Showing papers in "Qualitative Research in 2011"
TL;DR: The authors argue that being intimately inside one's field does offer significant advantages, however, there remain elements of insider research still underdeveloped, such as how one goes about negotiating previously established friendships and intimate relationships.
Abstract: Favoured by ethnographers with some degree of closeness to the culture they wish to examine, the cultural participant as insider researcher has become relatively commonplace across the humanities. A large body of methodological literature now exists on this, highlighting the advantages and some of the dilemmas of conducting insider research. This literature is not exhaustive, as there remain elements of insider research still underdeveloped, such as how one goes about negotiating previously established friendships and intimate relationships in this context. Indeed, what are the benefits and dilemmas engendered by such negotiations? Drawing on existing scholarly accounts of field-based friendship and the author’s experiences of researching queer culture as an insider, this article addresses these questions in relation to the author’s field of inquiry and to social research paradigms more broadly. Subsequently, it argues that while being intimately inside one’s field does offer significant advantages, it al...
430 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the author addresses some strategies for conducting elite interviews and draws upon material from a significant number of interviews that the author has conducted with this group in a variety of...
Abstract: This article addresses some strategies for conducting elite interviews. It draws upon material from a significant number of interviews that the author has conducted with this group in a variety of ...
407 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparison between anthropological and multimodality approaches to the senses, the relationships between images and words, and ethnography is made. But the authors reveal some of the tensions and fundamental differences between these approaches before then considering if and/or how these might be reconciled.
Abstract: In this article I consider the potential for combining multimodality and anthropologically informed sensory ethnographic methodologies I focus on a comparison between anthropological and multimodality approaches to the senses, the relationships between images and words, and ethnography In doing so I reveal some of the tensions and fundamental differences between these approaches before then considering if and/or how these might be reconciled
223 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine contemporary challenges posed when dealing with the ethical principle of anonymity in qualitative research, specifically at the point of dissemination and suggest that the standard of anonymity may need to be rethought in the context of the 21st century academic world.
Abstract: Told from the perspective of two UK-based early career researchers, this article is an examination of contemporary challenges posed when dealing with the ethical principle of anonymity in qualitative research, specifically at the point of dissemination. Drawing on their respective doctoral experience and literature exploring the difficulties that can arise from the application of anonymity with regard to historical and geographical contexts, the authors question the applicability of the principle of anonymity alongside pressures to disseminate widely. In so doing, the article considers anonymity in relation to the following: demonstrating value for money to funders; being accountable to stakeholders; involvement in knowledge transfer; and the demands of putting as much information ‘out there’ as possible, particularly on the internet. In light of these pressures, the article suggests that the standard of anonymity in the context of the 21st century academic world may need to be rethought.
181 citations
TL;DR: The authors reviewed claims for methodological innovation in qualitative research, and argued that over-claiming innovation in the sense of the development of a wholly new methodology or design has a number of important implications that are potentially detrimental to qualitative social science.
Abstract: This article reviews claims for methodological innovation in qualitative research. It comprises a review of 57 papers published between 2000–9 in which claims to innovation in qualitative methods have been made. These papers encompass creative methods, narrative methods, mixed methods, online/e-research methods, focus groups and software tools. The majority of claims of innovation are made for new methods or designs, with the remainder claiming adaptations or adoption of existing methodological innovations. However, the evidence provided of wholly new methodologies or designs was limited, and in several papers such claims turned out to relate either to adaptations to existing methods, or to the transfer and adaptation of methods from other disciplines, primarily from arts and humanities. We argue that over-claiming innovation in the sense of the development of a wholly new methodology or design has a number of important implications that are potentially detrimental to qualitative social science.
172 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a methodological contribution of online communication and an exploration of initial empirical data generated with this methodology is presented. But it does not specify details of this methodology for research into interpersonal communications and emotions online.
