CSO 302 Module III ~ QRM CAT Questions for June-October 2017

UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

CSO 302: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

SEMESTER: June-October 2017 [Module III Programme]

CAT QUESTIONS [Released: 10.00 p.m., 20^th June 2017]

INSTRUCTION: ANSWER TWO QUESTIONS, ONE FROM SECTION 1 AND ONE FROM SECTION 2:

            Click Here to Get to the CAT Questions

Sheebah's Nkwatako

Queen Sheeba isn't bashful. No, no, no! Which is a good thing. She sings like a snake-charmer -- with, perhaps, her namesake's (her role model's) beguiling voice. The slowed-down tempo in Nkwatako (which means "Touch me" in Luganda) is a disarming ruse, central to her secret art of war -- and her seduction. It accentuates her unique vocal cords, which demand it here; and around which every command and everything else revolves.

She, Sheebah, dances like a rebel queen, at a makeshift camp of her own choosing, outside the gates of the last fortress, north of something, which she's fixing to overrun with her time-travelling troops -- on her way to meet her fabled king. And so to realize her grand plan. 

Her dancing and connecting motions are thus by design, and sprinkled with allusions. It's an art-form masquerading both as pure war-dance and pure theater; a fleeting homage to, a cross between, the choreographed motions of the dance-hall and today's (and tomorrow's) stylized ballet. It is, at its core, a muted fertility dance -- with accent on (her own) desire. 

The costumes we see on everyone involved, and the funky mix of colors in motion, are a pure fashion do brought in to camouflage, in plain sight, the real intentions. And the music, ah yes the music, is the real weapon of war here: Hard-edged and yet harmonizing, spartan (and so without flourish), mobilizing and equal to the task.  

READ: Felista Esolio's Review of Nkwatako

NOTE: The lyrics of this Ugandan song are an intriguing mix of Luganda and English.

READ: A Version of the Nkwatako Lyrics

POLITICS, URBAN DESIGN AND MUSIC: To Love or Not to Love Lagos ~ Singer Olamide's Take

In a song published on January 9, 2016 (and which has 1,666,176 YouTube hits right now), Baddo sings a heartfelt love song for his 'hometown', the great city of Lagos. So, what kind of city is this that he so genuinely loves, and invites us all to? 

Lagos is big, big-time. It is vibrant, displaying what some would say is organized chaos [To those who fully understand the concept, incidentally, chaos is not the dirty word it may appear to be]. Inward-looking though it is -- as are Addis, Cairo, Cape Town, Dar-Es-Salaam, Johannesburg and Kinshasa -- it is Africa's epicentre of culture [art, apparel, film, language (pidgin), literature, music and identity] and SM entrepreneurship -- not to mention loud and to-the-hilt living.

And it has a huge reservoir of self-confidence for all that. It has no qualms about doing things its way, but the impression one gets is that the average citizen on the street feels let down by the "authorities". 

Lagos City, observes Tomisin (2016), is currently home to some 20 million Lagosians. That, incidentally, is just under half of Kenya's population, and over half of Uganda's. Its metropolitan areas have a population density of over 20,000 per square mile. Indeed, Tomisin argues, Lagos remains Nigeria's "centre of excellence". But he also shares with us the grim images painted by one artist/designer (Olalekan Jeyifous) of a future Lagos overwhelmed by teetering 'skyscraper' shanties, ever-present rust, decay, structural fragility, ugliness -- and even angst (see more images, depicting/predicting extreme visual pollution, here).

But this pessimistic picture is not reflected in Monty Mumford's 2014 article titled "Booming Lagos, Smart City". He argues there that while Lagos faces 'epic challenges' in infrastructural development (especially transportation), there are reasons to have faith in the future. Specifically, the Eko Atlantic project will be key to the city's "regeneration". But the reality is that the project is designed with the rich at the centre of attention, not the poor. The 12 million additional residents Lagos is expected to absorb in the not-too-distant future are not going to make matters easier by any stretch of the imagination.

In Vision 2015-2030, Orlean Invest is also optimistic that the Eko Atlantic Project is "the future economic hub of Lagos City as well as Nigeria". But this optimism is counter-intuitive to Mumford's other observation that the poorest in Lagos "live in fetid floating slums".

In a 2014 article in the NYT titled "What Makes Lagos a Model City", Prof. Seth Kaplan of Johns Hopkins University observed that "Lagos, which until recently was known as one of the world's most difficult cities to govern, seems to have turned a corner." He added:

"Even though it remains a slum-ridden and largely impoverished metropolis... it  [Lagos] has seen steady improvement in its governance for over a decade [since 1999]. The government has enhanced public transportation, cleaned up streets, upgraded the business environment and bettered the lives of its inhabitants."

And he concluded:

"So Nigeria, of all places, may be pointing the way to a strategy by which fragile states might begin to succeed: Devolve more power to cities from their corrupt and overcentralized national governments".

This positive prognosis was more recently echoed in a 2016 article by Francesca Perry and Chris Michael.

READ: Francesca Perry and Chris Michael "How is Lagos Changing? Share Your Stories".

