Studies in Qualitative Methodology – serie

This volume is one of a series of research annuals on qualitative research designed to take up issues and debates in this area that relate to methodology, the relationship between data collection and data analysis, the relationship between theory and method, and the implications of qualitative research for social policy and evaluation.

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of visual methods of research across the social sciences. As researchers realize the potential of the visual, not only as a source but also as a means of generating data, a range of techniques has been developed which seek data that are different from those offered by more conventional qualitative research methods. The contributions to this collection start from the premise either that visual research allows a view of the social world which is not available by other means, or that its use offers a means of augmenting other methods, such as discussion and interview. Rather than providing a step-by-step guide to the use of visual methods, the various authors draw on their experience of visual research to provide critical and reflexive accounts of its use in the field, its potential for unlocking otherwise unseen places, spaces and social action and as a basis for the generation of conceptual and theoretical insight.

As international development presents enormous moral, political and ethical challenges, so researching and understanding it requires negotiation of its contested contours. The chapters draw on research conducted around the world using a range of methodologies, perspectives and commitments, rooted in diverse disciplines. Through their exploration of the interrelationship of qualitative methodologies and development theory, policy and practice, the book demonstrates the importance of placing qualitative methodologies within their conceptual, practical and political contexts. It also highlights the important but contested contribution that qualitative methodology can make to not only understanding development, but engendering it. This book explores qualitative methodology and development in terms of the ways researchers negotiate boundaries and borders. It asks questions of development research, critiques relationships between researchers and subjects, and challenges connections between research and change. It demonstrates the importance of placing qualitative methods within their right context. This book series is available electronically online.

Urban environments in the 21st Century are faced with unprecedented challenges. Globalisation, terrorism/securitisation, fundamentalism/Islamaphobia, demographic shifts and environmental damage all pose profound threats to the urban condition and experience. These meta-challenges invariably raise serious dilemmas for policy makers and practitioners who must increasingly look to researchers for answers to these complex, and at times, overwhelmingly perplexing questions. This book provides a way forward by advocating a 'pragmatic renaissance' within qualitative research - a systematic approach to conducting qualitative research and representing the findings. The editors argue that this approach is essential if we are to develop nuanced and deep levels of understanding of the impacts of these challenges to contemporary urban life. This systematic approach is reflected throughout the book which is divided into two sections - Part One: On Theory and Method; and Part Two: Understanding Key Urban Issues. Individual chapters showcase the utility of qualitative research by providing theoretical, methodological and empirical insights into real life research. Authors draw on research conducted in Australia, England, Ireland, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka and consider issues relating to: the use of social constructionism to understand policy processes and actors; issues and dilemmas in conducting fieldwork, the need for more longitudinal qualitative research; the comparative advantage of qualitative methods in urban policy evaluations; understanding the immigrant settlement experience; dealing with sex workers; ageing in place; and doing action research with Australian Aboriginals. This book will be of interest and use to a wide range of researchers and students in urban planning, housing studies, urban sociology, urban geography, anthropology and community development. In addition, given the applied dimension of the volume, it will have appeal for urban policy makers at the local and strategic level.

The last decade has witnessed a considerable increase in research that could be broadly described as ethnographic, qualitative or a case study among investigators working within such disciplines and areas of study as sociology, criminology and education, as well as sub-fields like industrial relations and the sociology of health and healing. Such work draws on a style of investigation traditionally used by social anthropologists and includes methods such as participant observation, unstructured interviews and documentary evidence. This range of research methods is commonly included under the term field research and qualitative methodology. It is the intention of these research annuals on qualitative research to take up issues and debates in this area that relate to methodology, the relationship between data collection and data analysis, the relationship between theory and method and the implications of qualitative research for social policy and evaluation. Each volume of "Studies in Qualitative Methodology" takes a specific theme relating to qualitative research. Earlier volumes have focussed on the conduct of the qualitative research (Volume 1) and research experience (Volume 2). In all the accounts that have been provided, authors have been encouraged to write in the first person and to focus upon the methodological lessons that can be learned from field research. These themes come together in this volume (Volume 3) which focuses on the learning experience for a group of researchers who have conducted their first major study for a PhD. In this respect, the essays that follow focus on the learning experience in the field and on the process of doing research, and deal with such issues as the biography of the researcher, the role of personal experience, the process of gaining access (through sponsors, gatekeepers and informants), the collection of data through the management of field relations, the analysis of data and the writing process. The authors demonstrate the complexity of conducting fieldwork and the range of interpersonnal skills that need to be used alongside research design, writing and theorizing.

This volume is one of a series of research annuals on qualitative research designed to take up issues and debates in this area that relate to methodology, the relationship between data collection and data analysis, the relationship between theory and method, and the implications of qualitative research for social policy and evaluation.

This volume is one of a series of research annuals on qualitative research designed to take up issues and debates in this area that relate to methodology, the relationship between data collection and data analysis, the relationship between theory and method, and the implications of qualitative research for social policy and evaluation.

This volume supports the ethical negotiations of empirical researchers and enhances understanding of the complex imbrication of ethics and knowledge in contemporary social research. It deals jointly with the role of ethics in, and the effect of ethics on, social research.