Abstract: Ethnographic research is increasingly concerned with how the internet operates within our everyday life. This article attempts to offer a methodological contribution of online communication and an exploration of initial empirical data generated with this methodology. The article calls for a specification of how ethnography can be applied appropriately to the study of relationships online. It departs from the real versus virtual dichotomy, offering a user-centred methodology to study interpersonal communications on the internet. It suggests the use of three main strategies to pay tribute to the characteristics of uses online: multi-situated, online and offline, and flexible and multimedia data collection methods. This approach facilitates a holistic analysis of the way in which social information and communication technologies operate within society in everyday life. It deals with the problem of defining the setting of research online and proposes an expanded ethnography. The article specifies details of this methodology for research into interpersonal communications and emotions online. It does so by drawing on empirical data generated in a study on everyday life and emotions on the internet. Epistemic questions related to this methodological approach will also be discussed. Overall, the exemplification suggests that the methodological approach proposed here is able to capture the uses and understandings of the internet.
168 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that despite developments in participatory approaches, participatory data analysis has been attempted less than participation in other aspects of research with either children or people with learning disabilities and that the challenges involved in this are particularly under-explored and important with the latter where we need to investigate what is possible.
Abstract: Interest in participatory research methods has grown considerably in the spheres of research with children and young people and research with people with learning disabilities. This growth is rooted in different but related paradigm shifts in childhood and disability. I argue that despite developments in participatory approaches, participatory data analysis has been attempted less than participation in other aspects of research with either children or people with learning disabilities, and that the challenges involved in this are particularly under-explored and important with the latter where we need to investigate what is possible. I discuss why participation in analysis is often neglected before reviewing different responses to the challenge including examples of informal and formal, unstructured and structured, trained and untrained, explicit and implicit approaches. Finally I make the case for authentic reciprocal learning in exploring the potential benefits of participatory analysis to people and to research.
163 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the uses and benefits of an innovative method of graphic elicitation; timelining, developed in the context of a narrative-based research project on fatness and fatness.
Abstract: This article discusses the uses and benefits of an innovative method of graphic elicitation; timelining. The method was developed in the context of a narrative-based research project on fatness and...
163 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the intersection between ethnography and multimodality, their compatibility and the tensions and ambivalences that arise from their potentially conflicting epistemological framings is explored.
Abstract: In this article I reflect on the insights that the well established traditions of ethnography can bring to the more recent analytic tools of multimodality in the investigation of early literacy practices. First, I consider the intersection between ethnography and multimodality, their compatibility and the tensions and ambivalences that arise from their potentially conflicting epistemological framings. Drawing on ESRC-funded case studies of three and four-year-old children’s experiences of literacy with printed and digital media,1 I then illustrate how an ethnographic toolkit that incorporates a social semiotic approach to multimodality can produce richly situated insights into the complexities of early literacy development in a digital age, and can inform socially and culturally sensitive theories of literacy as social practice (Street, 1984, 2008).
126 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the dual aims of ethical research within an emancipatory framework as "going deep" through utilizing "an ethics of parallax perspectives" and "giving back" by employing an "intentional ethics of reciprocation" and offer a package of six additional ethical strategies, which may be combined in various permutations in order to achieve these ends.
Abstract: This article interrogates how research amongst vulnerable populations, especially youth, may be designed and implemented to exceed the usual standards of research ethics. It describes the dual aims of ethical research within an emancipatory framework as ‘going deep’ through utilizing ‘an ethics of parallax perspectives’; and ‘giving back’ by employing an ‘intentional ethics of reciprocation’. It offers a package of six additional ethical strategies, which may be combined in various permutations in order to achieve these ends. These strategies include choosing appropriate research activities; deliberately building relationships with research participants; conveying researcher subjectivity; developing mutuality and flattening the power gradient; considering how language is used and representations are made; and planning ‘research-as-intervention’. Drawing on a multi-layered ethnographic study of the moral understandings of a group of impoverished South African township youth, the article offers insight into...
121 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that such an enterprise is "of its time" and that the disciplines that co-constituted and co-evolved with that world can no longer do the job they once did in a now differently constituted world, which poses problems that may need the complementary capacities of related theories and methodologies.
