How to Conduct Qualitative Research in Social Science (How to Research Guides) 1800376189, 9781800376182

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How to Conduct Qualitative Research in Social Science

In loving memory of my youngest daughter, Emma Inturatana Rice, who will forever be in my heart

How to Conduct Qualitative Research in Social Science Edited by

Pranee Liamputtong Professor of Behaviour Sciences, College of Health Sciences, VinUniversity, Vietnam

Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

© Pranee Liamputtong 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2022948516 This book is available electronically in the Sociology, Social Policy and Education subject collection http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781800376199

ISBN 978 1 80037 618 2 (cased) ISBN 978 1 80037 619 9 (eBook)

EEP BoX

Contents About the editorvii List of contributorsix Prefacexii 1

Qualitative research in the social sciences: setting the scene Pranee Liamputtong

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‘Theory’ in qualitative research: a framework that synthesises existing academic advice Louise Keogh, Natalie Jovanovski, Sarah MacLean and Richard Chenhall

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Conducting qualitative research in cultural anthropology Katie Nelson and John Forrest

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Qualitative methods in medical anthropology Richard Chenhall and Kate Senior

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Qualitative research in sociology: ‘seeing’ social class in qualitative data Belinda Lunnay, Kristen Foley and Paul R. Ward

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Qualitative research in Women’s and Gender Studies: the ‘radical focus group’ as feminist praxis Natalie Jovanovski

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Qualitative research in political science Selen A. Ercan and Ariadne Vromen

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Conducting qualitative research in criminology Max Travers

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Qualitative research in demography: marginal and marginalised147 Joe Strong, Rishita Nandagiri, Sara Randall and Ernestina Coast v

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How to conduct qualitative research in social science

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Qualitative methods in economic sciences Mirjana Radović-Marković

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Qualitative methods in social work Catherine Flynn

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Conducting qualitative research in education Jennifer Gao and Radhika Chugh

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Index

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About the editor Pranee Liamputtong currently holds the position of Professor of Behaviour Sciences at the College of Health Sciences, VinUniversity, Vietnam. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Translation Health Research Institute (THRI) at Western Sydney University and at the School of Public Health, La Trobe University in Australia. Previously, she held the positions of Professor of Public Health at the School of Health Sciences, Western Sydney University, and Personal Chair in Public Health at the School of Public Health, La Trobe University, Australia. Pranee has also taught in the School of Sociology and Anthropology and worked as a public health research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Mothers’ and Children’s Health, La Trobe University. Pranee’s particular interests include issues related to socio-cultural influences on childbearing, childrearing, motherhood, infant feeding practices, and reproductive and sexual health. Her current research includes motherhood, HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, sexuality and sexual violence. Pranee has published several books and a large number of papers in these areas. These include Maternity and Reproductive Health in Asian Societies (with Lenore Manderson, Harwood Academic Press, 1996); Asian Mothers, Western Birth (Ausmed Publications, 1999); Living in a New Country: Understanding Migrants’ Health (Ausmed Publications, 1999); Hmong Women and Reproduction (Bergin & Garvey, 2000); Coming of Age in South and Southeast Asia: Youth, Courtship and Sexuality (with Lenore Manderson, Curzon Press, 2002); Health, Social Change and Communities (with Heather Gardner, Oxford University Press, 2003). Her more recent books include Reproduction, Childbearing and Motherhood: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Nova Science Publishers, 2007); Childrearing and Infant Care Issues: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Nova Science Publishers, 2007); The Journey of Becoming a Mother amongst Thai Women in Northern Thailand (Lexington Books, 2007); Population, Community, & Health Promotion (with Sansnee Jirojwong, Oxford University Press, 2008); Infant Feeding Practices: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Springer, New York, 2011); Motherhood and Postnatal Depression: Narratives of Women and their Partners (with Carolyn Westall, Springer, 2011); Health, Illness and Well-Being: Perspectives and Social Determinants (with Rebecca Fanany and Glenda Verrinder, Oxford University Press, 2012), Contemporary Socio-Cultural and Political Perspectives in Thailand (Springer, 2014); Public Health: Local and Global vii

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Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2016, second edition in 2019, third edition in 2022), and Social Determinants of Health (Oxford University Press, 2019). Pranee is a general editor of the book series ‘HIV/AIDS and Cross-Cultural Research‘, which was published by Springer in the Netherlands between 2012 and 2020. Her own books in the series are Stigma, Discrimination and Living with HIV/AIDS (2013), Women, Motherhood and Living with HIV/AIDS (2013) and Children, Young People and Living with HIV/AIDS: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (2016). Pranee has also written and edited a number of research method books. Her first research method book was Qualitative Research Methods: A Health Focus (with Douglas Ezzy, Oxford University Press, 1999); the second edition of the book was titled Qualitative Research Methods (2005); the third edition was published in 2009; the fourth edition was published in 2013, and the fifth edition was published in 2020. Pranee has also published a book on doing qualitative research online: Health Research in Cyberspace: Methodological, Practical and Personal Issues (Nova Science Publishers, 2006). Her other books include Researching the Vulnerable: A Guide to Sensitive Research Methods (Sage, 2007); Undertaking Sensitive Research: Managing Boundaries, Emotions and Risk (with Virginia Dickson-Swift and Erica James, Cambridge University Press, 2008); Knowing Differently: Arts-Based and Collaborative Research Methods (with Jean Rumbold, Nova Science Publishers, 2008); Doing Cross-Cultural Research: Ethical and Methodological Issues (Springer, 2008), Performing Qualitative Cross-Cultural Research (Cambridge University Press, 2010); Research Methods in Health and Evidence-Based Practice (Oxford University Press, 2010, 2013, 2017, 2022); Focus Group Methodology: Principles and Practice (Sage, 2011, online version in 2016); and Using Participatory Qualitative Research Methodologies in Health (with Gina Higginbottom, Sage, 2015). In 2019, her Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences was published by Springer. She is now working on a number of books including Qualitative Cross-Cultural Research: A Social Science Perspective (Edward Elgar, forthcoming), and Handbook of Social Science in Global Public Health (Springer, forthcoming).

Contributors Richard Chenhall is a medical anthropologist who conducted research with Indigenous communities for over 20 years in the areas of the social determinants of health, alcohol and other drugs, sexual health and youth well-being. Radhika Chugh is a Teaching Fellow and PhD candidate in the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research takes an intersectionality-informed perspective to qualitatively study women’s leadership identity development. Ernestina Coast is Professor of Health and International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK. Her multidisciplinary research is positioned at an intersection of social science approaches including health, gender and development. Selen A. Ercan is a Professor of Political Science and Director at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra, Australia. Her work sits at the intersection of normative political theory and interpretive empirical research and examines the prospects for deliberation in a variety of settings, ranging from structured forums to protest movements Catherine Flynn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at Monash University, Australia, where her primary teaching focuses on research methods for social workers. Her core research areas include the intersection of criminal justice and social work, international collaborations/ international social work and social work education and research. Kristen Foley is a Researcher and Doctoral candidate in the Research Centre for Public Health, Equity and Human Flourishing at Torrens University Australia, Adelaide, South Australia. She has a background in occupational therapy bringing an applied understanding of health, social science and equity to her research. Her doctoral work hinges these interests to feminist questions around care, commercialisation, consumption and contemporary knowledge economies. John Forrest (birth name, Juan Alejandro Forrest de Sloper) was Juanita and Joseph Leff Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Purchase College, ix

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State University of New York, USA and is now Professor Emeritus. He is the author of Doing Field Projects: Methods and Practice for Social and Anthropological Research on which Katie Nelson was a consultant. Jennifer Gao was a Lecturer in the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is currently a Senior People and Policy Consultant in the public sector. Her research publications have appeared in The International Journal of Human Resource Management and R&D Management. Natalie Jovanovski is a health sociologist and ARC Senior Research Fellow (DECRA) at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses on the harms of weight-loss diet culture on women, and on the subcultures and social movements that counter these norms. Louise Keogh is a Professor and health sociologist in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses on lay and expert perceptions of risk and health decision-making, particularly in relation to the use of controversial health technology. Belinda Lunnay is a qualitative researcher in social sciences and public health in the Research Centre for Public Health, Equity and Human Flourishing at Torrens University Australia, Adelaide, South Australia. Her background is in health promotion and health inequities resulting from social class. Belinda has extensive experience collecting and analysing qualitative data and teaching the qualitative methodology to students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Sarah MacLean is an Associate Professor and health sociologist employed at La Trobe University, Australia, in the discipline of Social Work and Social Policy. Her research interests are in the consumption of alcohol, inhalant and gambling products, all of which are legally available. She was joint Editor-in-Chief of Health Sociology Review for the period of 2019–2022. Rishita Nandagiri (she/her) is a feminist researcher currently based at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK. Her interdisciplinary research broadly focuses on abortion and reproduction in the Global South. Katie Nelson is Instructor of Anthropology and Sociology at Inver Hills Community College, USA. Her research focuses on migration, identity and citizenship in Mexico, Morocco and the United States. She was the 2022 winner of the Minnesota State Board of Trustees educator of the year award. She is also a co-founder of the Teaching and Learning Anthropology Journal.

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Mirjana Radović-Marković is a Professor of Qualitative Methods in Economic Sciences at the Institute of Economic Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia. She has served as professor at a number of international institutions. She is an elected fellow of the Academia Europea and the Royal Society of the Arts, London, UK. Sara Randall is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Anthropology at UCL, UK. Her interdisciplinary research focused primarily on the interplays between reproduction, mobility and development in francophone West Africa and how different types and sources of data can represent, or misrepresent, such dynamics. Kate Senior is a medical anthropologist. She has conducted extensive ethnographic field work to explore the meanings people give to health and illness in remote Indigenous communities and their interactions with health services. She is also interested in methodological innovations, particularly arts-based methods. Joe Strong (he/him) is a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK. His current research focuses on the relationship between men, masculinities, and sexual and reproductive health in Ghana, with a specific focus on abortion-related care. Max Travers is Adjunct Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania, Australia. He is the author of The Reality of Law (1997) and The Sentencing of Children (2012); and co-author of Rethinking Bail (2020). The study on bail describes decision-making, and responses to ‘vulnerable’ defendants, in criminal courts. Ariadne Vromen is Professor of Public Administration in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. She has long-term research interests in citizen engagement and governance, and teaching and research interests in multi-method, empirical political science. Paul R. Ward is a Professor of Public Health in the Research Centre for Public Health, Equity and Human Flourishing at Torrens University Australia, Adelaide, South Australia. He is an internationally distinguished and highly influential medical sociologist, who focuses particularly on the sociology of risk and trust. He applies sociological theory to understand and explain key public health problems and then translational methods to develop applied policy/practice solutions.

Preface This book focuses on conducting qualitative research in the social sciences. The public problems that we, as an individual, and our societies are confronted with call for more qualitative inquiry. There is an urgent need to appreciate how individuals and groups perceive and experience these public troubles to find research-based strategies that can help to alleviate global problems more effectively. Qualitative research can find the answers to these issues. This is the value of the qualitative inquiry. The social sciences emerged in the nineteenth century. They first appeared as the discipline of sociology, political economy and the ‘moral sciences’, which was an initial form of psychology. Nowadays, debates about which disciplines are included in the social sciences are still going on. Bos (2020: 15) argues that this shows ‘the social sciences as a whole are still a collection of rather loosely connected fields of developing knowledge’. However, Toulmin (2015) suggests that the social sciences embrace sociology, anthropology, human geography, history, politics, economics, psychology, political science, women studies and development studies. These are disciplines which examine the function of our societies at both the local and global levels (Toulmin, 2015). This book follows Toulmin’s definition of the social sciences. However, since education also explores and documents the working of societies as other disciplines, in this book, I also include education as an important aspect of the social sciences. The book comprises 12 chapters. Except for Chapter 2, which discusses the role of theory in qualitative research in social science and Chapter 5 which provides a full analysis of a research project using a sociological lens, all chapters have a common theme. In each chapter, the author(s) will first discuss the essence of the discipline focused on. This will be followed with discussions regarding the contribution of qualitative inquiry to the discipline. Each chapter then will describe traditional qualitative research methods commonly employed in the discipline and will end with emerging or innovative research methods which are now being adopted in the discipline. I hope that readers will gain valuable knowledge from the chapters in this book. In the beginning, I attempted to include more chapters which would cover many disciplines in the social sciences. However, due to the global crisis that we have been facing in the last years, some authors were not able to deliver xii

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their chapters. Readers may question the lack of some social science disciplines in this volume. I hope this will not deter you from using the book. I would like to express my gratitude to several people who have helped to make this book possible. First, I thank Stephanie Hartley, Senior Assistant Editor at Edward Elgar Publishing, who believes in the virtue of this book and contracted me to write it. I thank her wholeheartedly. I thank all the contributors who worked tirelessly to produce their chapters for me. I am so grateful for this. Last, I thank my two daughters, Zoe Sanipreeya Rice and Emma Inturatana Rice, who have been a part of my identity as a woman, a migrant, a mother and a teacher. Pranee Liamputtong Hanoi, 2022

REFERENCES Bos, J. (2020). Research ethics for students in the social sciences. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Toulmin, C. (2015). What can the social sciences bring to an understanding of food security? In J. Michie and C.L. Cooper (eds.) Why the social sciences matter (pp. 111–127). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

1. Qualitative research in the social sciences: setting the scene Pranee Liamputtong INTRODUCTION Throughout our lives we seek to explain and understand what goes on in the world around us … We observe what happens … and use information from what we observe to draw conclusions … Similarly, researchers seek to understand and explain phenomena like how and why people do what they do. (Maruyama and Ryan, 2014: 4)

The subject matter of the social sciences is people and their institutions (Bryman, 2022). The social science discipline examines social facts and phenomena that occur in individuals, communities, institutions, societies, and cultures (Tucket, 2019; Bos, 2020; Kanter et al., 2020). Essentially, social scientists explore social realities that research participants embrace and respond to, and interpret those realities within the socio-cultural and political context in which they occur (van Koppen et al., 2018). Social science has also been enhanced our understanding about ourselves and the society in which we live. Our way of understanding ourselves is the product of knowledge we have gained from the social sciences. As human beings inhabiting society, social science has allowed us to make sense of ourselves, the way we live, and how things function in our society. Anthony Giddens said this many decades ago: The major achievement of social science is the realisation that social science constitutes the very social world it studies by the absorption of social science into the sense people make of society’ (Brewer, 2013: 26). C. Wright Mills (1959), an influential post-war American social scientist, argued that our ‘private troubles’ are in fact ‘public issues’. Although he argued from the discipline of sociology, this theoretical position can be applied to the social sciences in general (Howard Newby, President of Academy of Social Sciences, in the Foreword to Michie and Cooper, 2015a [Newby, 2015: vii]). At least in the UK, many social science disciplines emerged out of Wright Mills’ proposition. Newby (2015: vii) writes: ‘Private troubles 1

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became public issues by virtue of detailed empirical enquiry providing both the evidence for public reform and a realisation that there were causes of private troubles which lay beyond the purview of the individual either to understand or remedy them’. C. Wright Mills’ theoretical standpoint has bestowed on social science a role that contributes significantly to public discourse to the present day (Mills, 1959; see also Chapter 5 in this volume). Taking the position of C. Wright Mills to examine troubles around the world now, we would see so many public issues which impact greatly on our private problems, for example, food security, migration, wars, climate change, sustainable resource utilisation, and public health. Surely, all of these public issues have a social science dimension, including the socio-cultural, political, and economic circumstances which promote or impede such change. As our private troubles are inextricably intertwined with public issues, these private problems will require explanations and answers. Of course, explanations and answers must be based on a useful grasp of the involved issues as well as accurate knowledge (Michie and Cooper, 2015b). But the social sciences are not just about discourse, ideas, and insight (Michie and Cooper, 2015b). They are also about finding evidence. Where do we find evidence? This is when research is essential and appropriate research methods become important. Social science research embraces diverse ontological, epistemological, and methodological approaches (Moon et al., 2019). It also employs different methods and techniques to make sense of social occurrences. However, in this book, I focus solely on the qualitative research approach to understanding human thoughts and actions, examining how things function in society. Social science research necessitates an insight into people as individuals and how they connect with society at large (Toulmin, 2015: 125). Often, it requires the use of less quantitative research approaches such as those of positivist science (Toulmin, 2015: 125). Social scientists hold the view that knowledge is ‘a re-presentation or reconstruction of the world around us’ (Toulmin, 2015: 125). Thus, knowledge is socially constructed. Social constructivists employ the qualitative approach to examine social issues (Burr, 2019; Liamputtong and Rice, 2022). This is the reason why this book focuses mainly on qualitative methods. Although some social science research attempts to form knowledge about interconnections between events, often it tries to cultivate in-depth insight into social conditions. For example, how do recent refugees from Ukraine deal with their plights and resettlement in a new country? What social support do they need to assist them to establish themselves in a new homeland or when they return home? How do Russians see the invasion by their leader in their neighbouring nation? This is when we can employ qualitative inquiry in our social science research, as the approach will allow us to hear the stories from

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the perspective of those who experience them. Qualitative research has always played an important role in examining social issues in the social sciences. It has also become more prominent in recent years as researchers have come to realise its value in understanding what people encounter in their everyday lives and what can we do to alleviate suffering and problems around the world. This chapter sets the scene for this book. I first discuss the nature of qualitative inquiry, and this is followed by the need for such inquiry in the social sciences. The chapter then moves on to discuss the traditional qualitative research approaches and innovative/emerging research methods in the social sciences. The last part of the chapter provides details of chapters included in this book.

THE QUALITATIVE INQUIRY So, on a practical level, we conduct QR [qualitative research] to answer certain kinds of questions that can better be answered in this way. On a political or moral level, we conduct QR to foster social change not through violence but ultimately by changing who we are. (Lichtman, 2017: 15)

Qualitative inquiry refers to ‘a broad approach’ that qualitative researchers adopt to examine social phenomena. This inquiry is based on a theoretical standpoint that people use ‘what they see, hear, and feel’ to make sense of social experiences (Rossman and Rallis, 2017: 5). Fundamentally, qualitative research contributes to the social inquiry which aims to interpret ‘the meanings of human actions’ (Bradbury-Jones et al., 2017: 627). It is a type of research that embodies individuals as the ‘whole person living in dynamic, complex social arrangements’ (Rogers, 2000: 51). Epistemologically, qualitative inquiry is situated within the constructivist or interpretivist framework (Patton, 2015; Burr, 2019; Moon et al., 2019; Tracy, 2019; Bryman, 2022). Accordingly, constructivist researchers argue that social reality is socially constructed through ‘individual experiences of, and interactions with, the world’ (Moon et al., 2019: 296). Thus, there are multiple truths which are individually constructed (Grbich, 2013; Creswell and Poth, 2018; Burr, 2019; Tracy, 2019). Social reality is also shaped by social factors such as class, gender, race, ethnicity, culture and age (Grbich, 2013). To constructivist researchers, reality is a product of our own making. Thus, it is possible that diverse and different views of reality exist (Houser, 2015; Moon et al., 2019). They are all legitimate to the holder. Constructivist researchers argue that research is a very subjective process (Grbich, 2013; Creswell and Poth, 2018; Tracy, 2019). This is due to the active involvement of the researcher in the construction and conduct of the research. Constructivist researchers also argue that reality is constructed by the research participants’ interpretations

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of their own lived realities (Houser, 2015; Williams et al., 2018; Burr, 2019; Tracy, 2019). Thus, research situated within this paradigm emphasises an ‘exploration of the way people interpret and make sense of their experiences in the worlds in which they live, and how the contexts of events and situations and the placement of these within wider social environments have impacted on constructed understandings’ (Grbich, 2013: 7). Constructivist researchers believe that when the social world is studied, it ‘requires a different logic of research procedure’ that ‘reflects the distinctiveness of humans as against the natural order’ (Bryman, 2022: 26). Within this constructivist paradigm, researchers are required to ‘grasp the subjective meaning of social action’ (p. 26). This necessitates the use of research methods that would allow people to articulate the meanings of their social realities. And this requires the use of a qualitative approach. As qualitative inquiry focuses on the social world, Hesse-Biber (2017: 4) contends, it offers ‘a unique grounding position’ for social science researchers to undertake research that ‘fosters particular ways of asking questions’ and ‘provides a point of view onto the social world’, which in turn will help researchers ‘to obtain an understanding of a social issue or problem that privileges subjective and multiple understandings’. Qualitative inquiry allows social science researchers to explain things or social actions in great depth (Rossman and Rallis, 2017). To capture and understand the perspectives of individuals, qualitative inquiry relies heavily on words or stories that these individuals tell researchers (Patton, 2015; Creswell and Poth, 2018; Liamputtong, 2020). Thus, qualitative research has also been coined ‘the word science’ (Denzin, 2008; Liamputtong and Rice, 2022). Qualitative research has been adopted in many fields and disciplines (Denzin and Lincoln, 2018), including the social sciences, particularly in anthropology and sociology. We have also witnessed the wider adoption of a qualitative approach in criminology, social work, education, geography, and psychology. This expansion reflects the usefulness of qualitative inquiry within the social sciences.

WHY USE QUALITATIVE INQUIRY IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES? Despite unprecedented wealth, the problems of poverty and inequality remain important public – and political – concerns. Indeed, the current economic climate perhaps gives them particular relevance. The endurance of poverty and rising levels of inequality impassions ‘experts’ and ‘non-experts’ alike. (Hick, 2015: 77)

Qualitative research is adopted because there is a social problem to be understood or an issue that needs to be explored (Creswell and Poth, 2018).

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This is particularly so when problems or issues cannot be ‘easily measured’. Qualitative inquiry permits researchers to ask questions, and to find answers, that can be difficult or impossible with the positivist approach (Hesse-Biber 2017; Bryman, 2022). For example: What contributes to stigma and discrimination towards members of the LGBTI communities in society? How do single mothers confront their social and economic challenges? How do refugees deal with social isolation during their resettlement period? What makes many men take risks in their everyday lives? Why do some social care programmes not work? What makes some of these programmes succeed? These are some examples of how qualitative research can find answers for social care policymakers and professionals. Qualitative research is essentially crucial for research involving vulnerable, marginalised, or hard-to-reach individuals and groups (Liamputtong, 2007, 2010, 2020; Taylor et al., 2016; Flick, 2018). This is particularly so when they are ‘too small to become visible’ in quantitative research (Flick, 2018: 452; Greenhalgh et al., 2016; Yin, 2016). More importantly, due to their vulnerable and marginalised status as well as general distrust in research, most of these individuals and groups tend to decline to participate in research. The nature of qualitative inquiry will permit qualitative researchers to be able to engage with these individuals better than research that attempts to ‘measure’ them. The use of the qualitative approach in research relating to social justice issues has been practised by many social scientists in the past (see Becker, 1969), and we have witnessed the rise of this in recent times (see Denzin and Lincoln, 2011; Taylor et al., 2016; Daniels et al., 2017). Becker (1969), in his piece ‘Whose Side Are We On?’, discussed the role of social scientists in presenting the voices of some marginalised groups. Becker argued that ‘since powerful people have many means at their disposal to present their versions of reality, we should side with society’s underdogs, the powerless’ (in Taylor et al., 2016: 26). As discussed earlier, C. Wright Mills (1959) believed that it is the political responsibility of social science researchers to help individuals understand their ‘personal troubles’, which are also ‘social issues’ that confront others in society as well.

TRADITIONAL QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Qualitative researchers … employ the methodology of interpretive social science, that is, an approach that aspires to achieve empathic understanding and representation of the subjective perceptions and everyday lived experiences of the people being studied, what the German sociologist Max Weber described as the method of verstehen. (Berger and Lorenz, 2016: 4)

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Qualitative research methods have been coined as ‘data enhancers’ because they disclose ‘elements of empirical reality’ which cannot be revealed by numbers (Berger and Lorenz 2016; Liamputtong, 2019). These methods allow social researchers to obtain ‘rich, highly detailed accounts’, what Clifford Geertz (1973) refers to as a ‘thick description’ of a small number of people (Berger and Lorenz, 2016). Traditionally, there are various methods that qualitative researchers use to collect empirical materials in their social research. These include an in-depth interviewing method, focus group, life or oral history, and unobtrusive methods (Liamputtong, 2020). Among these methods, the in-depth interviewing method is the most commonly known technique and is widely used by qualitative researchers (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015; Nathan et al., 2019; Bryman, 2022; Serry and Liamputtong, 2022). Interviews have been essential for social researchers in making sense of people’s lives (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015; Bryman, 2022). There are qualitative approaches that embody some forms of qualitative method. However, they are often referred to as the method (although some may refer them to as research traditions or methodologies). These include the ethnographic method, narrative research, grounded theory, memory work, autoethnography, case study, and participatory action research (see Liamputtong, 2020). Despite different terminologies, they all examine the social lives and situations of those who are involved in research (see Chapters 3 to 12 in this volume).

EMERGING/INNOVATIVE QUALITATIVE METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Doing research is an inherently creative activity at all stages of the process. The more methodological tools a researcher is able to use, the more effectively they are likely to be able to address the kinds of questions that arise today in social science research. (Kara, 2015: 1)

Innovative or creative research methods here refer to methods which are not situated neatly within the traditional research methods. They are often created to ameliorate some facet of the research practice which may not work properly (Wiles et al., 2011). Innovative methods may include ‘the creation of new designs, concepts and ways of doing things’ (Taylor and Coffey, 2008: 8). However, they can also refer to ‘advances or developments of ‘tried and tested’ research methods’. Some social researchers refer to innovative methods as ‘creative’ research methods (Kara, 2015; Bryant, 2016). Creative methods require ‘imagination’ (Wilson, 2010; Bryant, 2016). Imagination is a ‘transformative way’ that

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researchers perceive and practice their research (Bryant, 2016). For Back (2012), imaginative methods can widen the sociological imagination of the researchers. They can also help in the pursuit to democratise the research process. Indeed, in planning for research, imagination is as crucial as the rigour if researchers wish to produce ethical research. Wilson (2010: 368) tells us that imagination ‘thrives at the edge of things, between the gaps’. For social science researchers, this imagination helps to open creative ways of conducting research that departs from the traditional ways of doing research. As readers will see, contributors in this volume have used their imaginations to create innovative and creative methods that they have adopted in their research and discipline (see Chapters 3 to 12 in this volume).

ABOUT THIS BOOK This book comprises twelve chapters. Chapters in this volume, except Chapter 2 which is about theory in qualitative research, share a common thread. Each chapter will first explain what its discipline is about. It then discusses the value and contribution of qualitative research within the discipline. Each chapter will then discuss common traditional qualitative research methods within the discipline. Each then will discuss emerging and innovative research methods which can be useful for social researchers within the discipline. In Chapter 1, I set the scene for the book. As discussed in the early part of the chapter, I first discuss the nature of qualitative inquiry, and this is followed by an examination of the need for such inquiry in the social sciences. The chapter then moves on to discuss the traditional qualitative research approaches and innovative/emerging research methods in the social sciences. In Chapter 2, a framework for using theory in qualitative research in social science is discussed. Louise Keogh and colleagues suggest that theory plays an important role in the development of a qualitative research study. But it is often invisible. In this chapter, focusing mainly on the advice given in peer-reviewed journal articles, the authors review the existing approaches to using theory in qualitative research. They also propose a framework that summarises the use of theory at five stages of a qualitative research study, including pre-design, during design, data collection, data analysis, and writing up. They conclude that theory can play a particular role in qualitative research and consideration should be given to the role and purpose of theory at each of the stages given above. In Chapter 3, the role of qualitative research in cultural anthropology is discussed by Katie Nelson and John Forrest. The authors provide a detailed discussion on ethnographic fieldwork which is cultural anthropology’s unique research approach. As a qualitative research approach, ethnography is ‘unique in its reliance on participant observation, cultural relativism and the weaving

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together of insider and outsider perspectives’. The authors also point to a recent increase in activism by anthropologists who demand dynamic commitment in areas such as feminism, human rights, environmental protection, and the preservation of indigenous cultures. Chapter 4 is about qualitative research in medical anthropology. Richard Chenhall and Kate Senior suggest that medical anthropology employs a range of approaches to understand human health and well-being and their interactions with medical systems. The chapter starts with a discussion of traditional methods in medical anthropology. The authors draw on examples that will show how they as anthropologists engage with people in some health settings. In the second part of the chapter, they discuss some emergent methods which may be combined with participant observation or be adopted when there is not sufficient time to conduct traditional ethnographic research. Chapter 5 is dedicated to qualitative research in sociology. Belinda Lunnay, Kristen Foley and Paul R. Ward provide an illuminating discussion regarding how to conduct qualitative research in sociology. They offer an in-depth example of how to do research regarding social class, one of the pinnacles of sociological imagination. The authors suggest that their chapter will provide newcomers to sociology and novice researchers with a clear case for the benefits to be gained from conducting qualitative research within sociology, particularly regarding social class. Research on social class is an area of burgeoning interest because it holds value in understanding the factors that shape and reproduce social inequities. However, there is scant instruction (in practical and accessible terms) available for how to conduct such research.

This is a very useful way for readers to see a good example of conducting qualitative research in sociology. Chapter 6 is about the role of qualitative research in women’s and gender studies. In this chapter Natalie Jovanovski writes about consciousness-raising (CR) and feminist pedagogy, to structure ‘radical focus groups’ that she used during the data collection phase of her research project. This approach involves a combination of ‘sharing’, ‘listening’, ‘analyzing’ and ‘abstracting’ one’s experiences, and unpacking existing feminist theories to generate new knowledge. She suggests that the qualitative data collection approach discussed in this chapter can be adopted across structural feminist perspectives, which will result in the generation of data that is emancipatory in focus, and empowering for participants. Chapter 7 concerns the use of qualitative research in political science and is written by Selen A. Ercan and Ariadne Vromen. The chapter provides a selective overview of methods used to analyse qualitatively generated data. The authors contend that the collection of data and subsequent analysis in qualitative methods is a dynamic field in political science. They emphasise some new

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and emerging qualitative research strategies which have been used in political science in recent years. In particular, they highlight the surge of digital technologies that have markedly formed the way politics is sanctioned and the increased awareness about the politics of knowledge production in the field. Chapter 8, on conducting qualitative research in criminology, is written by Max Travers. The chapter is based on a selective review of the engagement of criminology with qualitative research. Criminology is unique as an applied subject that relates to the work of practitioners in the criminal justice system, and also because its subject matter includes ‘criminal’ behaviour. The chapter discusses some methodological issues that occur when researching criminal justice practitioners and offenders. The chapter also considers the issue of innovations through the fields of gesture studies and cultural criminology. Chapter 9 focuses on the role of qualitative research in demography. In this chapter, Joe Strong and colleagues present the history and background from which qualitative demographic research emerged. The chapter discusses how qualitative research offers insight into the role of power and politics in survey and census tools, as well as involving people who are made marginal across social contexts. As demography becomes more focused on the social, the authors discuss the potential of novel methods, as well as the possibilities of a more integrated, complementary methodological approach to the discipline. In Chapter 10 qualitative methods in economic sciences are discussed by Mirjana Radović-Marković. In this chapter, she suggests that although qualitative methods are often seen as less reliable and less precise than quantitative methods, they also offer many advantages. However, the usefulness of qualitative research depends on the particularity of the examined social issues. Qualitative research is indispensable for providing good insights into ‘reality’ based on local-level perspectives. Importantly, qualitative research can be used to test assumptions which are relevant to decision-making on economic issues. Qualitative research also allows openness to different research approaches. The chapter also suggests that to deal with the increasing diversity and complexity of forecasting problems in economics, many qualitative tools have been developed in recent years. These new tools have made qualitative research much more useful and more accessible for organisations. Chapter 11 is about qualitative research methods in social work. In this chapter, Catherine Flynn tells us that social work is founded on principles of empowerment, liberation, and justice. It seeks connection with people to understand their experiences and situations and to use knowledge to create change. This orientation resonates strongly with qualitative research. This chapter describes individual interviewing and focus groups as the most common forms of qualitative data collection in social work. It then discusses two visual methods – the use of diagrams and photo elicitation as important emerging approaches in the discipline. This chapter suggests that qualitative

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methods have much to offer social work. It allows researchers to be nearer to people’s experiences, and to hear their voices from a particular location. It calls for research to be less structured and researchers to be less expert and listen more. In the last chapter, Chapter 12, the role of qualitative education research is examined by Jennifer Gao and Radhika Chugh. The chapter reviews qualitative research methods that have been employed to study phenomena in the education discipline. The authors identify the most commonly adopted qualitative data generation methods in education, including case studies, ethnography, interviews, and focus groups, and archival or textual data. Commonly applied qualitative data analysis approaches were identified, and these include content analysis, grounded theory, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis. The authors also discuss emerging methods that range from mixed data sources and multi-phased studies, video and technology-aided research, social media, and the internet as data sources, to culture-specific qualitative methods. The chapter highlights the value of qualitative research and how the most commonly claimed limitation of generalisability can be mastered through the establishment of transferability of the research.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS The main strength of qualitative research lies in information accuracy. The context-sensitivity of data collection procedures allows participants to express themselves in their own words, to act in their natural environments. (Cardano, 2020: 36)

Qualitative research has now become a well-established and important mode of inquiry for the social sciences. The approach offers a particular ‘contribution to the reconstruction of the social phenomena, giving a narrative account of processes and causality’ (Cardano, 2020: 36). However, as Gaudet and Robert (2018: 2) suggest, qualitative research is ‘a never-ending journey’. This is because ‘there are always new phenomena to learn about, new methods to invent and new forms of knowledge to create’. The field of qualitative research is ever advancing (Hesse-Biber 2017). We have witnessed this and chapters in the volume attest to this. The world has become a difficult place in which to live for many people. So many individuals and groups have now been confronted with social injustices and inequalities in all corners of the world (Flick, 2014). I contend that social science researchers need qualitative research that can help us to find better answers that are more suited to people, particularly those who are vulnerable (Denzin, 2015; Flick, 2018). This is because qualitative inquiry examines social phenomena that can lead to a positive change in the lives of many

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people. Denzin (2017: 8) puts this clearly when he calls for qualitative research that ‘matters in the lives of those who daily experience social injustice’. I hope readers will find the qualitative inquiry which is included in this volume valuable in their social science research.

REFERENCES Back, L. (2012). Live sociology: Social research and its futures. The Sociological Review, 60, 18–39. Becker, H.S. (1969). Whose side are we on? Social Problems, 14(3), 239–247. Berger, R.J. and Lorenz, L.S. (2016). Disability and qualitative research. In R.J. Berger and L.S. Lorenz (Eds.), Disability and qualitative Inquiry: Methods for rethinking an ableist world (Chapter 1). Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis. Bos, J. (2020). Research ethics for students in the social sciences. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Bradbury-Jones, C., Breckenridge, J., Clark, M.T., Herber, O.R., Wagstaff, C., and Taylor, J. (2017). The state of qualitative research in health and social science literature: A focused mapping review and synthesis. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 20(6), 627–645. Brewer, J.D. (2013). What is social science? The public value of the social sciences: An interpretative essay. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Brinkmann, S. and Kvale, S. (2015). InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing, 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bryant, L. (2016). Introduction: Taking up the call for critical and creative methods in social work research. In L. Bryant (Ed.), Critical and creative research methodologies in social work (Chapter 1). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. Bryman, A. (2022). Social research methods, 6th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burr, V. (2019). Social constructionism. In P. Liamputtong (Ed.), Handbook of research methods in health social sciences (pp. 117–132). Singapore: Springer. Cardano, M. (2020). Defending qualitative research: Design, analysis, and textualization. London: Routledge. Creswell, J.W. and Poth, C.N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches, 5th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Daniels, K., Hanefeld, J. and Marchal, B. (2017). Social sciences: Vital to improving our understanding of health equity, policy and systems. International Journal of Equity in Health, 16: 57. Doi: 10.1186/s12939-017-0546-6. Denzin, N.K. (2008). The new paradigm dialogs and qualitative inquiry. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 21(4), 315–325. Denzin, N.K. (2015). What is critical qualitative inquiry? In G. Cannella, M. Pérez, and P. Pasque (Eds.), Critical qualitative inquiry: Foundations and futures (pp. 31–50). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Denzin, N.K. (2017). Critical qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(1), 8–16. Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds.) (2011). The Sage handbook of qualitative research, 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (2018). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Loncoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research, 5th edn (pp. 1–26). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Flick, U. (2014). An introduction to qualitative research, 5th edn. Los Angeles: Sage.

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Flick, U. (2018). Triangulation. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research, 5th edn (pp. 444–461). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gaudet, S. and Robert, D. (2018). A journey through qualitative research: From design to reporting. London: Sage. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Grbich, C. (2013). Qualitative data analysis: An introduction, 2nd edn. London: Sage. Greenhalgh, T., Annandale, E., Ashcroft, R., Barlow, J., Black, N., Bleakly, A., … Ziebland, S. (2016). An open letter to the BMJ editors on qualitative research. British Medical Journal, 352, i563. Hesse-Biber, S.N. (2017). The practice of qualitative research, 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hick, R. (2015). Poverty and inequality. In J. Michie and C.L. Cooper (Eds.), Why the social sciences matter (pp. 77–91). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Houser, J. (2015). Nursing research: Reading, using, and creating evidence, 3rd edn. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Kanter, D.R., Del Grosso, S., Scheer, C., Pelster, D.E., and Galloway, J.N. (2020). Why future nitrogen research needs the social sciences. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 47, 54–60. Kara, H. (2015). Creative research methods in the social sciences: A practical guide. Bristol: Policy Press. Liamputtong, P. (2007). Researching the vulnerable: A guide to sensitive research methods. London: Sage. Liamputtong, P. (2010). Performing qualitative cross-cultural research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Liamputtong, P. (2019). Qualitative inquiry. In P. Liamputtong (Ed.), Handbook of research methods in health social sciences (pp. 9–25). Singapore: Springer. Liamputtong, P. (2020). Qualitative research methods, 5th edn. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Liamputtong, P. and Rice, Z.S. (2022). The science of words and the science of numbers. In P. Liamputtong (Ed.), Research methods in health: Foundations for evidence-based practice, 4th edn (pp. 16–35). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Lichtman, M. (2017). Qualitative research for the social sciences. Sage research methods. London: Sage. Maruyama, G. and Ryan, C.S. (2014). Research methods in social relations, 8th edn. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Michie, J. and Cooper, C.L. (2015a). Why the social sciences matter. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Michie, J. and Cooper, C.L. (2015b). Introduction and overview. In J. Michie and C.L. Cooper (Eds.), Why the social sciences matter (pp. 1–7). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mills, C.W. (1959). The sociological imagination. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Moon, K., Blackman, D.A., Adams, V.M., Colvin, R.M., Davila, F., Evans, M.C., Januchowski-Hartley, S.R., Bennett, N.J., Dickinson, H., Sandbrook, C., Sherren, K., St. John, F.A.V., van Kerkhoff, L., and Wyborn, C. (2019). Expanding the role of social science in conservation through an engagement with philosophy, methodology, and methods. Methods in Ecology & Evolution, 10, 294–302. Nathan, S., Newman, C., and Lancaster, K. (2019). Qualitative interviewing. In P. Liamputtong (Ed.), Handbook of research methods in health social sciences (pp. 391–410). Springer: Singapore.