This volume seeks to address the emerging relationships between qualitative research and digital data. At the present time, ubiquitous digital data is altering the foci of research, the contexts in which research takes place, and the methods and tools available for qualitative research. Alongside new challenges and opportunities, there are many ways in which established qualitative methods are being used to situate and interpret digital phenomena. This book examines and engages with the ambivalence of digitization, illuminating the diverse ways in which researchers approach, negotiate, understand and interpret objects and practices of digital research. The chapters in this volume are organized around four key themes: researching impacts of digitization on social worlds; researching uses of digital data within social worlds; researching digital visualization of social worlds; researching with digital data and methods. The volume is designed to appeal to qualitative researchers seeking to study processes of digitization, adjust existing methodologies for digital worlds, and develop new ways of examining and using digital research.

Many researchers in recent years have begun to reflect on their gender identity and how this impacts on the research process and discuss how this helps build rapport with participants and creates successful or unsuccessful pieces of qualitative research. However, how does this intersect with other forms of identity, such as class, ethnicity, disability, age, sexuality? In this volume contributors explore these issues by reflecting on their own studies and research careers and address how important or unimportant gender has been in building research relationships. While the gender identity of the respondent/researcher relationship is undoubtedly important, what must also be acknowledged are the attributes which create a good fieldworker and competent social science researchers capable of understanding and engaging in different social situations and thought interaction with different participants.

Traditional research discourses continue to present academic work as rational, detached, objective and free from emotion. This volume argues that the presentation of research as ‘objective’ conceals the subject positions of researchers, and the emotional imperatives that often drive research. The collection engages with the emotional experiences of researchers working in different traditions, contexts and sites, and demonstrates their centrality in data production, analysis, dissemination and ethical practice.This edited volume offers contributions from a range of well-established and early career scholars who argue for an emotional rebellion in the academic world. The authors reflect on their own experiences of research, generously sharing their approach to their craft, and the uncertainties, concerns, enjoyments, and questions it entails. The contributors are based in a range of disciplines across the humanities, social sciences and STEM, and in the museum sector. This provides a unique opportunity for reflection on differences between and similarities across disciplinary boundaries, shedding new light on common problems and opportunities stimulated by emotion in research.The collection demonstrates how emotion can be valuable and meaningful in the activities of research, reflection and dissemination: offering authenticity to the academic voice, bringing clarity to interpretive biases, producing engaging outputs which connect with diverse readerships, and potentially reshaping disciplinary foundations and relations. Emotion and the Researcher: Sites, Subjectivities and Relationships will be an invaluable companion for researchers, postgraduate students and other academics with an interest in the emotional elements of conflict, negotiation, relationality and reflexivity, within and beyond the research encounter.

This book explores recent developments in Institutional Ethnography (IE) and offers reflective accounts on how IE is being utilised and understood in social research. IE is a sociological sub-discipline developed by Dorothy E. Smith that seeks to explicate the textual mediation of people’s everyday experiences in their local sites of being. As an approach, IE is growing in significance across the globe, particularly in Canada, USA, Australia and UK.  This collection includes contributions from those involved in the early development of IE alongside Smith as well as early career researchers, new to the sociology, theory and method of IE. Chapters focus on IE as a sociological theory and qualitative research method; the relationship between data generation and analysis in IE; implications from its findings for policy; and IE as a significant methodological approach. This involves explication of the theoretical, the operationalization of IE, and links between the theoretical and the empirical. It illuminates the relationship between data generation and analysis and includes consideration of its own textual relations of ruling.

The Lost Ethnographies reports on the methodological lessons learnt from ethnographic projects that, viewed superficially, failed. Experienced researchers write about projects they planned, and were excited about, which then never began, had to be abandoned, or took such unexpected directions that it became a different piece of work altogether. The topics and settings are varied and disparate, but the lessons learnt have important similarities.This collection focuses on absences; topics and settings that remain under researched; taken for granted aspects of social life that have not been scrutinized, and finally the potential insights that are gained when absences are carefully examined and explored. Readers will learn a great deal about research design, fundraising, writing up, access negotiations, serendipity in the field, and the complex interaction between the body and the brain of the ethnographer and the realities of ethnographic research. Maximising learning from the ‘failings’ of ourselves and of others is the positive message of the collection. The most poignant chapters are those in which the author ‘returns’ to reread and reflect on a past project; something that is not done often enough, partly because it can be painful. The accounts of projects which had to be abandoned or radically changed offer hope to researchers facing difficulties in their own investigations. These reflections, on projects that were never even begun, show how to gain fresh energy and social science insight from apparent rejection, and the collection approaches the whole concept of lost ethnography in provocative ways.

This new volume provides a theoretical and empirical perspective on the value, potential and contribution that qualitative research methodologies bring to the analysis of housing policy issues within an international context. This encompasses key housing issues, including: the meaning and significance of home; homelessness; resident participation; housing renewal and gentrification; socially mixed housing communities; Irish Gypsies; and post-apartheid housing policies. The book also includes discussion of specific methodological challenges and ethical dilemmas faced by researchers (and policy-makers). The book's core strength lies in its ability to showcase the versatility and practical application of qualitative research in housing studies.