Doing International Research

This energetic and thought-provoking book encourages a reflexive, non-nationalistic approach to doing world research and sets out how to understand, plan, do and use this research.

Williams introduces a range of frameworks, from desk-based studies and traditional ethnography to the use of internet, satellites, robots, drones and ‘big data’, and provides exciting, interdisciplinary examples. This book is presented in a clear international style and uses creative approaches to researching peoples, places and world systems.

It explains:

• desk-based research using international data including documentaries, museum objects, archives, data-sets and working with groups such as refugees, tourists and migrants
• distance research using online videos, surveys and remote methods such as video conferencing and crowdsourcing
• fieldwork abroad, including ethnography, street observation and mapping.

The book is also accompanied by a website, with the following features:

For Students

• Weblinks for each chapter
• Examples/summaries/templates related to text marked with
• Additional thinking zones
• An overview of data capture technologies

For Lecturers

• Copies of all the figures and thinking zones for use in teaching material
• PowerPoint slides for each chapter

Built upon the foundations of the author’s 30 years of research experience, and including original case studies from international students, this is an essential guide for anyone in the social sciences using or doing international and global research.

Christopher Williams (AGSM, PhD, FRSA) is an independent academic, and visiting Fellow at the University of London (Institute of Education). He has also held posts at the universities of Bristol (Medical School), Birmingham (College of Social Science), Cairo (Conservatoire of Music), Cambridge (Global Security Programme), London (Education and Development), and the United Nations (Leadership Academy).   Originally a professional trumpeter, his international interests started with a student visit to USSR in 1972 (without his parents’ knowledge), across the Berlin Wall to Warsaw Pact countries in 1973, and then to Communist China. From 1980, he worked at Cairo University, to replace Soviet staff thrown-out in response to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, and experienced the assassination of Sadat and dictatorship of Mubarak. He then broke boycotts to work in apartheid South African, setting up projects for street children. Later he joined the United Nations Leadership Academy in Jordan, but had to leave during the build-up to the US/UK occupation of Iraq.   His other books include Researching Power, Elites and Leadership (Sage); Leadership Accountability in a Globalizing World; Environmental Victims - New Risks, New Injustice; Invisible Victims - Crime and Abuse against People with Learning Disabilities; Terminus Brain - The Environmental Threat to Human Intelligence. He has written for the Times Higher, Korea Herald and China Daily, and has discussed his research on BBC TV and radio, government TV in Kazakhstan and Korea, and at the British House of Commons and UN Palais des Nations.