The Unloved Curriculum: Teaching Research Methods and ‘Demonstrably Alive’ Sociology

This article reflects our experiences of developing a more sociable approach to teaching qualitative methods. Through a set of examples drawn from our teaching practice, from our shared development of a sociable qualitative methods curriculum for MA students to the production of the Fieldwork Fables films, we explore these possibilities practically through their use in teaching contexts as a way of fostering a ‘demonstrably alive’ sociological craft. In contrast to those commentators who fear that digital culture continues to pose an existential crisis for our disciplines, we suggest that this new informational environment also affords unprecedented opportunities to re-imagine the contours of sociological craft itself andhow we bring this to life for and with our students. In this way, we argue for a sociable mode of sociological teaching that is based in the classroom but not confined to it, and which embraces the possibility to expand our pedagogical tools.