Jean-Bernard Ouédraogo: Social science fields and theories. Principles and tools of investigation

HUMA Doctoral Seminar Series

Speaker: Jean-Bernard Ouédraogo (EHESS, France)

It is accepted that investigation in the social sciences consists of the articulation of formal logic with facts and data drawn from social reality. In current practice, the presuppositions of this linking of categories with elements taken from the sensitive world, from social life, are either ignored or misinterpreted. Indeed, it is necessary that epistemological vigilance be observed in the theoretical reconstruction of the research object and that great rigour be applied in the fabrication of the tools allowing the researcher to collect the facts (quantitative and qualitative) which will put to the test the body of hypotheses resulting from the abstract theoretical formulation expressing a construction of the object, a break with common sense, with preconceptions.

In my presentation, I propose to examine, from my personal experience, the epistemological prerequisites that are necessary in the first and crucial phases (I will not discuss the phases of processing and presentation of the results) of a social science investigation. Thus, I will set out the principles of methodological cutting of a section of social reality and those closely related to the relevant choice of data collection technical tools and their empirical implementation in the field. The unveiling of the system that controls social practices, the main task of empirical investigation, will be achieved through this rigorous approach. It should be noted that in the African field, the difficulties of the research process are accentuated by the weight of history and the principles of domination that permeate the concepts and colonial definitions of African social orders.  

About the speaker: Jean-Bernard Ouédraogo is a sociologist from Burkina Faso. He has been a professor of sociology at the University of Ouagadougou and Deputy Executive Secretary of CODESRIA in charge of the department training and grants. He is now Director of Research at the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique – French National Centre for Scientific Research) and Professor of Sociology at the EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales – School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences), Paris, France. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Méthod(e)s published by ibidem-Verlag.