Shulamit Reinharz - Böcker

Shulamit Reinharz here examines the wide range of experiments feminist researchers undertake. Her goal is to help explain the relationship between feminism and methodology and to challenge stereotypes that might exist about 'feminist research methods'. Reinharz concludes that there is no one feminist method, but rather a variety of perspectives or questions that feminists bring to traditional methods. She argues that this diversity of methods has been of great valueto feminist scholarship. She also includes an extensive bibliography which catalogues feminist scholarship over the last two decades. There are a few edited volumes on the subject but currently no authored text.

Ethnography or participant observation research has been performed since the early nineteenth century and is now one of the most common ways for field researchers to gain an in-depth understanding of social life. In Observing the Observer: Understanding Our Selves in Field Research--the only book that covers the issue of "reflexivity" in field research--author Shulamit Reinharz provides a captivating analysis of her yearlong stay in Israel, where she engaged in a study of aging on a kibbutz. Exploring the issue of "reflexivity," this unique volume focuses on the key tool in fieldwork--the self. It discusses how the many facets of the self (or "selves") of a researcher--research selves, personal selves, and situational selves--can affect how research is enacted and reported on. The book addresses many of the current debates on fieldwork, especially those that have arisen in the feminist literature. Ideal for graduate courses in qualitative research methods, ethnographic methods, or ethnography, Observing the Observer can also be used in upper-level undergraduate courses on qualitative methods.

100 Jewish Brides: Stories from Around the World features stories of Jewish brides from six continents, highlighting diverse customs and rituals related to weddings now and in the past. The stories, written by brides, their relatives, clergy, and other intimates, cover similarities and differences across the Jewish diaspora, from courtship and betrothal to pre-wedding customs, the wedding ceremony, and beyond. With stories from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, this collection of intimate personal testimonies will surprise and inspire. A Jewish wedding after conversion in Madagascar, a reunion of Holocaust survivors in Sweden, a shipboard romance initiated by a celebrity, these stories from 83 countries describe Jewish wedding traditions, some familiar and others eye-opening, in a multitude of cultures and settings, past and present. 100 Jewish Brides offers intimate glimpses into the worlds of brides and their families based on their own written accounts. It represents opportunities to learn how Jewish lives were and are currently lived around the world from memories of the distant past to recent times.

This autobiographical analysis of the many difficult issues, dilemmas, choices, and adjustments involved in becoming a social scientist highlights the strengths and limitations of two principal research methods: survey research and participant observation. It emphasizes how these research methods are actually experienced, in contrast to how they are ideally described in texts.