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Newby, H. (2015). Foreword. In J. Michie and C.L. Cooper (Eds.), Why the social sciences matter (pp. vii–x). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Patton, M.Q. (2015). Qualitative research and evaluation methods, 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rogers, A.G. (2000). When methods matter: Qualitative research issues in psychology. In B.M. Brizuela, J.P. Stewart, R.G. Carrillo and J.G. Berger (Eds.), Acts of inquiry in qualitative research (pp. 51–60). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review. Rossman, G.B. and Rallis, S.F. (2017). Learning in the field: An introduction to qualitative research, 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Serry, T. and Liamputtong, P. (2022). The in-depth interviewing method in health. In Liamputtong, P. (Ed.), Research methods in health: Foundations for evidence-based practice, 4th edition (pp. 76–92). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Taylor, C. and Coffey, A. (2008). Innovation in qualitative research methods: Possibilities and challenges. Cardiff: Cardiff University. Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R., and DeVault, M. (2016). Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Toulmin, C. (2015). What can the social sciences bring to an understanding of food security? In J. Michie and C.L. Cooper (Eds.), Why the social sciences matter (pp. 111–127). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tracy, S.J. (2019). Qualitative research methods: collecting evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact. Newark, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Tuckett, J. (2019). The idea of social science and proper phenomenology. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. van Koppen, J.J.C.S.A., Lidskog, R., Ott, K., Voget-Kleschin, L., and Wong, C.M.L. (2018). The significance of meaning. Why IPBES needs the social sciences and humanities. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 31(sup1), S38–S60. Doi: 10.1080/13511610.2017.1348933. Wiles, R., Crow, G., and Pain, H. (2011). Innovation in qualitative research methods: A narrative review. Qualitative Research, 11(5), 587–604. Williams, M., Unrau, Y.A., Grinnell, R.M., and Epstein, I. (2018). The qualitative research approach. In R.M. Grinnell and Y.A. Unrau (eds), Social work research and evaluation: Foundations of evidence-based practice, 11th edn (pp. 87–108). New York: Oxford University Press. Wilson, E., Kenny, A., and Dickson-Swift, V. (2015). Using blogs as a qualitative health research tool: A scoping review. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1–12. Doi: 10.1177/1609406915618049. Wilson, N. (2010). Social creativity: Re-qualifying the creative economy. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 16(3), 367–381. Doi: 10.1080/10286630903111621. Yin, R.K. (2016). Qualitative research: From start to finish, 2nd edn. New York: Guildford Press.

2. ‘Theory’ in qualitative research: a framework that synthesises existing academic advice Louise Keogh, Natalie Jovanovski, Sarah MacLean and Richard Chenhall INTRODUCTION Theory plays an important but often invisible role in the development and execution of a research study. It helps researchers identify and express their worldview, influences how they know what they know about a research topic, and offers them a framework for how to study it. Researchers can support, refute or update theory, contributing to the development of approaches to future research on any given phenomenon (Willis et al., 2007). Qualitative researchers are encouraged to be open about the theoretical positions they take, including their positionality in relation to the project, making it a central part of the research process (Berryman, 2019). As qualitative researchers and educators, however, we often find ourselves frustrated by the lack of consensus on how and where theory should be used. In our teaching, we frequently see students confused about theory; finding tacit references to it in their literature reviews, or worse, omitted altogether. The expectation that they will use theory in their research sometimes leaves students feeling underconfident, avoidant, and occasionally even dismissive of the value of theory. In this chapter, we seek to demystify the use of ‘theory’ in qualitative research by synthesising existing peer-reviewed literature that offers guidance or advice to qualitative researchers. Specifically, we review the literature to propose a model that draws on and extends existing advice literature. We summarise the different ways it is possible to use theory at all stages of a qualitative research study, from describing the worldview that frames the research all the way through to the interpretation and writing of findings. Before introducing our approach, we discuss the polysemic meaning of the term ‘theory’ and examine how it has been discussed in relation to the ontological, epistemological, and methodological components of a qualitative research study. We 14

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also look at how ‘theory’ has traditionally been applied to qualitative research and, in doing so, propose a cohesive model that weaves theoretical components through all levels of the qualitative research process, offering concrete advice to its application at each stage of research.

THEORY: WHAT IS IT, AND WHY IS IT NEEDED? Despite being critical to the work of most researchers, ‘theory’ is a broad concept and has multiple, often intersecting meanings (Liden, 2013; Bradbury-Jones et al., 2014; Craib, 2015). Some researchers argue that theory is simply ‘a relationship between concepts’ (Hennink, Hutter and Bailey, 2020: 33), while others suggest that it is a broad ‘set of assumptions or related propositions that attempt to explain some domain of inquiry or phenomena’ (Hansen, 2020: n.p.). As Lemert (1999) explains, however, ‘theory’ can also be understood as something that all people engage in: the process of observing a given phenomenon and making sense of it based on sets of ideas that are framed by our position in the world. When researchers use theory, they are exploring the ‘identification of, and interrelationships between, concepts surrounding phenomena’, and subsequently developing frameworks to describe, summarise and explain their observations and guide future research (Grbich, 1998: 27). As Willis and colleagues (2007: 439) suggest, ‘research in any area is based on theory. Assumptions are made about the nature of reality; these assumptions generate theoretical concepts and these, in turn, are collected into more comprehensive theories that provide the basis for practice and research’. Some writers have tried to make sense of different theories by classifying them into micro, meso, or macro categories, and talking specifically about them as frameworks used to guide one’s research topic (Grbich, 1998; Hansen, 2020). Hansen (2020: n.p.), for example, refers to macro or ‘grand theories’ as being broad and abstract in nature and argues that they are often difficult to apply in research studies. Many social theories – which seek to explain ‘how things work and why things happen’ (Germov, 2014: 24) – are considered ‘grand’ theories because they inform our understandings of structural power. Grbich (1998: 28) uses Karl Marx’s theory of social stratification as an example of a grand theory, as it is abstract and can be widely applicable ‘to examine all economies based on capitalism’. Other researchers have used feminist theories (see Tong, 2009), critical race theories (see Delgado, 2017) and disability perspectives (see Goodley, 2017) to show how gender, racism, and ableism structure power relations. By contrast, Grbich (1998: 28) explains that meso – or middle-range theories – can be tested empirically but are too specific ‘to be applicable to a range of phenomena’. She uses germ theory as an example of a meso-range theory, as it pertains specifically to a concept (i.e., microorganisms leading to disease), but is not useful for discussing a range of

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social phenomena. Lastly, she describes ‘micro-theories’ as ‘hypothetical theoretical statements about narrowly defined phenomenon’ (Grbich, 1998: 27). These theories tend to be perceived as the building blocks of meso or macro theories, but not legitimate theories in their own right. While Hansen (2020) argues that macro-theories are difficult to apply to research, as social scientists, we take the position that understanding broader social patterns and systems of power is crucial in qualitative research. In our own research grappling with complex health issues that have social origins, we have often drawn on more abstract theoretical perspectives that illuminate broader social structures and their impact on people’s health. Some of us have used Giddens’ theories of late modernity to interpret contraceptive decision-making (Keogh, 2006), feminist theories made famous during the Women’s Liberation Movement to describe the sociocultural origins of women’s restrictive eating practices (Jovanovski, 2017, in press), theories of gender to study men’s use of alcohol and violence (MacLean, Demant and Room, 2020), and Deleuzian postmodernist theory to understand assemblages of health in a remote Aboriginal community in Australia (Chenhall and Senior, 2018). However, as Potvin, Gendron, Bilodeau and Chabot (2005: 591) argue, researchers in the field of public health have often displayed an overreliance on using theories from behavioural psychology, biomedical science and public administration, ‘constrain[ing] [their] ability to further direct innovation and transform practice’. Others, such as Carpiano and Moore (2020), urge for theory development in public health where complex mid-level theories, such as social capital and stigma, are often understood in terms of limited sets of variables, such as education and income. Rather, they argue for more sophisticated theoretical mechanisms that examine the competing and intersecting social science constructs in understanding health. Complex human interactions – which often lead to, or are informed by, larger scale societal changes –require attention and interrogation by health researchers with sophisticated theoretical toolkits. This raises important concerns about applying rich intellectual traditions to explain contemporary health issues.

METHODOLOGICAL THEORY Another important distinction in qualitative research is between the explanatory theories discussed above, methodological theory and method. According to Mills (2014: 33), ‘methodology determines how the researcher thinks about a study, how they make decisions about a study, and how they position themselves to engage firstly with participants and then with the data generated/ collected’. Methodological theories range in their understanding of the nature of knowledge created through research, from positivism which assumes an objective reality, to other stances such as phenomenology where the focus is

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on people’s experiences of the world (Berryman, 2019). Some common and established methodological theories used in qualitative research are grounded theory, phenomenology, ethnography, and participatory methodology (see Liamputtong, 2020). While some may called them ‘theories’ they are different from the explanatory theories discussed above. Methodological theories are best thought of as traditions within qualitative research, each providing researchers with a slightly different set of claims about ontology, epistemology, and the purpose and conduct of qualitative research (i.e. the methods). Methods are the tools by which data is generated, collected and analysed. For example, ethnography involves a set of philosophical claims about knowledge and established methods for collecting, analysing and writing about data.

THEORY AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE RESEARCH PROCESS In this chapter, we emphasise that theory is woven throughout the entire research process, whether the researcher is aware of this or not, in one’s choice of paradigm, theoretical framework and beyond. Some argue that even before starting an empirical study, a researcher has a general interpretation about the nature of reality, or what could be known, also referred to as their ontological position. A researcher may believe, for example, that the world ‘exists independently of people’s beliefs or understandings about it’ (Snape and Spencer, 2003: 11). This ontological position is referred to as realism. Realists are likely also to be positivists, holding that this reality can be examined through scientific methods. Alternatively, a researcher may start by believing that reality can only be known through socially constructed meanings; otherwise referred to as idealism (Snape and Spencer, 2003). Corresponding with what researchers believe can be known, is one’s epistemological position, or ‘how we know what we know’, including our position as the ‘knower’ (Berryman, 2019: 272). Our epistemological position might rely on notions of an objective truth that is independent of the researcher and measurable (i.e., positivism), or it may rely on notions that the researcher is part of the social world, and that they play a part in constructing reality, just as all people do (i.e., constructivism). As Berryman (2019) argues, our ontological position guides the epistemological approach we use and contributes to the foundations of our study. Theories about the nature of reality and explanations about knowledge, thus, inform the direction of one’s study (Bleiker, Morgan-Trimmer, Knapp and Hopkins, 2019). In principle, after deciding (or acknowledging) what one’s ontological and epistemological positions are, a methodology can be adopted and a theoretical framework can then be chosen, whereby a researcher chooses from existing macro or meso theories to inform the literature review component of their

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study. However, there are caveats, and this process is not always appropriate, especially in instances where one’s research follows the rules of grounded theory (Glasner and Strauss, 1967). Nevertheless, identifying one’s ontological, epistemological, methodological and theoretical positions is considered central to the development of an appropriate qualitative research question. This orientation guides a researcher’s choice of their method of data collection and analysis (Berryman, 2019). We argue that despite the body of literature explaining the relevance of theory to qualitative research projects, currently, no cohesive, over-arching framework exists for applying theory in all stages of qualitative research. Indeed, while it has been argued that failing to use theory in qualitative research diminishes the quality of a project (Bradbury-Jones et al., 2014), there is still a significant gap in the current literature addressing how it can be practically incorporated.

THE USE OF THEORY IN THIS CHAPTER To demonstrate how and why theory is important to qualitative research, we use theory in our chapter to show how it informs all aspects of a qualitative study. Before starting, we adopted an idealist ontological position, which assumes that reality can only be known through socially constructed meanings, rather than existing independently of our beliefs. In keeping with our ideas about social reality (i.e., what can be known), we used an interpretivist epistemological lens to understand how knowledge is developed, which sees that research can never be value-free, but rather, that researchers co-construct the world with their participants to develop multiple truths about any given phenomenon. In concert with our ontological and epistemological decisions, we decided to use the theoretical framework of social constructionism to explore the existing literature offering guidance on how to use theory; arguing that the perspectives researchers advance are part of a broad patchwork of understandings that construct notions of reality (Berger and Luckmann, 1966).

THE EXISTING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH APPROACH TO THEORY To understand existing approaches to using theory in qualitative research, we conducted a literature review using thematic analysis to summarise advice to researchers published in key papers. Our intention was to map the consistencies and inconsistencies in the advice found in the peer-reviewed literature, and to show how ideas about theory – and the significance of theory itself to research – are constructed by researchers invested in qualitative research methods. Popular databases (Scopus, Web of Science, Pubmed, Sociological

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Abstracts) were searched using key terms ‘theory’, ‘qualitative research’, and ‘methodology’ to identify papers that offer advice and/or guidance to researchers about the use of theory in qualitative research. References of the papers found through the search were also reviewed to identify further papers that met inclusion criteria. We limited the search to peer reviewed publications in English that offer advice to qualitative researchers about how to use theory or propose a particular approach to incorporating theory into qualitative research. The following types of paper were excluded: • Papers that cover the specifics of a particular approach like grounded theory or critical theory; • Papers that primarily focus on methodology with only a brief mention of theory; • Papers that describe one specific application of theory in qualitative research (e.g. using theory in gender-based violence research); • Papers that reported on research about how researchers use theory in qualitative research; • Papers that discuss the use of theory in mixed method or quantitative research. Adopting a constructivist methodology, papers were analysed thematically to achieve two objectives: (i) to summarise advice, determine where there are similarities and differences, consistencies and inconsistencies; and (ii) to synthesise this advice with our own practical experience of conducting, examining, reviewing, and teaching qualitative research in health. Based on the combined analysis, we then sought to determine the adequacy and consistency of advice and identified an updated model to better guide students and early career researchers in the use of theory in qualitative research. Summary of Papers Identified A total of 18 peer reviewed publications, published between 1993 and 2017 were identified as meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria described above (see the Appendix for a table of included papers). As of early 2021, papers had been cited on average 110 times (ranging from 23 to 738 citations per paper). Seven were published by a first author from the UK or Europe, seven from a first author from North America, three from Australia or NZ and one from Brazil. A synthesis of the advice offered and arguments presented in these papers has been developed to summarise current guidance in the peer reviewed literature: 1. The term ‘theory’ has no universally accepted meaning;

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2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Theory is optional; Theoretical decisions occur at one stage of research; Theoretical decisions occur at two or three stages of research; Theory first or theory after (inductive, deductive or abductive approaches); Theory can be observed at five ‘levels of visibility’.

1. The term ‘theory’ has no universally accepted meaning Abend (2008) states the widely acknowledged view that theoretical empirical research is valued above ‘atheoretical’ research in sociology. He states that, It is a widespread belief that empirical sociological research should be driven or informed by ‘theory’. Thus, sociology journals tend to reject ‘atheoretical’ and ‘undertheorized’ papers, as well as papers that fail to make a ‘theoretical contribution’ to the literature. (Abend, 2008: 173–174)

He goes on to unpack the role of theory in sociological research, including what is meant by the term ‘theory’ and what it ought to mean. Abend identifies seven different meanings of the word ‘theory’ in sociological research and says sociology needs ‘some sort of semantic therapy’ to resolve the different meanings of the same term. Abend’s taxonomy distinguishes seven different ideas about what sociologists may mean when they use the term ‘theory’: • Theory1: ‘a general proposition, or a logically-connected system of general propositions which establishes a relationship between two or more variables’ (p. 177). This ‘theory’ is independent of a particular context, so is generalisable. • Theory2: ‘an explanation of a particular social phenomenon’ (p. 178). Rather than a generalisable theory, this ‘theory’ offers explanation for a particular issue, grounded in both time and place, similar perhaps to a ‘micro’ theory. • Theory3: ‘offers an original ‘interpretation’, ‘reading’, or ‘way of making sense’ of a certain slice of the empirical world’ (p. 178). This meaning of ‘theory’ differs from the previous two, as the aim is not to offer causal explanation, but to shed new light on an empirical problem. • Theory4: the study of macro theorists such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim, providing interpretations and/or analysis of these theorists rather than generating theory as in the case of the previous three types of ‘theory’. • Theory5: ‘an overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world’ (p. 179). Unlike the four types above, this theory is not about explaining the social world, but instead describes how one looks at or makes sense of the world. This is often referred to by other writers as a paradigm or worldview. • Theory6: a normative or political account of society (e.g. feminist theory).

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• Theory7: the study of what may be described as ‘philosophical problems, in so far as they call for reflection upon the nature of knowledge, language and reality, and some sort of conceptual analysis’ (p. 181). He gives the example of writing about the ‘problem of structure and agency’. Abend argues that the multiple meanings of the term ‘theory’ are problematic for sociology. The difficulty stems from the erroneous belief that ‘theory’ refers to one thing, therefore confusion occurs when sociologists refer to ‘theory’, as there is no guarantee that they will have a shared understanding of what it constitutes. He notes that this lack of clear definitions has contributed to ongoing debates about how closely theory should be linked to empirical research, and that while this is a not a straightforward problem to solve, an important first step would be for sociologists to be aware that that these varied definitions exist and take this fact into account when discussing theory; a process that he calls ‘semantic therapy’. We have found similar evidence of confusion in the papers reviewed. For example, one paper makes a clear distinction between a paradigm (Abend’s Theory5), methodological theories (not on Abend’s list of ‘theory’ definitions) and social theories (Theory1 or Theory2) (e.g., Malterud, 2016), while another might specify two types of theory – discipline-based theory and methodological theory (Bradbury-Jones et al., 2014). On the other hand, another source will refer only to one type of theory – for example, Bendasolli (2013: 7) offers the following definition, ‘theories are devices that systematize or organize experience’. Reeves and colleagues (2008: 1) use the term ‘theory’ to cover what others would distinguish as three different types of theory, saying, ‘Theories such as interactionism, phenomenology, and critical theory can be used to help design a research question, guide the selection of relevant data, interpret the data, and propose explanations of causes or influences’. Green (2014) introduces a further element of confusion by highlighting the difference between a conceptual framework and a theoretical framework in qualitative research. Hammersley (1995) also acknowledges the lack of consensus on the meaning of the term theory and differentiates comprehensive worldview theories from smaller scale explanatory theories. This is an important backdrop to the advice that follows about how to incorporate theory into qualitative research. While acknowledging this fundamental confusion, we now turn to the advice provided to qualitative researchers. Theory is optional 2. Some researchers argue that theory does not need to be used in all qualitative research. Some advice infers that so-called ‘formal theory’, or an explanatory theory used across disciplines (e.g., macro, meso, and micro theories), is optional in qualitative research, while methodological theory is important.

22

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

This is not a consistent view, however, with one author suggesting that even methodological theory is optional. For example, Carter and Little (2007) argue that internal consistency between method, methodology, and epistemology is the best marker of research quality. They say that research is often not explicit about these three facets, and in general, methods are best described, information about epistemology is mostly absent or inconsistent and that there are common problems with the reporting of methodology. With regard to formal theory they state: ‘The degree to which the work is theoretical will be less important than the degree to which [the author] can justify as internally consistent her choices of method, methodology, and epistemology’ (p. 1325). They suggest the decisions about these three aspects of research are the most important: (1) Choose epistemology; (2) Choose methodology; (3) Choose method. Identifying formal theory is then an optional choice, dictated in part by methodology. While there is some agreement that methodological theory is an important consideration, Avis (2003) suggests that even methodological theories are not necessary to conduct qualitative research. He states in the conclusion of his argument: All too often, phenomenology, grounded theory, or ethnography are used to justify a series of steps or procedures that have been followed to produce evidence in a way that closes off critical scrutiny of the evidence by locating it as internal to a particular methodological theory. I am not arguing that methodological theories are not useful and productive in generating new insights into social behavior. I am pointing out that we can do qualitative research without this kind of theory and that treating these methodological theories as matters of faith to which we must adhere to assure a justifiable knowledge claim is not helpful in outlining the rationale for the use of qualitative methods. (p. 1004)

3. Theoretical decisions occur at one stage of research Some researchers argue that theory should be present in the qualitative research process, but is only needed at one stage in the research process. A theme in some papers was that the use of theory involves a one-time decision and is dependent on the study being conducted. In these papers, theory is monolithic, with researchers arguing that it is chosen at some point in the research process or that it develops out of the data. Under this approach, there is a point in the research process at which theory is chosen for a project and continues to be used throughout the research. Writers imply that this one-time decision to adopt a particular theory will predict the research decisions that follow. For example, Reeves et al. (2008) suggest that a researcher can choose a macro (or grand) theory, a mid-range theory or a micro level theory, and that this will guide the design and conduct of a research study, interpretation of data, and the development of explanations. A study grounded in phenomeno-

‘Theory’ in qualitative research

23

logical theories, which foreground the lived experiences of people, would use in-depth interviews to collect data, whereas a study using interactionist theories, looking at the way that individuals shape societies through interactions and the production of shared meanings, would rely on participant observations or in-depth interviews. Similarly, Dew (2007: 436) implicitly advocates for the choice of theory as a decision that strongly influences methodological choices (see his Figure 1, p. 434), or in other words, that there is a key decision-point in the research process and the decisions that follow are influenced by this decision: Once researchers have identified an approach that aligns with their research goals it is beholden on them to explore the methodology in some depth in order to consider the assumptions and values they bring to their research and conduct analyses that go beyond common sense.

The approaches he suggests qualitative researchers choose from are phenomenology, grounded theory, discourse analysis, ethnography, ethnomethodology, and action research. He argues that the choice of approach should be guided by the goals of the research and that the approach chosen will imply a range of theoretical and methodological decisions. Malterud (2016) makes a slightly different point, but still seems to imply that what she calls ‘substantive theory’ should be adopted during the analysis phase of research. She makes the distinction between qualitative studies that use theory and those that do not. Like Abend (2008), she argues that qualitative studies that lack engagement with theory are inferior and is critical of studies that merely describe the data or ‘let the words speak for themselves’. She proposes that as well as identifying a paradigm, ‘substantive theory’ should be used in the analysis phase in qualitative general practice research to enhance the interpretation of data. Theoretical decisions occur at two or three stages of research 4. A number of papers identify two key roles for theory: theory that influences methodology (understood here to incorporate methods chosen), and theory that influences data analysis (e.g., Hammersley, 1995; Giacomini, 2010; Green, 2014; Collins and Stockton, 2018). Collins and Stockton (2018: 2) argue that theory is a powerful tool in qualitative research and that ‘theory-free research does not exist’ and therefore a theory-centric approach to qualitative research should be adopted (see their Figure 2 [p. 8], which presents a visualisation of the central role of theory). They discuss the role of the ‘theoretical framework’ and the ‘theory of method,’ and examine how these two different types of theories impact on the research. Similarly, Green (2014) also talks about two ways of using theory in qualitative research (either to inform the design of the

24

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

study, or to inform the interpretation of the results). Hammersley (1995) also makes the distinction between theory informing methodology and theory as an output of qualitative research. These papers unpack theory as more than just a monolithic thing that impacts on the entire research process and instead makes the distinction between theory that impacts on method and theory that impacts on analysis. Some, like Kelly (2010), go a step further defining three roles for theory. She makes a distinction between theories as inputs and theory as outputs. Kelly (2010) suggests that theory operates in three different ways in qualitative research: Theory (1) ‘Using theory in research design’; Theory (2) ‘Deciding on methodology’; and Theory (3) ‘Developing your own theory’ (see Figure 1 on p. 286). The author makes a distinction between the theories that inform the design of the study and the way the study is carried out and the final product of the study which may be a theory that better explains the issue being studied. 5.

Theory first or theory after: inductive, deductive or abductive approaches The role of theory in directing the collection and interpretation of data is another distinction discussed in papers (e.g., Mitchell and Cody, 1993; Sandelowski, 1993). This debate is largely driven by the comparison of grounded theory approaches, where the researcher attempts to approach a study with no perceived ideas or frameworks in mind (Glasner and Strauss, 1967), to others, whereby theory guides the collection and interpretation of data. There is much speculation on whether this distinction is helpful, and there are various suggestions regarding how to move past the dichotomy. Meyer and Ward (2014) make the distinction between theory-driven and grounded theory approaches (‘theory first’ or ‘theory after’). They describe ‘theory after’ as the grounded theory methodology which prescribes no role for theory prior to data analysis. Conversely, they describe ‘theory first’ as a theory-driven approach, which involves theory informing the study design and analysis. They say both approaches are subject to criticism and refinements. For example, some consider it inappropriate to ignore existing theory prior to data collection, while others say too strong a focus on a particular theory prior to data collection may lead a researcher to miss or exclude data that does not conform to that theory. They suggest the possibility of merging both approaches in one study, or what they call ‘a pluralistic methodological approach to theory verification and generation.’ This approach is a highly prescriptive seven step process for how to use social theory in qualitative research, involving: (i) searching the literature; (ii) identifying social theories; (iii) critically analysing social theories of interest; (iv) developing a conceptual framework to operationalise theories; (v) designing research to investigate

‘Theory’ in qualitative research

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empirical and theoretical gaps; (vi) data collection and analysis; and (vii) writing up the research. Bendasolli (2013: 14) argues that the distinction between theory-driven and grounded theory approaches is simplistic, arguing instead that qualitative methods: inherit many of the problems inherent to any criteria for justifying knowledge-claims and scientific demarcation. Decades invested in the attempt to establish the exact nature of qualitative methods and demonstrate their relation to induction have obscured the fact that they are beset by tensions similar to those already identified by philosophers of science in other areas of knowledge: tensions between distinct conceptions of theory; around the role of empirical data; and between explaining and understanding, causes and reasons, a priori and in vivo categories, theoretical categories and indigenous concepts, and framing and emergence.

Timmermans and Tavory (2012: 169) add to this notion by arguing that what is needed is ‘a fundamental rethinking of core ideas associated with grounded theory, specifically the role of existing theories in qualitative data analysis and the relationship between methodology and theory generation’ (see Charmaz (1990) for an example). They further state that, ‘if we wish to foster theory construction, we must be neither theoretical atheists nor avowed monotheists, but informed theoretical agnostics’. They foreground the role of abduction rather than induction in their research and argue that abduction will solve many of the problems inherent in induction. They explain that: Abductive analysis is a qualitative data analysis approach aimed at generating creative and novel theoretical insights through a dialectic of cultivated theoretical sensitivity and methodological heuristics. Abductive analysis emphasizes that rather than setting all preconceived theoretical ideas aside during the research project, researchers should enter the field with the deepest and broadest theoretical base possible and develop their theoretical repertoires throughout the research process. (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012: 180)

In summary, this type of advice appears to be centred on the analysis and meaning-making aspects of qualitative research and seems to set up a false dichotomy between whether theory informs data analysis or arises from it, then argues that there should not be a dichotomy. This somewhat circular argument, while perhaps philosophically interesting, provides little clarity for students and early career researchers on how to use theory in qualitative research. 6. Theories can be observed at five ‘levels of visibility’ Bradbury-Jones et al. (2014) were interested in the different ways in which theory is used by qualitative researchers, and through a review and analysis of published qualitative research, developed a typology. They assessed how

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

26

Table 2.1

Bradbury-Jones et al. (2014)’s five levels of theoretical visibility

Level of theoretical

Description

visibility

Articles at each level (5 selected journals)

Seemingly absent

Not mentioned at all

Implied

Mentioned, but explicit role not described

20 (36%) 11 (20%)

Partially applied

Study located in a theory, but findings not

15 (27%)

interpreted through theory Retrospectively applied

Theory only considered at the end to make

0 (0%)

sense of data Consistently applied

Theory can be tracked throughout the

9 (16%)

published article

Source: Adapted from Bradbury-Jones et al. (2014), Table 1 and Table 2, p. 137.

explicit the theories underpinning the research were within the publications included in their study. From this they developed five ‘levels of visibility of theory’, with most studies failing to mention theory at all (36%) (Table 2.1). They also report that only a small proportion of papers were graded as at level 5, with theory consistently applied. Since this paper, Bradbury-Jones and colleagues (2017) have further developed their ‘theory’ into the ‘Qualitative Research Level of Alignment Wheel (QR-LAW). This wheel of alignment appears to be in direct contrast with what Avis (2003) argued: ‘treating these methodological theories as matters of faith to which we must adhere to assure a justifiable knowledge claim is not helpful’.

EMERGING APPROACHES IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: A SYNTHESISED THEORETICAL MODEL In this chapter, we argue that existing approaches to understanding the significance of theory construct a fragmented, contradictory and incomplete picture about its role in qualitative research. To address these contradictions, we propose a synthesised model for using theory in qualitative research, to remove some of the mystique, ambiguity and confusion present in the existing literature. Our aim is for this model to assist teachers, students and early career researchers to navigate this process with more confidence, while simultaneously avoiding a prescriptive approach that foregrounds one particular approach to doing research. Our review of the existing literature on the use of theory in qualitative research identified two main problems for students and early career researchers trying to incorporate and use theory. The first problem identified revolves

‘Theory’ in qualitative research

27

around the use of terminology in existing approaches, particularly the use of multiple meanings of the same term(s). For example, there were many meanings of the term ‘theory’, and different terms used to describe ‘methodology’. The second problem surrounds the variation in advice for how to use theory in qualitative research. We propose the need for a new framework to guide novice qualitative health researchers. We agree with the many exhortations found in the guidance literature on the use of theory to improve qualitative research, such as the following statement made by Hansen (2020: n.p): Qualitative research is characterised by theoretical plurality. In quantitative research, researchers use theory from a narrow range of disciplines, such as epidemiology, statistics and mathematics. While there is debate in these fields, this debate tends to be of interest to academics and theorists, while practitioners of research just get on and do their work. In contrast, consciously using theory from a wide range of disciplines and engaging in theoretical debate is integral to qualitative research.

Our synthesised model for using theory involves identifying the five stages of the research process: ‘Prior to Design’, ‘During Design’, ‘Data Collection’, ‘Data Analysis’, and ‘Writing-Up’ and considering the role of theory at each stage. Figure 2.1 presents the interaction between theory and qualitative research that we propose.

Figure 2.1

A synthesised model of the use of theory in qualitative research

28

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

Stage 1: Prior to Design We propose that before designing one’s qualitative research project, consideration should be given to the ontological and epistemological theories that will underpin it. Some have referred to these theoretical positions as ‘paradigms’, or broad worldviews that researchers hold and that should be interrogated before embarking on a research project. An example of an ontological theory used widely in qualitative research is idealism, which posits that reality is only known through our socially constructed meanings (Snape and Spencer, 2003). An epistemological theoretical position would not rely on positivist understandings of the world, but rather, may adopt a constructivist theoretical perspective, which assumes that the researcher – alongside their participants – plays an active role in constructing notions of knowledge and reality (Berryman, 2019). The purpose of investigating ontological and epistemological theories before one embarks on a qualitative research project is important, as one’s worldview determines how one views reality and therefore influences how to go about making meaning about reality. Stage 2: During Design Once researchers have decided on their research paradigm – or the ontological and epistemological theories underpinning their approach to research – they are ready to consider the methodology. In qualitative research, there is an acknowledgement that each methodological position is informed by a theoretical perspective and reflecting on these perspectives ultimately influences the design of one’s project. Methodological orientations will in turn determine the research design or method that is chosen for a study. For example, research guided by a phenomenological approach is likely to entail methods such as interviews or participant observation so that the research can access the social world of those who are being studied. Similarly, research guided by an action research methodological approach will prioritise community engagement and empowerment in the choice of methods. Stage 3: Data Collection Theory may also enter the choice of data collection methods and the data collection process in one or more ways. In this stage of the model, a researcher draws on the existing literature on the topic, and the methodological approaches used, to decide what to explore and how to collect data. At this stage, a researcher may test to see which data collection approaches are appropriate, and to modify their approach based on a strong theoretical justification. For example, a researcher conducting a qualitative research project may initially choose to

‘Theory’ in qualitative research

29

use interviews to collect data from a vulnerable population, but after turning to their theoretical framework, they may find that collective forms of data collection – where participants feel supported and understood by likeminded individuals and where the project is focused on group norms rather than individual histories and experiences – are more appropriate in the given context, thereby choosing a focus group method to collect their data. The topics that the researcher seeks to explore – through their interview questions – may also be influenced by their theoretical framework, theorising in the literature about the area of interest, or other adjacent theories. Stage 4: Data Analysis In the data analysis stage of the model, a researcher has the chance to evaluate if their theory is still suitable after analysing their main findings (i.e., their data). If one’s findings do not conform to the theoretical framework chosen, then this should give the researcher an opportunity to consider whether another theory may be more appropriate to explain one’s findings. For example, a researcher may start off by using a feminist approach as a theoretical framework to help guide their study, but soon realise that their data shows dominant themes of poverty and class inequality. In this context, a researcher may choose to revise the choice of a particular theory to explain and explore their data. Alternatively, a researcher may find that their initial theoretical perspective remains relevant at the stage of data analysis. The ‘data analysis’ stage of the model is, thus, an iterative process that can change depending on one’s findings. The role of theory at this stage is in providing explanations and interpretations of the data. Stage 5: Writing Up The final stage of the qualitative research process involves writing up the results. In this stage, the researcher explains their findings and, ultimately, enters into a debate with an existing community of scholars about the implications of their theoretical perspectives. Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell (2015) argues that writing is a social practice; that while writing is often done in solitude, it is undertaken with an audience in mind. Initially, Connell (2015: 12) argues, the ‘audience’ is oneself, and the content written can be ‘wild and dangerous’. After writing the initial draft, we come to a process of re-writing with a specific audience in mind. In this part of the qualitative research process, one may support, refute or expand on the theoretical framework used (e.g., Marxist theory) or propose a new theory based on one’s findings. Importantly, in this final stage of the research process, theory may be generated, disputed, or confirmed, and the writing up involves using the data to make a compelling

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

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Table 2.2 Stage

Use of theory at each stage of a qualitative research project Type of theory (additive)

Activity/decision

Use in writing (where appears in publication)

Prior to design

Ontology, epistemology,

Determining approach and

In presenting approach

paradigm, and/or macro

methodology will align

to the research topic,

theory

with these positions

make reference to these underpinning ideas (in the background)

During design

Theory underpinning

Awareness of theoretical

Referencing methodological

methodology

reasons for methodological

approach and the theoretical

decisions

justifications for choice of methods (in methodology/ methods)

Data collection

Data analysis

Consider the big picture

Data collection could be

Make reference to how

or smaller-scale theories

guided by testing/exploring

theories influenced either

that have been used in the

possible theoretical

the choice of data collection

literature to understand

explanations (or may not).

methods, or the specific

your topic. Can they

Methodological theory will

topics explored during data

inform your data

also inform choice of data

collection, if relevant (in the

collection?

collection methods

methods/background)

Once data collected,

Work with data and

Results may be presented

a different theory may

literature to find the

according to theoretically

emerge as more apt

best theory to aid the

informed categories, as

than those above, it

interpretation and

a way of illustrating how the

will depend on the data

explanation of the data

theory has been used with the data (in the results)

collected Writing up

Extend micro or macro

Interpretation of the

The discussion may highlight

theories, refute theory, or

meaning of your findings

the data’s support, refutation

develop new theory

in the context of the

or expansion of theory or

broader literature and the

may support new theory

arguments made there

generation (in the discussion)

about theory

case for new theoretical understandings, which may range from smaller-scale conceptual frameworks or micro theories, to larger-scale macro theories. A detailed description of the model, unpacking the practicalities of using theory at each of five stages of qualitative research, is presented in Table 2.2.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS In this chapter, we discussed the significance of theory throughout all stages of the research process; from guiding our initial worldview, to designing our

‘Theory’ in qualitative research

31

research question and methodological approach, and into the data analysis and write-up of our findings. We explored the existing advice given to researchers through systematically collected peer-reviewed journal articles on the use of theory in qualitative research. We found that discussions of the use of theory were often contradictory, painting an incomplete and fragmented picture of the significance of theory to qualitative research. Drawing on and addressing these contradictory findings, we developed a synthesised model to guide the use of theory in qualitative research that covers five stages of the research process: prior to design, during design, data collection, data analysis, and write-up. While we do not intend to be prescriptive as to which theoretical perspective to use or how, we recommend that if researchers address the considerations at each stage of our model, that the research will be well rounded and grounded in theory. We recommend that researchers remain cognisant of the changing ways theory can play a role at each stage of the qualitative research project.

REFERENCES Abend, G. (2008). The meaning of ‘theory’. Sociological Theory, 26(2), 173–199. Avis, M. (2003). Do we need methodological theory to do qualitative research? Qualitative Health Research, 13(7), 995–1004. Bendasolli, P.F. (2013). Theory building in qualitative research: Reconsidering the problem of induction. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 14(1), Art 25. Berger, P.L., and Luckman, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. London: Penguin Books. Berryman, D.R. (2019). Ontology, epistemology, methodology, and methods: Information for librarian researchers. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 38(3), 271–279. Bleiker J., Morgan-Trimmer S., Knapp K., and Hopkins S. (2019). Navigating the maze: Qualitative research methodologies and their philosophical foundations. Radiography (Lond), 25(Suppl 1), S4–S8. Bradbury-Jones, C., Breckenridge, J., Clark, M.T., Herber, O.R., Wagstaff, C., and Taylor, J. (2017). The state of qualitative research in health and social science literature: A focused mapping review and synthesis. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 20(6), 627–645. Bradbury-Jones, C., Taylor, J., and Herber, O. (2014). How theory is used and articulated in qualitative research: Development of a new typology. Social Science & Medicine, 120, 135–141. Carpiano, R.M., and Moore, S. (2020). So what’s next? Closing thoughts for this special issue and future steps for social capital and health. Social Science and Medicine, 257, 113013. Carter, S.M., and Little, M. (2007). Justifying knowledge, justifying method, taking action: Epistemologies, methodologies, and methods in qualitative research. Qualitative Health Research, 17(10), 1316–1328. Charmaz, K. (1990). ‘Discovering’ chronic illness: Using grounded theory. Social Science & Medicine, 30(11), 1161–1172.

