CONCEPT: Intelligence

Intelligence: In safety and "security" terms, as broadly conceived -- and, by extension, outside of the field of psychology -- intelligence generally refers to any kind of information or set of data considered crucial to maintaining the status quo (and related advantages), overcoming threats to it, and/or gaining actionable advantage over identified barriers to desired goals. In a much-quoted passage, Stephen Hawking, leaning toward the psychological view and away from the "security" perspective, sees intelligence rather differently -- as "the ability to adapt to change". 

From the safety and "security" perspectives -- that is, in the field of emergency and disaster management, public safety and health, and among others -- intelligence refers to any information, privileged or open-sourced, which gives managers marked advantage over likely, impending, or on-going threats to humans and all things of value to them as individuals and collectivities -- that is, family, belongings, property, community, institutions, ecosystems, society at large and country. 

"Intelligence gathering" has many labels and involves a variety of activities, including: Preparedness, precaution, data gathering (or mining), business intelligence, surveillance, monitoring, SWOT analysis, GIS, observation, investigation, probing, espionage, spying and secret service. Importantly, "Intelligence Communities" of all kinds are quite alive to the insight embedded in the adage that information is power. Interestingly, moreover, Artificial Intelligence (AI), both as a concept and bundle of practices and applications, spans both psychology and safety/"security". 

CAT Questions ~ CSO 302: Qualitative Research Methods, May-August 2016 Semester

UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

CSO 302: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

May-August 2016 SEMESTER [Module II]

CAT QUESTIONS [Released: 12:12 a.m., 21^st July 2016]

INSTRUCTION: ANSWER A TOTAL OF TWO QUESTIONS, ONE FROM SECTION I AND ONE FROM SECTION II.

SECTION I:

1.     Discuss the procedures of naturalistic observation in qualitative data collection.

2.     What is thick description, and how does it work as a technique of data analysis? 

SECTION II:

3. Give an historical account of qualitative research and explain the major
   epistemological and ontological beliefs about social reality that underpin it. Use clear examples to illustrate your answer. 

4. (a)  Discuss the major ethical principles in social research.
   (b) What are the major ethical dilemmas that confront qualitative researchers,
   and how can these be resolved? Use empirical examples to explain your answer.

 DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION:  

Saturday: August 13^th August 2016, strictly by 11.00 a.m. [Submit your CAT paper IN CLASS through the Class Representative, and enter your name in the submissions register. Late submissions can be pushed under or over the door of office number GW 407E. They will be safe there. Late students should therefore not waste more time waiting to submit their CATs in person to the lecturers]

NOTE:

1.      Submit only word-processed papers. CAT paper should be: 6 to 10 typed, double-spaced, A4-size pages only.

2.      Answers which display originality of thought and critical thinking will be rewarded.

3.      There will be severe penalty for plagiarism (‘Xeroxing’ of published or other works). A mark of 0% will be given for plagiarism.

4.      Your answer should clearly demonstrate, through citations, that you have engaged in noteworthy library and/or online research for this CAT.

5.      Late submissions will attract a penalty of 5 marks per week after the deadline.

Opening Remarks at a Commemorative Symposium on Prof. H. Odera Oruka

["The written word does not forget" ~ MY]

This symposium, dedicated as it is to the Father of Philosophic Sagacity, makes pertinent the question: What is the overriding problem of method in Philosophy today? In his research on Sage Philosophy, Odera Oruka appears to abandon his discipline's patent method (or is it patent tool?): the armchair -- or, if you prefer, introspection/contemplation. He immerses himself, with little time for apologies, in a method which in an earlier time might have been called ethnographic, but which is more trendily labeled, nowadays, qualitative research.

But is this an abandonment or in reality an enriching departure from the very norm which creates false boundaries of intellectual space? And if an enrichment, are field interviews, such as Odera Oruka conducted, to be seen as a form of dialogue -- or as observation? Or are they, from another view, a necessary component of what now passes for scholastic interrogation? And if interrogation, is that, as practice, a throwback to subconsciously remembered/emulated encounters with agents of the police state? [As an aside: the other day I encountered one thinker's sardonic (or was that sadistic) commentary on numbers, which went something like this: "if you torture numbers long enough, they will tell you anything you want".]

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL TEXT OF THE OPENING REMARKS





FURTHER READING
Azenabor, Godwin (2009) "Odera Oruka's Philosophic Sagacity: Problems and Challenges of Conversation Method in African Philosophy" Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophic Association of Kenya. Premier Issue, New Series, Vol. 1 No. 1, June 2009, pp. 69-86

Hapanyengwi-Chemhuru, Oswell (2003) "Odera Oruka's Four Trends in African Philosophy and their Implications for Education in Africa" Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya. New Series, Vol. 5 No. 2, December 2013, pp. 39-55.






NOTE: I made these opening remarks on December 10, 1999 during my tenure as Dean, Faculty of Arts, UoN