All papers in this section ©2001 Franni Vincent:

This is part of my MSc coursework - please bear in mind that your tutor may already have read it before you use the ideas or quotes in your own work! ! Happy to discuss ideas with anyone else working towards their social science MSc - mail me

Geertz's view of his task as a qualitative researcher gives a useful starting point for this paper. It provides a framework for examining the methodology of and assumptions behind qualitative research. Evaluating whether qualitative data analysis and ethnography are the only providers of an authentic account of social life depends for the most part on either agreeing or disagreeing with Geertz's statement. The typical objects of analysis of qualitative research strategy, its methodology and research materials, and the approach to knowledge construction which underly both qualitative research strategies and those of their opponents will be examined in this evaluation.

Geertz view is important in this context, as he is recognised as a key force in the endeavour to break away from the purely functionalist and mechanistic view of society which is epitomised by the empirical and positivist traditions. Qualitative research has moved from ethnographic fieldwork in anthropology to several areas of social science to give a depth and insight into not just the structure and frame-work of social life, but its full complexity. Qualitative researchers are prioritising meanings, both those within the comprehension and interpretation of the individual which motivates his/her actions, as well as those underlying meanings to be found in social practices. Initially, the social sciences concerns were with analysis the structure of society, identifying what was normal and pathological within it, and to some extent identifying causes. Sociology and economics were primarily fields of nomothetic enquiry, concerned with producing theories and models which had as their outcome generalisable laws; for this, empirical research methods depending on closed system approaches were prioritised, observation and theory were treated as totally separate, and any analysis of meanings or values given low or zero priority. Qualitative methods, on the other hand, 'grew up' within the anthropological fields, where the emphasis was rather on 'Man' than on 'society'. Ethnography as it developed in anthropology favoured idiographic enquiry into the particular, rather than the general, was initially used amongst 'primitive or backward peoples', and has as its aim 'to give acceptable accounts of such peoples and their social life'. 'Acceptable' and 'authentic' are not seen necessarily as compatible aims, but this will be returned to later in the paper.

Qualitative data collected can be of infinite variety and thus the data might be in many cases a more authentic representation of everyday social activity than that gained by empirical methods. In order to effectively analyse the whole range of social life, data might includes material gained not just from in depth interviews with the subjects being studied, or from observations of their social interactions, but also a range of 'texts.' Texts may be actual texts such as newspapers, books, diaries. Depending on technology available to the researcher, it could equally be film, videotape, or assorted digital media. It might be 'texts' in other senses: for Geertz (1973),in his analysis of 'deep play' (backing seemingly irrational odds) an illegal cockfight was one such textual context. Neither the gathering of material nor its analysis are necessarily undertaken in any more haphazard or less accurate manner by its practitioners than those using quantitative methodology. Some framework, or initial analysis and definition of the phenomenon being studied would have been undertaken, perhaps initial theorising, but an ethnographer's outlook has by necessity to be open-ended in both data acquisition and expectations particularly when carrying out fieldwork in a situation where there is the need to first build language skills or develop trust. There is the time taken to ensure that the researcher is understanding, if not speaking sufficient of the same language:

as well the time taken to be accepted and absorbed into a community. This, for some observers, may be as a result of a felicitous accident:

This aspect, the gaining of admittance and trust, is particularly key in the sociology of deviance. In searching for meanings and interpretations while studying any phenomenon, a qualitative researcher would be hoping for evidence that could provide insights; but this depends in part on the subjects carrying on their 'normal' actions and interactions during the observation, or any 'authentic' aspect would be lost. Believing that meanings are constructed by individuals partly from how they interpret their own behaviour in relationship and as reflected in that of others, the researcher's task is this area includes devising a plausible role for him/herself, passing as deviant, so that everyday actions are carried out by the subjects without additional self-consciousness. In Laud Humphrey's study of homosexual behaviour in public conveniences, he adopted the plausible role of a voyeur to full this requirement. Obviously, in such cases, while authenticity is strived for, the situation precludes the overt use of clipboards, notebooks etc, and the researcher must rely on memory to some extent to produce good field notes for later coding!

However the data is being obtained, whether by participant observation, or as a result of interviews or study of texts, the process of analysis needs to produce an account of the phenomenon. The test of authenticity would be how accurate a fit the account or model developed was to the actual real life situation. The coding of data in qualitative research is key to devising of hypotheses and later theories. The researcher aims to categorise the data in order to find links and connections, to formulate concepts, and to constantly revise these in the light of further analysis.

By applying analytic induction (see fig 1), a researcher would hope to devise hypotheses which fit initial data, and by a process of continually modifying those hypotheses either by returning to the data, or to the field and resampling until all negative cases had been taken into account , he/she would eventually aim at achieving a theory which would fit all cases..

The outcome would not necessarily be laws and theories in the same generalisable and predictive sense as those claimed for empirical research, this process of 'develop[ing] an inclusive conceptualization', though exhaustive in both time and resources, is argued as presenting a more accurate account of a phenomenon than experimental or theoretical modelling.