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Chenhall, R.D., and Senior, K. (2018). Living the social determinants of health: Assemblages in a remote aboriginal community. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 32, 177–195. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​maq​.12418. Collins, C.S., and Stockton, C.M. (2018). The central role of theory in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 17, 1–10. Connell, R. (2015). Writing for research: Advice on principles and practice. Retrieved from: www​.raewynconnell​.net Craib, I. (2015). Modern social theory: From Parsons to Habermas, 2nd edn. London: Routledge. Delgado, R. (2017). Critical race theory: An introduction, 3rd edn. New York: New York University Press. Dew, K. (2007). A health researcher’s guide to qualitative methodologies. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 31, 433–437. Germov, J. (2014). Second opinion: An introduction to health sociology. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Giacomini, M. (2010). Theory matters in qualitative health research. In I. Bourgeault, I., Dingwall, R. and De Vries, R. (eds.) The Sage handbook of qualitative methods in health research (pp. 125–156). London: Sage. Glasner, B.G., and Strauss, A.L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine Pub. Co. Goodley, D. (2017). Disability studies: An interdisciplinary introduction, 2nd edn. London, UK: Sage. Grbich, C. (1998). Qualitative research in health: An introduction. Australia: Allen and Unwin. Green, H.E. (2014). Use of theoretical and conceptual frameworks in qualitative research Nurse Researcher, 21(6), 1–7. Hammersley, M. (1995). Theory and evidence in qualitative research. Quality & Quantity, 29, 55–66. Hansen, E.C. (2020). Successful qualitative health research: A practical introduction. New York: Routledge. Hennink, M., Hutter, I., and Bailey, A. (2020). Qualitative research methods. Los Angeles: Sage. Jovanovski, N. (2017). Digesting femininities: The feminist politics of contemporary food culture. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Jovanovski, N. (in press). Feminine hunger: A brief history of women’s food restriction practices in the West. In D. McCallum (ed.), The Palgrave handbook of the history of human sciences. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Kelly, M. (2010). The role of theory in qualitative health research. Family Practice, 27, 285–290. Keogh, L.A. (2006). Women’s contraceptive decision-making: Juggling the needs of the sexual body and the fertile body. Women and Health, 42(4), 83–103. Lemert, C. (1999). ‘Social theory: Its uses and pleasures’. In C. Lemert (ed.), Social theory: The multicultural and classical readings, 2nd edn (pp. 1–20). Australia: Macmillan Education. Liamputtong, P. (2020). Qualitative research methods, 5th edn. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Liden, G. (2013). What about theory? The consequences on a widened perspective of social theory. Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 47, 213–225.

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MacLean, S., Demant, J., and Room, R. (2020). Who or what do young adults hold responsible for men’s drunken violence? The International Journal of Drug Policy, 81. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.drugpo​.2019​.07​.015. Malterud, K. (2016). Theory and interpretation in qualitative studies from general practice. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 44(2), 120–129. Meyer, S., and Ward, P. (2014). ‘How to’ use social theory within and throughout qualitative research in healthcare contexts. Sociological Compass, 8(5), 525–539. Mills, J. (2014). Methodology and methods. In J. Mills and M. Birks (eds.), Qualitative methodology: A practical guide (pp. 31–45). London: Sage. Mitchell, G.J., and Cody, W.K. (1993). The role of theory in qualitative research. Nursing Science Quarterly, 6(4), 170–178. Potvin, L., Gendron, S., Bilodeau, A., and Chabot, P. (2005). Integrating social theory into public health practice. American Public Health Association, 95(4), 591–595. Reeves, S., Albert, M., Kuper, A., and Hodges, B.D. (2008). Why use theories in qualitative research? BMJ, 337, 949. Sandelowski, M. (1993). Theory unmasked: The uses and guises of theory in qualitative Research. Research in Nursing & Health, 16, 213–210. Snape, D., and Spencer, L. (2003). The foundations of qualitative research. In J. Richie and J. Lewis (eds.), Qualitative research practice (pp. 1–23). London: Sage. Timmermans, S., and Tavory, I. (2012). Theory construction in qualitative research: From grounded theory to abductive analysis. Sociological Theory, 30(3), 167–186. Tong, R. (2009). Feminist thought: A more comprehensive introduction, 3rd edn. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Willis, K., Daly, J., Kealy, M., Small, R., Koutroulis, G., Green, J., Gibbs, L., and Thomas, S. (2007). The essential role of social theory in qualitative public health research. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 31(5), 438–443.

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APPENDIX Table 2A.1 First author

Table listing the papers included in the literature review Country of first

Year

Journal

author

Cited by (according to Scopus, Feb. 15, 2021)

Abend

US

2008

Soc Theory

Avis

UK

2003

Qual Health Res

37

Bendasolli

Brazil

2013

Qual Soc Res

69

Bradbury-Jones

UK

2014

Soc Sci Med

55

Bradbury-Jones

UK

2017

Int J Soc Res Meth

23

Carter

AUS

2007

Qual Health Res

275

Collins

US

2018

Int J Qual Meth

27

Dew

NZ

2007

Aust NZ J Public Health

56

Green

UK

2014

Nurs Res

26

Hammersley

UK

1995

Qual & Quant

44

Kelly

UK

2010

Fam Prac

37

Malterud

Norway

2016

Scand J Pub Health

46

Meyer

Canada

2014

Soc Comp

31

Mitchell

Canada

1993

Nurs Sci Quart

35

Reeves

Canada

2008

BMJ

153

Sandelowski

US

1993

Res Nurs Heal

151

Timmermans

US

2012

Soc Theory

738

Willis

AUS

2007

Aust NZ J Public Health

Total cites

 

 

 

1979

Average cites

 

 

 

110

Note: For full reference, see references above.

136

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3. Conducting qualitative research in cultural anthropology Katie Nelson and John Forrest INTRODUCTION Anthropology is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities – Alfred Kroeber (Kroeber, 2003: 144)

Cultural anthropology in the United States is one field in what is known as ‘four-field anthropology,’ the other fields being biological (formerly known as physical anthropology which includes primatology, molecular anthropology, paleoanthropology – including fossil evidence for human evolution – bioarchaeology, human biology and forensic anthropology), archaeology and linguistic anthropology. In many other parts of the world, the latter three fields are considered separate disciplines with their own academic departments and their own methods and interests, and even in the United States they tend to be walled off from one another. But, because they all come under the general umbrella of ‘anthropology,’ there is the potential for cross-disciplinary work between cultural anthropology and the others, especially with archaeology and linguistics, because they often share methods and theory. In many parts of Europe, cultural anthropology has a different name, which reflects not only different theoretical interests, but also different histories. In Britain, for example, the study of diverse populations worldwide is known as social anthropology. The name arose because in its early days the discipline focused on the structure and functioning of social institutions, such as political systems, kinship, and economic behaviour, as opposed to cultural anthropology, which focused more on the shared ideas that governed behaviour in general – what Emile Durkheim called the collective consciousness. Nowadays it is more accurate to call the discipline sociocultural anthropology because the interests of the two approaches have mostly merged. In the early 20th century, British social anthropology was largely funded by the government, whose main interest was finding ways to control colonised groups who were continually rebelling against their rule. British military 35

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leaders proposed a solution which was to get anthropologists to document indigenous political structures, and then the colonial government could step in and take over, using the documented political systems rather than imposing British ones wholesale. Meanwhile, anthropologists in the United States were struggling to document the ways of life, and languages, of hundreds of Native American nations who had been systematically forced off their traditional lands by the federal government and into reservations, and many feared were dying out. It was a simple race against time. Since then, the motivations of ethnographers in both countries have broadened and their territorial scope widened, making their academic interests converge substantially. In the early 20th century, cultural anthropology was often referred to as ‘ethnology’ (ethnos = people + logos = knowledge), and this term is still found in cognates in other languages – ethnologie (French and German), etnología (Spanish), etnologi (Norwegian), and so on. Nowadays, in English-speaking countries, it is much more customary to refer to the subject as ethnography (graphein = to write) on the grounds that it is more legitimate to say that cultural anthropologists write about other cultures rather than that we definitively know them. This is a narrow philosophical and linguistic point that is important, but has little relevance to the actual work carried out by contemporary anthropologists. Cultural anthropology is the largest subfield, of the four in the United States, measured by the number of new PhDs granted yearly. This subfield focuses on understanding and describing social processes among cultural groups around the world. Ethnographic fieldwork is cultural anthropology’s distinctive qualitative research strategy. It was first developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by anthropologists seeking to create a rigorous methodology to learn about cultural groups throughout the world and legitimise their relatively young discipline. Figures such as Bronislaw Malinowski, a Polish-born British social anthropologist who studied in the Trobriand Islands from 1915, worked to establish ethnographic research techniques, the most salient and enduring being participant observation, a fundamentally qualitative method of data collection. Margaret Mead, an American anthropologist and student of Franz Boas, the founder of American Anthropology, made ethnography and anthropology popular, particularly to the general population in the United States. Not easily captured in a single concise definition, ethnography refers to both the methodology of research and the end result: the written product. An ethnography is therefore a thorough description and analysis of a particular group of people at a particular time and place, as well as the process by which data are collected to produce such a report. This chapter does not focus extensively on the textual elements of ethnography, although we touch on some of the important issues that emerge in the writing process, including representation, authority and voice. In what follows, we address ethnography as methodology,

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which involves the training, perspectives, processes and techniques required of cultural anthropology researchers. We also introduce the historical arch of the development of ethnography as a way to explore the challenges and strengths of the methodology. We conclude with a discussion of ways ethnography is responding to current critiques and possible directions the research approach may take in the decades ahead.

THE DISCIPLINE: CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY For centuries, scholars have pondered some of the most fundamental, and perplexing, questions about social behaviour: Why do people live in societies at all? How did human social behaviour start? Why do people follow social rules, and why (and when) do they break them? What would humans be like without social rules? Why do peoples around the world look and act so differently from us? Answering many of these questions requires combining research in different subfields because cultural anthropology alone cannot provide complete insight. Is there a genetic component to our social behaviour (as there is in ants and bees)? Can archaeology trace the evolution of patterns of social behaviour? How does the language we speak influence the ways in which we understand the world? Conversely, research into contemporary cultures across the globe can provoke questions in the other disciplines: Should the study of modern foragers (people without domesticated plants and animals) lead us to theorise on the social behaviour of our hominin ancestors? Do modern-day pastoralists (cultures whose primary mode of subsistence is herding animals) teach us about the lives of ancestral herders? In the languages of every culture in the world, there is a word or phrase for ‘us’ and another for ‘them.’ The ancient Greeks referred to non-Greeks as hoi barbaroi (barbarians), and ancient Israelites called non-Israelites goyim (peoples/nations). In ancient times, such terms were not necessarily derogatory, but now they usually are. Likewise, in many Native American languages, the word people call themselves, can be translated as ‘real people.’ The group known generally by outsiders as Navajo, call themselves Diné, which translates as ‘human’ (with the implication that non-Diné are somehow not human) – likewise, the people commonly called Cherokee call themselves Aniyvwiyaʔi, that is, ‘principal people,’ but accept the name Cherokee which was given to them by neighbouring groups before European colonisation of North America. The question that has hovered over scholarship for centuries is, ‘Why are they different from us?’ Cultural anthropology tries to answer this question. In the 19th century, anthropologists such as Lewis Henry Morgan and E.B. Tylor placed all human cultures on an evolutionary scale from the most primitive to the most modern. This scale was overtly progressive, like a ladder,

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with modern Euro-Americans at the top, and everyone else on various rungs down to the bottom. Lewis Henry Morgan had three broad categories in the evolution of culture – savagery, barbarism and civilisation – each broken into sub-categories. Climbing the ladder meant adding new items, such as pottery, bow and arrow, or written language, to the cultural toolkit. In the early 20th century, Boas used his new four-field approach to anthropology to topple the old edifice of general cultural evolution, because it was not only racist at its core, but also because it justified all manner of horrific practices such as slavery and eugenics whose professed goals were to ‘improve’ humanity, but were, in fact, forms of cultural oppression. Boas replaced general cultural evolution with the concept of historical particularism, whose key tenets were that every human culture is unique – the product of specific historical and environmental circumstances – and that every culture deserved equal respect and understanding. Theory then shifted to the consideration of why cultures were the way they were. Functionalism and structural-functionalism were the most prominent theories offered at first. These models compared a culture to a complex machine or living organism, made up of diverse parts/ organs that were all different with different functions, all serving the primary aims of the machine/living thing as a whole. The strength of such theories was that they were morally neutral. They did not judge social practices as good or bad in any absolute sense, but only in terms of their function in maintaining a healthy, stable culture. This stance is usually called cultural relativism (in contrast with ethnocentrism – the position that all other cultures are inferior when judged against the values of one’s own). The main weakness of functionalist theories is that they cannot explain culture change nor the existence of maladaptive practices. All cultures change all the time, and all cultures have dysfunctional elements. Why? Throughout the 20th century a great many theories have risen and fallen in an attempt to replace functionalist approaches, and yet traces of the broad idea remain. Currently, cultural anthropology has no central paradigm to drive research, and a general stance that it does not want one. The paradigms of the past, including cultural evolution, historical materialism, structuralism and others have all crashed and burnt. There is now a prevailing feeling that all such enterprises are doomed to failure, so that expending the effort to erect a new one is wasted energy. Instead, cultural anthropology now has the habit of defining itself more in terms of what it used to be, but now is not (‘post-something’), rather than what it is: post-colonial, post-structuralist, post-Foucauldian, and so on, although definitions that are more positive do exist. The larger context of these negative (and positive) definitions is a debate over whether cultural anthropology should continue to exist at all. There is a small, but strong, segment of the community that believes that the oppressive, colonialist mentality that dominated ethnographic research for decades

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has so warped the method that it cannot be salvaged, and should be junked. Other, cooler, heads argue that ethnography is damaged and in urgent need of repair with newer methods of doing fieldwork (see the ‘Emerging Approaches’ section later in this chapter) addressing this concern. While cultural anthropology is certainly not unique among social sciences in its colonial origins, it is, by many estimations, the most self-critical. Today, ethical considerations loom large for ethnographers. The concerns for the use of human subjects in academic research make qualitative fieldwork methods in anthropology preferable to experimental ones, but qualitative methods run ethical risks nonetheless. The American Anthropological Association provides strong guidelines for anthropologists engaging in field work (see American Anthropological Association, 2012). Another persistent debate between anthropologists concerns whether the discipline is more like natural science or one of the humanities, with no resolution: it is both and neither. Likewise, qualitative methods in anthropology can be either scientific or humanistic or both. The debate hinges on the issue of what cultural anthropology can be used to accomplish. Nevertheless, what unites cultural anthropologists is deep commitment to contextualisation and being able to examine data from multiple perspectives. Because of these approaches, ethnographic descriptions tend to be filled with qualifications and uncertainties, with few concrete conclusions. There is a joke that circulates among anthropologists in which a student asks a professor ‘What is the difference between cultural anthropology and sociology’? And the professor replies, ‘Well, the difference is, if you ask a sociologist a question, you will get an answer.’

THE TRADITIONAL QUALITATIVE APPROACH IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: ETHNOGRAPHY In the 19th century, ethnographic data gathering was a completely mixed bag, with some anthropologists relying entirely on reports of other cultures by travellers, missionaries, soldiers, and the like, with little to no concern for their accuracy. They also had virtually no interest in contextualising the information, which meant that the meanings implicit in the data were limited. Let’s say, for example, an anthropologist came across a religious tale dealing with snakes in Cambodia, another from Papua and a third from Kenya. These snakes, which are, in fact, utterly different in their symbolic meanings when viewed in their complete cultural contexts, were, instead, all lumped together as sacred snake tales (and probably along with the story of the snake in the Garden of Eden in Genesis) with some sort of overarching theory concerning how snakes are powerful the world over, which totally missed its mark. A few early anthropologists did, however, have direct contact with the people they

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wished to learn from, and their chief tool was the formal interview. Lewis Henry Morgan, for example, wrote a voluminous study of the Iroquois, The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois, based on years of interviews with multiple members of the nation living near him in upstate New York (Morgan, 1851). Interviewing is still an important method used today, but it is secondary to other methods, such as participant observation, because interviewing has significant limits. Human memory is fallible and is continually reconstructed in the mind. People misremember events, remember things differently from others, or omit them when recounting their lives. Some people lie, or embroider the truth for various reasons, and so forth. By themselves, interviews are not reliable. They must be supported by other methods. The vast majority of doctoral candidates in anthropology are expected to conduct a year-long fieldwork study of a group of people and then write some form of ethnography of those people as a dissertation. The active data gathering phase in which the ethnographer is collecting information from the people under study in their conventional environments is referred to as ‘fieldwork.’ Fieldwork need not be limited to qualitative methods, but they are always used to some extent. Along with participant observation and interviewing, the fieldworker may take photographs and/or videos, draw maps or sketch diagrams, or use any means available to record data. Since the early part of the 20th century, participant observation has been the primary method for conducting fieldwork. Simply put, the fieldworker is both a participant in the culture and an observer of it at the same time. If you want to know about rice farming in Thailand, you go out in the rice paddies every day with the famers and work alongside them, repairing dykes, planting, weeding, harvesting and whatever else is required (participant). While working along with the farmers, the fieldworker also has a notebook, audio recorder and camera to document the work, and also asks questions as the day proceeds (observer). The fieldworker also eats with the farmers, plays games, gets involved in rituals, and whatever else is part of the farmers’ lives. Then at the end of the day, when everyone else is resting, the fieldworker organises the day’s notes and may also record an entry in a journal. At the end of a year, the anthropologist gathers up notes, photos, sketches, maps, and whatever else is useful, including artefacts, mementoes, and the like, and heads home to organise and make sense of it all in an ethnographic account. Today, ethnography (as a research approach) is the dominant methodology cultural anthropologists use to conduct research. Originally, ethnography was employed to study small-scale, non-industrial cultural groups throughout the world. These studies tended to be comprehensive and holistic, capturing detailed information about nearly every part of local life. As ethnography matured, anthropologists increasingly used ethnographic research techniques

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to examine specific research questions in large-scale, complex societies. Today a wide variety of ethnographic research by anthropologists takes place, including studies that bridge time and locations. Ethnography is especially useful at identifying hidden or taken for granted elements of the everyday lives of people. This is made possible by a distinctive feature of ethnography – the way it creates a narrative by weaving together emic and etic perspectives. Emic perspectives are those possessed by the cultural insider: how they view the world and categorize and interpret and react to phenomena. Etic perspectives refer to the cultural outsider’s perspectives such as that of the anthropologist and include structural and analytical elements. Etic perspectives are informed by theory, outside research and the researcher’s own experiences, among other things. The terms emic and etic come from the field of linguistics referring to the study of the sounds of a language. A phonetic difference in sounds is any difference that an outside observer can detect, whereas a phonemic difference is one that changes the semantic meaning of the words. Shouting the word ‘cat’ as opposed to whispering it is a phonetic difference. Either way, you are referring to a furry, purring, four-legged feline. But if you say ‘cat’ and then ‘bat’ you have changed the meaning of the word by changing one phoneme (a semantically significant sound – /c/ versus /b/). Strip off the /phon/ part and you are left with ‘etic’ and ‘emic.’ Consider someone who knows how to ride a skateboard and do an ollie trick. That person can probably explain how to do the trick as they conceive it (emic), but would likely find it difficult or impossible to explain the principles of energy conservation and angular momentum involved in the way that a physicist would (etic). Because of how useful the ethnographic research strategy is in developing an emic, or insider, perspective, it has been adopted by many other disciplines including sociology, education, psychology, and political science. Unfortunately, ethnography is also deceptively simple in that it involves many of the same basic human abilities that everyone shares; talking to people, observing, doing things with others, listening and so on. It is common for people to think that because they are human and do human things all the time, they understand human behaviour. Professional ethnographic fieldwork frequently shows that ‘commonsense’ observations concerning social behaviour are mistaken or incomplete. The ethnographic approach within cultural anthropology is distinctive. It requires intensive training in specialised research techniques, perspective taking, theory, as well as targeted analytical tools. Anthropologist Anthony Kwame Harrison sums up what makes anthropological ethnography distinctive in his concept of ‘ethnographic comportment’ (Harrison, 2018). Invoking the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, he describes ethnographic comportment as a particular kind of preparation of the body and mind, formed

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over a lifetime of training and experiences, that can operate below the level of conscious thought. This ethnographic habitus, he states, is: … founded on an historically informed awareness of the politics surrounding the ethnographic encounter. Through training, ethnographers gain a critical sensitivity toward the interactions of research identity, and power, as manifested in ethnography colonial past and postcolonial/neoliberal present. The habitual dimensions of this ethnographic comportment reveal themselves as ‘cultural instincts’ … inclinations, and sensibilities toward doing what (a trained ethnographer believes) is right. (Harrison, 2018: 44–45)

A trained anthropologist’s ethnographic comportment allows for considerable flexibility and spontaneity in fieldwork, which is necessary for an inductive methodology of a dynamic subject (people!). Thus, a strength of ethnography is that it can capture the ‘messiness’ of human life. However, as such, it is not well designed to produce generalisations. Nevertheless, ethnographers do look for patterns in human life, in behaviours, thought patterns, shared meanings and symbols, rather than focusing on idiosyncrasies in and of themselves. The Research Process In general terms, ethnographic research projects typically proceed in a manner that is common among other social sciences. Researchers start with a topic, frequently this is preceded by a bit (or a lot) of preliminary study, observation and interaction among the people and topic of interest. Then the researcher conducts a thorough literature review to further refine their topic and explore existing research (Box 3.1).

BOX 3.1 TYPICAL ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH PROCESS 1. Defining the topic a. Literature review 2. Writing the research questions 3. Devising the research design 4. Conducting research and field note writing a. Redefining the topic and rewriting research questions – if needed 5. Analysis and writing a. Returning to the field for further data – if needed 6. Writing and returning to the field with results for feedback and reciprocity.

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There are any number of possible research projects for cultural anthropologists. Yet, some commonalities seem to emerge. Because ethnography is particularly valuable for viewing taken for granted elements of social life and evaluating them in a new and different light, many research projects tend towards making the ‘strange unusual and the unusual strange’ in various ways. Projects often attempt to bridge the gap between social structure and individual agency. As such, a common overarching theme among topics is bringing to light how things are culturally and socially constructed and, thus, deconstructing the elements that are seen as normative by evaluating how and why and by whom they were developed and maintained. A closely related theme is that of power. That is, how power is distributed among social groups and individuals and what the mechanisms are that perpetuate types of power, privilege and inequality. Embedded in these approaches is, of course, the subtext of the potential for counter-hegemonic emancipation. Some anthropologists today are interested in how they can actually help enact positive change in people’s lives through their work. Other common themes include material culture and symbolic culture, including their production, exchange and change. Finally, many cultural anthropologists also explore some take on the theme of identity. That is, how individuals and groups identify themselves and position themselves in the context of others, and how these identities are shaped by internal and external forces and structures. Readers will notice that a common theme among these topical approaches is power. Indeed, cultural anthropology is highly sensitised to political concerns, both as a topic as well as the context of ethnographic production. To begin with, the fieldwork situation involves a power dynamic between fieldworker and those being studied that profoundly affects the data produced. Additionally, individuals within a culture under study have numerous ways of displaying power (getting their desires met) – physical force, authority based on rank or social position, persuasion, financial (or other) rewards, and so on. Exploring the flow of power in social systems, and teasing apart its many forms, is a constant theme in ethnographic writing. Out of the framing of the research topic, the research questions often emerge organically. The research questions as well as the topic are of course also shaped by the theoretical orientation the ethnographer takes at the outset. In general terms, ethnographers’ questions are often why questions. Why are some cultures, including the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin and highland New Guinea, constantly at war? Why do farmworkers in California suffer heat stroke and chronic illness at higher rates than workers in any other US industry? The ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions often accompany a larger framed why question. For instance, Roy Rappaport’s Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People shows how warfare is not a matter of power alone, but is a key component in individual and group identity, in

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managing local resources, and is embedded in everyday cultural life in numerous ways (Rappaport, 2000). Sarah Horton’s They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields (Horton, 2016) shows how structural violence embedded in immigration policies and labour conditions results in disease and early mortality in a largely hidden population of agricultural workers. Just as the research questions often emerge from the research topic, the research design is devised in consultation with both. We have previously described the importance of participant observation in combination with interviews. There are a great number of other research techniques that cultural anthropologists use in conjunction with each other. Each has its particular uses and strengths, as well as its drawbacks. Ethnographers may use a varied set of techniques depending on their research goals and the nature of their data. Having a variety of quality data is an asset to any ethnographic project. To give readers a general sense for the range of techniques, Table 3.1 lists some of the classic techniques including their primary uses. Nevertheless, readers should consult a quality ethnographic research methods text that describes, in detail, how, when and under what circumstances to use which ethnographic research technique (see Crane and Angrosino, 1992; Forrest and Nelson, 2022). It is important to remember that while these techniques might help elicit certain types of data, the ethnographer is ultimately the primary research tool. That is, ethnographers filter their observations and perceptions through their bodily senses. They interpret these perceptions through their unique set of life experiences and habitus, and of course through their ethnographic training. An ethnographer-as-research-tool is, therefore, clearly not a dispassionate, passive objective observer but an active agent interacting with other agentive humans. And it is through this interaction that ethnographic insight emerges. Because of the complex relationship between the ethnographer, field site and people, careful documentation is essential. As such, ethnographers take copious notes. Fieldnotes capture the contextual detail of the field site and people, the ethnographer’s interpretations, and even the ethnographer’s emotional responses to the events at hand. Ethnographers may also produce a personal diary where they document their own life and perhaps how personal circumstances filter through into their research. The diary of Bronislaw Malinowski is a well-known and controversial example. Published posthumously decades after his death, passages in his personal diary lay bare some of his lecherous and racist personal thoughts and how he struggled to overcome them (Malinowski, 1989). Interested readers may consult a great number of detailed evaluations of the intricacies of writing ethnographic fieldnotes (see Roger, 1990; Emerson, Fretz and Shaw, 2001, 2011). During the active fieldwork phase of the research process, the anthropologist is engaged in a dance in which they constantly move between emic and etic perspectives. Writing notes is essential to capturing these perspectives and

Conducting qualitative research in cultural anthropology

Table 3.1

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Ethnographic techniques

Techniques

Description

Uses

Participant observation

Observing a group while simultaneously

Provides needed cultural context

participating in the same activities as

for data.

others. ‘Deep hanging out’

A type of participant observation in which

Allows researchers to pick up

(Geertz, 1998)

the ethnographer spends time with others in

on unexpressed norms, values

a casual, informal setting.

and unarticulated behaviours of a group. It also helps build rapport.

Conversations

Range from formal to informal and

Allows researchers to gather

unstructured and are most frequently

emic data.

coupled with participant observation as a primary research approach. Interviews

A type of conversation that is more

Allows researchers to gather

structured and targeted. Examples include

targeted and specific emic detail.

life history, skill, performance and so on. Kinship charting

A graphic using anthropological kinship

Used to trace family relationships

notation depicting the inter-familial

over time, document kinship

relationships of a kinship group based on

systems, trace inherited health

the perspective of one individual.

conditions, stimulate participant recall, among other uses.

Cultural domain

Collecting and analysing how people in

Frequently used in business

analysis

a cultural group think about certain key

anthropology. Traditionally used

terms and lists of things that somehow go

to identify cultural themes and in

together, in order to identify and analyse

linguistic anthropology.

cognitive domains. Secondary data analysis

Examining existing data such as scholarly

Used to explore research

and popular publications, archival and

assumptions, generate research

statistical data, maps, records, and so on.

questions, identify gaps in what is known about particular research topics, and identify best methods for a given topic.

Key informants

Consulting participants with specialised or

Researchers can establish strong

more complete knowledge about something

rapport with key informants,

within a community.

facilitating the collection of emic data that can be compared with data collected using other techniques.

Mapping

Recording in graphic form geographic and

Provides relational data on the

social landscapes.

social and physical environment of a community.

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Techniques Household censuses

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

Description

Uses

A count of the population and certain

Most useful in small, contained

characteristics in a given community.

communities. Often used in conjunction with mapping. Helps enumerate the frequency of certain characteristics of the population.

Photography and

Collecting photographic and videographic

A tool for documenting complex

videography

data of cultural phenomena.

visuals and movement. Allows participants and ethnographers to represent aspects of their realities to each other.

forms the basis for eventual analysis. As author Forrest did for his doctoral dissertation research, an ethnographer may spend the daylight hours engaged in participant observation; fishing or hanging out with fishermen at the general store, listening to stories (emic). Then in the evening they may go home and write about their thoughts and perceptions of the day, possibly referring to outside documents or ideas (etic). Once the ethnographer leaves the field, they begin an intensive period of analysis and writing. Fieldwork, writing and analysis are very much cyclical and iterative processes. Oftentimes, the analysis may begin in the field, drafted in fieldnotes, expanded during the writing period and then revised on a subsequent field visit. The ethnographic research process is a dynamic one and considerable flexibility must be built in. The analysis involved in a research project very much depends on the research design and research questions. A great many analytical approaches are available to ethnographers, ranging from multi-sensory, to discourse to polysemic analysis (see Bull and Mitchell, 2015). Yet, because of its elasticity, ethnography also allows for needed change within the research methodology. Indeed, cultural anthropology today is experiencing a transitional period in which some traditional ethnographic approaches are being revisited and freshly critiqued and new ones proposed (see also Chapter 4 in this volume).

EMERGING ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACHES IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY One of the persistent questions in the 21st century when reading an ethnography is, ‘Whose voice am I hearing?’ When ethnographic fieldwork was in its infancy in the early 20th century, published ethnographies had a general air of objective authority in their descriptions: this is how the Nuer or the Tikopia are – end of story. There was little acknowledgment that an outsider had

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recorded the information and that the process of recording the particulars of a social activity potentially changed it. Nor was there much sense that people in the culture under study had diverse opinions about the validity or accuracy of the data collected. Yet, it is extremely unlikely that any community, no matter how small and isolated, consists only of members who all agree about everything regarding their social life. These weaknesses of method are now being addressed by adjusting techniques employed in fieldwork to take them into account. Reflexivity Both the personality and visible features (age, gender, ethnicity, and so on) of the fieldworker, not to mention the simple fact of that person’s presence in the first place, have a major impact on how people being researched behave. There is no neutral, objective lens. One solution to this problem is to encourage fieldworkers to come out of the shadows in their writing and to be both honest and reflective about their role in the project within the reportage of the fieldwork itself, and not simply as an afterthought. This approach is called reflexive anthropology. For instance, in Translated Woman, Ruth Behar (2003) explores the life history of a poor Mexican woman, Esperanza, while introducing her own life story and experiences as a Jewish Latina. Behar reflects on the relative privilege she has to be able to ‘cross the border’ with Esperanza’s story, while Esperanza remains unable to do so. Reflexive fieldwork may seem like an obvious step up from the simple reportage of social activities, to a more nuanced style in which fieldworkers recognise that they themselves are the primary tools of investigation. Just as you would not use a certain telescope to observe the stars without first learning about the capacities and limitations of the telescope, reflexive fieldworkers must be completely transparent and honest about their personal strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and so forth, before they engage in fieldwork, and must continue to relay data about themselves in conjunction with the information they are gathering about others. In this way, a reader who is unfamiliar with the fieldworker and the people under study can, nevertheless, triangulate the field situation, and thus arrive at a clearer picture of the people being examined by having a better understanding of the ‘lens’ through which they are being viewed. Sounds good on the surface, but the method has some logical flaws. If you have a watch that is always 5 minutes fast, or which gains 30 seconds every hour, you can still use it to tell what the exact time is because you know exactly what its flaws are and can correct for them. The biases of a fieldworker are not at all akin to the errors built into a faulty watch. What if the fieldworker is untrustworthy? Can we trust the self-revelation of that fieldworker,

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telling us that they are untrustworthy? What do we do with data gathered by a person who self identifies as untrustworthy? Unlike with time, or weights and measures, there is no standard against which to weigh the individual traits of a particular fieldworker. The fieldworker’s self-analysis is, of necessity, deeply subjective, incomplete, and subject to gross error. Despite all these difficulties, reflexive anthropology can, nonetheless, yield valuable data when employed circumspectly. Reflexive fieldwork is much like interpretive analysis in general in that its validity cannot be tested using any other yardstick than a sense of its plausibility and coherence. But, as Clifford Geertz (1973: 18) noted when it comes to such methods, ‘there is nothing so coherent as a paranoid’s delusion or a swindler’s story.’ One solution to the dilemma is to have a system of checks and balances. Related to reflexive anthropology is autoethnography, a blend of ethnography and autobiography. Contemporary researchers tend to be somewhat scattered and vague when it comes to defining exactly what qualifies as autoethnography, but the prime concept is that the autoethnographic researcher is simultaneously looking inward to document personal feelings and observations while also looking outward into the world at large. Historically, autoethnography has been used in the study of a culture of which the fieldworker was a member (Hayano, 1979). More recently, Carolyn Ellis (2004: xix), who is noted for her autoethnographic work, defines it as ‘research, writing, story, and method that connect the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social, and political.’ According to Adams, Jones, and Ellis in Autoethnography: Understanding Qualitative Research (2015: 1–2, 9), Autoethnography is a research method that:   • Uses a researcher’s personal experience to describe and critique cultural beliefs, practices, and experiences. • Acknowledges and values a researcher’s relationships with others … • Shows ‘people in the process of figuring out what to do, how to live, and the meaning of their struggles’ … .   Social life is messy, uncertain, and emotional. If our desire is to research social life, then we must embrace a research method that, to the best of its/our ability, acknowledges and accommodates mess and chaos, uncertainty and emotion.

A danger inherent in autoethnographic writing, as well as with reflexive ethnography in general, is the potential for the authorial voice to become privileged, and for the resultant data to become authoritative. This state of affairs is, of course, paradoxical given that the purpose of these methods is to downplay the authority of the fieldworker by exposing bias and limitations (among other things), and to suggest that the data so produced should be understood rela-

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tivistically in context. Nevertheless, such methods represent important efforts by which cultural anthropologists are trying to right the historical errors of ethnography (see also Chapter 4 in this volume). Multivocality and Multilocality There is a curious case of fieldwork from the 19th century that inadvertently points out the value of having multiple – perhaps conflicting – voices from the field. From 1878 to 1880, James Dorsey, working for the Bureau of American ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, was sent to live in Nebraska near Joseph La Flesche, last recognised head chief of the Omaha, and four nights a week he met with eight young Omaha tribe members, including Joseph’s son and daughter, Frank and Susette, helping them to read and write the Omaha language while also learning Omaha stories and traditions from them. In 1880, Dorsey returned to Washington, DC. Soon thereafter, Frank La Flesche began working as a clerk in the Office of Indian Affairs and for two years he helped Dorsey compile his mass of field notes into a manuscript for his compendious work Omaha Sociology. When Joseph La Flesche and an Omaha man named Two Crows were visiting Washington, Dorsey had the opportunity to go over the manuscript with them, and was chagrined to discover how much of the information the two of them disagreed over, including basic issues of political organisation, kinship and marriage. Instead of making the finished book a synthesis of all the information he had received, he deliberately made it multivocal. The phrase ‘Two Crows denies this’ occurs frequently, and became the inspiration for the title of R.H. Barnes’s work Two Crows Denies It: A History of Controversy in Omaha Sociology (Barnes, 1984). Even Edward Sapir noted that Omaha Sociology was a book ahead of its time (‘We see now that Dorsey was ahead of his age’) because it acknowledged that culture was neither monolithic in reality, nor in the minds of its participants (Mandelbaum, 1949: 569–570). For 100 years, Omaha Sociology stood alone as a multivocal classic, but not anymore. It is increasingly common in ethnographic reportage to allow conflicting or contradictory opinions concerning social activities to remain in a finished ethnography rather than for the ethnographer to smooth out the inconsistencies, knowing that cultures are not ideologically monolithic. Conflict and contradiction are an intrinsic part of social life. But also, an ethnographer’s social statuses and life experience can shape their interpretation of data. Multivocality in modern ethnography can take many forms. There is, for example, an interest in multivocal autoethnography in which the ethnographer narrates experiences from multiple perspectives, highlighting the fact that even single individuals can have a variety of perspectives on a given situation (see

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e.g. Chang, 2008). Multivocality is also quite typically a component of what is known as multisite or multilocal ethnography, in which a single research question is pursued in different locations and/or at different times. The multilocal ethnographic project ‘Preschool in Three Cultures Studies’ used a technique known as videocued multivocal ethnography to investigate interactions between pre-schoolers in the USA, China and Japan, in 1989 and again in 2009. The first step in the process is to videotape classroom behaviour. Next, teachers and administrators observe and critique the videos, and these discussions are then recorded and analysed. The initial fieldwork was conducted in 1989 and repeated 20 years later to see whether the cultures investigated had changed or not (Tobin, 2009). There are numerous multisite research projects ongoing today as ethnography continues to take on a more globalised perspective. Indigenous Ethnography and Engaged Fieldwork One of the obvious solutions to the problem of the unequal power dynamic between the outsider ethnographer looking inward and the insider local informant speaking outward is to turn over the ethnographic enterprise to the insider so that there is no longer any binary confrontation nor misunderstanding between the two sides. Now there are no sides. This kind of approach comes with its own logical dilemmas, however. The most obvious difficulty to face is that in order to have insiders write their own ethnographies, they must first be trained in ethnographic methods; and as soon as that happens, the outsider mentality bleeds into the insider’s perspective, making the whole enterprise self-defeating. Engaged fieldwork is one way to try to escape this dilemma (see Bringa and Bendixsen, 2016). The classic ethnographic interview involves an interviewer, the one with all the questions and who controls the situation, and an interviewee, who is being controlled by the interview situation. This dynamic shifts if the interviewer stops thinking of the situation as one to be controlled, with an asymmetric flow of information from interviewee to interviewer, and mentally restructures the situation to one of equal partnership in which information is mutually exchanged. The interview, thus, emulates a conversation more than an interrogation. In order for engaged ethnography to be successful, there must be some shared experience between the two parties for fruitful dialogue to flow between them, and there may always be some kind of asymmetry in the relationship. Nonetheless, the quality of information revealed in such interactions will be substantially different, and hopefully richer and deeper, than that produced by conventional methods.