ALSO READ: Open City Lagos

I think that Baddo Olamide, a native of Lagos State, speaks with song to this generally positive trend; and more specifically to what it has wrought already in concrete ways. He has been witness to all that with his own artiste's eye and as a regular resident of the city.  

So, in his I Love Lagos lyrics, he sings and makes certain categorical declarations and retorts. In the process, he makes point-by-point rebuttal of Jeyifous's sickly vision:

"...Oyingbo ekolowa oyinbo
Oyingbo why you speaking oyinbo

Oyingbo you dey lagos to oyingbo

If i carry you go banana

My guy you go love lagos

You go love lagos"


He mentions other places, people and things, too, he "could carry you go", and you would love Lagos: Elegushi, Police, Ikedja, Badagri, Ikorodi, Epe, VGC. And there's "oh no hustle", he claims, when you ride through his city. So, indeed, your love would only grow after all these experiences that he suggests we should have. 

The sung lyrics are even more lyrical than the written, I find. That's the power of good sound and voice. Perhaps that is because, as I keep telling my students, the ear is more generous than the eye. The singer, resting his case, concludes after all this:

"You cannot deny you no see
You go love Lagos oh"



Here below is the video. It is has very optimistic and upbeat images (of various slices of Lagos) and aurally matching sounds. The chorus is lovely. This is the best music video about an African city that I've heard. It is sung with unquestioning and even protective/ possessive love and passion. The sites(sights) and sounds we see and hear are so infectiously evocative of a living city evolving toward the dreams inside the chronicler's/troubadour's (i.e. Baddo's) head -- and inside all of the dwellers' heads. Yambo says, "Love it all":


Watch Olamide's "I Love Lagos" Video

CLICK: I Love Lagos Lyrics

CAT Questions ~ CSO 302 Qualitative Research Methods, November 2016

UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

CSO 302: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

September-December 2016 SEMESTER [Module II]

TAKE-AWAY CAT QUESTIONS [Released: 2:05 p.m., November 8, 2016]

CLICK HERE FOR: Instruction, CAT Questions, Deadline and Other Details.

Sociology and Work Redesign

I last taught this graduate course, Sociology and Work Redesign, in May-August 2008. Time flies, as the saying goes, and my focus has shifted elsewhere for various reasons in the intervening period. But as I was going through some of my old papers this evening, I came upon a copy of the Class Presentation Topics which we covered that semester. I thought to myself that it contained some themes and technical considerations that still resonate, a short eight years later, in today's palpably more tech-mediated, and increasingly IoT-infused ways of the globalizing world. And so it occurred to me worthwhile to share the list on this blog. So here it is: Class Presentation Topics.

The course was built around the following objectives:

"To address the following questions from different perspectives: Why redesign? What are the main aspects of a redesign project? To critically outline, in historical perspective, the concepts and practices fundamental to work redesign around the world. To undertake a comparative analysis of selected models, techniques and case-studies of work redesign: from conception to execution. On the basis of that analysis, to encourage class to construct innovative models (or designs) of work organization under given assumptions. In summary, to build national and regional capacity for work redesign, and to reinforce that capacity with relevant theoretical and empirical understandings of the socio-technical underpinnings of the work-place within formal establishments or group contexts."

You may wish to click here to find the full course outline. I think sociology has much to contribute to on-going conversations about work design and redesign.


MORE READINGS (update)
Laston, George, "What EA learned about building successful mobile app infrastructure"

McDonald, Clare (2016) "Internet of things increases demand for tech skills" ComputerWorld.com 

Elements of Proposal Writing ~ CSO 302, CSO 501

I share in the link below some thoughts, in draft form, on elements of proposal writing. They are intended for  a wide readership that's grappling with detail and technical issues in the above theme; but I also have a target audience in students who take the course that I have taught for a while, CSO 302 (Qualitative Research Methods), and those doing their Master's projects in Sociology. I will be updating the post.

Click here to read the text: Elements of Proposal Writing

CSO 302: Qualitative Research Methods -- CAT

UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

COURSE: CSO 302: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS


SEMESTER: September-December 2009 [Module II]

CAT QUESTIONS [Released: 3.00 pm, 5th October 2009]

ANSWER ANY TWO QUESTIONS
1. Critically discuss the nine rules of Sociological method suggested by Giddens, highlighting what you consider to be the value that they add to the practice of qualitative sociological research in Africa to-day.

2. What is experimental research? Briefly discuss what you consider to be three of the most promising experimental designs for qualitative research in Sociology, and explain why you think so.

3. Briefly discuss the following pairs of terms, showing the main features of each term and how the terms in a pair resemble or differ from each other:
a) Hermeneutic Circle and Hermeneutic Interpretation
b) Content Analysis and Literature Review
c) Naturalistic Observation and Surveillance.


DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: Saturday 24th October 2009, strictly from 11.00–12.00noon only.

NOTE:1. I prefer typed answers. Expected length of each CAT submission: 6 to 10 typed, double-spaced pages only
2. Additional marks will be awarded for answers which display originality of thought, as well as critical thinking. Marks will be deducted for Xeroxing published or other works, and for lack of seriousness (i.e. for sketchy, “bulletized” and/ regurgitated answers)
3. Your answer should clearly demonstrate, through citations, that you have engaged in noteworthy library reading for this CAT.