TIK9015 – Dokuprax: Document analysis and document work in democracy, politics and bureaucracy
Documents are everywhere. Whether physical or digital, large or small, loud or invisible, they permeate our societies and individual lives, past and present. Some documents are outright celebrities, such as the UN Assessment Reports on Climate Change; others, such as passports, can open doors and borders – or keep them shut if yours is not accepted. Indeed, documents quickly pile up as empirical materials in our own research projects. So how to make use of this rich resource? How to analyse documents as part of your PhD project?
Particular to the course offered in autumn 2025, is its further development in collaboration with DIGIT, and a particular focus on the role of digital documents in democratic processes!
TIK9015 – Dokuprax: Document analysis and document work in democracy, politics and bureaucracy
When: 3.-7. November 2025
Venue: HF-12, Niels Treschows hus, University of Oslo (UiO) Blindern Campus, Oslo, Norway
Registration deadline: 1 September 2025
Language: Norwegian
Read more and apply here: https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/sv/tik/TIK9015/index-eng.html
Five of the spots on the course are reserved for members of DIGIT with relevant PhD projects.
DIGIT will cover travel and accommodation for DIGIT members who are attending the course - please contact the DIGIT coordinator for more information.
Course content
Documents are everywhere. Whether physical or digital, large or small, loud or invisible, they permeate our societies and individual lives, past and present. Some documents are outright celebrities, such as the UN Assessment Reports on Climate Change; others, such as passports, can open doors and borders – or keep them shut if yours is not accepted. Indeed, documents quickly pile up as empirical materials in our own research projects. So how to make use of this rich resource? How to analyse documents as part of your PhD project?
This PhD course brings together a varied set of methodological approaches to demonstrate and discuss how we can analyse documents as both texts, artifacts and social practices. Building on the textbook Doing Document Analysis, the course introduces the method of ‘practice-oriented document analysis’ (Asdal & Reinertsen, SAGE Publishing, 2022).
During the course, we will introduce and explore the methodological moves developed in this book for working with documents as research materials: How documents can be approached as sites, how they can be analysed as tools, how we can examine ‘document work’ and ‘document texts’, how documents are involved in the making of societal issues, and what we can learn from analysing how documents move.
The course draws upon a rich source of document studies in science and technology studies (STS) and across the humanities and social sciences more broadly and will also introduce you to the theoretical underpinnings that have inspired our practice-orientation to documents.
Particular to the course offered in autumn 2025 is that it has been further developed in cooperation with DIGIT, and that we will give special attention to the role of digital documents in democracy: How documents are key components in democratic procedure, how bureaucrats and other document-workers handle documents, how documents equip actors with capacities to act and take part in democratic politics, and how digital formats and work processes transforms both documents and democracy. The course invites document-workers from public government into the course so that we can learn from them, simultaneously as we will present and discuss the practice-oriented method. This part of the course is co-organised with the SPARK Social Innovation project DOCUPRAX.
Admission to the course
This PhD course is open to PhD candidates from any institution. Admission to a certified PhD program is required for participation.
Please note that the course will only be offered in Norwegian in 2025. You are not required to speak or write Norwegian yourself, but you need to be able to follow lectures and discussions in Norwegian.
The application must be submitted digitally and include:
A completed application form with the following attachments:
A letter outlining your PhD project, your motivation for attending the course, and examples of document materials you will be analysing in your PhD (max 500 words).
For applicants outside UiO: A letter confirming your enrolment in a PhD program.
Accepted applicants will be expected to submit a memo in advance of the course week describing three examples of document materials you will be analysing in your PhD (max 1000 words).
Application deadline: 1 September 2025.
Further information
For further information on teaching, examination and learning outcomes, please visit the course page at UiO: https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/sv/tik/TIK9015/index-eng.html