Abstract: Argued from the perspective of a Social Semiotic Multimodal theory the article asks whether and in what ways ‘Ethnography’ and ‘Social Semiotics’ can or should be brought together to mutual advantage. It suggests that such an enterprise is ‘of its time’: the world as mirrored in existing disciplines has changed and the disciplines that co-constituted and co-evolved with that world can no longer do the job they once did in a now differently constituted world, which poses problems that may need the complementary capacities of related theories and methodologies. This is not an argument for ‘triangulation of data’. Drawing on examples from empirical research, the article points to the gaps which may emerge between research aims and the capacities of specific theories and methodologies to provide, or not, adequate and full answers to aims and questions. Through exemplifications the article raises questions about ‘epistemological compatibility’ of theories and methodologies that are brought into conjunction and...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the rationale for the choice of constructivist grounded theory methodology in a research project which explored women's responses to intimate partner violence, in view of the...
Abstract: This article describes the rationale for the choice of constructivist grounded theory methodology in a research project which explored women’s responses to intimate partner violence. In view of the...
TL;DR: The methodological and theoretical implications of bringing multimodality and ethnography into dialogue with each other have been explored in this paper, where the authors focus on the qualitative and analytic implications of multimodal approaches.
Abstract: This special issue of Qualitative Research was produced in the context of a comparatively recent surge in qualitative ‘multimodal’ research. A number of scholars from diverse disciplinary and theoretical traditions have turned to multimodality in their endeavours to understand everyday communication and interaction in contemporary social life, often foregrounding certain tensions with more established research traditions, such as ethnography. In this issue, we focus on the methodological and theoretical implications of bringing multimodality and ethnography into dialogue with each other – a development that, we think, throws up some provocative issues for qualitative research methodology. These include questions about the ‘epistemological compatibility’ of different approaches, when each carries particular theoretical and methodological histories and associations, and what might be gained and lost in endeavours to bring together their respective descriptive and analytic conventions.
TL;DR: In this paper, the influence of gender in qualitative research studies of masculinities is considered and the findings are based on two separate studies involving men who participate in the same task.
Abstract: The influence of gender in qualitative research studies of masculinities is considered in this article. The findings are based on two separate studies of masculinities involving men who participate...
TL;DR: In this article, a longitudinal study involving young children and adults in the design and review of learning environments was conducted, where they explored mapmaking, one of the methods used in the Mosaic approach as a site of multi-modal communication.
Abstract: Researching the ‘insider’ perspectives of young children requires a readiness to not only tune into different modes of communication but also to create opportunities for this knowledge to be communicated to others. This research is based on a longitudinal study involving young children and adults in the design and review of learning environments. This article first explores mapmaking, one of the methods used in the Mosaic approach as a site of multi-modal communication. Second, it investigates how the maps, as informant-led representations can promote ‘cultural brokerage’ (Chalfen and Rich, 2007) by facilitating the exchange of meanings within learning communities and beyond. This applied ethnographic and participatory research raises questions about the importance of making visible these opportunities for meaning-making across generational and professional boundaries.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss how emergent sensory and multimodal methodologies can work in interaction to produce innovative social enquiry, and how to create empathetic, experiential ways of knowing participants' and researchers' worlds.
Abstract: This article discusses how emergent sensory and multimodal methodologies can work in interaction to produce innovative social enquiry. A juxtaposition of two research projects — an ethnography of corridors and a mixed methods study of multimodal authoring and ‘reading’ practices — opened up this encounter. Sensory ethnography within social research methods aims to create empathetic, experiential ways of knowing participants’ and researchers’ worlds. The linguistic field of multimodality offers a rather different framework for research attending to the visual, material and acoustic textures of participants’ interactions. While both these approaches address the multidimensional character of social worlds, the ‘sensory turn’ centres the sensuous, bodied person — participant, researcher and audience/reader — as the ‘place’ for intimate, affective forms of knowing. In contrast, multimodal knowledge production is premised on multiple analytic gaps — between modes and media, participants and materials, recording and representation. Eliciting the tensions between sensorial closeness and modal distances offers a new space for reflexive research practice and multiple ways of knowing social worlds.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an overview of the growing field of the integration of qualitative evidence, based on an analysis of 177 syntheses published in a variety of professional and social science fields.
