The teaching of qualitative analysis in the social sciences is rarely undertaken in a structured way. This handbook is designed to remedy that and to present students and researchers with a systematic method for interpreting qualitative data', whether derived from interviews, field notes, or documentary materials. The special emphasis of the book is on how to develop theory through qualitative analysis. The reader is provided with the tools for doing qualitative analysis, such as codes, memos, memo sequences, theoretical sampling and comparative analysis, and diagrams, all of which are abundantly illustrated by actual examples drawn from the author's own varied qualitative research and research consultations, as well as from his research seminars. Many of the procedural discussions are concluded with rules of thumb that can usefully guide the researchers' analytic operations. The difficulties that beginners encounter when doing qualitative analysis and the kinds of persistent questions they raise are also discussed, as is the problem of how to integrate analyses. In addition, there is a chapter on the teaching of qualitative analysis and the giving of useful advice during research consultations, and there is a discussion of the preparation of material for publication. The book has been written not only for sociologists but for all researchers in the social sciences and in such fields as education, public health, nursing, and administration who employ qualitative methods in their work.

Qualitative analysis for social scientists

Scientific work is heterogeneous, requiring many different actors and viewpoints. It also requires cooperation. The two create tension between divergent viewpoints and the need for generalizable findings. We present a model of how one group of actors managed this tension. It draws on the work of amateurs, professionals, administrators and others connected to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, during its early years. Extending the Latour-Callon model of interessement, two major activities are central for translating between viewpoints: standardization of methods, and the development of 'boundary objects'. Boundary objects are both adaptable to different viewpoints and robust enough to maintain identity across them. We distinguish four types of boundary objects: repositories, ideal types, coincident boundaries and standardized forms.

and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39

Scientific work is heterogeneous, requiring many different actors and viewpoints. It also requires cooperation. The two create tension between divergent viewpoints and the need for generalizable findings. We present a model of how one group of actors managed this tension. It draws on the work of amateurs, professionals, administrators and others connected to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, during its early years. Extending the Latour-Callon model of interessement, two major activities are central for translating between viewpoints: standardization of methods, and the development of `boundary objects'. Boundary objects are both adaptable to different viewpoints and robust enough to maintain identity across them. We distinguish four types of boundary objects: repositories, ideal types, coincident boundaries and standardized forms.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/285080.pdf

Institutional Ecology, `Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39:

We may not be able to make you love reading, but archaeology of knowledge will lead you to love reading starting from now. Book is the window to open the new world. The world that you want is in the better stage and level. World will always guide you to even the prestige stage of the life. You know, this is some of how reading will give you the kindness. In this case, more books you read more knowledge you know, but it can mean also the bore is full.

The archaeology of knowledge

An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (2nd ed.

actually interfere with doing a job well, since efficient work tends to be interpreted (and rewarded) as doing a job quickly, and doing several jobs a day. It frequently happens that doing a job well means taking longer to complete it since problems may arise that need to be dealt with. Taking the time to troubleshoot can mean doing work activities that cannot be accounted for by the system. TTS tickets are generated only for specific kinds of work (such as trouble tickets or job tickets) and not for other kinds of work: See, I've got to account for my time with tickets. In other words, I can't be giving out freebies, I can't work and not get credit for it on my TTS. I wouldn't want to be starting carrier [today]. When I started I was trained by fellow guys at the CO, who were great. If I was starting ... these poor guys I see, nobody helps them. They get tickets. Ticket comes in, foreman says \" OK, you're doing specials today. \" \" Specials, what's that? \" So here, he gets a ticket, loads it to himself, now what's he do? Now he's walking around in a daze and nobody wants to help him. .. there's nothing I can say \" I'm training him \" ; I can't put a \" training ticket \" in. While TTS was designed to make job performance more efficient, it has created the opposite effect: discouraging the training of new hands, breaking up the community of practice by eliminating troubleshooting conversations, and extending the time spent on a single job by segmenting coherent troubleshooting efforts into unconnected ticket-based tasks. These are dire consequences of a technology designed for efficiency. It is within work communities that new hands learn the ropes, peers consult on problems and extend their own understanding of an ever-changing technical profession , and workers share the tools and techniques they infrastructure [INFRA + STRUCTURE] A collective term for the subordinate parts of an undertaking; substructure, foundation. work What a person does or did; an act, deed, proceeding, business. — from Oxford English Dictionary (Version 2.1 online) T he 1971 Oxford English Dictionary contained no definition of infrastructure, but offered the Latin meaning of \" infra \" — \" under the Forum, within the walls, \" often applied to new vernacular terms. \" Computing infrastructure \" or \" national …

Work and infrastructure

La relation entre la science, la medecine et la technologie est analysee, et montre le lien entre la pratique et la connaissance

Epilogue: Work and Practice in Social Studies of Science, Medicine, and Technology

The experience of a long-term chronic illness weaves together problems in biography, the body, and the cultural and organizational meanings of the disease. Time meets infrastructure; experience meets classification. We present here a close reading of two studies of tuberculosis: Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain and Julius Roth's empirical work Timetables. Drawing on research in medical sociology and information science, we show how the trajectories of disease, biography, and institution weave together. Mismatches in the trajectories produce distortions (or torques) in time and sense of self, accounting for the phantasmagoric imagery often associated with tuberculosis. We conclude with some general observations about how the concept of trajectory might be used in understanding the intersection of biography and organization.

Of Lungs and Lungers: The Classified Story of Tuberculosis

By bringing together science studies, information science and ethnographic fieldwork in interdisciplinary research the author argues for the relevance of ethnographic practices when studying information systems as infrastructures of communication. Ethnographic fieldwork focuses attention on fringes and materialities of infrastructures and renders the researcher able to read the invisible layers of control and access, to understand the changes in the social orderings that are brought about by information technology. Numerous examples and personal accounts of studies of infrastructures with ethnographic tools show how paying analytical attention to mundane aspects of information infrastructures helps to understand the consequences of the imbrication of infrastructure and human organization.

/pdf/infrastructure-and-ethnographic-practice-31yj8f6cdu.pdf

Infrastructure and ethnographic practice

The brain is a troubling object for sociologists. This chapter was written at a time in which sociologists are reexamining topics such as the body, material culture, and the nature of intelligence. We speak easily of the body in a Foucauldian sense as laced through with discourses, constituted intersubjectively, a true body politic with a sociology of its own. We are beginning to venture, trailing anthropology by some distance, to examine the materials that shape human work and interaction: tools, scientific materials, various sorts of architectures and physical arrangements.

Susan Leigh Star

Papers

Work and infrastructure

Epilogue: Work and Practice in Social Studies of Science, Medicine, and Technology

Of Lungs and Lungers: The Classified Story of Tuberculosis

Infrastructure and ethnographic practice

The Skin, the Skull, and the Self: Toward a Sociology of the Brain