Proponents within idealist approaches who come closest to empiricists would be rational choice theorists who aim for establishing 'ideal types' — noticing sufficient patterns within the data collected to establish a pattern and rationality in the choices and decisions individuals make. Weber's view of formulation of types assumes that individuals' choices have internally rational motives, therefore precision would be obtained by first defining the concept and then 'by striving for the highest possible degree of adequacy on the level of meaning' in accordance with the definition. This theory is particularly useful when the phenomenon being studied is one that depends for explanation on values and meaning which, under empirical measures, might be seen to be irrational. An example of this would be public philanthropy, where there would seem to be no logical explanation for why, for example,wealthy individuals should donate costly works or art to museums.

Ulibarri's analysis of rational philanthropy in the arts and humanities finds that individuals carry out a cost benefit analysis on their donating activities, particularly when interest rates are low. Thus when the donor will gain more prestige from the rise in value of, say, a donated art object, or contribution to opera, than the equivalent money would gain when invested elsewhere, then s/he is being rational in his/her choice. This is particularly so in Ulibarri's analysis that prestige is likely to result in the accrual of additional cultural capital (such as being awarded a title). However, individual prestige may or may not be converted to visible rewards in the lifetime of the donor, and thus Ulibarri assumes that

Criticisms of the authenticity of qualitative accounts can specify unscientific methodology, subjectivity,or bias. The ethnographer's relationship, both to the subjects s/he is researching and to his/her material is liable to claims of bias. This accusation of bias can come from several directions: an awareness that partiality is inevitable, that there is rarely a neutral feeling towards the subjects or phenomenon has in some cases gone hand in hand with the attempt to present the opposing side. Becker argues that no social science is value free: 'the question is not whether we should take sides, since we inevitably will, but whose side we are on' — but that as this is so, the methodology used must ensure that

As the simplest version of this view in practice in fieldwork in a prison, for example, one would do this by interviewing not just prisoners, but the warders.

Studies in the sociology of deviance are particularly prone to accusations of bias:

but Hammersley points out that bias itself is a social construct, and that this is in line with radical versions of the sociology of knowledge where 'truth' is 'no more than what passes for knowledge in a particular community'. Thus critiques of methodology within any area at any time is subject to particular views on knowledge construction prevalent within a field.

This may, in some areas, amount to a sad confirmation of the Kuhnian view that there is only room for one dominant paradigm at any one time, and that is the empirical one as far as official sponsoring of research through bodies such as ESRC and SSRC are concerned. Among social scientists, economics is the clearest example of this in action:

In effect this amounts to the most prestigious research in the field, that which is prioritised and funded nationally or by large institutions, tends to be of a kind described as 'pure theory' at centre of which abstract mathematical models.

Although economics has, perhaps, made greatest use of the idea of rationality, and ideal types

at the same time it had been the most reluctant to include 'real world phenomena' which are seldom touched on in mainstream economics are in other than highly idealised forms. This, it has been pointed out in development studies, leads to the type of model which assumes that all effects of market forces in the third world are positive. As an example of the conflict mentioned earlier between authenticity and what is 'acceptable', a comparatively rare example of qualitative research carried out in the manufacturing industries of India and Fiji is regarded as unusual, and treated with indifference and hostility in the 'scientific' field of economics for being 'peopled' with the voices from the subjects of the fieldwork, their views and their interpretations, as even micro-economics is usually presented in theoretical and statistical form.

Criticism of how authentic an approach can be by interpretive methods comes not only from 'external' sources, but also from other approaches within the qualitative research field. The discourse identified as critical paradigm includes feminist researchers, whose critique centres on both the relationship between researcher and researchee, and what the aims of research should be. The central issues are 'Whose voice is being heard?', 'Whose story is being told?' and whether that voice should be the researchers in any context as

Thus there is doubt expressed whether, for example, male researchers can effectively present an account of women's experience, or white researcher's black researchee's, or educated middle class researcher's effectively interpret and voice any oppressed minority's social world. They argue for ethnography and qualitative analysis to be used not just to present and interpret the 'web of meanings', to challenge structural inequities. Poststructuralists experience the 'webs of meaning' as socially constructed, but question the idea of any fixed rationality or meaning, arguing for plurality, emphasising the multiple stories, multiple voices and multiple perspectives to be heard.

Whether qualitative data analysis and ethnography are regarded as providing the absolute in authenticity depends on its perceived position as a producer of high priority knowledge in the field of social science. Bourdieu refers to the continuing struggle for

Researchers are dependent on funding, and funding flows to those who are researching in , or have researched in the past , problems which are seen to have achieved higher symbolic profit. Encouragement of the 'gestalt shift' needed to for the idealist approach to become the dominant research paradigm in the social sciences is unlikely in this context. . A method which claims to be the 'only' authentic account, unless prioritised by official funding bodies, will take a back seat to what is, in Radcliffe-Brown's words, an officially 'acceptable account' — one perceived 'scientific' with empirical methods geared to produce research within a given timeframe and to outcomes which are seen as quantifiable, within a framework of institutions whose staff are measured in terms of their papers and publications produced. Methodological pluralism — combining the interpretive authenticity of idealistic approaches with sufficient empiricism to satisfy the demand for graphical and statistic representation of the funding bodies — might be the way forward in blending the authenticity with acceptability.