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Digital Research The digital revolution has transformed cultures the world over. It is possible to observe people using laptops and smartphones from New York City to the rain forests of Borneo, and their presence has transformed access to information and interpersonal communication in profound ways. This situation has led the latest generation of fieldworkers to explore multiple domains of digital interaction. At the most basic level, ethnographers have concerned themselves with the ubiquity of smartphones, and with the ways in which interpersonal communication has changed because of them. Texting, sexting, microblogging and such are now common field ‘sites’ for anthropological analysis. Smartphones and laptops can also be used for video calls and video conferencing, which, in turn, can be used for online meetings and teaching. Fieldworkers can act as participant observers at such events in much the same way as they can at live events. The digital revolution has also led to an explosion of online gaming, particularly massively multiplayer online role playing games such as World of Warcraft, which allow for interpersonal interaction between players, yet their actual identities are hidden. Various researchers (Turkle, 2009, 2011; Yee, 2003; and Munn, 2011) have noted the ways in which online interactions differ from non-digital ones, and how more and more people prefer digital to live communication. Digital interactions via games also give players the opportunity to present various public personas that differ from their live ones – changing genders, example – and over 21% of gamers said they found it easier to communicate online than in person (Griffiths and Hussain, 2008). Ethnographers are using other types of online interactions as sources of data as well. For instance, Susan Tratner (2022) studied mothers in New York City who participate in anonymous online parenting discussion boards. The online posts illuminated how these mothers’ social status is inexorably tied to their parenting and the resulting tension between the social role of mother and the private reality of wanting to complain and to have another identity. The effects of the digital revolution on individuals and culture are constantly in flux, and the source of considerable new social data, from the new ways in which people can present themselves to others, to the new and wider communities that they can participate in.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS At present, cultural anthropology stands at the crossroads. A great many old ways of thinking have fallen by the wayside, and some of the more radical scholars of late have called for its demise altogether, given that its history is so closely tied to colonialist and authoritarian mentalities. More moderate anthro-

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pologists have called for rethinking the discipline, and, in the process, there has been a general expansion into realms of interdisciplinary cooperation. Back in the late 1950s, archaeologists started touting the ‘new archaeology’ – now called processual archaeology – arguing that ‘American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing’ (Willey and Phillips, 1958: 2). From that point on, American archaeologists moved to include cultural anthropological insights into their research agendas. Likewise, cultural anthropologists have used findings from physical anthropology, including primate behaviour, genetic analysis and studies of human evolution, in their conclusions about human behaviour in general (e.g. Bourdier et al., 2021). On a broader front, scholars in a wide array of fields, such as history, philosophy, sociology, Biblical studies and literary analysis, are now sharing ideas with cultural anthropologists and vice versa (see Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983; Crossan, 2009; Craith and Ullrich, 2014). One potential outcome of such sharing of ideas is the possibility, advocated by the authors, of a ‘new’ brand of holistic anthropology that draws on as many resources as possible to enrich cultural investigations. The idea is not new at all. It is a call to a return to the four-field vision of anthropology invoked by Boas at the beginning of the 20th century (1904), but then quickly discarded as unworkable. For Boas, the four fields had to be coalesced to topple theories of general cultural evolution and to replace them with his brand of historical particularism. From there, he was content to allow the four fields to go back to their separate corners. One hundred years on, times have changed: four-field approaches are gaining increased attention. It is quite likely that, while many cultural anthropologists will continue in highly specialised pursuits (as they should), many others will become more holistic in their outlook. The end of the 20th century saw a great deal of soul searching within cultural anthropology concerning the legitimacy of research methods of the past, the imbalance of power between fieldworker and the people being documented, and the validity of the knowledge base of the discipline. Apart from leading to a re-evaluation of the fundamentals of cultural anthropology, these problems have also prompted a surge in activism by anthropologists pushing for greater public awareness and proactive engagement in spheres such as human rights, feminism, environmental protection, preservation of indigenous cultures and lands, and so forth. In tandem with these initiatives, there has been an increase in the diversity of ethnic representation within the profession, meaning that there is less of a sense of anthropology being about strangers peeking into strange cultures, and a greater sense of the field being a platform for cultural insiders to speak up and speak out. The 19th century saw the beginnings of anthropology as an academic discipline with an eye to embracing all of humanity under a single evolutionary

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paradigm. The 20th century saw the advent of rigorous fieldwork methods that challenged the evolutionary model; but then these methods, in turn, were severely challenged for their lack of ability to speak truths beyond the ethnographer’s own. Now at the beginning of the 21st century, anthropology’s future is uncertain. As cultural anthropology continues to grapple with its colonial heritage and issues of representation, responsibility and interdisciplinarity, we expect to see further transformations in the discipline and in ethnography as a qualitative research methodology.

REFERENCES Adams, T.E., Holman Jones, S., and Ellis, C. (2015). Autoethnography: Understanding qualitative research. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Adams, T., Holman Jones, S., and Ellis, C. (Eds.) (2021). Handbook of autoethnography, 2nd edn. Routledge: New York. American Anthropological Association (2012). Principles of professional responsibility. American Anthropological Association: Arlington. Barnes, H.S. (1984). Two Crows denies it: A history of controversy in Omaha sociology. University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln. Behar, R. (2003). Translated woman: Crossing the border with Esperanza’s story. Beacon Press: Boston Bourdier, P., Duboz, P., Macia, E., Ka, A., Nazare, J., Cohen, E., Boetsch, G., Blanc, S., Simon, C., and Bergouignan, A. (2021). Comment la recherche interdisciplinaire au carrefour de l’anthropologie socioculturelle, de la physiologie nutritionnelle et de l’activité physique peut aider à lutter contre l’épidémie d’obésité. Cahiers de Nutrition et de Diététique, 56(1), 51–58. Bringa, T., and Bendixsen, S. (Eds.) (2016). Engaged anthropology: Views from Scandinavia. (Approaches to Social Inequality and Difference). Palgrave: Cham. Bull, M., and Mitchell, J.P. (Eds.) (2015). Ritual, performance and the senses. Routledge: New York. Chang, H. (2008). Autoethnography as method. Left Coast Press: London. Craith, M.N., and Ullrich, K. (2014). Blurring the boundaries between literature and anthropology: A British perspective. Ethnologie Française, 44(4), 689–697: Paris. Crane, J., and Angrosino G. (1992). Field projects in anthropology: A student handbook, 3rd edn. Waveland Press, Inc: Prospect Heights. Crossan, J.D. (2009). Jesus: A revolutionary biography. Harper One: New York. (First edition 1994.) Dorsey, J.O. (1884). Omaha Sociology. Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1881–82. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press: Walnut Creek. Emerson, R.M., Fretz, R.I., and Shaw, L.L. (2001). Participant observation and fieldnotes. In P. Atkinson, A. Coffey, S. Delamont, J. Lofland and L. Lofland. (Eds.). Handbook of ethnography. Sage Publications: London. Emerson, R.M., Fretz, R.I., and Shaw, L.L. (2011). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes, 2nd edn. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.

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Forrest, J., and Nelson, K. (2022). Doing field projects: Methods and practice for social and anthropological research. Wiley-Blackwell: London. Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books: New York. Geertz, C. (1998). Deep hanging out. The New York Review of Books, 45(16), 69: New York. Griffiths, M., and Hussain, Z. (2008). Gender swapping and socialising in cyberspace: An exploratory study. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 11, 47–53: New Rochelle. Harrison, A.K. (2018). Ethnography. Understanding qualitative research. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Hayano, D. (1979). Auto-ethnography: Paradigms, problems and prospects. Human Organization, 38(1), 99–104: Oklahoma City. Hobsbawm, E., and Ranger, T. (Eds.) (1983). The invention of tradition. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Horton, S.B. (2016). They leave their kidneys in the fields: Illness, injury, and illegality among US farmworkers. University of California Press: Oakland. Kroeber, K. (2003). Curious profession: Alfred Kroeber and Anthropological History. Boundary 2: An International Journal of Literature and Culture, 30(3), 144–155: Pittsburgh. Malinowski, B. (1989). A diary in the strict sense of the term. Stanford University Press: Stanford. Mandelbaum, D.G. (1949). Selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture, and personality. University of California Press: Oakland. Morgan, L.H. (1851). League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois. Sage & Brother Publishers: Rochester. Munn, N.J. (2011). The reality of friendship within immersive virtual worlds. Ethics and Information Technology, 14, 1–10. Rappaport, R. (2000). Pigs for the ancestors: Ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea people, 2nd edn. Waveland Press Inc: Long Grove. Roger, S. (1990). Fieldnotes: The makings of anthropology. Cornell University Press: Ithaca. Tobin, J., Hsueh, Y., and Karasawa, M. (2009). Preschool in three cultures revisited: China, Japan, and the United States. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago. Tratner, S. (2022) Mothers acting up online. In N. Fernandez and K. Nelson (Eds.), Gendered lives: Global issues. American Anthropological Association and SUNY Press: New York. Turkle, S. (2009). Simulation and its discontents. MIT Press: Boston. Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together. Basic Books: New York. Willey, G., and Phillips, P. (1958). Method and theory in American archaeology. University of Chicago Press: Chicago. Yee, N. (2003). An ethnography of MMORPG weddings. The Daedalus Project.

4. Qualitative methods in medical anthropology Richard Chenhall and Kate Senior INTRODUCTION Medical anthropology draws on a wide range of perspectives and approaches to understand human health and well-being and their interactions with medical systems. The contribution that an anthropological approach makes to these subjects is one of deeply contextualised understanding with respect to what are often fraught and sensitive issues. In this chapter, we will discuss the traditional approach used by medical anthropologists using examples from our own research. We will then explore some of the limitations of these methods and the innovations that have occurred in our discipline which aim to address these whilst retaining the deep insights that an ethnographic approach can provide.

TRADITIONAL APPROACHES – ETHNOGRAPHY Imagine yourself suddenly set down surrounded by all your gear, alone on a tropical beach close to a native village while the launch or dinghy which has brought you sails away out of sight. You have nothing to do, but to start at once on your ethnographic work. Imagine further that you are a beginner, without previous experience, with nothing to guide you and no one to help you. (Malinowski, 1922: 46)

This quote is from the opening pages of Malinowski’s famous ethnographic text Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922). Bronislaw Malinowski was an anthropologist who pioneered the methods of Anthropology. In 1914, he travelled to the Trobriand Islands where he lived amongst the inhabitants to understand their everyday life. He argued that anthropologists must have daily contact with their participants in order to understand the ‘imponderabilia of everyday life’ (Malinowski, 1922). He also argued that while individuals know the purpose of their own actions and the rules which apply to them, they may not be aware of the collective institution that shapes behaviours and motives. It is the job of the ethnographer to piece together the ‘picture of the big institution’ that surrounds us (Malinowski, 1922). Although the tradition of 55

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ethnography was growing in other disciplines and in other parts of the world, it was Malinowski who coined the term ‘participant observation’, that shaped the way ethnographic research was to develop. What is Ethnography? Ethnographic research is a naturalistic, compared to an experimental, inquiry. Ethnographers conduct fieldwork involving participant observation where they gather data in the setting where participants are located and where their shared patterns of life can be studied. They both participate in and observe the events and interactions that occur around them, hence the term participant observation. The aim is to learn about the activities, routines and experiences of the people under study in their natural setting through observation and participation in these activities. Ethnographers locate themselves in various sites, these might be in a particular town or village, they could be based in a household, or in a hospital or clinic. Ethnographers have studied many topics and settings and communities of people such as new healing movements, elderly patients in hospital, fire fighters, drug dealers, sex workers, GPs and health workers, to name just a few (see also Liamputtong, 2020). Ethnography is the research approach used by anthropologists when studying groups of people. It involves four key principles. These are: • Participant observation; learning by participating in the everyday life of the community. • Natural setting; the researcher being in the community rather than the community coming to them. • In their own words; a commitment to capturing people’s stories and interpretations using their own language. • Holism; a whole community perspective. Ethnographers collect rich data (called ‘thick description’), writing down and recording what they observe around them and documenting their conversations with others (Geertz, 1973). Ethnographers try and fully immerse themselves in their field location as much as possible. Their aim is to provide an in-depth understanding of people’s experiences, behaviours, perspectives and histories (and the meanings they ascribe) in the context of their personal circumstances or settings. It is very difficult to do this in a one-on-one interview or a focus group, so ethnographic research involves immersion and engagement in a local context over an extended period of time. This involves spending time with people, literally hanging out and engaging in activities with participants and having informal conversations. Ethnographers may also seek to hold more formal interviews or focus groups, bringing participants together to discuss

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a particular topic. An ethnographer may also document the space and environments in which people live, in addition to understanding the socio-political and historical context of a particular place. An ethnographer wants to gather as much information as possible about a particular place and the people that inhabit their community. They want to present an accurate reflection of participant perspectives and behaviour but seek to contextualise this within the social, political and economic context of the setting. Anthropological research methods are different from many other research approaches, for example: • • • •

We do not have set questions. We cannot define a sample. We often do not have a formal hypothesis. We consider ourselves to be an instrument of our research and acknowledge our potential bias. • We form friendships with our informants which extend beyond the research project. • We write in the first person. • We do not consider brevity to be an essential feature of good writing and prefer detailed description. Medical/Health Anthropology Ethnographic research is an appropriate methodology for a wide variety of research topics within health settings. Anthropologists studying the health of humans have been referred to as medical or health anthropologists (see Long and Baer, 2018) and have engaged with a vast array of topics in health (see Metzner and Warren, 2018). In a recent review of medical anthropology around the globe, Metzner and Warren (2018: 550) summarised the features of the work conducted by medical/health anthropologists that have focused on the experiences of the ‘materialities of life and death – illness, health, injury, disability, addiction, medicine, dying’. They found that medical/health anthropologists are often united through their focus on issues related to care, although care is constructed and imagined in different ways. This could be the care offered by a clinic, hospital or healer/health professional, by individuals themselves through self-care practices, or at larger societal levels through the moral economies of care. In Australia, researchers have worked in a number of subject areas such as Indigenous health, women’s health, global health, refugee/migrant health and development health, mental health and neuroanthropology, occupational health, health systems and ethnobotanicals and climate change (see Long and Baer, 2018). Ethnographic research can assist in the understanding of various routines associated with health care delivery and individual health practices that often

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go unnoticed but can have deleterious impacts on health. It can be very hard to collect data on routines of practices through other qualitative methods, such as focus groups or interviews. Sometimes we engage in various routines because they seem natural or the right thing to do. Consider when you brush your teeth every day. Do you do this at the same time every day? Why? Where did you learn this routine? Sometimes, it is difficult to know the answer to these questions or even recognise that something is routinised. This is the benefit of participant observation. An ethnographer spends a lot of time just observing routines and the talk and actions around those routines on multiple occasions, across different individuals, timepoints and locations. A good example in health is electronic records. Electronic patient records were introduced into various health care settings and were assumed to improve efficiency, quality and safety. These systems have now become part of routine care and are rarely questioned. However, ethnographic research has found that electronic patient record systems can actually be detrimental to the care provided. Obstfelder and Moen (2006) conducted participant observation and held interviews with leaders, nurses and administrative staff in care homes on the topic of a newly introduced Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system. They found that the new routines that were required by nurses to meet the needs of the EPR meant that essential face-to-face communication and notes about patient care, that were previously shared between nurses about patients, no longer occurred. The EPR system also required considerable time to keep it updated and maintained. Nurses had to find workarounds to enable face-to-face communication about patient care and workflow. By observing nurse routines and handovers, the authors found that special information about patients and the need for coordination between staff do not lend themselves to electronic communication. Ethnographers have conducted participant observations in other clinical settings to understand the impact of medical routines and technology. Take, for example, the increasing escalation of technology use into routines, such as childbirth. In study reported in an article titled ‘Paradox of the institution: Findings from a hospital labour ward ethnography’, Elizabeth Newnham spent two days a week over a period of six months in an Australian hospital labour ward. She documented informal discussions with hospital midwives and doctors, as well as observations of practices and conversations. Newnham attended the birth of six women who were also invited to conduct interviews before and after the birth of their child. Newnham (and her colleagues) revealed the cultural setting of a hospital labour ward and showed how the experience of birthing is shaped by the institutional framing of the hospital. This framing is shaped by its reliance on technology, surveillance and medical understandings, which view birth as something that needs to be ‘treated’ and to follow a series of predictable events. Newnham and colleagues describe the

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increased medicalisation of birth in modern society. For example, women are expected to follow the hospital routines, which often ignored birth physiology. Various practices such as the administration of ARM (Artificial Rupture of the Membranes) and Syntocinon served to ‘push’ women’s labour along to meet the time requirements of the institution (Newnham et al., 2017: 7). Newnham observed practices where women should not have been induced, but the medical intervention proceeded because the regular institutional practices dominated decision making. This reliance on technological intervention means that women’s needs are not met, and they can be placed at risk of medical harm (Newnham et al., 2017: 10). Women’s experience of birth is far from linear; however, these clinical interventions in the labour ward worked to conform women’s bodies to the routines of the hospital. These routines become an embedded part of the hospital and sometimes women are given very few alternatives in terms of how their labour should progress. These routines become so much part of the labour ward, that when new technologies or approaches are developed there can be a great deal of resistance to their adoption. The implication of this research is the need for alternative birthing options, such as midwifery-led birth centres and practices such as freestanding (Newnham et al., 2017: 10). The findings related to this study could only have been collected through participant observation. The ethnographer needed to be immersed in the hospital to understand the routines of the labour ward and the direct experience of the women and the interaction with doctors and midwives. Interviews alone would not have been enough for the researcher to examine how the labour ward operated and the interactions between staff and with the women who came to give birth. Various studies have used ethnographic methods to understand the interaction between the health apparatus and humans’ engagement with it, including how medical technologies and approaches shape local knowledge and practice (Lusardi, 2015) and how various rituals are symbolic action to inform cultural norms and practices (Wolf, 1988), and to understand patient experiences and specific forms of care (Reigada et al., 2020). Other studies using ethnographic methods have focused on how patients push back and resist routines of care (Alftberg, 2021; Featherstone et al., 2019). However, ethnographic perspectives do not just focus on routines and regimes of care and health practices. In the next sections we will discuss some of the different qualitative methods and approaches used in medical anthropology.

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DOING ETHNOGRAPHY: TRADITIONAL APPROACHES Exploring the Meaning of Health in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory In 1998, Kate Senior began fieldwork in the remote Aboriginal community of Ngukurr in South East Arnhem Land of the Northern Territory. She was interested in how people understood health and well-being and the nature of their interactions with their local health services. After many years studying anthropology, she considered she was ready for this experience. In fact, she found out that the only way to learn about participant observation is to actually do it, make mistakes and get used to people laughing at you. Kate also found that any level of understanding would take a very long time. She ended up working in the community for three years. On arrival in the community, Kate was given the skin name of Narritgan. This placed her within the kinship system and established a set a series of rules for how she was to conduct her life, including who she could and could not talk to. Skin names are somewhat generational, and she found to her shame that many of the other people who responded to this name were little kids. Very quickly, people in the community called her ‘little girl’. This positioning was both positive and negative. On the positive side, children are expected to be ‘silly’ and need to be taught things, so this was a perfect name for a fledgling anthropologist (see also Agar (1980) who likens the experience of ethnography to being a child as everything is strange and the rules must be relearnt). On fishing trips, old ladies would delight in testing Kate about her kin relationships and her Dreamings (totems). They would also delight in scaring her: ‘Watch out for the file snakes’ they would yell at her when she was waist deep in mud, trying to harvest lily roots. On the negative side, young, unmarried women are not able to talk to men and Kate’s relationships with older women were characterised by them telling her to do things. Kate’s main informants, therefore, were women of her own age. Her choice of question was also problematic. Health and illness were high on the list of subjects that no one wanted to talk about at all! Her initial tentative inquiries were met with a deliberate brush off ‘if you are interested in health – you should go and talk to people at the clinic’. Kate found that there was a serious disconnect between the clinic and everyday life, and a deep distrust. ‘If you go to that clinic, they just cut you up’ said one informant (much later). She found herself floundering – she was becoming well integrated into the community, was learning to speak Kriol and was participating in lots of activities, but no one wanted to talk about health at all.

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Her breakthrough came one afternoon, while people were getting ready for a cyclone. A young man asked Kate if she would type up some song lyrics for him. His song about nocturnal spirits and sorcery provided insight into and a path forward to discussing health and well-being. Finally, someone was prepared to talk about supernatural causes of illness, and through this person she was able to work out the right ways to ask questions about it and to gain suggestions about who might be happy to talk. ‘Everyone will talk about it’, he said ‘it’s the main thing in people’s lives’. And he was right; although people did not care to talk about non-Indigenous health systems, they were very interested in telling Kate about supernatural causes of illness and how to protect yourself from them. ‘We just didn’t think you would be interested’ they said. In time, Kate was able to classify different types of illness: from normal illnesses (colds, irritations caused by dust and weather), ‘Whitefellow’ (introduced illnesses, such as diabetes) and supernatural illnesses (which included all unexpected illnesses, weakness, pain and sudden death). Magic and sorcery became part of her life. One day, returning from a spectacularly unsuccessful three-day hunting trip (where the group shared a tin of tuna, a packet of Arnott’s Cream Assorted biscuits and an orange), Kate found a plate of beautifully iced cupcakes on her doorstep. These were tantalising. Her companion scooped them up, dumped them in the bin and piled an extra layer of rubbish on top. Tired as she was, this was something which needed further explanation: K: Why did you do that? [Outraged and hungry] D: They could have been poisoned? K: Poisoned? How? D: Well, not poisoned, someone could have put sorcery on them. K: Why would anyone do that? D: They could be jealous of you – got to be careful. K: Can Munanga [non-Indigenous people] be poisoned with sorcery? D: You’re not Munanga. You are family. You’ve been here long enough. In 2006, Kate had her first baby, and her status changed from being a ‘little girl’ to an ‘old woman’. Most people would not be particularly happy being referred to as an ‘old woman’ at 35, but for Kate, it was a triumph. Finally, she had escaped childhood! The people who she could talk to and the subjects that they would be willing to discuss changed. As an adult woman, she was able to talk to older people in the community including older men. She was also trusted with a much deeper range of knowledge. Kate has now been going back to Ngukurr for more than 20 years. In fact, due to COVID-19, 2020 was the first year she has not gone back. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about ethnographic research, is that through

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it you form lasting relationships and deep obligations to the people you work with. Work turns into lasting friendships. Kate’s relationship with Ngukurr is now a great deal more than an individual, research-focused one. Her family is intertwined with their Ngukurr family, which means it is no longer acceptable just for her to go on fieldwork, the whole family must come with her. This last point serves to reinforce Atkinson’s (2015: 17) reminder that fieldwork takes place within a mesh of social relationships and that it is open to interpretation; we interpret and try to make sense of what is going on and so do our hosts. The material above describes a traditional approach to medical anthropology. The research is conducted in a community in which the researcher was a stranger and had to learn everything from the ground up. The focus of the research is on local understandings of health and local attribution of meaning to the causes of ill-health. The method employed is extended participant observation, where the anthropologist learns about a particular issue through participating in the every-day activities of the community. The commitment of time involved means that there is time for misunderstanding and confusion and frustration when things do not get revealed quite as quickly as you might want them to. This study revealed important information about the meaning of health in a particular community and the disjuncture between the values of the health services and those of the community, which contributed to continuing levels of poor health in the community. Institutional Ethnography Ethnographic methods can be a useful approach to understanding the impact of institutions and health interventions on individuals and in the design of interventions (Brett et al., 2002; Long et al., 2008). This might include the experiences of hospitalisations as described at the beginning of this chapter but can include other types of interventions. Richard Chenhall conducted two years of ethnographic fieldwork in a residential Aboriginal alcohol and drug treatment centre to better understand the experiences of residents and how ‘treatment’ worked. Richard lived in the centre with other residents and attended group Alcoholics Anonymous, psychotherapeutic and cultural support sessions, meal times and other activities. During group activities, he took notes, or sometimes when he felt taking notes might be an intrusion, he immediately wrote up his recollection of events and discussion as soon as he could after the event. During the evenings, when staff had left the centre, he often had long discussions with residents either beside a fire or playing pool or table tennis. The evenings were a time for residents to reflect on the day, to unwind and often talk about various issues and events. During these quieter periods, Richard also took the opportunity to conduct interviews with people documenting their life stories or to hold group discussions. These were

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all recorded with consent on a cassette tape. Nearing the end of interviews, guitars were often pulled out and Richard made music recordings on his tape recorder. He would make sure throughout the day to also spend time writing up his notes into longer descriptions. He would add as much detail about an event he was trying to describe and would be very careful to separate out any interpretation or analysis of the events in these descriptions. Before he went to bed, he wrote in a reflective diary recounting the days’ events, how he felt his research was progressing and any difficulties or insights he had gained. This process of taking notes, writing up those notes into longer vignettes and writing a reflexive diary was time consuming and at times exhausting when combined with the efforts of participant observation. Over time, Richard gradually built up a picture of the different reasons people came to treatment for their alcohol and/or drug misuse and the commonalities in the reasons for their use. In understanding how treatment works, residents recounted how they felt their treatment and engagement in the programme was progressing. Richard had long discussions with them about various aspects and philosophies of recovery from alcohol and/or drug misuse. However, did these discussions mean that the treatment programme was ‘working’? Richard was never sure. However, one element of daily life in the centre that gradually became evident was that at specific times the centre would go through a period of what he would later call a ‘shakeup’. These were times when residents both short- and long-term would lose their privileges, some would be told to leave the centre by staff, others would leave on their own. The rules of the centre would be scrutinised and enforced strictly and there was a general feeling of tension. After spending long enough in the centre, Richard noticed similar patterns that would help explain these periods. Residents in the treatment centre over time would earn various privileges. These were earned as a reward for progression through the treatment programme, and they were earned for taking on responsibility in the centre. Perhaps, a resident started working in the kitchen, helped in the gardens or assisted new residents to organise their affairs. A male resident might be moved from the dormitory and given his own room as a reward, another allowed some material possessions. However, with responsibility came increasing pressure and stress to manage an assigned duty. The possibility of conflict with other residents or staff over these duties was often present. When conflict occurred, how a resident dealt with this conflict was an indicator of how well they had integrated programme philosophy into their thoughts and behaviour. After making a mistake in their duties and being reprimanded by staff and losing their privileges, one resident might react positively, taking the criticism and would work on changing their behaviour in such situations. Others reacted negatively, engaged in arguments with staff and residents, harboured resentment towards others and in some instances left the centre. This would often

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have an impact on the centre as a whole and the hierarchies between residents in the centre would be disrupted. In extreme situations, alcohol and/or drugs might be smuggled on to the property and when discovered those residents would be told to leave. This process of acquiring responsibilities and associated privileges and subsequently losing them was an integral aspect of the informal aspect of the treatment program. It was not acknowledged explicitly by staff or residents as ‘treatment’, but it did act as a kind of test to see whether an individual had integrated the learnings from the programme into their daily life in the centre. Importantly, Richard was only able to see this aspect of the treatment programme because of the methodological approach he had taken in the study. He needed to be living in the centre to see this repeated routine as it was not spoken about. What seemed like times of crisis and upheaval for residents were opportunities for further growth in recovery. It was not possible to uncover this hidden aspect of the programme through interviews or focus groups. Rather, ethnographic research through participant observation was the only approach that shed light on this process, whereby he was able to witness repeated routines and discourses formed and repeated through time. Ethnographic Research with Multidisciplinary Teams: Qualitative Methods to Support Evaluation A sole ethnographic research project where you are able to spend considerable time exploring a subject which is of great interest to you, is something of a luxury. Kate Senior has spent much more time in her career contributing ethnographic insights into multidisciplinary research or health evaluation One such experience was the evaluation of a community-based palliative care programme in regional New South Wales (NSW). This programme provided care to people in their own homes, supported by a team of visiting nurses. It allowed family structures to remain intact and for people to live as normal a life as possible. In a relatively rapid ethnographic project, her period of participant observation involved travelling with the nurses as they visited their clients, talking to family members and attending team meetings of the palliative care service. Kate also made friends with many of the nursing staff and spent time with them after work. She wrote her observations using the conventions of thick description to try and capture the experience and bring it back to life which were followed by a process of reflection and interrogation as she worked to make sense of what was going on: The last person on our list today was Keith. Keith is in the last stages of cancer and he is very weak, the nurse thinks he only has a month to live. He’s a bit of a favourite for J (the nurse) and she always makes sure she has extra time for him. She said; ‘It’s

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weird, I suppose, but Keith is so happy, he’s been lonely for years and now he’s got all these people looking after him’. He lives right on the edge of town – it’s very rural with horses and sheep grazing in the paddock next to his house. The house itself is tiny, only one bedroom and seems to be falling down in places, guttering hanging off the roof, paint peeling. Betty was there today, she is Keith’s neighbour and his carer. I wonder how she came to take on this role and how she feels about it. She came in after leaving a large pumpkin and several other veggies on the kitchen table. The kitchen is next to Keith’s room and is a busy area with people drifting in and out. At one point they seemed to be arguing: ‘Already fighting over my stuff’ said Keith, ‘I’m not dead yet!’. Keith looked tiny in his hospital bed, its stark functionality contrasting with the comfortable lived-in state of the room. The sun was shining through the window and a small dog luxuriated in a pool of sunshine on the end of the bed. He asked for a cigarette (J pretended to tut) and shakily raised it to his mouth. ‘He hasn’t burnt the house down yet’ joked Betty ‘And if you can’t smoke now, when can you?’. ‘You know the only time he’s managed to turn himself over is when he couldn’t reach his cigarettes!’ Keith beams at this and both he and Betty smile as if they are an old couple. I noticed the number for the after-hours call out service taped to the wall above Keith’s bed. I asked Betty if she ever used that number. ‘I like to know it’s there – it’s our safety net’ she said ‘but I really worry about waking people up in the middle of the night. I know the nurses say: “that’s our job”, but I know how hard they work’.

Reflections and questions: • J was right Keith and Betty were the happiest people I met today – quietly enjoying each other’s company and making jokes. • The palliative care service was designed to keep people at home and families together – but in this case it seems to have created a family for Keith. • How will Betty cope after Keith dies and what sort of support will be available for her, given she is a neighbour and not a family member? • Who will recognise her grief? (need to talk to people involved in this program about bereavement care). • Deep emotional attachment of the nurses on this program, how do they cope? (find out about supports, debriefing). • Recognition of the free call number – but barriers to using it. Need to find out if other people feel this way.

This example, transcribed from Kate’s note book of the time, attempts to re-create an observation. These observations were then summarised and she took notes about further questions that arose. Many years later, she is still able to see this room and Keith and Betty. But what contribution did this make to the evaluation of the palliative care service, apart from the obvious conclusion that Keith was being cared for well and was comfortable within his own home? This interaction and many others generated questions that became fundamental for the programme; including how are the roles of non-family carers such as Betty acknowledged and what supports are available for them after the death of the person they are caring for? She was also seeing a deep emotional

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involvement of the nursing staff; but not seeing any acknowledgement of this, with nurses saying ‘it’s part of my job’, or observing any particular supports for them. Her observations also provided important information about a key component of the programme which was thought to be underused and at risk of being discontinued, the after-hours number. Her observation of the number taped on the wall, and her questions about it revealed that the provision of the number was highly valued; it was not being used because people (and this was widespread across the families she visited) did not want to wake the nurse up in the middle of the night. It was then easy to tell people that special on-call nurses were available and that they were happy to be called for help. The material obtained through this period of participant observation became the basis for a set of questions informing the development of the carer’s survey questions in the palliative care tool kit (Eagar et al., 2003), a resource which is still being used many years later. In this example, ethnographic research is considered in conjunction with the other research methods employed to tell as complete a story as possible. It did a good job of telling the story behind the patterns observed in the quantitative data (for example the use of the after-hours number) but it was also generative research in that the findings from the ethnographic observations were used to develop a series of survey tools to increase the reach of the findings. For all three of these studies, participant observation (in the remote Indigenous community, in the alcohol and drug residential treatment centre and with clients and service providers of a palliative care program) formed the heart of the research approach. Participant observation in the treatment centre, however, was not the sole method employed by us as medical anthropologists. Each study also utilised in-depth interviewing, focus group discussions, archival research, and in the case of study of health beliefs, a door-to-door survey (Senior, 2003). Triangulation of research methods is an effective way of cross checking the reliability of observational findings (Flick, 2018).

EMERGING APPROACHES ADOPTED IN MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Medical anthropologists have looked for new ways to explore people’s lived experiences of health and illness, which retain the emic (insider) perspectives gained from participant observation. In this section, we will explore some emerging approaches including collaborative anthropology, autoethnography and arts-based methods.

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Collaborative Anthropology Collaborative ethnographic approaches aim to disrupt the power imbalance between the researcher and the local participants and require people at the local level to be ‘full participants in research and publication’ (Beck, 2009). Collaborative approaches mean that local people are involved in developing and framing the research question itself, to address local concerns that may be very different from those driving the non-local researcher. As examples, we present material from two collaborative studies that we undertook with members of a remote outstation in Arnhem Land, which were initiated by the local community members themselves with the aim of telling a story about the importance of health and well-being and of living on ancestral land. In both studies, community members identified the research topic and led the data collection. This was in the form of narrative interviews with relevant community members and also included drawing from their own experiences and memories. Telling the stories about the sites at the focus of both studies occurred at the sites themselves. Community members conducted ‘walking interviews’, which involved walking through the sites of interest and telling stories about the places while passing through them. ‘Walking interviews’ have become increasingly popular across different disciplines and are a valuable means of understanding people’s lived experiences associated with their connections to places (King and Woodroffe, 2019). The first (Senior et al., 2018a) was a study of the outstation itself and how residing on the outstation, despite distance, remoteness and difficulty of access, was good for people’s health. The health benefits of living on outstations are usually described in terms of access to healthy food (hunted or gathered), exercise and separation from excessive alcohol use that may occur in larger settlements (Burgess et al., 2005). These are essentially definitions of health set by outsiders to the community. A collaborative approach meant that local people defined what health meant to them and then set out to explain why outstations were health promoting places. See the following example which relates living on the outstation to resilience: For Daphne, the outstation is her strength. All her family are here including her ancestors, who she talks to about her plans:   I bin grow and this place bin grow. Memories here. I look everywhere and I feel happy. I feel like my family are here with me. My grandparents, Auntie, still here, really here. That sprit mob. (Senior et al., 2018a: 6)

Health defined by local people encompassed such things as personal autonomy, hope for the future and a continuing connection with ancestors.

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The second was a study of a collection of ruined cars (Senior et al., 2021), which were considered to be antithetical to health (described variously by non-locals as a reservoir for dangerous animals, sharp rusted metal and an environmental eyesore). Daniels, who was the key community researcher on this project argued that the cars, far from being a blight on the landscape which should be removed, should be preserved as they were important symbolic markers of the family members who owned them and symbolised the on-going struggle to develop and preserve communities on ancestral land. As a result, Daniels and the team worked with community members to tell the stories embedded in the rusty shells of the cars, so these would be preserved. This kind of work was seen by the community members as fundamental to health and well-being, but probably would not be an automatic focus for a team of medical anthropologists interested in the continuing health inequalities of people living in remote Aboriginal communities. Autoethnography: The Importance of Self-Reflection Health and illness are intensely personal experiences. As such, it is difficult for an on-looker to describe what an individual may be thinking and feeling. As Richards (2016) points out, there is a great deal of difference between living with an illness and viewing it professionally. She goes on to highlight the differentials in power between a health professional and a person with an illness: The voice that is heard most often in medical narratives of various sorts is the voice of the distant expert and this voice can be quite pernicious. After my transplant, another doctor told me that the graft (as he called it) was taking nicely and that my results looked good. Then he looked at me wistfully, with his head on one side and asked ‘what does it feel like to have had a transplant? Do you feel different from before? In what way?’ (Richards, 2016: 1720)

Autoethnography (treating your own, or sometimes a family member’s experience as the place of ethnographic engagement) is increasingly being used in medical anthropology to privilege the viewpoint of the individual with a health condition and to highlight the discrepancies of power between the individual and the medical system (Reed-Danahay, 2019). We argued above that ethnography reveals processes, routines and beliefs that may be hidden and unrecognised. Autoethnography reveals material that may only be accessible to the individual themselves; but yet provides vital insights into such things as how a person navigates a particular health system, the barriers they face, their conflicts of belief, their feelings of disempowerment and of being ‘othered’. Autoethnography faces challenges in terms of both its reliability and usefulness. For example, Chang (2016) argues that the evocative telling of one’s own health and healing story is insufficient on its own to provide sociocultural

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insights into the illness phenomenon. To ensure quality in autoethnographic research Chang proposes five key considerations: 1. Does the autoethnography use authentic and trustworthy data?; 2. Does the autoethnography follow a reliable research process and show the process clearly?; 3. Does the autoethnography follow ethical steps to protect the rights of self and others presented and implicated in the autoethnography?; 4. Does the autoethnography analyze and interpret the sociocultural meaning of the author’s personal experiences?; and 5. Does the autoethnography attempt to make a scholarly contribution with its conclusion and engagement of the existing literature? (Chang, 2016: 443)

Despite the complexities, autoethnography is positioned to reveal insights into health experiences that may be completely inaccessible to all but the person actually experiencing them. These insights may for example describe such things that seriously impact upon a person’s engagement with health and healing and their potential for recovery. Rachael McMahon’s (2019) study of her experience within the mental health system in Australia is an important example. McMahon was able to describe in detail her experience of being othered and silenced through the processes of her treatment, the inconsistencies she experienced between her own and professional ratings of her competencies, and her frustration with treatment programmes, such as ‘doing craft’. As psychiatric wards are not places that usually welcome outsider observation, these autoethnographic insights form important insights into the potential flaws in a system and the complexities of the patient experience (see also Chapter 3 in this volume). Ethnographically Informed Body Mapping Ethnographic work in communities and spending time conducting participant observation is the preferred approach for the majority of medical anthropologists. However, ethnographic research is highly resource- and time-intensive. Researchers need time to build rapport with the community and to gradually learn what is going on. Living in the field is also expensive and often difficult to arrange. Ethnographic work is also ethically complex and requires deep consideration of not only the initial ethical considerations but also those which arise during the course of the study (Chenhall et al., 2011). It is also the case that some communities or populations present particular challenges for anthropologists, particularly when they are not bounded in a particular location, or have reasons to be invisible to outsiders (for example drug users or people engaged in illegal activities).

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In 2011, these challenges were made very clear to us. In 2008, we published a paper titled ‘“Walkin’ about at night”: The background to teenage pregnancy in a remote Aboriginal community’ (Senior and Chenhall, 2008). This work was considered by the Northern Territory Department of Health to provide important information about a serious problem in the Northern Territory; the very high rates of births to teenagers under the age of 16. As a result, we were asked to replicate our study in communities across the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. The problem was that our original research was based on extensive participant observation in one community. We had the time to build up relationships of trust with both adults and young people and had support from the community to do our work. This level of engagement was not going to be possible in multiple sites over a very limited time period (we had two years to conduct the fieldwork). We needed to design a research methodology that was engaging for hard-to-reach young people, that could be done in a single setting of not more than two hours, and that had the potential to provide us with rich and contextual research findings. We experimented with the arts-based method of body mapping, first developed by Xavier Verhoest while working with children and young people living with AIDS HIV in 2003 (de Jager et al., 2016). Our initial attempts were not successful, as the conversations young people had about issues in their lives were too wide-ranging to explore our research question related to sexual health (Chenhall et al., 2013). We needed to re-focus the attention on young people’s sexual health but were very aware (from our previous research) of the shame and stigma that young people felt when we tried to engage them in these issues (Chenhall et al., 2013). We decided to co-design a series of hypothetical scenarios to guide our discussions. The scenarios were first drafted on the basis of our previous ethnographic research. They were then workshopped with a group of young people with whom we had worked previously. The combination of the body mapping technique with the ethnographically informed back story proved to be a highly effective way to engage young people in discussions about their sexual health (Senior et al., 2014, 2018b). In later attempts to refine the technique even further, we found that the more time we spent allowing the young people to develop their character as a real person, the more likely they were to develop sensitive stories which focused on protecting the character they created and helping them to work through their problems (Senior et al., 2018b). As they thought about their character, the character’s friends, their family, their daily activities, where they lived, the young people were undertaking the ethnographic work for us.

