[IMCnetwork] IMC Seminar | How Cases Speak to One Another: Using Translation to Rethink Generalisation in Political Science Research by Associate Professor Nicholas Rush Smith | Friday 2 May 2025

[RSSS - Admin]

[Australian National University]
School of Politics and International Relations
How Cases Speak to One Another: Using Translation to Rethink Generalisation in Political Science Research

Associate Professor Nicholas Rush Smith (City University of New York - City College)

(Presented paper co-authored with Erica S. Simmons, University of Wisconsin -Madison)

Friday 2 May 2025
12 pm AEST
Level 3 Room 3.72, RSSS building and via Zoom
Zoom Link<https://anu.zoom.us/j/3364169330?pwd=ZStOdm4vTWpwS1RMbmFYUisxWVB2UT09>
Regardless of method, political scientists often seek to develop arguments that can be generalised to a population of cases. But is this the only way to think about how cases speak to one another?
We advocate for a new way to think about how qualitative research produces
broadly applicable insights: translation. Much like linguistic translation, the goal of translation in political science is to develop ideas that are intelligible in a different context, even as the context will change how an idea or political practice is interpreted or enacted.
Translation offers at least three benefits. It could allow us to (1) rethink how we form and deploy concepts; (2) rethink what a generalisable argument is by
carrying parts of an argument, instead of entire causal chains to other cases; and (3) rethink how we conceptualise knowledge accumulation to include an abductive process where generating theory is the primary goal.
Presenter Bio
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Nicholas Rush Smith is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York - City College and the Graduate Center. In 2025, he will be a Visiting Fellow at the School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University. He is also a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg.
Smith is the author of Contradictions of Democracy: Vigilantism and Rights in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Oxford University Press, 2019) and, with Erica Simmons, co-editor of Rethinking Comparison: Innovative Methods for Qualitative Political Research (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Recordings of past seminars are available at the following links:

  *   https://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/events/interpretive-political-science-tool-understanding-policy-making-practice-sarah-ball
  *   https://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/events/making-al-qa-ida-legible-interpretive-methods-secrets-and-mess-sarah-phillips
  *   https://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/events/how-do-interpretive-research-insights-phd-students-and-early-career-researchers-social

Contact
april.biccum at anu.edu.au<mailto:mailto:april.biccum at anu.edu.au>
politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au<https://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/events/series/imc-seminar-series>
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[cid:image005.png at 01DB86AB.67595940]<https://twitter.com/politicsanu?lang=en>
The Australian National University,
Canberra

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