). Interested students can also submit a title, abstract, and question related to their own work in progress. The goal of the master class is to enable students to be informed and engaged readers (critics) of engaged grounded normative theory EGNT. 

Those who are interested in developing their own practice of engaged and grounded normative theory will also get concrete feedback on how to develop an EGNT methodology that is suitable for their question, timeframe, and budget. While recursivity is an important tool of EGNT, it does not mean that the work proceeds with limitless time and budget. Any project worth doing is worth doing well. Good research design takes into account constraints.

Limited number of seats.

Registration required by Tuesday, May 13^th using the following form: https://www.humanrights.lu.se/form/registration-masterclass Registered participants will receive a copy of a chapter on methods from Brooke Ackerly's latest book before the seminar. For more information about the event, contact Eric Brandstedt (eric [dot] brandstedt [at] mrs [dot] lu [dot] se).