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CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS Ethnographic approaches which prioritise insider (emic) understandings of health and illness or experiences within a health system, have the potential to provide powerful and otherwise inaccessible information about peoples lived experiences. This information may be used to understand such things as continuing inequalities in health or the potential of health interventions to make a difference and to tease out the complexities of structural and social determinants which impact upon people’s health and well-being. As we have shown, these methods are traditionally used as stand-alone studies, but also may become part of an evaluation programme. Participant observation is, however, both resource- and time-intensive. Some project timeframes simply do not allow for this level of engagement. If the kind of deep insights provided by ethnography is valued, it may be possible to implement methods, such as body mapping, which provide a more rapid engagement with people’s ideas and worlds. The experience of health is deeply personal, and yet the evaluation of health is largely driven by the opinions of expert outsiders. In order to counter this, real consideration needs to be made of ethnographic methods which highlight and privilege the insider perspective, including the emerging areas of autoethnography and collaborative ethnography.

REFERENCES Agar, M. (1980). The professional stranger: An informal guide to ethnography. London: Emerald Group Publishing. Alftberg, A. (2021). Medication management in Swedish nursing homes: An ethnographic study of resistance, negotiation and control. European Journal of Social Work, DOI: 10.1080/13691457.2020.1870214. Atkinson, P. (2015). For ethnography. London: Sage Publications. Beck, S. (2009). Public anthropology. Anthropology in Action, 16(2), 1–13. Brett, J.A., Heimendinger, J., Boender, C., Morin, C., and Marshall, J.A. (2002). Using ethnography to improve intervention design. American Journal of Health Promotion, 16(6), 331–340. Burgess, C.P., Johnson, F.I., Bowman, D.M., and Whitehead, P.J. (2005). Healthy country healthy people? Explaining the health benefits of Indigenous natural resource management. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 2, 117–122. Chang, H. (2016). Autoethnography in health research: Growing pains. Qualitative Health Research, 26(4), 443–451. Chenhall, R., Senior, K., and Belton, S. (2011). Negotiating human research ethics: Case notes from anthropologists in the field. Anthropology Today, 27(5), 13–18. Chenhall, R., Davison, B., Fitz, J., Pearse, J., and Senior, K. (2013). Engaging youth in sexual health research: Refining a youth friendly method in the Northern Territory of Australia. Visual Anthropology Review, 29(2), 123–132.

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de Jager, A., Tewson, A., Ludlow, B., and Boydell, K. (2016). Embodied ways of storying the self: A systematic review of body-mapping. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 17(2), https://​doi​.org/​10​ .17169/​fqs​-17​.2​.2526. Eagar, K., Senior, K., Fildes, D., Quinsey, K., Owen, A., Yeatman, H., Gordon, R., and Posner, N. (2003). The rural palliative care program evaluation tool kit: A compendium of tools for use in the evaluation of rural palliative care projects. NSW: Centre for Health Service Development, The University of Wollongong. Ellis, C. (1999). Heartful autoethnography. Qualitative Health Research, 9(5), 669–683. Featherstone, K., Northcott, A., and Bridges, J. (2019). Routines of resistance: An ethnography of the care of people living with dementia in acute hospital wards and its consequences. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 96, 53–60. Flick, U. (2018). Doing triangulation and mixed methods. London: Sage Publications. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. King, A.C., and Woodroffe, J. (2019). Walking interviews. In P. Liamputtong (ed.), Handbook of research methods in health social sciences. Singapore: Springer. Liamputtong, P. (2020). Qualitative research methods, 5th edn. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Long, D. and Baer, H. (2018). Health anthropology in Australia, American Anthropologist, 120(3): 560–565. Long, D., Hunter, C., and Van Der Geest, S. (2008). When the field is a ward or a clinic: Hospital ethnography. Anthropology and Medicine, 15(2), 71–78. Lusardi, R. (2015). Ethnography of ‘local universality’: Admission practices in an intensive care unit among guidelines, routines and humour. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 16(2), Art. 26. Malinowski, B. (1922) Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: E.P. Dutton and Co. McMahon, R. (2020). The silenced manifesto: An autoethnography of living with schizoaffective disorder. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. Metzner, E., and Warren, N. (2018). World anthropologies. American Anthropologist, 120(3). Newnham, E.C., McKellar, L.V. and Pincombe, J.I. (2017). Paradox of the institution: findings from a hospital labour ward ethnography. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth, 17(2) https://​doi​.org/​10​.1186/​s12884​-016​-1193​-4. Obstfelder A., and Moen, A. (2006). The electronic patient record in community health services – paradoxes and adjustments in clinical work. Studies in Health Technology & Informatics, 122, 626–631. Reed-Danahay, D. (2019). Autoethnography. In P. Atkinson, S. Delamont, A. Cernat, J.W. Sakshaug, and R.A. Williams (eds.), Sage research methods foundations. London: Sage. Reigada, C., Arantzamendi, M., and Centeno, C. (2020). Palliative care in its own discourse: A focused ethnography of professional messaging in palliative care. BMC Palliative Care, 19(88), 1–10. Richards, R. (2016). Writing the othered self: Autoethnography and the problem of objectification in writing about illness and disability. Qualitative Health Research, 18(12), 1717–1728. Senior, K., and Chenhall, R. (2008). ‘Walkin’ about at night’: The background to teenage pregnancy in a remote Aboriginal community. Journal of Youth Studies, 11(3), 269–281.

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Senior, K., Helmer, J., Chenhall, R., and Burbank, V. (2014). ‘Young clean and safe?’ Young people’s perception of risk from sexually transmitted infection in regional, rural and remote Australia. Culture Health and Sexuality, 16(4), 453–466. Senior, K., Chenhall, R., Hall, J., and Daniels, D. (2018a). Re-thinking the health benefits of outstations in remote Indigenous Australia. Health and Place, 52, 1–7. Senior, K., Chenhall, R., Minton, S., and Grozdanovski, L. (2018b). ‘Our Lives’ and ‘Life Happens’, from stigma to empathy in young people’s depictions of sexual health and relationships. Journal of Applied Arts and Health, 9(1), 9–23. Senior, K., Chenhall, R. and Daniels, D. (2021) Your ‘eyesore’ my history? People and ‘dead’ cars in a remote Aboriginal community, Transfers, 11(11) 3–26. Wolf, Z. (1988). Nursing rituals. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, 20(3), 59–69.

5. Qualitative research in sociology: ‘seeing’ social class in qualitative data Belinda Lunnay, Kristen Foley and Paul R. Ward INTRODUCTION This chapter will provide newcomers to sociology and novice researchers with a clear case for the benefits to be gained from conducting qualitative research within sociology, particularly regarding social class. Research on social class is an area of burgeoning interest because it holds value in understanding the factors that shape and reproduce social inequities. However, there is scant instruction (in practical and accessible terms) available for how to conduct such research. We provide worked examples of how to analyse qualitative interview transcripts (n = 50) from a study that explored Australian women’s (aged 45–64 years) understandings of the links between alcohol consumption and breast cancer. We sampled women from different social classes, taking particular interest in how, why, and in what context(s), alcohol consumption differed for women in lower and higher social classes. We have numerous research studies on understanding different aspects of social class, meaning that we have abundant ‘real world’ data available to ‘show and tell’. We have published widely from this and related studies, so interested readers can follow our findings elsewhere (Foley et al., 2020; Lunnay et al., 2021a, 2021b; Meyer et al., 2019; Ward et al., 2021, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c). This chapter, therefore, illuminates the unique value of exploring social class theory within qualitative (non-numerical) sociology, which stretches well beyond the possibilities available from quantitative (numerical) data. Readers will take away a clear process for conducting qualitative research in sociology and an appreciation of the merit in this approach: seeing individual problems as social issues has vast implications for empirical and applied research aimed at understanding and remedying social problems. The chapter is organised by first providing a short precis of sociology, followed by an overview of what qualitative research looks like and seeks to achieve when it is informed by sociology. A sociological viewpoint of social class is then provided and the 74

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chapter finishes with various examples of qualitative interview excerpts explicating how to ‘see’ social class in qualitative data.

WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY? Sociology is rather difficult to define, because it means different things in different contexts. Collyer and Williams Veazey (2021) identify four main dimensions of sociology, namely: a body of intellectual knowledge; a vocation; a profession; and an institution. There is general consensus that sociology is the study of society, of how society is organised and of social life. It is also the study of relationships between people as ‘social beings’ with other structures and networks that constitute society (Crossley, 2022). The term, ‘sociology’ was founded by French Philosopher August Comte in the early to mid-1800s, who, from some accounts, felt science could be used to explain the social world. Sociology became known as a discipline in the early 19th century, making it relatively new compared to other disciplines covered in this book. The various and diverse theoretical, epistemological and methodological approaches adopted within sociology make it a versatile and robust discipline but have certainly complicated the arrival at a unified definition over the last century. For Ellwood (1907: 308), sociology was ‘the science of the organization and evolution of society … [based on] the economic, political, moral, religious, educational, and other phenomena arising from the interactions of individuals’. Durkheim (1982: 59), however, focused on the scientific explanation of ‘social facts’ which, he argued, make up the social world: ‘a social fact is any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting over the individual an external constraint … which is general over the whole of society whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations’. This is a suitable definition for sociology undertaken via qualitative research because it conceptualises how people are connected to each other as social beings, and also to social structures (aka society) amidst various features of social life – where the connections shift over time and in relation to each other (Crossley, 2022). A unifying thread in these definitions of sociology is the need for what Wright Mills (1959) called a ‘sociological imagination’: thinking imaginatively beyond what we can observe and/or measure in order to fully understand the ‘social’. We apply a sociological imagination in this chapter to understand and ‘see’ social class within qualitative data collected for numerous of our studies. Sociology is fundamentally innovative in that it calls attention to ‘social problems’ at different levels. Structuralist sociologists argue that human actions and existence are largely or wholly patterned by macro-level ‘structural forces’ such as institutions of government, social systems, social norms or socially constructed forms of knowledge, and hence – power. Sociologists

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focusing on micro-level social relationships argue that individual actions are shaped by their everyday interactions with other individuals (more so than they are influenced by broader social structures or cultural systems). Both provide us a pathway towards understanding how people are socially stratified into positions of more or less power, and therefore of privilege – key points in the study of social class. Overall, sociology is an attempt to make sense of the social world via the practices/actions of the people and things in it (Latour, 2005). Some modern-day sociologists suggest that the discipline should focus on ‘social practices’ (Schatzki, 2002) as they occur in everyday life. Social practices include norms, sanctions, symbols, rituals and routines that frame people’s actions within a social context – because these places are the ‘site of the social’ (Schatzki, 2002), where social life occurs and human co-existence takes place. According to Schatzki (2002: xi) these sites are themselves made up of social orders (arrangements of entities, people, artefacts and things, that is, how society is organised) and practices (the organised activities around the orders), which sociology is well-placed to explore because it attends to both social orders and social practices, contributing to understanding ‘the nature of social existence, what it consists in, and the character of its transformation’. Importantly, ‘sites of the social’ are the phenomenon for investigation in sociology, as opposed to scrutinising the individual. This makes the discipline capable of generating new knowledge about the social world that identifies ways in which social change could improve the lives of individuals. It does not require that individuals make changes, as such changes require social solutions and are, therefore, ultimately outside of personal control. It is this practical application of sociology using qualitative research that can elucidate how to make life more equitable, fair and enabling for people across social classes.

THE QUALITATIVE RESEARCH APPROACH IN SOCIOLOGY This chapter elaborates the identification of the social class of women with worked examples from the interviews. In doing so, the different ways that social class can be ‘seen’ within qualitative data is outlined, which importantly enables the illumination of how social class shapes alcohol consumption. Since the times of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels (mid-1800s), quantitative researchers have developed numerous methods and tools for ‘measuring’ social class by virtue of things like income and assets, social networks, cultural activities, and parental occupation (Lunnay et al., 2021a, 2021b; Savage et al., 2013; Sheppard and Biddle, 2017). Whilst these provide a very useful snapshot and can give us excellent patterns within and across populations (e.g., how educational attainment, access to healthcare services or levels of food insecu-

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rity differ by social class), they are rather one-dimensional and fail to revel the complex and nuanced nature of social class. This is not the place for a deep ontological or epistemological debate about the nature of truth and knowledge (i.e., does social class exist, and if so, can we measure it authentically?). Concepts such as social class, ethnicity and gender are social: they require humans to ‘see’ them and then make sense of them, and do not exist outside of our understanding of them. They are different to rocks, grass and water which exist, irrespective of how we make sense of them. We can easily measure the weight of a rock, the colour of grass or the temperature of water, although it is less easy to measure the social class of a person or group. Hence, we need sociological theory to develop the definitions and conceptual basis regarding social class, on which we can then find ‘proxies’ for it (i.e., the income of a person measures various financial issues, but does not ‘measure’ social class – it is simply a way of getting close to ‘seeing’ class – it is a proxy). We will show how qualitative research can be used to understand (as opposed to measure) social class and the ways in which the social class of women in our study shapes their drinking practices (whether and why they drink, which drink types and how much, what drinking provides for them … happiness, stress relief, control?). This approach complements and extends the quantitative approach of measuring social class because such complexity and nuance cannot be measured numerically. Making interpretations of social life and social problems that are reached by understanding social practices is a core pursuit of qualitative sociology. Qualitative sociology typically focuses on micro-level social interaction that gives meaning to experiences in everyday life. Quantitative sociology, on the other hand, focuses on macro-level patterns/trends in the organisation of social life. Qualitative research emphasises meanings and interpretations (see Chapter 1). Using sociology, these can be situated within the experiences people have in everyday life, and researchers can analyse individual practices, attitudes and motivations to understand them within the complexities of social contexts. This fulfils the ‘promise’ of sociology in highlighting how society positions people in particular ways, rather than pointing to individuals as wholly responsible for outcomes of social life, by linking ‘private troubles’ and ‘social issues’. After all, we do not exist in a vacuum devoid of meaningful relationships, feelings, points of connection or systems of reference that actively inform who we are in the world in relation to other people, giving us a sense of identity, purpose – a kind of navigational system for how we should (and can) act. The quantitative approach struggles to accommodate these complexities, both in terms of philosophy and methodology. Qualitative research enables research to follow a social constructivist ontology (where the nature of being is socially constructed), which is necessary to reach interpretations of the social world from the point of view of people

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(actors) within it – that is, their version of social reality, and how it affects what they do (Liamputtong, 2020). Patton (2015: 1) suggests qualitative research ‘cultivates the most useful of all human capacities – the capacity to learn from others’. Learning about how people act in/upon the social world is the most upfront way that qualitative sociologists can ascribe meaning to people’s actions. Marvasti (2004: 2–13) claims we all are novice qualitative sociologists because of our tendencies as human beings to give meaning to and try to predict our everyday experiences or practices – whereby we situate ourselves and our perceptions in relation to our own sense of self, in relation to others and to social, political and historical systems. The purpose and value of sociological qualitative inquiry is well summarised by Layder (1998: 9) as allowing the exploration and explanation of social problems, rather than simply describing them: [T]the purpose of social enquiry is to produce ever more adequate knowledge. This increased adequacy and validity of knowledge is reflected in the attempt to produce enhanced and more accurate renderings of particular groups, milieux, or social problems under study than has hitherto been the case … it is reflected in the drive to develop ever more powerful explanations of social phenomena.

Qualitative sociology can handle the notion that we ‘construct’ ourselves in relation to our social surroundings and in relation to our role and place within our environments (or ‘milieux’ to use sociological terminology). This is critical because it avoids unfairly ‘pointing the finger at’ individuals for what are actually the result of structural inequalities (Ayo, 2012). Bourdieu (1984) proffered that the principal cause of variations in people’s perceptions and actions is their social class position – positing it as an important site of social life rich for sociological analysis. In the next part of the chapter, we will elaborate on how taking a qualitative sociology approach helps to ‘see’ social class, using examples from our research into alcohol consumption as a public health issue. Drinking ‘too much’ is frowned upon as an individual failing, as an irresponsible behaviour. Utilising a qualitative sociology approach is critical in this contested research field because it sets individual choices and practices within their broader social setting – fragmented by social structures such as social class, which act on people often beyond their control.

QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY: A CASE STUDY OF SOCIAL CLASS There are various qualitative methodologies that encompass different data collection methods and analytical processes. Qualitative sociologists are trained to select research techniques that allow social processes to be ‘seen’

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based on ‘best fit’ with the research question. Interpretive data – that is, people’s own narratives about the world they live in and how they make sense of it – are critical. In sociological studies of health issues, it is crucial to understand the complexity of people’s logics and rationales in the context of health decision-making. A range of qualitative data collection tools exist that encourage explanation of and enable access to people’s subjective experiences (noting that there is continual debate over the level of ‘consciousness’ possible about the social origins of why people do the things they do). Sociological qualitative inquiry allows a grasp on the answers to ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions surrounding social and health-related phenomena such as: why some parents do not trust childhood vaccinations (Ward et al., 2017a, 2017b), why some population groups do not screen for bowel cancer (Ward et al., 2015a, 2015b, 2015c) and why some people use public vs private hospitals (Ward et al., 2017a, 2017b; Ward et al., 2015c). By situating individual health perceptions, actions and outcomes within social parameters, we can explain correlations and causations that are seen in positivist studies that use quantitative logic and methods. The sociological imagination can be applied in qualitative research about various health issues. Asking questions about why people think, feel, and act the way they do links their ‘private troubles’ with ‘social issues’, because it interrogates the social contexts and settings in which social interactions take place – that are bounded by structural liberations or constraints. In our research to understand alcohol consumption for Australian women, we have used various qualitative methods: including interviews, life histories, focus groups, deliberative symposia, photo-elicitation and participant observation. For this chapter, we draw on interviews with women about their perceptions of risk and trust in alcohol-related breast cancer risk messaging according to their social class positions. We were interested in understanding women’s attitudes, motivations and their willingness to modify alcohol consumption. As such, the best fit of method for our purpose (in order to answer the research question) was to conduct individual interviews using a set of broad-ranging questions which allowed participants to talk freely and focus on issues important to them. We asked participants questions like: What do you gain from consuming alcohol? What do you imagine losing if you were to give up alcohol? When do you most commonly consume alcohol? Who is with you when you drink? We approached interviews with an exploratory unstructured and conversational tone so that participants directed the dialogue and, quite rightly, felt like the expert in their own story. We explicitly told women there were no right, wrong, or expected answers on our part – that we were solely interested in their views and what matters to them. Qualitative research is emancipatory in this respect because it venerates both the participants and their knowledge – the researchers position themselves as the non-knower, who is there to ‘learn’

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from the participant. This also seems to foster participants’ sense of comfort in offering us what they felt to be the most relevant aspects of their lives relative to the phenomenon of interest – and is more likely to provide contextual information and feelings about their everyday experiences, which are at the heart of qualitative sociology. We now turn to prominent and contemporary conceptualisations of social class within qualitative sociology. ‘Seeing’ Social Class: Bourdieu and Qualitative Conceptualisations of Distinction and Privilege Social class concerns the properties that classify or recognise individuals as belonging to a collective or social grouping based on the distribution of power. At the micro-level, relevant to qualitative sociology, social class is observable in how daily life is lived in terms of resources, networks, emotions and ways of understanding and acting in the world. The experience of class (our experiences broadly, and our agency and control over our experiences) and our sense of class membership (or ‘identity’) does not boil down to individual variables and cannot be disassociated from social and cultural factors such as values, morals, social representations. In sociology, social class is broader than socio-economic status. Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of social class includes non-economic socially determined aspects of opportunity like social and cultural resources (Bourdieu, 1984) that, in combination, position or stratify us into more or less privileged positions (Bourdieu, 1989). Adopting this complex sociological articulation of class suggests the levels of socially symbolic advantage that shape our daily living produce different (inequitable) outcomes (Järvinen, 2012). Bourdieu theorised that varying levels of access to economic, social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1984) – what he terms ‘capitals’ – are interpretable as life ‘resources’ that shape and signify the type of life available to us (e.g., our life chances). Particular styles of life (ways of living, or ‘lifestyles’) are attributed certain value, conferring privilege and dominance for some groups within the class structure, and exclusion and domination for others – reproducing these structures and inbuilt inequalities (Bottero, 2004; Skeggs, 2013). As Sayer (2005: 1) states: Class matters to us not only because of differences in material wealth and economic security, but also because it affects access to things, relationships, experiences, and practices which we have reason to value and hence our chances of living a fulfilling life. At the same time it affects how they [others] value us and respond to us, which in turn affects our self-worth.

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From this perspective, consumption of certain goods and services becomes a mark of ‘distinction’, as aesthetic and symbolic value supersedes ‘function’ so that a symbolic ‘boundary’ is drawn between the Affluent, Middle and Working classes according to tastes and styles of life (Adams and Raisborough, 2008; Guthman, 2002, 2003; Johnston, 2008; Johnston, Szabo, and Rodney, 2011). Access to these patterns of consumption are determined, for Bourdieu, by habitus: an ‘embodied disposition shared by members of that class’, which is largely unconscious (Hinde and Dixon, 2007). For Bourdieu (1984: 32) each individual is born into particular cultural and class systems that ‘code’ the body into ways of ‘standing, speaking and thereby of feeling and thinking’. Cumulative exposure to social conditions leads to the internalisation of these conditions, establishing patterned responses to the external environment, and differing levels of capital shape people’s ‘logic(s) of practice’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Using the relational class framework adopted from Bourdieu’s Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste (Bourdieu, 1984), qualitative sociologists can ‘see’ the meaningful ways that practices are tied with how people ‘know themselves’. Applying Bourdieu’s (1984) sociology, we can see how practices express dispositions to being and to acting – such ‘tastes’ and ‘tendencies’ are theorised by Bourdieu as ‘classed’ phenomena. Qualitative research (non-numerical data rather than data on correlative or causal relationships) is required to interpret the manifestations and meanings of capitals in social life for specific populations. Before we explore this further, it is important that we show how classed analysis was conducted for our study. An Approach to Qualitative Sociological Analysis The dataset for analysis was 50 transcripts of interviews conducted by the first and second authors (BL and KF) with Australian women in midlife (aged 45–64 years). All transcripts were analysed following a three-step progressive approach we illustrate in Box 5.1, following methods devised by author PW from extensive experience in undertaking qualitative sociological research (Meyer and Ward, 2014). The method involves: (1) pre-coding; (2) conceptual/thematic categorisation; and (3) theoretical categorisation. In qualitative research, the purpose of coding is to label and organise the data to facilitate the identification of different themes and the relationships between them – so coding is an essential building block for analysis. Sociologists view the ‘coding’ of qualitative data as a creative process rather than a technical task. For our study, given the research purpose was to understand ‘why’ women consume alcohol and ‘how’ differences according to social class shape perceptions of health risks, we looked for relationships between social structures and individual decisions. This enabled us to ‘see’ drinking decisions

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as collective practices and therefore ‘classed’ practices. The goal was an in-depth, multi-dimensional understanding of how/why people do the things they do, including identifying the relationships between categories in order to create themes (e.g., social expectations and barriers to reducing alcohol consumption), describing the characteristics and boundaries of the data (e.g., the possibilities for reducing alcohol consumption and women’s capability to make changes that linked to their reasons for drinking) and contrasting across different social contexts for different data and relating this to social class (e.g., women in Affluent and Middle-Class positions speak about consuming alcohol to celebrate a ‘good life’, for mostly positive reasons, which seemed unavailable to Working-Class women who described consuming alcohol to cope with life stresses, for negative reasons). We usually manually and inductively pre-code all transcripts before importing electronic copies in to NVivo QSR (v13) (QSR International, 2018) data analysis software. Using NVivo 13, we developed a preliminary inductive coding framework comprising a combination of pre-coding and our impressions about the concepts that emerged through interviews. For interpretive validity (Popay et al., 1998), the authors each co-coded a set of transcripts to compare codes and determine additions to the coding framework. We then used the modified framework to guide the final coding for the conceptual/ thematic categorisation of all transcripts. Next, using a combination of both inductive (what we saw within the transcripts for the women and alcohol study without any preconceived ideas about social class in mind) and deductive logic – based on the key concepts comprising Bourdieu’s relational model of social class (economic, social and cultural capital) – we collapsed codes into broader categories, creating a hierarchical coding framework that linked concepts – theoretical categorisation.

BOX 5.1 PRE-CODING, CONCEPTUAL/THEMATIC CATEGORISATION AND THEORETICAL CATEGORISATION ‘Yeah, I just think it’s all part of the night, that’s what I’m supposed to do. I’m not having a coffee, I'm going out and having a drink, and a glass of wine.’ (Jerry, Affluent Class) ‘That’s what I’m supposed to do … I’m going out and having a drink’ (pre-code) > ‘social acceptability and respectable drinking styles’ and ‘social norms’ (conceptual/thematic categorisations > social expectancies shape alcohol consumption (theoretical categorisation).

Not drinking in this instance would mean affluent woman ‘Jerry’ is rejecting social expectations. It would signify a moral judgement on the practices

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of her ‘important others’ with whom she consumes alcohol (other women in her social network, who are in similar social class positions) and for Jerry, it would risk breaking valued social ties that are important to her social class identity. This is important context given public health efforts to encourage women to reduce alcohol consumption – we can see it does not require a simple and defined practical change, but rather, the change would have important social implications for her. ‘Seeing’ Social Class in Qualitative Data: Identifying Classed Patterns in Data To look for classed patterns in the data, we used matrix coding to facilitate queries across participants’ social class attributes (collected via a brief survey ahead of the qualitative interviews) and theoretical categories (e.g., ritualistic practices, symbolic meanings). This provided an indication of how individual practices are the practices of a social collective of ‘like’ individuals according to social class. Coded excerpts where patterns were evident were then re-read. This was where obvious differences by social class in the content coded were observed within our alcohol and breast cancer study. Having detailed a process for analysis, we will now provide selected excerpts from interview transcripts that ‘show’ how social class ‘operates’ and is visible in qualitative data, including: the symbolic dimensions of alcohol stockpiling practice during COVID-19; tastes and distinctions in alcohol product choices; and practices of consumption including the dissociation or ‘othering’ of consumption done in the ‘wrong ways’. All of these examples provide qualitative data on deep thematic understandings of the manifestation of social class in human practice. Data excerpts are provided to show how social class, class relations and social order were observable in the data, including the types of social classifications and distinctions that participants drew on or ‘reproduced’ in order to make sense of their own practice. The forms of capital in participants’ descriptions of their drinking practices, and how these forms of capital carry symbolic value for recognition of social class position, therefore, reflect social class identity. It is particularly clear from our data on women’s reasons for consuming alcohol, that class divisions in consumption are determined not only by economic capital (i.e., income, affordability) but also social capital (i.e., ‘who we know’) and cultural capital (i.e., our ‘know how’).

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‘Seeing’ Social Class Identities through Descriptions of Preferences and Tastes We can see in qualitative data that products have a socially symbolic value for social class status beyond their literal utility (beyond the use of alcohol as a psychoactive substance that when consumed is relaxing) – and this symbolic value is socially constructed. In our study, women spoke about their preferences (for particular drink types) and their ‘tastes’ in terms of affordability but also the ‘quality’ of different alcoholic products. In Excerpt 1 from an interview with Middle Class woman ‘Carolyn’, we can see how cultural capital – knowledge of what is ‘in vogue’ – and the social collective (social class) shapes individual consumer practice.

EXCERPT 1: ‘I suppose as my salary increased I would tend to buy bottles of wine as well as I had casks in the house, but I suppose I’m in a position now where I’m very comfortably off financially so I can buy virtually anything I feel like; not big things. I can’t go for an overseas holiday or buy a new car every year but apart from that I’m fairly comfortable so I think that we tend to look for quality when we’re in that situation.’ (Carolyn, Middle Class)

‘Quality’ seems to represent high social class, Carolyn talks about being in a ‘position’ and refers to a ‘situation’, which we understand to mean a social class position where she can (and should) look for ‘better’ alcohol and she extrapolates her own personal preferences as being the preference and tendency of a social class or collective when she says ‘we tend to look for quality when we’re in that situation’. Excerpt 2 also shows how personal consumption preferences have class origins, with Middle Class woman ‘Charlotte’ also referring to quality and using this term in the context of lifestyles. She acknowledges the role of ‘perceptions’ (which are socially constructed) as critical in styles of drinking that are ‘better’ than others. The social class origins of ‘choices’ around alcohol are well captured in the reference Charlotte makes to the importance of feelings of social acceptability in shaping her consumption practices.

EXCERPT 2: ‘There’s the disposable income to buy better quality wine. I think there’s advertising, lifestyle advertising now of – you know, I think people are more interested

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in wine’ and ‘what is perceived as being a better quality way to drink. It’s not but, you know what I mean, like there’s a bit of romance put on the fact that you have a bottle of red with dinner.’ She also commented ‘I think there’s a lot more alcohol advertising and all of that in your face where it makes you feel like it’s acceptable and in fact you’re missing out if you’re not doing it.’ (Charlotte, Middle Class)

Excerpts 3 and 4 below also provide insight into how social class reflects and is reflected in drink preferences (‘favourites’) and how social distinctions are made through the ways a product (alcohol) is consumed. The use of the terms ‘special’ and ‘nicer’ and the point of difference made between ‘home’ (not socially visible) and ‘going out’ (socially visible) drink preferences again speaks to the symbolic aspects and the social and classed feelings that are evoked for women through consumption.

EXCERPT 3: ‘I’ve got a favourite but then I have my ‘at home’ sparkling white and my ‘going out’ sparkling white. My at home one is just a basic one and then when I go out I take something a bit nicer but I don’t need anything special, I just choose ones that I like, but they’re not – you know, I’m not choosing Moet or anything like that.’ (Harriette, Middle Class)

EXCERPT 4: Interviewer: Is it mostly wine that you tend to drink? Participant: Yes, only ever, a certain type of wine too. Got to be a sav blanc. Yes, I like sav blanc [Marlborough]. I don’t drink spirits or anything like that. Champagne, I don’t even like that much. (Ashleigh, Middle Class)

Excerpt 5 gives an idea of how integral consumption styles are to a sense of self and social class identity – with ‘Harriette’ defining herself as a ‘type’ of girl based on a wine variety.

EXCERPT 5: Interviewer: … The sparkling white that you drink, does it tend to be the same one or do you experiment? You’ve got a favourite?

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Participant: I’m very much a Sav Blanc girl. As I say, it hasn’t helped people who like alcohol having all these Dan Murphy’s and First Choice Liquor and all the specials they have. You go there and you buy a dozen wines and you’ve just got it on hand all the time. (Harriette, Middle Class)

We have found that supposedly personal preferences (for specific drink types) are often substantiated and validated by other people in the participants’ lives, such as the practice of their friends, serving to authenticate those individual choices (i.e., the subtext here is that the practice is acceptable and logical because it is socially logical – ‘friends or significant others do the same’). In Excerpt 6 we can interpret the notion of ‘mindedness’ as being a social class disposition or way of doing social life that is endorsed by social (drinking) norms and therefore is reasonable.

EXCERPT 6: Participant: My friends are of the same like mindedness so most of my friends drink around about the same as me, some a little less, some a little more, but we’re all around the same sort of average. I think for the same reasons, because you’ve got more leisure time, you’ve got more money; yeah, lifestyle. Interviewer: Would you tend to say that it’s mostly wine for what you tend to drink? Participant: Yeah, absolutely. That’s pretty much all I drink, is wine; most of my friends would be the same. There’s a couple that are more of spirit drinkers but most of us would drink wine.

‘Seeing’ the Processes of Class Relations In the final excerpts provided below, we aim to shine a light on the symbolic ways people differentiate themselves and how they reject ‘ways of being’ to which they do not (want to) relate. To do so, they describe undertaking practices (routines, rituals), which show they are socially ‘competent’ and that they are acting in accordance with what they perceive is socially expected of someone in their social class. The moral worth attached to the practices of different social class groups is exemplified in these instances. Women disassociate from patterns of consumption (drinking patterns) that are attached (often incorrectly) to ‘other’ people in lower social classes. For example, in Excerpt 7 Middle Class woman ‘Susan’ refers to her perceptions of ‘normal’ and

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disassociates from the label of ‘binge drinker’ despite her heavy consumption practices.

EXCERPT 7: ‘I am a heavy drinker, I would suggest, I’d say. Now, I don’t actually have any comparisons as in I don’t sit and compare myself to – but most weeknights I’m home and most weeknights I do pour myself a glass of wine. I only ever drink sparkling white, that’s all I do, so what used to be called champagne, and it’s nothing for me to drink three or four glasses in a night. Then if I’m going out and having more fun and I’m starting earlier in the day then it’s nothing for me to drink twice that amount, but that would be weekends. I’m not saying that I have – like I’m not a binge drinker at all, I don’t think, but then what’s really the definition of that? But, no, mostly I just have my few glasses at night and I’ll have them from when I start preparing dinner, so peeling the potatoes, whatever, pour myself a glass of wine and then I – we eat late, that’s the other problem. So, compared to what I think normal families would eat, we normally eat around eight so I consider that late. That’s because I’m having a few drinks and I’m preparing and taking my time and we get home late as well, often. I only drink at that point. I don’t usually necessarily drink with my meal and then once the meal’s finished, the dishes are in the dishwasher, we go into the lounge room and I don’t take any more drinks with me, so that’s my little rule.’ (Susan, Middle Class)

When we compare Excerpt 8 from an interview with Working Class woman ‘Joy’ and Excerpt 9 from an interview with Affluent woman ‘Megan’ we can get a sense of the hierarchical nature of consumption practices as they are enacted by different women in different social classes, and, specifically, according to the social expectations and consequences if these are not practised competently – women in lower social class positions are constrained in changing social perceptions, limited to pre-defined versions society typecasts for them, and there is more at stake if affluent women are incompetent. Generally, the narratives from women in higher social class positions contain names of drinking locations, names of licensed venues (or at least the names are used to describe the context of consumption), women recall wine labels, varietals, brands, types and associations – these are completely absent from the stories collected from working-class women. These qualitative data provide far more insight into the socially symbolic nature of consumption than would a survey requiring respondents to report their product choices.

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EXCERPT 8: ‘Because you have – when you’re in a higher socioeconomic group you have much more to lose. Right. So for the odd woman who may lose control in, say, my regular social groups, there’s no real consequence. Everybody just goes, oh, she’s having a bad day. And the next time we all get together nobody mentions it and it’s all forgotten. Whereas, I’ve seen in higher socioeconomic groups that can be something that tars women, in particular, their reputation … Oh, my God, don’t let her near the bar, you know, everybody whispering, going shh, did you see her last time we were here? We’re not going to never. So, you know, there are big differences to me. Different social expectations. And, as I said, for me, that actually makes me feel sorry for those women in that group. Because it must be so restrictive to have to play that all the time. Even when you’re meant to be out socialising and having a good time, you’ve still got this expectation of, yeah, of the stiff upper lip and everybody does everything they’re supposed to. And if you fall out of line then you’re talked about. Then you become an outsider. Whereas, in the lower socioeconomic groups there’s very little you can do to get yourself outcast.’ (Joy, Working Class)

EXCERPT 9: ‘There’s a couple that are more of spirit drinkers but most of us would drink wine. I know and we sometimes go to the Barossa or, you know, we’ll go out with friends and go wine tasting and buy wine and bring it home, so no, not really. At the moment rosé, I’m really liking rosé and … Yeah, I love Grenache; it’s my favourite red. Definitely Grenache. Do you drink wine? Our daughter works for [names vineyard and winery cellar door]. It does make it hard when there’s so many nice wines out there but of course the older I get and the more I can afford to I’m more – yeah, the palate’s sort of really appreciating nice wines and I can now sort of distinguish between an ordinary wine and a really nice wine.’ (Megan, Affluent Class)

Summary: Meaningful Engagement with ‘Classed’ Analysis? When we began writing this chapter, we gave thought to the many instances where we have written study results for publication, and how we commonly use the phrase ‘a classed analysis’ or we explain that our findings were ‘classed’ (in fact, we have used the term ‘classed’ in this chapter). Both are suitably descriptive, one labels the research approach and the other the result of analysis, but they are meagre (and somewhat ambiguous and assuming) in identifying what exactly this is, means, and importantly how it is achieved. A crucial contribution of this chapter is therefore a rich and thick discussion

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of classed analysis populated with illustrative examples – which enables ‘seeing’ elements of social class theory within participants’ accounts of their practices. Silverman (2006) asks that social theory be ‘the animating basis’ of social research. A classed analysis is where clear analytical distinctions, or the animations, of class theory can be seen in the data. We can then ‘make sense’ of the data from a social class perspective.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS Sociology has been criticised for being too insular, aloof or ‘out-of-touch’ with real world needs (i.e., isn’t it all just theorising?). We have shown in this chapter that through qualitative sociology and researching people’s practices, sociology can be an applied, relevant, and emancipatory science. The example we provide on ‘seeing’ social class in qualitative data, which is known to be complex, is particularly pertinent (Paalgard Flemmen et al., 2019). We have showcased various examples of how qualitative sociological research allows a complex understanding of how power and privilege shapes practices, in our instance, women’s reasons and logic for consuming alcohol and, in turn, their willingness and capability to control (or not) such practices. Qualitative sociology applied to social class research offers a far more complex and comprehensive account than is achievable through surveying (quantitatively) women for their responses to questions about their practices alone. Notwithstanding the huge value in numerically positioning participants into hierarchical social class positions, a qualitative approach acknowledges that differences in practices or health outcomes cannot be explained by individual decision-making alone – or by defiance, deviance or devilishness. A broken arm is a broken arm irrespective of social class – but the experiences of living with a break, the social factors that allow for treatment, help-seeking, repatriation and recovery, are very much shaped by systematic differences. Creating an inequality in the opportunity to be healthy (Friel, 2014). This approach is critically important in the field of alcohol consumption, where such practices are structurally mediated (by social constructs like class and gender) but in our neoliberal world tend to be simplified and explained as an individual choice. In turn, this simplified logic is mobilized as interventions that target individual decision-making about risk behaviours while ignoring the social milieu in which they occur – not only will these attempts for social change prove futile, but they also direct blame and shame towards some class groups within the (constructed) social order. This chapter is unashamedly autoethnographic – we have recounted our own research practices in order to provide realistic, reflective and hopefully useful advice by drawing directly from our research experience. We present our learnings through practice in a pragmatic and collegial style so that other

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researchers can take away concrete (and new) ideas about how to ‘see’ social class in qualitative data that they can replicate in their own work on various research problems. It is our hope that a clear process for how to undertake a classed analysis is now available. These show the value in qualitative sociology as unveiling the entry points for social improvement in complex fields like social class, which ‘is a little like a ‘swagger’… hard to define, and tough to measure, but you know it when you see it’ (Sheppard and Biddle, 2015: 2). We hope this chapter has outlined with clarity a process for ‘seeing’ social class and showcased the value of creatively engaging with qualitative sociological research.