Abstract: In this article, we present an overview of the growing field of the integration of qualitative evidence. Based on an analysis of 177 syntheses published in a variety of professional and social science fields, they introduce a way of categorizing the various approaches that synthesists use to combine evidence derived from primary qualitative studies. Finally, they argue for the place of a constructionist approach when synthesizing findings from primary qualitative research.
TL;DR: In this paper, the importance of the language chosen for research interviewing when more than one language could be used is discussed, through the context of research with Chinese speakers publili...
Abstract: This article shows the importance of the language chosen for research interviewing when more than one language could be used. It does so through the context of research with Chinese speakers publis...
TL;DR: The authors examined the influence of interpreter-facilitated cross-language qualitative interviews with Mandarin-speaking grandparents who participated in a study of intergenerational social support during the transition to parenthood.
Abstract: This research note focuses on interpreter-facilitated cross-language qualitative interviews. Although researchers have written about strategies and procedures for working with interpreters, rarely have they offered adequate detail to determine the relative merits of various approaches, and little attention has been paid to the influence that interpreters have on the validity of qualitative data. We advance this body of literature by describing and critically examining the strategies and procedures we used to work with an interpreter to conduct qualitative interviews with Mandarin-speaking grandparents who participated in our study of intergenerational social support during the transition to parenthood. In addition, we examine the influence that our strategies and procedures had on the data generation process and on the validity of the data. Drawing on our experiences, we argue that with adequate preparation, validity checks, and the supplementary strategies that we describe in this article, an interpreter...
TL;DR: In this article, photo-methods are an unconventional data collection method in educational research associated with 'risk' in sc... and sexualities and schooling is often constituted as a 'controversial' topic.
Abstract: Sexualities and schooling is often constituted as a ‘controversial’ topic. Similarly, photo-methods are an unconventional data collection method in educational research associated with ‘risk’ in sc...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the gender performances by both the interviewees and interviewers, including how the structure of the interview affects gendered interactions in interviews and the vulnerability we experienced as a result.
Abstract: The topic of female researchers interviewing male subjects has received previous attention, but few scholarly works focus specifically on sensitive topics such as sexual behaviors. The discrepancy suggests that even though women researchers interview men about sensitive issues, sexuality still seems out of bounds. Based on our research, we found it intellectually and emotionally challenging to interview men about sexually degrading behaviors. In the present article, we focus on the gender performances by both the interviewees and interviewers, including how the structure of the interview affects gendered interactions in interviews and the vulnerability we experienced as a result. We conclude by suggesting a few strategies that future women researchers can employ when conducting cross-gender, in-depth interviews with men about sex. We also raise questions for feminist researchers about how best to handle sexist, racist, and derogatory remarks made by interviewees.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the experience of shadowing an individual Muslim hospital chaplain in detail and discuss the potential for shadowing to blur into other qualitative data collection methods (e.g. interviewing), especially when those we are shadowing have developed roles that engage them in various discursive communities, and a range of cooperative networks.
Abstract: This article critically evaluates ‘shadowing’ as a qualitative research method. Sometimes described as the relatively straightforward opportunity to observe and record the actions and behaviours of a single individual during the course of their everyday working activities (McDonald, 2005), this article demonstrates that shadowing is often a highly disruptive and to some extent performative undertaking, both for the researched and for the researcher. Yet, it is precisely the disruptive potential of shadowing that makes it a valuable data collection method, offering the opportunity to gain significant insights that would be largely unobtainable via any other method. Following a brief discussion of shadowing as a research tool and an introduction to the ‘Muslim Chaplaincy Project’, the remainder of the article describes the experience of shadowing an individual Muslim hospital chaplain in detail. What becomes apparent is that shadowing has the potential to blur into other qualitative data collection methods (e.g. interviewing), especially when those we are shadowing have developed roles that engage them in various discursive communities, and a range of cooperative networks. Shadowing such individuals complicates our understanding of how this method operates in practice.
