Methods of Cultural Studies

Methods of Cultural Studies encompass a wide range of research areas within the humanities and social sciences, characterized by diverse transdisciplinary approaches. The junior professorship sees this diversity as an opportunity to develop a methodological understanding that emphasizes innovation and adaptability, tailoring methods to the research process itself. Rather than being treated as rigid tools applied to subjects like keys to locks, methods are seen as active agents that shape, visualize, and contextualize the fields they study.

Methodological research can thus be viewed as an inquiry into contemporary fields of study. This approach extends across the entire research process, from fieldwork to the format of representation. Consequently, methodological research also involves experimentation with knowledge production, whether through publication formats or academic events. Collaboration plays a crucial role, bringing together different perspectives to create new insights and potentially dehierarchizing research constellations.

Innovative methodologies hold the potential to reveal the inherent processual nature of the subjects studied. Methodological reflexivity, as seen in ethnography, not only helps in uncovering unconscious dynamics within the research process but also challenges and reconfigures canonical classifications. In a world marked by transformation and the dismantling of hegemonic disparities, questioning one’s own practices and positionality is essential. The epistemic aim of cultural and media research, as pursued in this area, is not to arrive at fixed conclusions but to think in motion, foregrounding and visualizing processes that unfold between fields of intensity rather than within static dichotomies. Reflecting on the ruptures and distortions that arise in these processes is a critical strength of Cultural Studies.

The junior professorship’s research projects contribute a practice-theoretical orientation, which, through a focus on the location and context of the research itself, serves as a meaningful extension of the ethnographic tradition—often inherent within it. By examining practices and materialities, it explores how social worlds are collectively produced. A media ethnographic perspective enriches this focus, highlighting the socio-technical restructuring of research fields through (new) media.

In teaching, methods are introduced by weaving together disciplinary approaches and transdisciplinary content. Teaching is always grounded in the integration of research and practice, making learning tangible and encouraging collaborative engagement with new knowledge. Students are particularly taught how to tailor their methodology to the specific subject of research, even when crossing disciplinary boundaries.

Key research themes in this area include:

• future-making practices
• audiovisual, multimodal and digital ethnography and methodological innovation
• Decolonisation of research and its methodological implications
• (im)mobilities and methodologies of mobile research fields
• music ethnography