REFERENCES Adams, M., and Raisborough, J. (2008). What can sociology say about FairTrade? Class, reflexivity and ethical consumption. Sociology, 42(6), 1165–1182. Ayo, N. (2012). Understanding health promotion in a neoliberal climate and the making of health conscious citizens. Critical Public Health, 22(1), 99–105. Bottero, W. (2004). Class identities and the identity of class. Sociology, 38(5), 985–1003. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd. Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power. Sociological theory, 7(1), 14–25. Bourdieu, P., and Wacquant, L.J. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Collyer, F.M., and Williams Veazey, L. (2021). The state of the discipline: Australian sociology and its future. Journal of Sociology, https://​doi​.org/​14407833211041402. Crossley, N. (2022). A dependent structure of interdependence: Structure and agency in relational perspective. Sociology, 56(1), 166–182. Durkheim, E. (1982). The rules of sociological method. New York: Free Press. Ellwood, C.A. (1907). Sociology: Its problems and its relations. American Journal of Sociology, 13(3), 300–348. Foley, K.M., Warin, M., Meyer, S.B., Miller, E.R., and Ward, P.R. (2020). Alcohol and flourishing for Australian women in midlife: A qualitative study of negotiating (Un) Happiness. Sociology, https://​doi​.org/​0038038520973580. Friel, S. (2014). How social class affects health. Retrieved from https://​theconversation​ .com/​how​-social​-class​-affects​-health​-23366. Guthman, J. (2002). Commodified meanings, meaningful commodities: Re-thinking production–consumption links through the organic system of provision. Sociologia ruralis, 42(4), 295–311. Guthman, J. (2003). Fast food/organic food: Reflexive tastes and the making of ‘yuppie chow’. Social & Cultural Geography, 4(1), 45–58. Hinde, S., and Dixon, J. (2007). Reinstating Pierre Bourdieu’s contribution to cultural economy theorizing. Journal of Sociology, 43(4), 401–420. Järvinen, M. (2012). A will to health? Drinking, risk and social class. Health, Risk & Society, 14(3), 241–256, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​13698575​.2012​.662632.

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Johnston, J. (2008). The citizen–consumer hybrid: Ideological tensions and the case of Whole Foods Market. Theory and Society, 37(3), 229–270. Johnston, J., Szabo, M., and Rodney, A. (2011). Good food, good people: Understanding the cultural repertoire of ethical eating. Journal of Consumer Culture, 11(3), 293–318. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to Actor-Network Theory Oxford: Oxford University Press. Layder, D. (1998). Sociological practice: Linking theory and social research. London: Sage. Liamputtong, P. (2020). Qualitative research methods, 5th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press: South Melbourne. Lunnay, B., Foley, F., Meyer, S.B., Warin, M., Wilson, C.J., Olver, I., … Ward, P.R. (2021a). Alcohol consumption and perceptions of health risks during COVID-19: A qualitative study of middle-aged women in South Australia. Frontiers in Public Health, 9(401). Retrieved from https://​doi​.org/​10​.3389/​fpubh​.2021​.616870. Lunnay, B., Toson, B., Wilson, C., Miller, E.R., Meyer, S.B., Olver, I.N., … Ward, P.R. (2021b). Social class and changes in Australian Women’s affect and alcohol consumption during COVID-19. Frontiers in Public Health, 9, 876. Marvasti, A. (2004). Qualitative research in sociology. London: Sage Publications. Meyer, S., and Ward, P. (2014). ‘How to’ use social theory within and throughout qualitative research in healthcare contexts. Sociology Compass, 8(5), 525–539. Meyer, S., Foley, K., Olver, I., Ward, P., McNaughton, D., Mwanri, L., and Miller, E. (2019). Alcohol and breast cancer risk: Middle-aged women’s logic and recommendations for reducing consumption in Australia. PLoS One, 14(2), e0211293. Paalgard Flemmen, M., Jarness, V., and Rosenlund, L. (2019). Class and status: On the misconstrual of the conceptual distinction and a neo-Bourdieusian alternative. British Journal of Sociology, 70(3), 816–866, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​1468​-4446​ .12508. Patton, M. (2015). Qualitative research & evaluation methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Popay, J., Rogers, A., and Williams, G. (1998) Rationale and standards for the systematic review of qualitative literature in health services research. Qualitative Health Research, 8(3), 341–351. QSR International. (2018). NVivo 13: Qualitative data analysis program. Savage, M., Devine, F., Cunningham, N., Taylor, M., Li, Y., Hjellbrekke, J., … Miles, A. (2013). A new model of social class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey experiment. Sociology, 47(2), 219–250. Sayer, A. (2005). Class, moral worth and recognition. Sociology, 39(5), 947–963. Schatzki, T. (2002). The site of the social: A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. Sheppard, J., and Biddle, N. (2015). Social class in Australia: Beyond the ‘middle’ and ‘working’ classes. Retrieved from https://​cass​.anu​.edu​.au/​news/​australian​-far​ -classless​-society​-anupoll. Sheppard, J., and Biddle, N. (2017). Class, capital, and identity in Australian society. Australian Journal of Political Science, 52(4), 500–516. Silverman, D. (2006). Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analyzing talk, text and interaction. London: Sage Publications. Silverman, D., and Marvasti, A. (2005). Doing Research. London: Sage Publications. Skeggs, B. (2013). Class, self, culture. London: Routledge.

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Ward, P.R., Coffey, C., Javanparast, S., Wilson, C., and Meyer, S.B. (2015a). Institutional (mis)trust in colorectal cancer screening: A qualitative study with Greek, Iranian, Anglo-Australian and Indigenous groups. Health Expectations, 18(6), 2915–2927. Ward, P.R., Coffey, C., and Meyer, S. (2015b). Trust, choice and obligation: a qualitative study of enablers of colorectal cancer screening in South Australia. Sociology of Health & Illness, 37(7), 988–1006. Ward, P.R., Rokkas, P., Cenko, C., Pulvirenti, M., Dean, N., Carney, S., … Meyer, S. (2015c). A qualitative study of patient (dis)trust in public and private hospitals: the importance of choice and pragmatic acceptance for trust considerations in South Australia. BMC Health Services Research, 15(1), 1–12. Ward, P.R., Attwell, K., Meyer, S.B., Rokkas, P., and Leask, J. (2017a). Understanding the perceived logic of care by vaccine-hesitant and vaccine-refusing parents: A qualitative study in Australia. PLoS One, 12(10), e0185955. Ward, P.R., Rokkas, P., Cenko, C., Pulvirenti, M., Dean, N., Carney, A.S., and Meyer, S. (2017b). ‘Waiting for’ and ‘waiting in’ public and private hospitals: A qualitative study of patient trust in South Australia. BMC Health Services Research, 17(1), 1–11. Ward, P.R., Lunnay, B., Foley, K., Meyer, S.B., Thomas, J., Olver, I., Miller, E.R. (2021). The case of Australia. Trust during pandemic uncertainty – a qualitative study of midlife women in South Australia. International Journal of Social Quality, 11, 289–308. Ward, P.R, Foley, K., Meyer, S., Wilson, C., Warin, M., Miller, E., … Lunnay, B. (2022a). How does social class shape women’s alcohol stockpiling during COVID-19? A qualitative study in South Australia during the 2020 lockdown. SSM. Qualitative Research in Health. Ward, P.R., Lunnay, B., Foley, K., Meyer, S., Thomas, J., Huppatz, E., … Miller, E. (2022b), Uncertainty, fear and control during COVID-19 … or … making a safe boat to survive rough seas: The lived experience of women in South Australia during early COVID-19 lockdowns. In P. Brown and J. Zinn (Eds.), COVID-19 and the sociology of risk and uncertainty: Studies of social phenomena and social theory across 6 continents. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Ward, P.R., Foley, K., Meyer, S.B., Wilson, C., Warin, M., Batchelor, S., … Lunnay, B. (2022c). Place of alcohol in the ‘wellness toolkits’ of midlife women in different social classes: A qualitative study in South Australia. Sociology of Health & Illness, 44(2), 488–507. Wright Mills, C. (1959). The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

6. Qualitative research in Women’s and Gender Studies: the ‘radical focus group’ as feminist praxis1 Natalie Jovanovski INTRODUCTION Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS), or Women’s Studies (WS) as it was originally known, has occupied a contentious place in higher education and seen many changes since its emergence from the Women’s Movement in the 1970s (Freedman, 1990; Stake, 2006). Early proponents of WS centred women’s lived experiences as foundations of knowledge and theory-building, creating educational environments that encouraged women to voice their own experiences, rather than speaking for or about them (David, 2016). The pioneers of the WS curriculum drew heavily on the activist traditions of the women’s liberation movement (WLM), and used consciousness-raising (CR) methods and forms of critical pedagogy (e.g., Freire, 1970; hooks, 1994; Firth and Robinson, 2016) to connect women’s ‘everyday’ experiences with the broader structural forces of patriarchal oppression (e.g., Allen, 1970; Mies, 1993). For this reason, some have considered WS to be the educational arm of the Women’s Movement (David, 2016). From the 1980s onwards, however, the WS curriculum changed substantially; influenced in part by the ‘postmodern turn’ in academia (Susen, 2015) and the decline of feminist CR throughout many parts of the West (Rosenthal, 1984; Sowards and Renegar, 2004). Despite these various changes to the discipline, feminist qualitative research has continued to be central to the broader WGS project. Some have explored the potential for CR in the classroom and throughout research (Freedman, 1990; Fahs, 2011; Fahs and Bertagni, 2013; Firth and Robinson, 2016; Crawford and Jackson-Best, 2017), while others have argued that the practice of CR in its original form has all but faded from popular imagination (Megarry, 2020).2 In this chapter, I discuss the importance of CR to WS, and emphasise the pedagogical practices of those who have championed WS (e.g., hooks, 1994). In doing so, I introduce a data collection 93

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method that combines both traditional elements of focus group interviews and the CR methods of the WLM, referring to this approach as the ‘radical focus group’. It is important to note that the approach discussed in this chapter is not a replacement for traditional CR groups, but rather, uses elements of CR to empower participants and facilitate social change. My intention for this chapter and data collection approach is to reassert the importance of Carol Hanisch’s (1969) rallying call, ‘the personal is political’, by examining the personal in relation to the structural, and in viewing data collection as a form of feminist praxis itself.

WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES: THE DISCIPLINE Women Studies (WS) emerged at the height of the so-called ‘second-wave’ of the Women’s Movement in the West (hooks, 1994; Stake, 2006; David, 2016). In the late sixties and early seventies, many women parted from male-dominated social movements (e.g., New Left), frustrated by their lack of focus on women’s experiences of violence and oppression at the hands of men (Willis, 1984; Whittier, 2017). According to some writers tracing the history of the ‘second-wave’ movement, this separation resulted in the cultural resurgence of feminist organising and activism throughout parts of North America, Australia and Europe (Bruley, 2013, 2017; Bruley and Forster, 2016; Megarry, 2020). Some women, through organisations such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), focused on reforming laws to achieve equality between the sexes (e.g., liberal feminists), while others were more interested in liberating women from sex roles (i.e., rejecting femininity and beauty standards), questioning the foundations of heterosexuality (i.e., through political lesbianism), and interrogating systems of male dominance and female subordination (e.g., radical feminists). Megarry (2020: 8) refers to the latter group of feminists as women’s liberationists, who created a movement that ‘materially challeng[ed] oppressive power structures based upon the collective experiences of women under male dominance’. Through the now-iconic feminist mantra, ‘the personal is political’ (Hanisch, 1969), women devised feminist goals and strategies in the process of CR; transforming and ‘radicalising’ their personal lives, fostering activism, and eventually, developing the first WS curriculum (David, 2016). Consciousness-raising (CR) refers to the small-group process whereby women ‘come to understand not only the ways this society works to keep [them] oppressed but ways to overcome that oppression psychologically and socially’ (Allen, 1970: 272). Early CR groups involved women coming together on a weekly or fortnightly basis (Bruley, 2013), and engaging in the four-stage process of opening up, sharing, analysing and abstracting (Allen, 1970). Women opened up about their subjective feelings, listened

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to other women share their own experiences, analysed the causes of their shared oppression as women and the power structures responsible, and ultimately, engaged in a process of abstraction, or mobilising to challenge these forces (i.e., ‘sharing’, ‘listening’, ‘analysis’ and ‘abstraction’; Allen, 1970). According to Willis (1984: 94), feminist CR was inspired by the practices of other social movements, explaining that ‘the idea of basing one’s theory on shared personal experience came from the Chinese revolution’s “Speak pains to recall pains” and via the black movement’s “Tell it like it is”’. Women who emerged from existing socialist and civil rights movements were able to draw on these practices to advance the broad goal of women’s liberation. By the early 1970s, women had sparked hundreds of CR groups all throughout the US, Australia and parts of Europe, with some developing groups that addressed their experiences of living under intersecting systems of oppressions, such as racism and sexism (Whittier, 2017). According to Megarry (2020), the main cohesive force of the CR group was that women were coming together outside of the male gaze, and theorising their experiences as women living within male-dominated societies. In CR groups, women identified ways of challenging the structural constraints that controlled their lives by engaging in personal life changes (e.g., rejecting beauty practices), advocacy (e.g., volunteering at a rape crisis centre), and activism (e.g., graffitiing sexist billboards). It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that CR was ‘originally envisioned as a means of creating revolution’ (Rosenthal, 1984: 309). Consciousness-Raising in the Women’s Studies Classroom CR also played an important role in the development of the first WS curriculum. As a joint political and educational project, a central concern of WS pioneers was the idea that, for the first time in history, women spoke about their experiences rather than being spoken about in an educational context (Robinson, 1997; David, 2016). As Robinson (1997: 3) explains, feminist concerns about life under patriarchy were catalysts to the development of the first WS curriculum: The feminist insistence on the importance of sisterhood, the personal being political, the false separation of public and private spheres, a recognition of the common oppression of women and their diversity in terms of ‘race’, ethnicity, sexuality, class, age and levels of dis/ability … were central concepts to the women’s movement and began to inform the development of Women’s Studies in the establishments.

A central component of the early WS classroom, and indeed, much of the WLM at the time, was a focus on the lived experiences of women as important sources of knowledge and theory-building. This involved elements of

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reflection and sharing found in CR, which included the personal reflection and reflexivity of the educator. Methods employed by feminist educators were often in sharp contrast to traditional pedagogical approaches used in higher education, which involved didactic teaching methods that emphasized rote learning (hooks, 1994; Crawford and Jackson-Best, 2017). Influenced by Brazilian educator Paolo Freire’s (1970) theories on critical pedagogy, feminist educators such as bell hooks (1994: 113) described the feminist classroom as ‘a site of conflict, tensions, and sometimes ongoing hostility’; a space where differences are interrogated, and the role of the educator is reflexive in facilitating debate. The teaching methods employed by WS educators were designed to ‘encourage students to use their own lived experiences to make sense of the world around them … [to] articulate their own standpoints on education, empowerment and justice’ (Crawford and Jackson-Best, 2017: 1). Ultimately, the classroom was utilised as a space where both personal and social change were possible. While participating in CR has often been romanticised as a countercultural practice, the process itself was often fraught with emotional challenges (Bruley, 2013). As Robinson (1997: 6) explains, personal reflection in the WS classroom was sometimes a ‘simultaneously exhilarating and painful’ experience for women, but also ‘illuminating and disconcerting, making women’s experience of oppression, which was once seen as opaque and individual, into something approaching a collective sense of oppression and struggle’. For these reasons, among others, the experimental CR component of the WS classroom was not always viewed positively. According to Stake (2006: 201), WS was widely criticised by conservative commentators for ‘providing false reassurances of women’s worth [and] overemphasizing students’ personal feelings and experiences in place of serious scholarship’ [italics added]. For these reasons, WS was seen as a radical addition to the traditional male-dominated university. From Women’s Studies to Gender Studies The early WS classroom courted controversy because it incorporated CR practices that were used in activist circles to theorise and identify sources of women’s oppression. Classes were often implicitly or explicitly grounded in modernist understandings of power, influenced by the writings of conflict theorists and ideas that emerged from the broader WLM (including CR). By the early 1990s, however, the focus of the discipline shifted more broadly from WS to ‘gender studies’ (GS), where the introduction postmodern theories (e.g., queer theory), and a focus on masculinity, changed the landscape of the WS classroom. While these changes led to the inclusion of men’s voices, as well as the experiences of other marginalised groups, such as trans and gender-diverse

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people, they also re-shifted the focus away from the original purpose of the discipline: to foreground women’s voices and their physical, psychological and social experiences under patriarchy (Mackay, 2015). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the shift from Women’s to Gender studies was met with ‘major intellectual controversy’ (Smith, 2019: 98). Some feminists perceived the rise of GS as a ‘politically safe[r] option than Women’s Studies’ (Robinson, 1997: 23), and a sign that the institutional context of higher education was beginning to mute radical ideas of a ‘liberal, free space in the academy’ (Evans, 1990: 459). Writers such as Evans (1990) and Braidotti (1992) were outwardly critical about the rebranding of WS, with some arguing that the more radical aspects of the WS curriculum were being replaced by liberal feminist texts that often failed to push students out of their comfort zones (Fahs and Bertagni, 2013). Corresponding with these shifts in the academy, the 1980s also saw the rise of conservative, neoliberal governments across many parts of the West. Collectivist and revolutionary ideas that were championed during the 1960s and 1970s were gradually being replaced by individualistic messages of responsible citizenship and a focus on the free market (Connell, 2010). Perhaps unsurprisingly, during this time, CR groups were also on the decline and being replaced by self-help texts and forms of group therapy (Rosenthal, 1984; Sowards and Renegar, 2004). As Rosenthal (1984: 323) argues, ‘the growth of a therapeutic climate seems to have conditioned meaning systems so that once the women’s movement was depoliticized by the media and by the eclipse of radical feminism, the practice of consciousness raising became a reevaluative rather than a revolutionary process’. This system, Rosenthal (1984: 324) argues, reinforced the message ‘that women must change and that political action is either unnecessary or futile’. The core tenets of CR, which involved centring women’s experiences, building a sense of female solidarity and working on the radical transformation of patriarchal societies, were no longer the sole focus of the WS curriculum.

TRADITIONAL QUALITATIVE RESEARCH APPROACHES IN WOMEN’S STUDIES Feminist perspectives are thought to be well-placed in qualitative research, as qualitative approaches centre people’s subjectivities and grant authority to those sharing their experiences (Liamputtong, 2020). The development of a ‘feminist consciousness’ was an important part of early discussions of women’s knowledge production. As Stanley and Wise (1993: 32) explain in Breaking Out Again, ‘feminist consciousness [is] rooted in the concrete, practical and everyday experiences of being, and being treated as, a woman. Feminist consciousness … is a particular kind of interpretation of the experi-

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ence of being a woman as this is presently constructed in sexist society’. For many feminists entering academic institutions during the early days of WS, qualitative research methods were a way to grant women a voice, often through phenomenological, ethnomethodological and interactionist approaches. These approaches offered feminist researchers respite from existing structuralist approaches (e.g., Marxism) which tended to deny ‘the importance of the events and occurrences of everyday life [and] … position […] “theory” as the preserve of experts’ (Stanley and Wise, 1993: 4). Many of the early discussions on feminist qualitative research were focused on finding ways to produce feminist knowledge that could translate to real-world outcomes for women (Liamputtong, 2020). Some of the more prevailing concerns of researchers at the time were that research should be ‘carried out by women who were feminist, for other women’, that qualitative research was a feminist pursuit at odds with so-called ‘“male” quantitative methods’, and that the purpose of feminist research was to change women’s lives for the better (Stanley and Wise, 1990: 21; Seibold, 2000). Debates flourished in the early days of feminist qualitative research. Some feminist researchers believed that only certain aspects of research lent themselves to using a feminist lens. Alison Kelly (1978), for example, argued that the process of creating a project, and analysing the data were both well-placed for feminist analysis, but the process of collecting data was outside the realm of feminist politics. To Kelly, data collection – concerned primarily with a ‘traditional scientific’ approach – was the remit of truth and objectivity. Since these early discussions, feminist researchers have used a diversity of data collection approaches to honour both the lived experiences of women and address the structural antecedents of their oppression (Wang and Burris, 1994, 1997; Fahs, 2011; Fahs and Bertagni, 2013; Liebenberg, 2018). Feminist Methodologies and Data Collection Approaches In recent decades, feminist data collection methods have cut across ideological and disciplinary divides, and focused on giving women a space to voice their own experiences (Liamputtong, 2020). These approaches have often involved challenging aspects of the patriarchy that go unnoticed (e.g., beauty practices; Fahs, 2011), and used either innovative (e.g., photovoice; Wang and Burris, 1994, 1997) or traditional (e.g., focus groups; Wilkinson, 1999) qualitative approaches to collecting data. While I do not provide an exhaustive list of methods in this chapter, my intention is to foreground some of the most dominant feminist approaches used by researchers, and to discuss the philosophies underpinning them. These methods include feminist standpoint theory (Harding, 2004), photovoice (Wang and Burris, 1994, 1997) as a feature of community-based Participatory Action Research (PAR; Liebenberg, 2018),

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and studies that use aspects of CR or feminist pedagogy in conjunction with traditional data collection methods, such as document analysis (Fahs, 2011; Fahs and Bertagni, 2013). In describing these approaches, I will discuss their strengths, and the need for feminist data collection methods to draw on both CR and feminist pedagogy. One of the dominant motivations for feminist researchers collecting qualitative data is to honour the lived experiences of their (often female) participants (Stanley and Wise, 1990; Liamputtong, 2020). American philosopher Sandra Harding (2004: 1) coined the term ‘standpoint theory’ in the 1970s, describing it ‘as a feminist critical theory about relations between the production of knowledge and practices of power’. The main goals of standpoint theory are to honour the voices of the oppressed and to empower them to develop an ‘oppositional consciousness’, much like earlier feminist CR groups did. For feminist researchers, the use of standpoint theory in in-depth interviews, for example, encouraged women to open up about their lived experiences in research that was intended for other women, and to make known the position, motivations and lived experiences of the researcher. Giving women a space to frame their own experiences – through semi-structured/unstructured interviews or ethnographic studies – was seen as a revolutionary form of data collection and a break from traditional quantitative methods that assumed a singular notion of ‘truth’. In the decades that followed, non-verbal forms of data collection were also used to foreground women’s lived experiences, influenced by Harding’s (2004) feminist standpoint theory. Wang and Burris’ (1994, 1997) photovoice method draws on feminist pedagogy, as well as reflexive photographic approaches, to visually document women’s experiences. Wang and Burris (1997: 369) argue that, photovoice ‘entrusts cameras to the hands of [marginalized] people to enable them to act as recorders, and potential catalysts for change, in their own communities’. The photovoice method is grounded in a community-based participatory action research approach, which has four essential elements (e.g., participation, action, research and social change) that each foreground the ‘democratization of knowledge development as a component of social justice’ (Liebenberg, 2018: 1). As Liebenberg (2018: 2) explains, these elements come to together in the following sequence: Participation by stakeholders in a process aimed at the advancement of knowledge through a systematic research process that results in action for social change on the part of the stakeholders. It is specifically the interaction of research and action that is intended to result in social change [original italics].

Liebenberg (2018) argues that while photovoice is not the only visual elicitation method, it is unique because it requires a deeper sense of reflection

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through both the collaboration and action components of PAR. In this sense, photovoice – coupled with PAR – incorporates elements of standpoint theory (i.e., centring the voices of the oppressed) and feminist pedagogy methods that encourage reflexivity and a non-hierarchical relationship between researcher and participant. Consciousness-Raising and Feminist Pedagogy in Feminist Research Other feminist researchers have used methods drawing on CR, feminist pedagogy and using the classroom as a site of data collection. These researchers have often incorporated experiential elements into their projects to ground women’s experiences. Breanne Fahs and colleagues (Fahs, 2011; Fahs and Bertagni, 2013), have emphasised that the WGS classroom can be a site of liberatory action and transformation. As Fahs (2011: 483) explains, ‘combining activism and academic work can lay a foundation for undergraduates to continue confronting imbalanced power dynamics after completing their university coursework’. Fahs’ (2011) study on women’s perceptions of body hair reflects how the feminist classroom – in conjunction with more traditional data collection approaches (e.g., analysing personal journals) – can be used to inform the feminist qualitative research process. Creating an extra credit assignment that was experiential in design, Fahs encouraged students to either grow their body hair (women) or remove their body hair (men) to consolidate their readings on sexual socialization and the cultural meanings assigned to puberty. Fahs (2011) used documents as data in her study, asking students to fill out a weekly log book after 10 weeks, and reflect on questions such as ‘In what way (if at all) did your hair removal affect your sexuality, health, and and/or your feelings about your body?’ and ‘How has this self-experiment made you reflect on the social constructions of bodily norms, especially in relation to sexuality?’. Through her document analysis, she found that women received abusive treatment for their body hair (e.g., use of lesbian as a slur), most often attributed by her participants to heteronormative prescriptions of femininity. Her study, which combined both innovative feminist pedagogical methods and a more traditional data collection approach, demonstrated that feminist research can be peer-generated, experiential and ‘applied’, rather than simply a process of verbal or visual self-reflection. Feminist pedagogy has also been used to understand how students respond to and evaluate more radical or confronting sources of feminist literature (Fahs and Bertagni, 2013). Fahs and Bertagni (2013) conducted a study with their WGS students, using students’ one-page evaluations of Valerie Solanas’ confronting radical feminist text, SCUM Manifesto, as data. The aim of the study was to understand how those who are accustomed to liberal feminist

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texts and teachings respond to controversial radical feminist ideas, particularly in relation to their affect, or emotional responses to the reading. They found that while some students responded poorly to Solanas’ work, arguing that it ‘emphasizes stereotypes most women’s studies instructors work hard to battle against’ (Fahs and Bertagni, 2013: 69), others connected with the rage in her writing. The researchers argued that their study used principles of CR, adding that the text raised students’ consciousness about ‘gender socialization and systemic oppression’. Indeed, rather than learning about it, Solanas’ writing encouraged students to connect with the rage in her writing and identify with her pain. In this example, students were able to critically evaluate the text by drawing it back to their own lives, and not simply uncritically absorbing their learnings as a form of ‘truth’. The feminist qualitative approaches described here are not an exhaustive list. However, they do represent some of the core tenets of feminist research: a focus on honouring women’s lived experiences, and finding ways to challenge gender norms through the critical exploration of patriarchal norms and practices. While the approaches covered here utilise CR and feminist pedagogy, an innovative approach to data collection incorporates elements of both: it encourages the process of sharing, reflecting, disagreeing with one another, and actively developing new theories and strategies to overthrow patriarchy. I refer to this approach as the ‘radical focus group’.

THE RADICAL FOCUS GROUP: AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH IN WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES The feminist data collection approach featured in this chapter is based on my current qualitative research project (2020–2023) looking at the strategies women use to challenge weight-loss dieting norms.3 I call this data collection approach the ‘radical focus group’, combining the key elements of CR with feminist pedagogy and applying them to a traditional focus group setting. It is important to note that the approach featured in this section of the chapter is not intended to replace either CR or feminist pedagogy. It is also not an example of either approach. Rather, the radical focus groups discussed here are examples of how I utilized elements of CR and feminist pedagogy to facilitate data collection with the broader goal of contributing to social change. Setting the Research Context The case study used in this chapter is my qualitative project looking at the strategies women use to challenge ‘diet culture’. Diet culture refers to the cultural normalisation of weight bias and health myths that promote restrictive eating behaviours in women. These myths are found in popular culture and

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various institutions (e.g., health and pharmaceutical industries), and created by intersecting systems of patriarchy (Wolf, 1990), capitalism (e.g., Orbach, 2010) and racism (Strings, 2015). Research shows that dieting poses adverse physical, psychological and social consequences for women and girls (Tylka et al., 2014), and is driven by the sociocultural messages they receive about food and their bodies (Jovanovski, 2017). A broad community of feminists, academics in fat studies and health professionals have documented resistance to dieting practices and messages, with many citing examples of activism (Cooper, 2008; Simic, 2015) and the advancement of alternative healthcare approaches that focus on health practices and environments rather than weight (Bacon, 2011; Bombak, 2014). While these communities have been discussed in the academic literature, little is known about the specific strategies that are used by women to tackle ‘diet culture’, and how these strategies can be used to inform others in challenging dieting norms at a broader sociocultural level. In creating this project, I was interested in collecting data to simultaneously honour the voices of women and encourage thinking about utopian futures (i.e., ideal visions for change). I advertised the study in online communities of interest (e.g., Health at Every Size Australia) across five locations (Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States and Canada), looking specifically for responses by people who have challenged diet culture in any way, shape or form. I started by disseminating a qualitative survey containing a brief demographics questionnaire, 5 short-answer questions, and an option to share one’s email address (if interested in future participation). Women who expressed interest in further participating were then invited to share their experiences in a focus group format. Focus groups were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when many Australian states and territories were in lockdown. While I initially designed the focus groups to be face-to-face (as traditional CR sessions were), I subsequently re-designed them to accommodate to an online format. Women were informed that their responses would be discussed with other women, including activists and health professionals. A total of 14 women were recruited across three focus groups, conducted between October and November, 2020. Five women comprised the first focus group, five women comprised the second, and four women comprised the third. While traditional focus groups typically consist of between eight and ten participants (Wilkinson, 1999), due to the online format of the focus groups, we opted to recruit fewer participants in order to encourage open discussion and navigate the pitfalls of awkward online communication.

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What Does a ‘Radical’ Focus Group Look Like? In this project, I refer to my data collection method as the ‘radical focus group’ because it combines one of the key practices of the women’s liberation movement (e.g., CR) with elements of feminist pedagogy to reimagine and transform the traditional focus group. According to Montell (1999) and Liamputtong (2016), focus groups were traditionally designed by applied marketing researchers, and only adopted widely by social scientists in the 1990s. Wilkinson (1999: 222) characterises traditional focus groups as ‘group discussions in which participants focus collectively on a topic selected by the researcher and presented to them in the form of a film, a collection of advertisements, a vignette to discuss, a ‘game’ to play, or simply a particular set of questions’. Some researchers argue that focus groups are intuitively useful to feminist researchers because, rather than taking the form of ‘a one-sided “interrogation”, a feminist interview is more of a “true dialogue”’ between women (Montell, 1999: 52; see also Liamputtong, 2016). As Mies (1993) argues, focus groups connect women’s individual sufferings and help them ‘overcome their structural isolation’ (Montell, 1999: 52; Wilkinson, 1999; Munday, 2014). In a feminist focus group, researchers become both participant and facilitator; connecting with other women over their shared struggles, but also gently guiding the conversation back to the research topic if it starts to veer off topic. To design the ‘radical’ focus groups featured in this chapter, I referred to existing descriptions of feminist focus groups (e.g., Mies, 1993; Montell, 1999; Wilkinson, 1999; Munday, 2014), drawing specifically on the notion that data collection can also serve as a form of emancipatory feminist praxis. Making the focus groups ‘radical’ involved drawing on existing, more radical feminist approaches from the WLM (e.g., CR) and feminist pedagogy approaches that played a part in constructing the original WS curriculum (Megarry, 2020). As explained earlier in the chapter, CR was an important part of the WLM, as it contributed to personal and political change in women (Bruley, 2013). Specifically, radical feminist Pamela Allen’s (1970) four-stage description of the consciousness-raising process was used to structure the radical focus groups, which involved time for sharing, listening to the experiences of other women, analysing the sources of power that contribute to women’s shared oppression, and ‘abstracting’ the findings (i.e., finding ways to challenge sources of power). I combined this approach with one of the core principles of feminist pedagogy; namely, the idea that the ‘classroom’ is a space for interrogating complex ideas and co-developing new forms of knowledge (hooks, 1994). I was interested in understanding what women think of existing theoretical perspectives, and to challenge the voices of authority within feminism, fat activism and the

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health sciences – including my own. Specifically, I asked women what they would wish to add to or change about these existing positions based on their own experiences. This approach is based on the premise that as a marginalised group, women are entitled to speak of their own experiences and find strategies to challenge patriarchal – as well as other forms of – control (Mies, 1993; Stanley and Wise, 1993; Liamputtong, 2016, 2020). Subsequently, the structure of the radical focus group contained both traditional features of a focus group (Kitzinger, 1995), coupled with aspects of CR and feminist pedagogy. To start the focus groups, I provided women with a general introduction, discussing my own role in the project, the structure of the session, and supports that are in place in case they experience personal distress. Women introduced themselves and expressed why they were interested in participating in the study, before I referred to my list of semi-structured questions and encouraged women to discuss their personal experiences of diet culture. The following steps are a description of each stage of the radical focus group. Step 1. Opening up and sharing: allowing for bonding and disagreement The first step of the radical focus group involved sharing and listening to the experiences of other women. In this study, I encouraged the ‘opening up’ process by asking broad, open-ended questions about dieting and/or ‘diet culture’, and allowing for discussions to break out. Throughout all of the radical focus groups conducted, women expressed an affinity with one another through their shared negative experiences. These experiences related mostly to their adolescent perceptions that dieting was an initiation into ‘womanhood’, and the often-unintentional role modelling they received from their mothers. The following three separate excerpts of women in Focus Group 2 illustrate this theme: It was when I first left high school, around 18 or 19 and, you know, [I] went from a size 10 to a size 12 – ‘oh no!’, um, [then] my dear mother, who herself was a chronic dieter, said ‘why don’t you come to Weight Watchers with me?’ [laughs] which, you know, obviously was her trying to bond and ‘help’ [using fingers to signify inverted commas], um, but that really was the start of my downward spiral into diet culture and dieting. Um, you know, it was nice in a way. I found good community amongst other people who also hated their bodies and thought that they should be eating less and, you know, it was the online forum and I met people my own age and, you know, the bonding with mum was a positive thing. (Samantha; female, age 30–39, heterosexual)   Well, I think – I think my experiences of dieting started quite early. Like, I was a larger child, probably by the time I was about 8 or 9. Um, and I don’t – I don’t remember exactly how old I was before I realised that my mum hated her body, but I did know that. You know, like, she would hide in photographs and she’d always

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move one of us in front of her to be in a photograph, and on some level I just kind of knew that she hated how she looked and I was supposed to hate how I looked as well. (Bianca; female, age 40–49, heterosexual)   Ah, yeah, ah, long history of dieting. Um – ah, I think the maternal link is always interesting because so many people’s stories, sort of, start, um, sort of, with their mother and their relationship to their body and, um, my mum was in a bigger body and, um, there was also, like, an aura of dieting that she participated in. But she always protected my sister and I from participating in that, um, the, sort of, bullying. (Geri; female, age 18–29, sexuality unspecified)

As demonstrated in these excerpts, women found commonalities in their experiences of dieting and diet culture, which helped to shape their bond throughout the rest of the session. Like CR groups in the 1970s, opening up and sharing were important in creating a sense of sisterhood and solidarity (Bruley, 2013, 2017; Bruley and Forster, 2016). As Allen (1970) observes, these initial experiences of CR were often the first time that women felt entitled to share their experiences with other women, marked by statements such as ‘yes, we know’ and ‘yes, we understand’ (Allen, 1970: 274). This stage of the CR process was said to build solidarity between women and set the scene for more complex discussions to come. Like traditional CR groups, women participating in radical focus groups also found ways to challenge each others’ views. Disagreements were an important part of this process, as they often resulted in a critical evaluation of one’s own position, and in this research context, highlighted where women encounter areas of conflicts and contradictions in their understandings of dieting and diet culture. In all three focus groups, disagreements were expressed through the often-unintentional stigmatization or exclusion of women with larger bodies. In Focus Group 1, for example, Ellen reflected on the discrepancy between Tanya’s concerns about her ‘underweight’ friend in comparison to her ‘overweight’ friend. Tanya stated: One of [my colleagues], like, was quite overweight and she knew it, and she tried different fad things and nothing seemed to work, um, because I don’t know ... I don’t know. I don’t want to put, yeah, assumptions on her, and the other colleague was extremely thin and was doing the same shakes and, you know, diets and all this kind of stuff, and we were really worried for her in particular because she was doing, like, extreme fasting and stuff … (Tanya; female, age 18–29, heterosexual)

In response, Ellen stated: Yeah, so, I think, like, just piggy-backing off what Tanya was saying … I just think about how both of your colleagues were both engaging in dieting, but when it’s someone who’s thin, we’re really concerned, but we know that, like, for larger people, like, dieting also leads to the same consequences. Things like eating disor-

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ders and body dissatisfaction, but we don’t tend to take it as seriously when it’s in larger people. (Focus Group 1; female, age 18–29, heterosexual)

Ellen’s observation that there is a contradiction in between how Tanya responds with concern to her underweight friend, in comparison to her larger-bodied friend, tacitly encourages the group to reflect on and critically appraise both Tanya’s and Ellen’s views on the topic. While disagreements play an important role in focus groups more generally, as they ‘can be used to encourage participants to elucidate their point of view and to clarify why they think as they do’ (Kitzinger, 1995: 301), in radical focus groups, the role of disagreement is also part of developing one’s feminist consciousness and analysing the sources of power that underlie our experiences, including the power and privilege that we may hold. Step 2. Analysing: identifying power and interrogating feminist voices of authority After a period of sharing and reflection, I invited women to think about the purpose and function of ‘diet culture’, including what they felt was behind its existence. This part of the focus group was a chance for women to externalise their relationships with dieting. As Rosenthal (1984) argues, the analytic part of consciousness-raising is what distinguishes it from self-help or group therapy, which focuses on the individual overcoming struggle. Analysis in CR unpacks power at the grassroots level for the ‘social, political economic liberation of women’ (Rosenthal, 1984: 310). In the focus groups I conducted, women identified broad systems of power behind diet culture, frequently citing patriarchy and capitalism and their combined influence in selling women ‘solutions’ to their gendered oppression. The following excerpt from Focus Group 3 illustrates this point: Rihanna: Meredith:

Interviewer: Annemarie:

It’s part of the patriarchy, you know? Keep us in our place and fit the mold that they want the women and that part, just, yeah. It’s all hand-in-hand. (Female, age 30–39, bisexual) And it ties into what you’re saying about advertising as well, Rihanna. Like, advertising, as we know – we’ve all seen Mad Men. It started off with men selling things – snake oil salesmen and – and, you know, telling us what we wanted rather than us working out what we wanted. (Female, age 30–39, heterosexual) Annemarie, how do you feel about what’s been shared? Definitely agree. I think, um, a big part of diet culture is sexualising women and, you know, our own sexual identity. Um, and, you know, that thinness equates to sexiness and so, a lot of, um, you know, these notions of, ‘we should all aspire to be thin’ is so that we can be attractive to men and, oh God, that just infuriates me! [laughs] (Female, age 30–39, heterosexual)

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How women described and theorised power played an important role in their critical appraisals of the existing literature on the topic. Patriarchy was both something identified in individual men, and in capitalist institutions and systems. The ‘analysis’ phase of the focus group was useful for women, as it shifted attention away from their experiences of oppression onto broader systems of power and cultural norms that adversely impact their own lives. As Allen (1970: 277) explains, ‘this period of analysis belongs after the opening up and sharing experiences, for concepts we find must answer the questions which come from our problems as women’. Women were able to tie their earlier reflections about feeling divorced from their bodies as adolescents to their analyses of the power sources underlying diet culture. After discussing their thoughts on power, I presented women with a slide on what theorists and researchers have said about dieting and its cultural normalisation, containing three different scholarly perspectives (e.g., feminist, fat activist and health professional). My reason for this change of focus was to encourage women to compare and contrast their own views alongside other feminist voices, giving them a chance to disagree with scholarly voices of authority and develop new feminist theories on the nature of diet culture. Implicitly, this process also provided women with a chance to comfortably disagree with me as a researcher in a position of authority. As one participant jokingly stated, this process also gave her a sense of authority and connection to wider theoretical perspectives on dieting: ‘I found it interesting that a lot of the … things that we’ve already, kind of, brought up in our discussion [are on that slide] … I was like, “oh, look! We’re all literaries!” [laughs]’ (Annemarie; Focus Group 3, female, age 30–39, heterosexual). Most women agreed with existing scholarly and activist positions, finding commonalities between their understandings of diet culture and what women have said before them. Other women, however, identified points of disagreement. In the following example from Focus Group 3, Meredith pushes back against the theoretical perspectives of one fat studies scholar: Meredith:

Interviewer:

I actually would disagree with the last [point] around women of size feeling like they need to, um, diet more or participate in diet culture more. I actually find diet culture is rampant regardless of size, and that’s – that’s the insidiousness of it as well. I think regardless of how someone, you know, might be categorised as obese or overweight or morbidly obese according to BMI, even people in the normal or underweight range might actually perceive themselves as much larger anyway. So, yeah, I would probably disagree with that last point there. (Focus Group 3; female, age 30–39, heterosexual) So, even though women with, um, larger bodies are more likely to experience weight stigma, it seems that diet culture is something that affects all women?