TL;DR: Barack Obama's depiction of the boundaries of East Harlem and Manhattan creates a picture in your mind as discussed by the authors, and if you have been there, you can visualize it, if you read about it, then you extemporize, even embellish on the details.
Abstract: Barack Obama’s depiction of the boundaries of East Harlem and Manhattan creates a picture in your mind. If you have been there, you can visualize it, if you have read about it, then you extemporize, even embellish on the details. Uninviting, treeless, soot-colored walk-ups with heavy shadows resurrect colours, sounds, textures, and shapes. In this short excerpt, Obama materializes a place for a reader; he captures materialities-in-place and he does so through evocative details and speaking to the senses. There is a difference between living these senses, visiting these senses, and reading these senses. The subtle, yet important distinctions are the subject of this article in a special issue about combining ethnography with multimodality. The topic of the article is seeing an artifact, and its sensory world, through the optic of its owner as a coupling
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the use of private diaries in qualitative research about intimate everyday experiences and explore the role of diaries as a form of confessional or measurement of private life.
Abstract: This article explores the use of private diaries in qualitative research about intimate everyday experiences. The article first reflects on existing diary-based research, then examines data from a small-scale UK study about the negotiation of condom use in heterosex to pose questions about the kinds of data made available when participants use private diaries as a prompt in qualitative interviews. The article discusses the use of private diaries as a way to explore ambivalent, everyday experiences and interrogates the role of diaries as a form of confessional or measurement of private life. It explores how combined researcher intimate diaries and field note journals can be used in reflexive qualitative sexualities research. The article finally examines the potential for diaries as a form of research intervention in participants’ intimate lives.
TL;DR: This paper proposed comparative area studies (CAS) as a rubric that maintains the importance of regional knowledge while contributing to general theory building using inductive intra-regional, cross-region, interregional comparison.
Abstract: Though many now downplay the tension between area studies and disciplinary political science, there has been little substantive guidance on how to accomplish complementarity between their respective approaches. This article seeks to develop the idea of comparative area studies (CAS) as a rubric that maintains the importance of regional knowledge while contributing to general theory building using inductive intra-regional, cross-regional, inter-regional comparison. Treating regions as theoretically-grounded analytical categories, rather than inert or innate geographical entities, can help inform both quantitative and qualitative attempts to build general theory.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the insights that visualization technologies such as 3D body scanning and mapping may provide for understanding embodied experience and argue that body mapping can be a useful tool for increasing awareness of embodied experiences such as pain which often recede from conscious perception.
Abstract: This article examines the insights that visualization technologies such as 3D body scanning and mapping may provide for understanding embodied experience. The analysis draws on data from a research project on the socio-cultural contexts of dance injuries which used a mixed methodology including questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and body mapping with 205 dancers to explore how they distinguish between pain and injury and the consequences this has for their bodies and careers. The findings point to important differences between the data gained through the questionnaires and the data gathered in mapping and in-depth interviewing, suggesting that body mapping may point to the limitations of questionnaire methods in gathering data about experiences such as pain. Using a framework for understanding embodiment derived from cultural phenomenology, we argue that body mapping can be a useful tool for increasing awareness of embodied experiences such as pain which often recede from conscious perception.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the benefits, drawbacks, and potential applications of an interviewing technique based on the use of cards printed with key research concepts related to the body, and present several potential applications.
Abstract: This article explores the benefits, drawbacks, and potential applications of an interviewing technique based on the use of cards printed with key research concepts related to the body. Informed by ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present methodological reflections and recollections from two qualitative cross-national research projects, one of them comparing Finland and Scotland, and the other one Scotland an...
Abstract: The article is based on methodological reflections and recollections from two qualitative cross-national research projects, one of them comparing Finland and Scotland, and the other one Scotland an...
TL;DR: The use of narrative has become widespread in social and educational research, as both the phenomenon under study and as a method of analysis as mentioned in this paper, however, this general acceptance of narrative as focus...
Abstract: The use of narrative has become widespread in social and educational research, as both the phenomenon under study and as a method of analysis. However, this general acceptance of narrative as focus...