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Meredith: Interviewer: Billie:

Yeah, and I think because the stigma is so strong, a lot of people ... perceive that, ‘the worst thing I can be is be fat. So, I’m going to – I’m going to prevent that by dieting’. Mmm. Mmm. That’s an interesting point, Meredith. And I think it plays into this whole body-positivity versus fat activism space, and the whole idea that, you know, body-positivity has been railroaded to make thin people feel good about themselves. Um, and even though diet culture, I guess, affects everyone, the way that society is set up is it’s still people living in bigger bodies that are disadvantaged. They’re still the ones who can’t find the clothes. They’re still the ones who, um, have poor medical care. Um, who, you know, have to buy two seats on a plane and so on. Yeah, it irks me when I hear a thin person complaining about their body ’cause I’m like, ‘oh, if only you knew!’ But still, I don’t want to take away from what they’re feeling either. It’s like that, ‘oh, what about the starving kids in Africa?’, um, that kind of story. (Focus Group 3; female, age 18–29, sexuality unspecified)

Meredith’s observation that it is all women who experience pressure to diet prompted Billie to reflect on her simultaneous agreement and discomfort with this position. Both arguments – those that emphasise all women’s experiences and those that specifically emphasise larger-bodied women’s experiences – are theoretical positions that are currently discussed and contested in the literature. These arguments cut to the heart of some of the most prominent debates in feminism; namely, whether women’s primary mode of oppression is their sex (i.e., radical feminism), or whether it is due to a combination of marginalised identities that women possess (i.e., intersectionality). Having the opportunity to unpack some of these positions in a focus group setting has the potential to generate new theories that clarify interconnections between perspectives. Step 3. Abstracting: discussing strategies and ideals visions After interrogating existing perspectives on dieting found in the academic literature, women reflected on the strategies they use to challenge diet culture, and thought about what their ideal vision for tackling the issue would be. This phase of the focus group centred on the process of ‘abstraction’, or one of the first moments that women realise that they can strategise with other women and be ‘freed of social oppression’ (Allen, 1970: 278). The introduction of this phase in the radical focus groups was met with excitement by some women, as it created a space where women could imagine the potential for an anti-diet future. As focus group participant Samantha excitedly exclaimed, ‘Yay, the positive stuff!’ (Focus Group 2; female, age 30–39, heterosexual). Most women discussed the personal changes they had made to their lives, such as rejecting dieting in all its forms (e.g., food restriction, the use of scales,

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and memberships to weight-loss clubs and companies). Some women felt that their challenges were humble and focused on self-protection and empowerment. Other women, however, described more public displays of resistance: I actually … made art and I was an artist’s model for a feminist artist and so she actually took a plaster cast of my belly and she made two plaster casts of my belly and they went up on the wall as ‘before’ and ‘after’, and then at the opening I’d gotten a scale from the op shop and I smashed the scale with a sledgehammer, and I’ve gotta say, I fully recommend this. (Focus Group 2; Karina, female, age 50–59, sexuality unspecified)

When women reflected on more public instances of resistance, other women who had previously only thought of themselves as engaging in self-protective acts recalled some of their own more public-facing stories of resistance. Bianca said: Well, just as an example of how my style of activism – like, I’m not inclined to smash things … So, what I did – I did this at the start of this year, actually. I put [my scales] out with the … curbside collection but I didn’t really want anyone else to have it either, so … I just sticky taped a sign to the front of it, you know, like, ‘3 things you should know about these scales if you choose to take them’. Like, the first one was, ‘Yes, they work. Or, like, they will when you get a new battery for them. Um, Two, … ‘You’re probably better off listening to [anti-diet podcast] instead’ … and then, ‘Three’, I was like, ‘Your weight is not your worth’. And just repeated that three times. And then … the next day, the scales were gone. (Focus Group 2; Bianca, female, age 40–49, heterosexual)

As evidenced from the interaction above, this phase of the radical focus groups inspired women to think about moments of resistance they may not have remembered if interviewed on their own. It also gave them a chance to imagine their ideal – or utopian – visions of a ‘non-diet’ future. Asking the question, ‘What is your ideal, or even utopian, vision of a non-diet future?’, I saw women respond in ways that focused on changing broad cultures of dieting. Women in Focus Group 1, for example, imagined an ideal ‘anti-diet culture’ that stopped categorising foods as good and bad, and as Lorraine (female, age 49, heterosexual) argued, replaced this culture of healthism with a ‘food positive movement’ that encouraged women to enjoy food. Women in Focus Group 2 imagined a combination of cultural and institutional changes, citing the targeting of weight stigma in the media and healthcare and, more specifically, focusing on the medical ethics of prescribing weight-loss dieting as a health practice. Lastly, women in Focus Group 3 – most of whom identified as larger-bodied women throughout their reflections – saw their ideal vision of tackling diet culture as a radical shift in treating ‘fat’ women with dignity, by giving them options in clothing stores and non-stigmatising care

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in healthcare settings. Ending the focus groups by thinking about ideal visions was viewed by women as an uplifting process. Indeed, women in all three of the focus groups featured in this chapter requested to continue speaking to one another after the session was done, emphasising the supportive and empowering qualities of female solidarity (Allen, 1970; Bruley, 2013; Megarry, 2020; Rosenthal, 1984), even within a focus group setting.4 A More Radical Focus Group? Limitations and Future Considerations As this was the first phase of my project – and the first iteration of the ‘radical focus group’ format – there were a number of limitations with the existing approach. While the structure of the CR process was utilised in the radical focus groups discussed in this chapter, it is important to reiterate that the group interviews were not CR sessions. As Megarry (2020) and Bruley (2013) explain, CR groups were often continuous and non-hierarchical in focus; women got to know each other over time and as connections grew stronger, they felt more comfortable challenging one another (Allen, 1970). The radical focus group approach featured in this chapter is limited because (i) the focus group is an isolated session, and (ii) has a hierarchical structure with a ‘leader’ (i.e., the responsible researcher). Future focus groups could incorporate a more continuous structure, and enable women to continue meeting outside of the gaze of the researcher after the study is over. Another limitation of the current approach involved researcher reflexivity. While I discussed my role as a researcher and empathised with women throughout the focus group, I did not emphasise my own personal experiences with dieting explicitly. Rather, my experiences were referenced tacitly alongside women’s reflections. To be more closely aligned with feminist pedagogy methods, the subjectivity of the ‘educator’ must be explicitly incorporated into the classroom. Indeed, as Liamputtong (2020: 10) contends, even for feminist researchers, ‘a consciously feminist methodology must provide a way in which the researchers can include their own experiences, as women and researchers, in the conduct of their research and in a sharing of their subjectivities with their research participants’. In future radical focus groups, personal motivations for creating the study should be incorporated more overtly alongside one’s motivations as a researcher.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS In this chapter, I traced the history of consciousness-raising to the development of the first WS curriculum, and discussed the centrality of qualitative research methods to the broader feminist project of women’s liberation. In doing so, I introduced a method of data collection that encourages WGS researchers – as

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well as researchers from other disciplines drawing on feminist theories – to foreground sharing, listening, analysing and abstracting, as well as feminist pedagogical approaches, when considering data collection. The ultimate goal of this approach is to acknowledge participants’ personal insights and experiences as important sources of knowledge, and identify strategies to overthrow patriarchal systems. While the formation of CR and many of the examples provided in this chapter draw on radical feminist theoretical perspectives, it is important to note that feminists drawing on other structural theoretical perspectives can also utilise the radical focus group approach (e.g., socialist feminism, materialist feminism, intersectional feminism, and so on). Ultimately, the goal of the radical focus group is to discuss participants’ existing experiences of oppression, along with their understandings of power (including the strategies used to challenge power), and to empower participants to both theorise and take a stand against patriarchal systems that adversely affect them. This data collection approach seeks to not only understand women’s experiences, but to also serve as a form of feminist praxis, or a way to encourage the facilitation of solidarity between women through the research process.

NOTES 1. 2.

3.

4.

This chapter is written within the project funded by the Australian Research Council through a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award [DE200100357]. While social media has been considered a form of consciousness-raising in recent years, especially in the wake of Hollywood sexual assault allegations (e.g., #MeToo), Megarry (2020) argues that the core features of a CR group – namely, the process of women interacting outside of the male gaze – is lost in a social-media-style CR format. The focus groups discussed in this chapter were part of Phase 1 of my DECRA (Discovery Early Career Researcher Award) project, looking at the ways in which the broad ‘anti-diet movement’ challenges diet culture in both everyday practices and public-facing activism. Due to ethical constraints, I was unable to share participant details. However, participants used the last few minutes of the focus groups exchanging details with women they wanted to keep in touch with.

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Liebenberg, L. (2018). Thinking critically about photovoice: Achieving empowerment and social change. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 17, 1–9. Mackay, F. (2015). Radical feminism: Feminist activism in movement. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Megarry, J. (2020). The limitations of social media feminism: No space of our own. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Mies, M. (1993). ‘Towards a methodology for feminist research’. In Social research: Philosophy, politics and practice (M. Hammersley, eds.). London: Sage Publications. Montell, F. (1999). Focus group interviews: A new feminist method. NWSA Journal, 11(1), 44–71. Munday, J. (2014). ‘The practice of feminist focus groups’ (pp. 233–260). In Feminist research practice: A primer, 2nd edition (S.N. Hesse-Biber, ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Orbach, S. (2010). Bodies. London: Profile Books. Robinson, V. (1997). ‘Introducing women’s studies’ (pp. 1–26). In Introducing women’s studies, 2nd edition (V. Robinson and D. Richardson, eds.). London: Macmillan. Rosenthal, N.B. (1984). Consciousness raising: From revolution to re-evaluation. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 8(4), 309–326. Seibold, C. (2000). Qualitative research from a feminist perspective in the postmodern era: Methodological, ethical and reflexive concerns. Nursing Inquiry, 7, 147–155. Simic, Z. (2015). ‘Fat as a feminist issue: A history’ (pp. 15–35). In Fat sex: New directions in theory and activism (H. Hester and C. Walters, eds.). London: Routledge. Smith, B.G. (2013). Women’s studies: The basics. London: Routledge. Smith, B.G. (2019). Women’s studies: The basics (2nd edition). Routledge Sowards, S.K., and Renegar, V.R. (2004). The rhetorical functions of consciousness-raising in third wave feminism. Communication Studies, 55(4), 535–552. Stake, J.E. (2006). Pedagogy and student change in the women’s and gender studies classroom. Gender and Education, 18(2), 199–212. Stanley, L., and Wise, S. (1990). ‘Method, methodology and epistemology in feminist research processes’. In Feminist praxis: Research, theory and epistemology in feminist sociology – Volume 13 (L. Stanley, ed.). London: Routledge. Stanley, L., and Wise, S. (1993). Breaking out again: Feminist ontology and epistemology (2nd edition). London: Routledge. Strings, S. (2015). Obese black women as ‘social dead weight’: Reinventing the ‘diseased black woman’. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 41(1), 107–130. Susen, S. (2015). The ‘postmodern turn’ in the social sciences. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Taylor, V., and Rupp, L.J. (1993). Women’s culture and lesbian feminist activism: A reconsideration of cultural feminism. Signs, 19(1), 27–39. Tylka, T.L., Annunziato, R.A., Burgard, D., Danielsdottir, S., Shuman, E., Davis, C., and Calogero, R.M. (2014). The weight-inclusive versus weight-normative approach to health: Evaluating the evidence for prioritizing well-being over weight loss. Journal of Obesity, DOI: https://​doi​.org/​10​.1155/​2014/​983495. Wang, C., and Burris, M.A. (1994). Empowerment through Photo Novella: Portraits of participation. Health Education Quarterly, 21, 171–186. Wang, C., and Burris, M.A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education and Behaviour, 24, 369–387.

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7. Qualitative research in political science Selen A. Ercan and Ariadne Vromen INTRODUCTION The use of qualitative methods in political science dates to early social and political analysis. The first methodological statements about qualitative methods can be found in the work of the logicians, philosophers and historians of the nineteenth century, most notably in the work of John Stuart Mill (1843/1872) (Gerring, 2017). A more self-conscious and systematic use of qualitative research in political science began with the rise of feminist research in the 1960s and beyond, a period labelled as the ‘golden age’ of qualitative research (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011). Feminist researchers have played a crucial role in criticising and reconfiguring mainstream scientific and positivist methodologies and epistemologies. They have emphasised the need for qualitative methods to prioritise women’s voices and ‘lived experiences’ which otherwise may have been ignored through the use of quantitative methods (Reinharz, 1992; Ezzy, 2002; Liamputtong, 2020). Qualitative methods focus on understanding the meaning underlying an intention, action, object or phenomenon. Using qualitative methods, researchers can gain insight into the meaning people give to their actions in particular contexts. For most qualitative researchers, explanation and understanding of human social and political behaviour cannot be independent of context. Therefore, the qualitative researcher tries to convey the full picture, often referred to as ‘thick’ description, relying on in-depth analysis of case studies or ‘small-N’ comparisons, responding to descriptive research questions starting with ‘what’. Yet, using qualitative methods, researchers can also respond to explanatory questions of ‘why’ and ‘how’. These are the questions that we ask when explaining the causes of a phenomenon. If we want to understand or explain how and why a political institution, event, issue or process came about, we are asking questions that can be answered using qualitative methods (see also Chapter 1 in this volume). 115

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In this chapter, we will focus on qualitative methods used in political science research and elaborate on the distinctive contribution they make to the knowledge production in the field. In political science, as in other disciplines, qualitative methods are usually contrasted with quantitative methods, which typically deal with large amounts of data, using surveys and statistical methods, with the aim of establishing causal relationships between social phenomena. As such, quantitative methods are usually associated with positivist epistemology, and the qualitative methods are considered to be inherently interpretive. In this chapter, we do not detail these philosophical debates (for an overview on this, see Gerring, 2017), but highlight that while qualitative methods are generally interpretive, they can also be used in positivist research. Our key message is not about positivist or interpretivist use of qualitative methods, instead we emphasise throughout this chapter that qualitative methods should not be considered as secondary to statistical methods or equated with an ‘anything goes’ approach. Those intending to undertake qualitative research in political science, should be aware of various methods they can use to generate and analyse data, as well as the limitations of each method, to be able to use them effectively. While it is impossible for us to cover all these methods in this short chapter, we have made an effort to provide an illustrative list of examples drawing on our own work and the work of others in the field of political science. The chapter is structured in four main sections. In the first section, we provide a brief overview of the key topics and questions explored in the discipline of political science. In the second section, we outline commonly used qualitative methods used to generate data in political science. In the third section, we focus on a selective example of methods used to analyse qualitatively generated data. In the fourth section, we present some of the new and emerging qualitative research strategies that have been adopted in our field in recent years, partly as a way of capturing recent developments and changes in contemporary practices of politics. These include changes such as the rise of digital technologies which have significantly shaped the way politics is enacted, and a rising awareness about the politics of knowledge production in our field. We conclude this chapter by reflecting on the future of qualitative methods in political science research.

RESEARCH TOPICS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE At the core of political science are questions on how societies are governed, and explanations based on understanding the use and distribution of power and resources. An understanding of the processes, institutions and actors within, and external to, governments form the basis of political inquiry. This can include questions around how collective decisions are made, what sources of

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legitimacy they draw on, and how democracy and alternatives to democracy, such as authoritarianism are conceptualised and practised. Political scientists focus on the analysis of how macro institutional and structural forces, such as globalisation and economic market forces, shape governance, as well as on the analysis of micro processes of engagement in politics by citizens through elections and other forms of political participation, through the role of leadership, and through non-government political actors such as interest groups and social movements. They study how actors interact with each other, as well as with political institutions. Historically, political science was built on a descriptive qualitative approach as the discipline predominantly focused on political theory and the development of legal and political institutions. From the 1950s, advocates of the study of the role of individuals in the political world, that is quantitative behaviouralists, challenged this dominant, qualitative, institutionalist tradition. Qualitative methods tend to be used within particular sub-fields of political science (for example, by researchers who study political institutions, or actors rather than those who study political behaviour or elections), by those committed to a particular approach (such as feminism or multiculturalism), and by those coming from an interpretivist epistemological position. Yet, these divides are far from straightforward and qualitative methods are also used by those with a positivist position, and differences are based mainly on claims made about explanation and the purpose and goals of research itself. Positivist researchers tend to use qualitative methods as an ancillary to their main concern, which is to develop a generalisable causal explanation of political phenomena. Political scientists often rely on and utilise qualitative research in their analysis of political institutions, political actors, citizens, events and/or processes. In doing so, they draw on textual material as well as the personal observations and reflections of participants they interview. Qualitative research focuses on textual and verbal material; not only on what has been written and said, but also on silences, pauses or omissions in order to try uncover what might have been left unsaid and why (see for example, Boucher, 2017). At the same time, political scientists also analyse physical artefacts such as government buildings or public spaces (see for example, Parkinson, 2012) and nonverbal modes of expression such as visual reproductions, sound or intentional silences (see for example, Mendonça et al., 2020). In this chapter, we outline various qualitative methods researchers use for generating and analysing data in political science. We distinguish between the methods of generating and analysing data as a way of inviting researchers to be aware of the purposes of different methods and strategies. Interviews, for example, are a method for generating data only. After conducting interviews, researchers still need to find a suitable research method to analyse the data produced by interviews. In the following, we will outline some of these methods,

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focusing on both well-established, traditional methods as well as more recent, emerging methods used in our field. Qualitative research itself is transforming as political scientists continue to adopt these methods to understand and explain the key developments and trends in contemporary societies.

QUALITATIVE METHODS FOR GENERATING DATA There are many different qualitative methods that researchers in political science utilise to generate data, and traditional methods of data generation include talking to people, collecting research-relevant materials and documents, and observing with different degrees of involvement, over varying periods of time (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow, 2012). Talking to People: Interviews and Focus Groups Talking to people is one of the most common methods for generating data in qualitative research. Political scientists usually draw on interviews and focus groups to talk to people and generate data about the topics they are researching. Interviews provide distinct means for probing individual understandings of contemporary political actions and outcomes. They help researchers to identify causal mechanisms that are not evident in other forms of data (Mosley, 2013). There are different kinds of interviews qualitative researchers can draw on, with different styles of questions (Leech, 2002). Interviews can also be employed to develop survey questions or statistical analysis, but here we focus on the way they are used in qualitative research. In qualitative political science, interviews are generally semi-structured, with the researcher having a clear idea of what questions or issues they want to raise but allowing the interview progress to shape the order in which questions are asked, and the issues which are covered. Semi-structured interviews can be particularly appropriate when the interviewer (or indeed political science) has limited prior knowledge about a topic and wants to gain an insider perspective. The type of interview researchers utilise also depends on the selection of interviewees. One well-known and often used type of interview is elite interviews. Elites include those who are holding or have held powerful positions and occupy institutional and social power. Examples include individuals such as elected or appointed politicians, senior bureaucrats and heads of non-governmental organisations. Elite interviews seek insight into and reflection on politics, via a recounting of insider first-hand experiences and observations (for an example of a study interviewing elected politicians see Vromen and Gauja, 2009). Existing overviews provide useful insights into how researchers can gain access to elites and what they can do to mitigate

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the power imbalances inherent in these kinds of interviews (see for example Boucher, 2017; Mosley, 2013; Stephens and Dimond, 2019). Political scientists also undertake non-elite interviewing, with individuals who have unique political experiences or viewpoints but do not embody particular forms of institutionalised power or speak on behalf of an institution. For instance, they can interview disadvantaged or vulnerable groups to generate data on their lived experiences and particular needs (see for example, Dow and Boylan, 2020; Nishiyama 2018). Interviews provide powerful tools to tap into people’s descriptions and understanding of the political, social and economic worlds that they inhabit. While interviews tend to be one-on-one, focused on reflections on individual experiences, led by the interviewer and the interviewer’s questions, group-based discussions forums such as focus groups are also becoming increasingly common in political science (Stanley, 2016). This method involves engaging a small number of people in an informal group discussion ‘focused’ on a particular concept, idea or shared experience (see for example, Fawcett and Corbett, 2018). This could be, for example, young people discussing the meaning of ‘political’ participation to them. In a focus group, the researcher will ask broad questions and then try to generate discussion amongst individuals. The method allows researchers to see how a group of individuals together talk about political issues with one another. The process of interaction and talking and developing understanding and ideas, disagreeing, or agreeing, is a significant process in and of itself to study. Rather than focusing on individual responses in isolation, focus group interviews help researchers to identify the common issues of concern, as well as the points of agreement and disagreement among participants. The discussion is usually based on a series of questions and the researcher serves as a facilitator, keeping discussion flowing. Broadly speaking, there are three kinds of groups of participants that can be recruited or created for a focus group in political science: (i) a homogenous group, where participants are similar, with shared lived experiences, similar backgrounds, similar age groups, similar cultural backgrounds, etc., to test how they might react in different ways to particular ideas and concepts; (ii) a heterogeneous group might be where participants with very different backgrounds are purposefully chosen to study where they have similar viewpoints or understandings, with researchers analysing whether there is core agreement about a political idea, event or process despite the participants’ different backgrounds, and finding under what circumstances consensus can be generated via a process of political talk within a group situation; and (iii) affinity groups are based on recruiting participants that already exist as a group. This could be a group of friends, a group of people that work together, or a group of people who are members of a political organisation. This has advantages as groups

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who are familiar with one another may talk more candidly or more interactively about political issues of concern and/or are comfortable both disagreeing with one another and achieving consensus. Collecting Relevant Documents: Textual and Visual Data Most studies in political science engage with documents as research material. The growth of the Internet and computer-mediated research tools enables researchers to access and use a wide range of documents as their data. Documents can have different roles in qualitative research depending on how they are seen. They can be seen as a more or less objective source of a study or they can be treated as ‘social products or cultural artefacts that have independent consequences and are worth analysing in themselves’ (Karppinen and Moe, 2012: 180). Most documents political science researchers draw on are primary sources produced by political actors, including the executive, parliamentary or judicial arms of governments, policy-making agencies, and non-government organisations. Strictly speaking, documents that reflect the position of an actor and do not have analysis in them (such as a secondary source like a scholarly journal article) are generally considered to be primary sources. However, there are clear exceptions to this, such as newspaper articles and organisational research reports (for example, a World Bank report), which contain analysis, but can also become the object of text analysis, involving studying the discursive meaning they give to the political context from which they originated. These documents can be treated as political products that are worth analysing in themselves. This kind of approach is taken mainly by constructivist approaches to public policy (Fischer, 2003). The ‘documents’ researchers collect for qualitative research are not only composed of textual material. They could also take the form of artefacts, images, or audio-visual resources. In fact, in contemporary politics, images, photographs, cartoons and videos have become important sources for understanding the construction of political ideologies and discourses. In a time when photo or meme sharing is common on popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, political scientists look for ways of incorporating these in their generation and analysis of data (see for example, Hendriks et al., 2016; McSwiney et al., 2021). Visual images are rich data sources; they ‘frame what can be seen, thought and said. In doing so, they delineate what is and is not politically possible’ (Bleiker, 2015: 874). Examining how and why actors produce or use visual images to communicate certain messages can help researchers understand broader organisational ideologies and strategies (Loken, 2021).

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Political scientists draw on various methods for generating visual data. One particular method, often linked to interviews or focus groups, is photo-elicitation, where researchers use images to elicit comments (Harper, 2002; Padgett et al., 2013; Muhamad et al., 2019). Sometimes the images are provided by the researcher, but often the respondents provide or create the image themselves. The type of images involved include photographs, videos, paintings, cartoons, graffiti and advertisements. Photo-elicitation is a particularly useful method for generating data when dealing with sensitive or more abstract issues (such as politics). The main aim of this method is to allow respondents an opportunity to speak about themselves, their lived experience and everyday understandings. For example, David Marsh, Therese O’Toole and Sue Jones (2006) used photo-elicitation as a means of uncovering young people’s understandings and experience of politics. Given that their criticism of most extant literature was that it involved researchers imposing their views of ‘politics’ on young people, they could not ask direct questions about politics. Instead, they gave their focus groups a series of pictures, some of which were overtly political, but many of which were not. Each picture was discussed in the focus group and at the end of the session the group was asked to sort the pictures into ‘political’ and ‘non-political’ piles. This kind of data help the researcher to understand and interpret the issues from the perspective of research participants. Observing with Different Degrees of Involvement Observation is another common method political scientists use to generate data. It enables researchers to pay particular attention to and document the context within which events or activities occur, and to capture the mundane, everyday experiences that other methods might overlook (Clark et al., 2009). Researchers can observe what they study over different lengths of time and with different degrees of involvement. While non-participatory observation requires researchers to avoid as far as possible any intervention in the situations they observe, active participatory observation is about the researcher immersing herself into what she studies. Ethnography is one such method used as part of the observation. It offers a means to understand the culture, values and actions of a group through focusing upon the experience of members of the group in their natural context, often being involved as a participant observer (Liamputtong, 2020). Ethnographic methods provide an approach to recording and analysing data ‘in a flexible fashion’ and, importantly, can be used to explore the dynamics and power relationships between people (Bray, 2008: 298). Ethnographic approaches have not become as widespread as interviews or focus groups for political scientists, mostly because of the difficulties in accessing the pow-

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erful populations or groups political scientists tend to study (Boswell et al., 2019). For example, it has been relatively difficult to get inside elite forms of political decision-making as an ethnographer due to the high levels of mutual trust needed to gain access. Nevertheless, there exist several examples where political scientists draw on participatory observation and ethnography to generate data and produce new knowledge about the topics they study (see also Chapters 3 and 4 in this volume). A seminal example of participatory observation in political science can be found in Jane Mansbridge’s work on ‘adversary democracy’ (Mansbridge, 1980). Mansbridge spent more than two years observing the deliberations in a self-managed cooperative and town hall meetings in a small city in Vermont, as well as conducting interviews with the participants of these meetings. Based on this research, she distinguished between two forms of democracy, unitary and adversary democracy. She found that adversary democracy based in voting rather than collective deliberation, is suited for groups with conflicting interests where consensus might be hard to reach. Similarly, drawing on ethnography, Nicole Curato (2019) investigated the prospects for deliberative democracy in disaster-affected communities in the Philippines. Her ethnographic research revealed, amongst other findings, the creative forms democracy can take in contexts characterised by misery, misfortune and confusion. Using ethnography, political scientists have also been studying politicians, bureaucrats and government elites. For example, Rod Rhodes (2002) demonstrated the usefulness of ethnographic methods in understanding policy networks. He argued that ethnographic methods can ensure all voices are heard, not just those of elites such as Departmental Secretaries, but also other actors, such as social workers and service consumers. He suggests that the ‘thick description’ of ethnographic observation demonstrates how different individuals within the network give it meaning and understand it in quite different ways, through both their actions and what they say in interviews (Rhodes, 2002: 412–413, see also Rhodes, 2011). This is also echoed in Bernardo Zacka’s (2017) research on street-level bureaucrats. Zacka conducted eight months of ethnographic fieldwork as a receptionist in a large social welfare agency in the north-eastern US, observing how his co-workers undertook their jobs. His research revealed that street-level bureaucrats were not merely operators, as is often portrayed in dominant representations of policy implementation. Rather, they are moral agents with considerable daily discretion in fulfilling their duties. These qualitative methods of generating data, and all the exemplar studies mentioned above, suggest the importance of the processes and practices of reflexivity in undertaking qualitative research. Qualitative political scientists are expected to be transparent and reflective on their choices as researchers about subject matter, research questions, how and what data is collected,

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and the analysis and interpretations of that data. Reflexivity entails explicit acknowledgment of the existing value positions of the researcher, and how their research design choices and interaction with the research field are shaped by their own values.

METHODS FOR ANALYSING QUALITATIVE DATA The analysis of qualitative data generated through interviews, focus groups, document research, participatory observation or ethnography, can take many different forms. There is a rich variety of tools and strategies that qualitative researchers use for analysing their data. In what follows we provide examples of some commonly used methods of data analysis in qualitative research in our field. Content or Theme Analysis Content or theme analysis is one of the most frequently used methods of analysing qualitatively generated data. It involves the researcher analysing her data in relation to a series of questions she has posed. The raw material for content analysis may be any form of communication, such as interview transcripts, email messages, political speeches, visual images or documents, such as parliamentary transcripts, newspapers and magazines. The qualitative analysis of the content of texts and documentary primary sources involves interpreting their social and political meaning or recreating a historical sequencing of events or themes. This is substantively different from the systematic study of primary texts via quantitative content analysis, which looks for patterns and seeks to make generalisations. Historically, content analysis was seen as an ‘objective’ way of capturing the content of various texts or communications, thus there was a focus on counting the number of mentions of specific items or terms (Berelson, 1952: 18). As it has evolved, however, it has taken an interpretivist turn, and begun to be viewed as a method for interpreting qualitatively generated data. Content analysis can be used to analyse both the textual and visual material elaborated above (Rose, 2001). One of the early examples of this method is Shannon’s (1954) analysis of the newspaper cartoon ‘Little Orphan Annie’. Guided by a series of questions that sought to reveal the underlying values of the cartoon, Shannon examined 104 weekly appearances of the comic strip over a period of two years. Her analysis revealed how the editors of the paper used the cartoon to communicate conservative, middle-class American, anti-Roosevelt sentiments and values.

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Discourse Analysis Discourse analysis offers a method for ‘uncovering some of the ways in which people or groups (or actors or agents as they are often termed in discourse analysis) seek to represent their actions in texts and language’ (Jacobs, 2006: 138). It interprets how the data relates to, or is emblematic of, broader social, political and cultural frameworks. Different approaches define the term ‘discourse’ differently and suggest different ways of analysing it empirically. However, the general premise is that ‘language is structured according to different patterns that people’s utterances follow when they take part in different domains of social life’ and discourse analysis is the analysis of these patterns (Joergensen and Phillips, 2002: 1). This form of analysis can be applied in different social domains, such as institutions or media, and used to understand the language and ideas associated with a particular domain (for example, political discourse or medical discourse), or as a way of defining aspects of the world associated with a particular perspective (for example, a ‘neo-liberal discourse of globalisation’; see Fairclough, 2013). From this perspective, discourses can help coordinate the actions of large numbers of people and organisations. The starting point for any type of discourse analysis is the acknowledgement that language matters; thus, the way issues are discussed and interpreted have important consequences. It directs our attention to the importance of texts and talk, such as official documents, parliamentary transcripts and interviews, but also visual objects, such as photographs or stamps, for identifying the language patterns and power relationships at play. Given its capacity to capture different ways of making sense of a particular issue, discourse analysis has been used by scholars of democracy, particularly in the empirical studies of deliberative democracy (see for example, Dryzek, 2021) or in the context of a deliberative policy analysis (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2006). Frame Analysis Frame analysis is closely related to discourse analysis and is often used in political science research, particularly in the study of public policy and social movements. It is often regarded as one approach within the broader family of methods of discourse analysis. In the context of policy analysis, frame analysis seeks to reveal how ‘public policies rest on frames that supply them with underlying structures of beliefs, perceptions and appreciation’ (Fischer, 2003: 144). Although the concept of frame analysis is traced back to Goffman (1974), its introduction to the field of policy analysis can be attributed to Schön and Rein (1994). Different from discourses, frames are usually employed intentionally and strategically by actors, such as political parties, government agencies or social movements (Polletta and Ho, 2006). Each frame contains

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implicit representation of what is considered to be a problem (diagnosis), a solution to the problem (prognosis) and a call to action (who is responsible for solving the problem and how). In the context of policy research, one particularly insightful tool for frame analysis is suggested by Carol Bacchi’s (2012) ‘“What’s the problem represented to be” approach’. This approach is empirically operationalised by engaging with a set of questions that seek to reveal particular ‘problem definitions’, as well as the underlying values at work. For example, if language training is recommended for migrants to improve their integration in mainstream society, the implication is that their lack of language knowledge is the ‘problem’, responsible for their poor integration. Bacchi and Goodwin (2016) in their book Poststructural Policy Analysis, offer a pre-defined set of questions and methods for qualitative researchers to map the ‘problem definitions’ contained in policy proposals (for examples of this type of frame analysis, see Murray and Powell, 2009; Ercan, 2014; Yates, 2019). Dramaturgical Analysis Dramaturgical analysis is another mode of qualitative analysis, which draws on the vocabulary of dramaturgy (such as theatre, performance, audiences, staging, scripting, acting) to describe and make sense of what is going on in social, cultural and political life. It suggests viewing politics as ‘a sequence of staged performances’ and devoting empirical focus to not only ‘what people say’ but ‘how they say it’, ‘where they say it’ and ‘to whom’ they say it (Hajer, 2009: 65). By undertaking dramaturgical analysis, researchers can develop a better understanding of how political controversies are enacted, how different acts relate to each other, and how conflicts are expressed and resolved (Ercan and Hendriks, 2022a). Dramaturgical analysis can draw on data generated through close observations of social and political interactions and the behaviour of actors. The observational data can be supplemented with interviews, websites or media articles. Dramaturgical analysis enables researchers to analyse both verbal and non-verbal modes of expression and interaction. In their qualitative research on the Australian social protest group, the Knitting Nannas Against Gas (KNAG), Ercan and Hendriks (2022b) used a dramaturgical analysis to make sense of their observations of this group in public spaces. Members of this group meet regularly in public places to knit yellow and black objects such as beanies (hats), scarves and toys to oppose coal seam gas (CSG) and to express care for land and communities. In this study, they undertook a dramaturgical analysis to examine how KNAG scripts its performances, the central characters and audiences it employs, and the deliberative effects of these performances in the public sphere. This analysis enabled them to identify the creative ways the

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group subverts a traditional ‘Nanna’ identity to challenge dominant views, and express care for communities, land and environment.

INNOVATIONS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS Qualitative research methods are transforming as political scientists continue to adopt these methods to understand and explain the key developments and trends in contemporary societies. Some of the innovation comes from researchers taking an innovative approach to a traditional method. For example, focus groups have predominantly been based on in-person discussion, but increasingly researchers are using online focus groups as well (Liamputtong, 2020). Online focus groups can vary from using an asynchronous discussion-board format to real-time video calls replicating what would happen in person. In an online discussion board, the researcher might put up a series of questions and participants log in to answer the questions. They can see the answers of other participants and can engage with those answers like a socially-mediated chat discussion. Increasingly political scientists are looking towards online research because it expands the type of people who can be targeted and invited to participate in the research as it is not dependent on them all being geographically in the same place; for others the offer of online anonymity will lower the threshold for participating in research processes and expressing a point of view. For example, one study used online discussion boards where participants aged 18- to 21-years-old were grouped together in homogenous groups based on similar backgrounds in terms of their level of political engagement and their socioeconomic status (Vromen et al., 2015). The online format also meant it was possible to use visual images to generate discussion. One example was the use of a cartoon contrasting views of the inter-generational transmission of class and poverty. The study sought to tap into how young people thought about and understood equality as a way to engage with politics more broadly. Discussion board participants were all asked questions on: ‘When you think about equality, what sorts of things come to mind? Do you think your country has more or less equality? Can you think of examples?’ Then they were shown the cartoon and asked ‘What does the image mean to you? What is it saying about society? Do you agree/disagree?’ When participants responded to the first set of questions, before being shown the cartoon, it was difficult for them to talk about equality in a tangible or meaningful way. As soon as they were shown the cartoon, it became easier for them to develop ideas, responses and arguments based directly on it. Online discussion boards offer a creative and powerful way of generating conversational data, and observations about individuals interacting with one another, especially if they are from similar backgrounds, with similar lived

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experience and understandings of the social and political world (Vromen et al., 2015). Online discussion boards can also be useful to explore sensitive topics as they are usually anonymous, participants do not see one another, and they often use pseudonyms. For example, in a project on young women and the future of work, sexual harassment at work was discussed through an online discussion board method (Baird et al., 2018). When participants anonymously witness others who share their lived experience, they are emboldened to share and tell their stories about sexual harassment at work to one another, while they and their workplaces remain anonymous. There are ethical risks to this kind of facilitated discussion and disclosure, but it can also be a useful way of tapping into sensitive research topics around discrimination or marginalised experiences that are difficult to broach via in-person interviews or focus groups. Innovations in qualitative research methods emerge also as part of the efforts to ‘de-colonise’ existing methodologies and co-produce knowledge with research subjects (Asenbaum, 2022). Some scholars have questioned traditional research methods, such as surveys, interviews and focus groups, that are all rooted in Western colonial cultural ways of knowing (Zuberi and Bonilla-Silva, 2008) and have suggested alternative methods of producing knowledge. Increasingly, researchers have used existing community formats, such as the talking circles or yarning circles of Indigenous communities as part of their research. For example, Bronwyn Carlson and Ryan Frazer (2018) explain that oral communication is the most significant medium through which knowledge, culture and kinship ties are produced, practised and maintained. In Australia, this diverse set of verbal practices is often called ‘yarning’ and is increasingly used by Indigenous researchers. It is different from a traditional focus group as there is not a researcher-participant hierarchy and it is premised on sharing stories among a group of equals. In their research, Carlson and Frazer (2018) reflect on how yarning circles were a useful qualitative method approach for convening groups of Indigenous activists from across the world.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS The problems our societies face today, ranging from structural inequality to global pandemics, call for more, not less qualitative inquiry. There is a growing need to understand how different groups or individuals perceive and experience these problems, so that effective, evidence-based solutions can be developed. While in this chapter we have tried to make cogent arguments for the importance and sophistication of qualitative inquiry in political science, we are also aware that its ongoing use and recognition within the discipline is under threat. Qualitative methods of analysis will continue to grow in theoretical and empirical sophistication into the future. Yet the discipline is still

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dominated by positivist researchers who remain reluctant to value qualitative inquiry as an important dimension in thoroughly understanding the richness of the political world. This chapter has introduced qualitative methods for generating and analysing data in political science research and offered selected examples. Political science as a discipline is, or should be, a broad church. Any tendency to dismiss qualitative methods should be resisted. Qualitative methods can be used from within any epistemological position, although their use is different in each one. We have acknowledged this, but our main claim is that qualitative methods are useful in many contexts and particularly if we are concerned to understand and explain the actions and experiences of actors. However, as with all methods, the crucial point is to use them well, acknowledging their limitations, as well as their strengths.

REFERENCES Asenbaum, H. (2022). Democratic theorizing. In S.A. Ercan, H. Asenbaum, N. Curato, and R.F. Mendonça (eds.), Research methods in deliberative democracy. Oxford University Press, forthcoming. Bacchi, C. (2012). Introducing the ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ approach. In A. Bletsas and C. Beasley (eds.), Engaging with Carol Bacchi: Strategic interventions and exchanges (pp. 21–24). University of Adelaide Press. Bacchi, C., and Goodwin, S. (2016). Poststructural policy analysis. Springer. Baird, M., Cooper, R., Hill, E., Probyn, E., and Vromen, A. (2018). Women and the future of work. University of Sydney. Berelson, B. (1952). Content analysis in communication research. Free Press. Bleiker, R. (2015). Pluralist methods for visual global politics. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 43(3), 872–890. Bleiker, R. (ed.) (2018). Visual global politics. Routledge. Boswell, J., Corbett, J., Dommett, K., Jennings, W., Fliders, M., Rhodes, R.A.W., and Wood, M. (2019) State of the field: What can political ethnography tell us about anti-politics and democratic disaffection. European Journal of Political Research, 58, 56–71. Boucher, A. (2017). Power in elite interviewing: Lessons from feminist studies in political science. Women’s Studies International Forum, 62, 69–106. Bray, Z. (2008). Ethnographic approaches. In D. della Porta and M. Keating (eds.), Approaches and methodologies in the social sciences: A pluralist perspective (pp. 296–316). Cambridge University Press. Carlson, B., and Frazer, R. (2018). Social media mob: Being indigenous online. Macquarie University. Clark, A., Holland, C., Katz, J. and Peace, S. (2009). Learning to see: Lessons from a participatory observation research project in public spaces. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 12(4), 345–360. Curato, N. (2019). Democracy in a time of misery: From spectacular tragedy to deliberative action. Oxford University Press. Denzin, N.K., and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds.) (2011). The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Sage Publications.

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Marsh, D., O’Toole, T., and Jones, S. (2006). Young people and politics in the UK: Apathy or alienation? Springer. McSwiney, J., Vaughan, M., Heft, A., and Hoffman, M. (2021). Sharing the hate? Memes and transnationality in the far right’s digital visual culture. Information, Communication & Society. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​1369118X​.2021​.1961006. Mendonça, R.F., Ercan, S.A., and Asenbaum, H. (2020). More than words: Multidimensional approach to deliberative democracy. Political Studies. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1177/​0032321720950561. Mosley, L. (ed.) (2013) Interview research in political science. Cornell University Press. Muhamad, R., Horey, D., and Liamputtong, P. (2019). Photo-elicitation for inclusive research on sensitive topics. In P. Liamputtong (ed.), Handbook of social inclusion, research and practices in health social science. New York: Springer. https://​doi​.org/​ 10​.1007/​978​-3​-030​-48277​-0​_62​-1. Murray, S., and Powell, A. (2009). ‘What’s the problem?’ Australian public policy constructions of domestic and family violence. Violence Against Women, 15(5), 532–552. Nishiyama, K. (2018). Using the community of inquiry for interviewing children: Theory and practice. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 21(5), 553–564. Padgett, D.K., Smith, B.T., Derejko, K., Henwood, B.F., and Tiderington, E. (2013). A picture is worth …? Photo elicitation interviewing with formerly homeless adults. Qualitative Health Research, 11, 1435–1144. Parkinson, J. (2012). Democracy and public space: The physical sites of democratic performance. Oxford University Press. Polletta, F., and Ho, M.K. (2006). Frames and their consequences. In R. Goodin and C. Tilly (eds.), The Oxford handbook of contextual political studies (pp. 187–209). Oxford University Press. Reinharz, S. (1992). Feminist methods in social research. Oxford University Press. Rhodes, R.A.W. (2002). Putting the people back into networks. Australian Journal of Political Science, 3(37), 399–416. Rhodes, R.A.W. (2011). Everyday life in British government. Oxford University Press. Rose, G. (2001). Visual methodologies: An introduction to the interpretation of visual materials. Sage Publications. Schön, D.A., and Rein, M. (1994). Frame reflection: Toward the resolution of intractable policy controversies. Basic Books. Schwartz-Shea, P., and Yanow, D. (2012). Interpretive research design: Concepts and processes. Routledge. Shannon, L.W. (1954). ‘The opinions of Little Orphan Annie and her friends’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 18(2), 169–179. Stanley, L. (2016). Using focus groups in political science and international relations. Politics, 36(3), 236–249. Stephens, N., and Dimond, R. (2019). Researching among elites. In P. Liamputtong (ed.), Handbook of research methods in health social sciences. Springer. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1007/​978​-981​-10​-2779​-6​_135​-1. Vromen, A., and Gauja, A. (2009). Protesters, parliamentarians, policymakers: The experiences of Australian Green MPs. Journal of Legislative Studies, 15(1), 87–110. Vromen, A., Loader, B.D., and Xenos, M.A. (2015). Beyond lifestyle politics in a time of crisis? Comparing young peoples’ issue agendas and views on inequality. Policy Studies, 36(6), 532–549.

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8. Conducting qualitative research in criminology1 Max Travers INTRODUCTION In the last few years, I have written three reviews about different aspects of qualitative research in criminology. The first was a conceptual paper in a journal special issue I co-edited on ethnography, crime and criminal justice (Travers, 2013). At the time, we were fired up by the neglect of this research method in Australia, and the apparent forgetting within criminology of a once vibrant tradition of street and institutional ethnography. My paper in the special issue made a provocative argument: that there is an ‘uneasy relationship’ at a foundational and theoretical level between criminology as this has become and qualitative research; and, with a few exceptions, there was not much qualitative about qualitative criminology at this stage in the sense of engaging with different theories (Travers, 2001) or employing a full range of methods. The second review was about court ethnography, a sub-field or distinct genre in qualitative research (Travers, 2021). My brief was to demonstrate how court ethnographies have resulted in ‘useful’ findings for policy makers and practitioners. This third review is for a collection that offers an overview of qualitative research in different social science disciplines. A diverse readership may include researchers seeking to learn about how to conduct qualitative research in criminology, and perhaps some practitioners and policy makers. This collection also seems to invite comparative observations. What is distinctive about the challenges for qualitative researchers in this field? How does qualitative research in criminology compare to fields such as education or medicine? I have necessarily been selective in my approach to identifying some methodological issues and in choosing examples. I start by giving some background on criminology as a discipline, focusing on complaints about political conservatism, and its bias towards positivism and quantitative research. The next two sections consider some methodological issues that arise when conducting studies about criminal justice practitioners and offenders. Criminology is 132

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distinctive as a mostly applied subject that concerns the work of practitioners in the criminal justice system, and also because its subject matter includes ‘criminal’ behaviour. For the first topic, I have drawn on my own research into bail decision-making and pre-trial services as an example. For the second, I have drawn on Alice Goffman’s (2014) On the Run, and my own contact with offenders during my doctoral project. In a fourth section, I have chosen to discuss discourse analysis, at least how this is conducted by conversation analysts. This is an under-appreciated research tradition in criminology, but a central tradition in qualitative research that has influenced my own work as an ethnographer. Finally in a fifth section, I will consider the issue of innovations, through considering the candidate fields of gesture studies and cultural criminology. There are many aspects of qualitative research that will not be considered in this review, or addressed only briefly, including the challenges of ethics review (Hay and Israel, 2012). I hope to demonstrate how qualitative research is diverse, intellectually interesting, thoroughly contestable and potentially useful in each section.

AN UNEASY RELATIONSHIP At an advanced level, it is difficult to separate the consideration of epistemological issues, and the politics of research, from technical considerations about method. This is apparent if you consider the growth of criminology as an academic discipline since the 1960s. At the start of that decade, criminology was an empiricist subject serving the needs of policy makers (Downes and Rock, 2016). Empiricists claim to describe the world without needing to engage in philosophical, theoretical or political debates about the nature of society or how to obtain knowledge. Criminology was then challenged by the rise of sociology, including critical structural traditions such as Marxism and feminism, and interactionist traditions that examined sympathetically the experiences of outsiders and ‘deviant’ groups. In this context, quantitative research has often been associated with mainstream conservative criminology, and qualitative research with advancing a critical view through addressing lived experiences. However, even at the height of this movement in the early 1970s, qualitative researchers were a minority voice in a conservative discipline. Today, nothing much has changed. Critical criminology has to some extent absorbed interactionism, and recognises the value of qualitative research. But even critical criminology is a minority sub-field that hardly troubles the mainstream discipline.2 One related development since the 1960s has been the institutionalisation of research methods as part of the training for graduate students in social science. In criminology, especially in the USA, over time the quantitative tradition has become the dominant way of thinking in the discipline. Criminology is both

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conservative politically and highly quantitative to the extent it often does not recognise other methods. They are not seen as scientific by mainstream journals. This dominance presents challenges for qualitative researchers who are sometimes excluded or feel isolated in this field. The response of qualitative researchers in this uneasy relationship has varied. Today, there are some optimistic statements, with one recent call for papers even talking of a ‘renaissance’ in qualitative research (Faria and Petintseva, 2021). But mostly qualitative researchers are pessimists, complaining about their marginal status or aspiring to be a sub-field (Copes, 2012). Meanwhile, quantitative researchers express disbelief that there is a problem. One commentator suggested that every criminologist could use either a hammer or a wrench as a tool depending on the research topic or question (Pratt, 2012). There was no need for philosophical or political discussion about their merits. Unfortunately, many reviewers in mainstream journals believe that only the hammer can produce objective or scientific knowledge (Travers, 2013). Here, it is worth giving two examples from my own experience to strengthen statistical findings that few qualitative papers are published in mainstream criminology journals. A constructionist paper I wrote about juvenile justice (Travers, 2010) was rejected by reviewers, probably psychologists, because in their view it could not possibly be ‘objective’. At the very least, observations had to be conducted by paired reviewers. What was interesting was that the journal editor, unusually a newly appointed critical criminologist, accepted this dogmatic view uncritically. Fortunately, another journal based in a law school accepted the paper. My second example is a paper about mixed methods research (Travers, 2014). My argument was that qualitative comparison can strengthen quantitative findings about sentencing. I also argued that the research methodologies were distinctive: the work of the qualitative researcher began when quantitative research ended and vice versa. It was pleasing that the paper was published. Yet for it to be published, a section on philosophical debates was removed as ‘outdated’ and unhelpful. Also the qualitative data, transcripts that were intended to show the complexity of decision-making, were removed since it was thought they added little to the argument. To get published, a qualitative paper had to pull its punches, and lose its data.

RESEARCHING PROFESSIONAL WORK Although there have been recent efforts to broaden criminology as a discipline, through addressing global processes (for example, Aas, 2013; Burke, 2021), or incorporating critical literatures from sociology, the core remains research about crime and the criminal justice system in western countries. Sometimes one hears the view that these topics are well-worked, and there is nothing left to

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say. But many areas of practice have not been fully described. The best studies were conducted some years ago, and today it has become difficult to investigate professional work and organisational politics. This is partly because after years of public spending cuts, criminal justice professionals have less time to assist researchers. The rise of managerialism is also responsible: when they do have resources to conduct research, organisations favour positive studies by evaluators rather than critical research by criminologists. A third factor is what has pessimistically been viewed as the death of the university (Reading, 1997). The university itself, once the home of democratic values and the pursuit of scientific knowledge, serves the needs of industry and government agencies. Occupational Perspectives and Practical Tasks Anyone working in a complex social institution will come into contact with many occupational groups, and know that within these groups there are different approaches and specialties. Before I became a sociologist, I worked as a trainee in a law firm. Defence lawyers saw clients as innocent not simply until they had been found guilty, but in some cases for many years of appeals afterwards.3 In fact, asking whether a client was guilty or innocent made no sense within this professional perspective. Many might find such a social phenomenon (a professional outlook) uninteresting and trivial. It was, therefore, pleasing to find that during the 1960s interactionists had been interested in occupational perspectives and everyday work practices. Everett Hughes (1958) and his students conducted insightful, descriptive studies about work and organisations. Later during my doctoral research about a firm of criminal lawyers, I was introduced by my supervisors to a tradition in qualitative research known as ethnomethodology.4 Researchers examined and made visible practical actions and reasoning in occupations. I became interested in researching the work of defence lawyers, and later judicial officers in the lower courts employing ethnographic methods, focusing on the detail of their routine, practical tasks. Not everyone will find this interpretive research agenda interesting, but for me providing a realistic account of decision-making has been satisfying as a contribution to criminology. I have also used my studies to advance a political message. For example, simply describing the work of pre-trial services makes the reader aware that there are alternatives to business as usual (Travers et al., 2020). I have also used my studies as a vehicle to advance an interpretive corrective to critical traditions that advance too political or one-sided a message about crime and criminal justice.

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Obtaining a Surety A court ethnography addresses many different occupational perspectives, and contains a large amount of data, whether from observation, interviewing practitioners, or in some cases documents such as the record of a case in the prosecution file. It is the large amount of data presented in a monograph that makes work in this occupational setting interesting, and perhaps achieves a kind of objectivity even though any study can be criticised for possible bias, and even systematically de-constructed on political grounds. Yet at a basic level, the aim for the interpretive researcher influenced by Everett Hughes (1958) is simply to describe routine, everyday work. Consider, for example, this account by a Legal Aid lawyer of what is involved in obtaining a surety in a bail application: [The magistrate’s going to want some sort of guarantee that you’re going to come to court next time]. What they might want is a surety, that’s someone who can guarantee that you will be there. ‘Can you think of anyone?’ ‘No, I can’t think of anyone’. ‘What about Mum or Dad?’. ‘Oh yeah my Mum could do it’. ‘OK. Do you know her phone number?’ ‘No, I don't know it’. ‘OK um do you have it in your phone?’ ‘Yeah my phone’s in my property’. ‘OK what’s your Mum’s name. What’s her date of birth?’ That’s how the conversation goes. They will know her name but never know her phone number. It is very rare which is really frustrating. And they never have their phones because they’re with the police. So sometimes we’ll go down there and ask to get access to their phone which is a hassle in itself because they have to get it out of police property [in the next building] and that takes up a lot of time. Then you have to find out, ‘Do you have a pin number on your phone? Do you give me permission to use that number?’ It’s a bit of a painful process. Then, if there are cases which definitely need a surety, I will say look I’ve called your Mum and your sister and I’ve called your auntie, your auntie didn’t answer. Your Mum said no way in hell would she be a surety and your sister couldn’t get here in time, so then I’ll say we can either go for bail without a surety but that may not be successful or we cannot make an application for bail and you can try and contact your Mum. (Travers et al., 2020: 83)

When you observe bail applications in court you can hear magistrates ask whether the defendant has a surety. But what you cannot see are these frantic efforts behind the scenes. Does this really matter? In my view, the qualitative research humanises the defendant. It is hardly surprising that families lose patience. It also suggests critical questions about the bail system. Would some defendants obtain bail without delay if they had access in the court cells to their phones? Perhaps such simple measures would result in a significant reduction of imprisonment, a policy objective in many jurisdictions.

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RESEARCHING OFFENDERS A distinctive feature of criminology as a discipline is that its subject matter includes both the criminal justice system and criminal behaviour. This second objective raises controversial issues from the outset. Most researchers see offenders as either bad people who should be punished or as deficient and in need of help from welfare services (the two arguments are often combined). However, those influenced by the labelling tradition in interactionism or critical theory have a different view. They see crime as a rational response to poor social and economic circumstances. Moreover, subordinate groups such as the working class or black people are targeted by the police and warehoused in prisons. They should not be seen as criminals, but as ‘criminalised’ by virtue of being seen as a threat to those with money and power. In this chapter, I want to set these debates in criminological theory to one side. Instead, I will consider the issue of evidence in a politicised field, and the extent to which one can have meaningful contact with criminals, and how this affects researchers. Evidence and Politics Very few ethnographies about crime and criminal justice are published each year, but when one is published about subordinate groups with a liberal political message it is normally very successful and receives considerable publicity. A study published several years ago that met these criteria was Philippe Bourgois’ (2002) In Search of Respect. This anthropologist went to live for a year in a Hispanic neighbourhood in New York. He obtained a job in a crack house and wrote about its brutal business, including the mistreatment of women. The study is non-judgemental in describing terrible acts of violence, and even justifies them on the grounds that there are few legitimate economic opportunities for migrants. The most recent ethnographic study of this type is Alice Goffman’s (2014) On the Run. Goffman got to know a group of young, black offenders in a deprived area in Philadelphia, through initially tutoring in a family. She became accepted as an observer and was in regular contact for several years before and after she was an undergraduate student. Her focus became the practices employed to evade the police. For example, those on the run would keep away from hospitals, because it was known that police officers were waiting there. Instead, there was an underground industry of amateur medical services. Field medics were paid out of the proceeds of petty crime. This ethnography received much praise and attention from US sociologists. I attended a conference in which there was a dedicated session about the study, and incidentally a whole stream on urban ethnography. The study was also

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criticised by a law academic (Lubet, 2018) for possibly fabricating data or not presenting findings that could be verified. Although this author seemed to believe this was a new insight, in fact similar criticisms of ethnography are regularly made by quantitative researchers. Ethnography is seen as impressionistic and anecdotal, whereas quantitative research results in objective knowledge. Goffman was also roundly criticised by community groups who believe that only black people should write about their problems. Given what has subsequently been revealed in many parts of the USA by the Black Lives Matter movement, Goffman could today be criticised for understating police misconduct. Contact with Criminals in the Field Forty years after Polsky’s (1967) blistering attack on official criminology, there is still a moralistic rather than scientific attitude towards offending. Even describing offenders or criminals as people who are ‘criminalised’ seems as strange as accepting uncritically official claims about criminality. There really are criminals in the sense of people who commit criminal offences, some of whom are convicted by courts. Polsky made what might seem the reasonable suggestion that criminologists should research these groups sympathetically with the same care as researching criminal justice practitioners. In his view, not to do so is to betray the scientific mission of social scientists: … it is an abdication of sociology’s role as a special discipline able uniquely to discover certain types of knowledge and understandings of social life – abdication in favour of a misguided ‘democratic’ notion that a society’s official acts and conventional public definitions really tell us what the society is all about, and that the sociologist’s main job is to count and codify them. (Polsky, 1967: 111)

Goffman’s study of a group of young black offenders probably most irritated her critics because it offers a sympathetic view of criminals. The ethnographic insights did not, however, come without costs. As her famous father might have said, ethnography as a method involves getting close to some group, and then probably betraying this group when you write for different readerships (see Goffman, 1989). You may feel bad about yourself for a while, or you can turn this into a career asset by writing retrospectively about ‘ethical’ issues. In my view, the best chapter in Goffman’s study is about what could be described in literary terms as a journey into the ‘heart of darkness’ (Conrad, 2010/1899). She spent more and more time with her research subjects. She found she was eating poorly and sleeping less to accommodate their lifestyles. She felt like a ghost when attending lectures at the university. She desired vengeance when a friend was shot. This journey may be exaggerated in her account, or it may

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be she actually experienced these emotions. Bourgois (2002), who regularly witnessed terrible acts of violence in a crack house apparently experienced few ill-effects. Polsky (1967) suggests that not only is it desirable to study criminals, but it is easier than one might expect. My own experience can perhaps demonstrate what is possible. I was studying a small firm of criminal lawyers, who unusually were embedded in a deprived community and saw themselves as ‘radical’ or against the police (Travers, 1997). Many criminal lawyers develop friendships with clients, although for obvious reasons there are boundaries. The lawyers in this firm had close ties to two groups. The first were young offenders from the neighbourhood. The second were older career criminals who wanted to fight cases, rather than making deals. Some were professional armed robbers who had spent years in prison. Many career criminals are personable and interesting people. One defendant whom the firm successfully represented was friendly with business people who were apparently attracted to criminal types. When I met this person by chance in a clothes store a few months after the trial, it would have been possible to have a coffee, and perhaps meet people in this network. In contrast to Goffman, I chose to keep my distance, partly because I had accomplished my objectives in the ethnography.

THE VALUE OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS There has been only one qualitative methods text for criminologists and law students (Wincup, 2017), some sections in general collections (for example, Karstedt et al., 2011), some dedicated collections (for example, Copes, 2012) and a special journal issue (Travers et al., 2013). You will, however, find hardly any mention in these texts of discourse analysis. This method is not widely used or understood even in sociology, or confused with the textual, historical analysis conducted by Foucauldians. Yet, a different type of research with the same name, based on analysing audio-recordings of everyday and institutional interaction, is conducted in the disciplines of sociolinguistics and communication studies. The field of conversation analysis, in particular, has resulted in many studies of interaction and language use in the criminal justice process (Ten Have, 2007). This section will review two studies that were produced or influenced by this tradition. From Police Interviews to Statements Martha Komter (2019) is unusual as a conversation analyst in employing a longitudinal approach in analysing the production and use of texts. Others have examined the linguistic devices used to secure confessions in police interrogations. Instead, Komter focuses on how the police interview results in a written

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statement and how this is later used and interpreted by judicial officers in the Netherlands. The data consist of numerous audio-recordings of interviews and court proceedings for these defendants obtained through developing a good relationship with police organisations over a long period. Conversation analytic research supplies detailed description of interactions. It seeks to reveal communicative methods that are normally taken for granted. To give an example, here is an analysis of part of a two-page statement made by a suspect: Whereas the numbers before the dash identify the case, the number 3 after the dash displays this document as the third in a series. This number shows that the document is part of a case file under construction that already contains two police reports (such as reports of the arrest, witness statements, etc.). It makes the report ‘the next one’, in relation to the report preceding it, and ‘a previous one’ with respect to the documents still to come. As a result, this report can be read to confirm, contradict or complement previous reports, and it can contain information that will affect the reading and writing of next reports. Then the text moves from the left-hand corner to the middle of the page, highlighting this as the heading for everything that follows. In bold typescript, it is a display of what kind of object this is: a police report of a suspect interrogation. (Komter, 2019: 149)

The objective is not to make political points about the many dramatic cases of police misconduct reported in the media, but to describe how routine work gets done. Nor is it suggested that police procedures ‘necessarily’ lead to procedural unfairness. Komter (2019: 208) believes that they can ‘help the professionals deepen their understanding of the entextualisation process and sensitise their alertness to the possible effects of unreported actions of police interrogators on their understanding of the police report’. Vulnerable Defendants and Bail Conversation analysis as a pure scientific tradition focuses on language use that can be recorded and repeatably studied in a transcript. Other research traditions seek to combine ethnography and discourse analysis. In my own studies, for example, there are chapters based on interviewing practitioners, and other chapters that present transcripts from legal hearings (for example, Travers, 1997). The analysis of the transcripts is informed by the understanding of legal work developed during the ethnography (cf. Maynard, 2003). There are other differences that arise from practical constraints, and the political environment. Komter obtained permission to make audio-recordings of police interviews and legal hearings. My own doctoral dissertation drew heavily on notes taken one morning in court when a lawyer persuaded a vulnerable client to plead guilty. In subsequent studies, I have collected data through taking notes in public legal hearings.

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This publicly available data from court observation, combined with practitioner interviews, has enabled me to write about different stages of the criminal justice process. My most recent study, with a research group, has been about bail decision-making (Travers et al., 2020). One question was how criminal courts in Australia at the pre-trial stage responded to vulnerable defendants: for example, those with a drug problem or mental illness, or who were homeless. In order to improve our chances of funding, we designed a mixed methods study. We observed 150 hearings in four states, and found that 50% of defendants had some kind of vulnerability. We also presented and discussed transcripts of bail applications. This mixed methods project shows in some detail how the issue of vulnerability arose in bail applications, and the responses in different courts.

INNOVATIONS Qualitative research is a field known for innovations. These arise partly through the opportunities offered by new technologies. But there is also theoretical innovation as researchers in recent years have questioned past approaches and engaged with poststructuralism and postmodernism (Denzin and Lincoln, 2017). This section will give a taste of innovation by qualitative researchers in criminology. It will consider the opportunities offered by new technologies, using gesture analysis as an example. It will also consider claims made for theoretical innovation by cultural criminology. New Technologies In the late 1960s, the cheap, portable tape-recorder made possible the then new and innovative field of discourse analysis. Today, it is not only possible to make audio-recordings easily, but also to take photographs and even make video-recordings. You can also analyse and share the information digitally. These technological advances have made possible new methods of qualitative research. One example is what is called ‘photo-elicitation’. You give your subjects cameras and ask them to take photographs about their daily activities, and comment on these in an audio or video diary. When successful, such a project results in data about personal experiences and perceptions that could not have been achieved from traditional interviews. You can imagine such a study conducted about how people experience incarceration. The technology also makes it possible (in theory) to present data in new ways. You can imagine a digital thesis that contains video clips, for example of encounters between police and citizens. There was also at least initially the hope that new ethnographies would present data through text, audio-recordings and images. Hyperlinks would provide an exciting means of exploring data.

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New analytic fields in criminology have been made possible by these advances. A good example is gesture analysis when this is used to understand the work of lawyers and other criminal justice professionals. The methodology involves making or obtaining videos of trial participants. Greg Matoesian and Kristin Gilbert (2018: 7) note that more is taking place than conversational exchanges: Attorneys gaze at witnesses when addressing them, beat out the rhythm of their speech with distinct hand movements, and extend an open palm facing upward when posing a contrastive question to reveal an inconsistency in testimony. By the same token, witnesses raise their right hand when taking the oath (in the United States), spread both palms upward and horizontally as if pleading to ‘give me a break’, and curl their fingers under the thumb while extending an arm and index finger to point out the accused among co-present participants. (Matoesian and Gilbert, 2018: 7)

This analysis of non-verbal aspects of communication may or may not have practical applications. It seems to be implied that most skilled and successful lawyers are communicating through both talk and gestures. Perhaps social scientists can teach and improve such skills by describing them to practitioners. Yet even if one sets aside utilitarian expectations, the study allows us to appreciate an important aspect of legal work that is mostly taken for granted, or glossed by general terms such as ‘impression management’ (Goffman, 1959). Cultural Criminology Gesture studies could be seen as innovative within criminology for employing a new method (video analysis). By contrast, most qualitative researchers interview informants and conduct ethnographic fieldwork. These methods could not be described as innovative. However, innovation comes from the development and promotion of new theoretical frameworks and research agendas. Successful innovative approaches offer new ways to analyse and theorise qualitative data. Although there are few movements of this kind in criminology, it is worth acknowledging the contribution of cultural criminology. Unusually, this has made the promotion of qualitative methods central to advancing a critical perspective. Jeff Ferrell, Keith Hayward and Jock Young (2015) have argued that mainstream criminology has become both highly conservative, and also boring, in requiring researchers to collect and analyse quantitative data. They advocate that critical criminologists should conduct ethnographies, or use qualitative methods in analysing cultural processes. What makes the approach innovative is how various resources are cross-fertilised into a qualitative research agenda. This has considerable political bite because criminology has a conservative bias and mainly employs quantitative methods.

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Cultural criminology is a mix of old ideas from different traditions, but one can admire the skilful way these are developed and packaged into a criminological position. Cultural criminologists believe, like previous critical ethnographers, that ‘existing subcultural and interactionist perspectives only gather real explanatory traction when integrated with historical and contemporary criminologies of power and inequality’ (Ferrell et al., 2015: 5). They have also drawn on the work of interpretive ethnographers, such as Jack Katz (1990), and postmodernism at a theoretical level, in recognising the importance of the emotions. This mixing of ideas makes this qualitative approach innovative. It is, however, worth acknowledging that, like any sociologically based approach, cultural criminology can be criticised by traditions with different philosophical and political assumptions. Ferrell et al. (2015) argue that quantitative methods assist in portraying offenders as deviants. According to them, the articles published in mainstream journals, based on analysing statistics, present a reductive, de-humanised account of criminal behaviour as caused by social structural factors or psychological and even biological deficiencies. Instead, ethnographies conducted by cultural criminologists reveal that offenders obtain emotional satisfaction and thrills from, for example, shoplifting or criminal damage. They make it possible to view criminal behaviour sympathetically as a response to inequality. One response might be that cultural criminologists offer an equally idealised, selective and politically motivated view of crime. Strain and control theorists do not have a monopoly when it comes to imposing their political views on a messy social reality. Critical ethnographers can also interpret the actions of their subjects in ways that bear little relationship to how they understand their own lives. One contradiction that seems to arise from trying to combine interpretivism and critical theory is that cultural criminologists seek to address the meaningful character of human group life, while at the same time claiming to have a greater insight into the structural forces that shape our actions than their research subjects. These difficulties are, to some extent, acknowledged by Jeff Ferrell (1993) in his critical ethnography about graffiti artists in Denver. In the following passage, he argues that it is important to understand their activities and viewpoint. But he also claims to understand the structural forces that shape their actions: Does this imply that every broken window … every Krylon-tagged alley wall … signifies an act of politically conscious resistance? Absolutely not, and maybe yes. Our answer depends, at least in part, on what we mean by ‘conscious’ … The question thus becomes, not ‘Is this crime or resistance,’ but ‘In what ways might the participants in this event be conscious of, and resistant to, the contradictions in which they are caught?’ Whatever the answer, two things seem certain. The first is that we must take the time to pay attention to what people are actually doing when

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they are sticking up liquor stores, shoplifting shoes, or spraying graffiti. The second is that political-economic structures – and thus power, control, subordination and insubordination – are embedded in these events as surely as in governmental scandals or labor strikes. (Ferrell, 1993: 172)

In his discussion of method, Ferrell suggests that that there is something democratic about participating in different social worlds, and particularly about sharing in the experiences of offenders: To engage in ethnography … is to humble oneself before those being studied, to seek and respect their understandings, and to take note of cultural nuance because it matters. (Ferrell, 1993: 176)

It is, however, not always clear how the critical ethnographer differs from mainstream criminologists in imposing a political interpretation over the lived experience of offenders or criminal justice practitioners. If ethnography is a critical method, superior to conducting surveys or analysing statistics, it is not without its own problems. For one thing, the messy and complex nature of the social world makes it difficult to advance a critical, political viewpoint while addressing different perspectives and experiences. There is also, arguably, an ethical problem that arises today, but did not exist during the 1960s or even the 1980s, in justifying research that provides a one-sided, political account without engaging with these complexities. This is because there currently seems little prospect of transforming the capitalist system through political action.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS This chapter has gone further than my previous reviews in appreciating the diversity of qualitative research about crime and criminal justice, and also underlying theoretical and philosophical debates. It has given a taste of methodological debates. It has reviewed ethnographies influenced or informed by symbolic interactionism and critical theory. It has also made a case for the value of discourse analysis as a distinctive method that is often ignored in reviews, collections and textbooks about qualitative methods in criminology. At the time of writing, I remain optimistic about the future of qualitative research in criminology despite the obvious challenges. Qualitative researchers have to contend with a discipline that it is still dominated, at least in the USA, by quantitative researchers. To give an example, abstracts for papers to be presented at the 2021 American Society of Criminology annual conference had to be presented as reporting ‘objective’ findings. Yet there are opportunities to establish a qualitative sub-field. One challenge is to recognise that

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high-quality research has already been conducted by different disciplines, including sociology and communication studies.

NOTES 1.

2. 3. 4.

The section on cultural criminology draws on a previously published paper in I. Bartkowiak-Theron and M.Travers (eds.) Changing the Way We Think about Change: The 6th Annual Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference Proceedings (2013), University of Tasmania, Hobart, pp. 119–126. The paper was titled: ‘Ethnography and cultural criminology: What makes a research method critical?’. This is evident in the higher-ranking criminology journals, and how methods are taught in most US programs. We represented the convicted mass murderer Jeremy Bamber in his first appeal. For details of a later appeal, see Hattenstone (2020). See Cuff et al. (2015), Chapter 7, for an accessible introduction.

REFERENCES Aas, K. (2013). Globalisation and crime. London: Sage. Bourgois, P. (2002). In search of respect: Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burke, R. (2021). Contemporary criminological theory. London: Routledge. Conrad, J. (2010/1899). Heart of darkness. London: Collins. Copes, H. (ed.) (2012). Advancing qualitative methods in criminology and criminal justice. London: Routledge. Cuff, E., Dennis, A., Sharrock, W., and Francis, D. (2015). Perspectives in sociology. London: Routledge. Denzin, N., and Lincoln, Y. (2017). Sage handbook of qualitative research, 5th edn. London: Sage. Downes, D., and Rock, P. (2016). Understanding deviance: A guide to the sociology of law and rule-making. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Faria, R., and Petintseva, O. (2021). Call for papers, Special issue Crime, Law and Social Change: Traditions and Innovations in Qualitative Methods in Criminology, https://​www​.springer​.com/​journal/​10611/​updates/​18898282, accessed 27 May 2021. Ferrell, J. (1993). Crimes of style: Urban graffiti and the politics of criminality. Boston, Mass: Northeastern University Press. Ferrell, J., Hayward, K., and Young, J. (2015). Cultural criminology: An invitation, 2nd edn. London: Sage. Goffman, A. (2014). On the run: Fugitive life in an American city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor. Goffman, E. (1989). On fieldwork (transcribed and edited by L. Lofland). Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 18(2), 123–132. Hattenstone, S. (2020). Jeremy Bamber lawyers say new evidence undermines conviction. The Guardian, 12 February, https://​www​.theguardian​.com/​uk​-news/​2020/​feb/​ 11/​jeremy​-bamber​-lawyers​-say​-new​-evidence​-undermines​-conviction accessed 27 May 2021.

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Hay, I., and Israel, M. (2012). Research ethics in criminology. In D. Gadd, S. Karsted and S. Messner (eds.), Sage handbook of criminological research methods (pp. 500–514). London: Sage. Hughes, E. (1958). Men and their work. New York: The Free Press. Karstedt, S., Messner, S., and Gadd, D. (eds.) (2011). Sage handbook of criminological research methods. London: Sage. Katz, J. (1990). Seductions of crime. New York: Basic Books. Komter, M. (2019). The suspect’s statement: Talk and text in the criminal process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lubet, S. (2018). Interrogating ethnography: Why evidence matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maynard, D. (2003). Bad news, good news: Conversational order in everyday talk and clinical settings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Matoesian, G., and Gilbert, K. (2018). Multimodal conduct in the law: Language, gesture and materiality in legal interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Polsky, N. (1967). Hustlers, beats, and others. New York: The Lyons Press Pratt, T. (2012). Introduction. In T. Pratt (ed.), Advancing quantitative methods in criminology and criminal justice (pp. 1–2). London: Routledge. Readings, B. (1997). The university in ruins. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press Ten Have, P. (2007). Doing conversation analysis, 2nd edn. London: Sage. Travers, M. (1997). The reality of law: Work and talk in a firm of criminal lawyers. Aldershot: Ashgate. Travers, M. (2001). Qualitative research through case studies. London: Sage. Travers, M. (2010). Welfare, punishment or something else? Sentencing minor offences committed by young people in Tasmania and Victoria. Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 22(1), 99–116. Travers, M. (2012). The sentencing of children: Professional work and perspectives. Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing, http://​www​.​sentencing​ofchildren​ .com/​. Travers, M. (2013). The uneasy relationship between criminology and qualitative research. In M. Travers, J. Putt and D. Howard-Wagner (eds.), Special Issue on Ethnography, Crime and Criminal Justice, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 25(1), 551–558. Travers, M. (2014).Using ethnographic methods to strengthen quantitative data: Explaining juvenile detention rates in three Australian states. Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Methodologie Sociologique, 124(1), 66–76. Travers, M. (2021). Court ethnography. In S. Bucerius, K. Haggerty and L. Berardi (eds.), Oxford handbook of ethnographies of crime and criminal justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Travers, M., Colvin, E., Bartkowiak-Theron, I., Sarre, R., Day, A., and Bond, C. (2020). Rethinking bail: Court reform or business as usual. London: Palgrave. Travers, M., Putt, J., and Howard-Wagner (eds.) (2013). Special Issue on Ethnography, Crime and Criminal Justice, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 25(1). Wincup, E. (2017). Criminological research: Understanding qualitative methods, 2nd edn. London: Sage.

9. Qualitative research in demography: marginal and marginalised1 Joe Strong, Rishita Nandagiri, Sara Randall and Ernestina Coast INTRODUCTION Demography, as a discipline, developed from a desire to understand human population dynamics (e.g., Graunt’s Bills of Mortality in the seventeenth century (Glass, 1964), the works of Thomas Malthus (Wrigley and Souden, 1986)) and the development of the modern nation-state, which required counting people in order to administer and control them (Foucault, 2003; Legg, 2005). The discipline retains a close relationship with governance and policy, particularly through quantitative administrative data (e.g., censuses), which are key sources for demographic analysis. Quantitative data are fundamental to demography: population-level dynamics can only be expressed through quantitative means. With a few notable exceptions (Cicourel, 1974), there was little qualitative demographic research before the 1980s. Assumptions in qualitative methods that ‘facts’ are socially constructed and vary from person to person are counter to objectivist approaches in quantitative demography. The latter has historically been represented as atheoretical, while the former critiqued for its reliance on theory. Yet this is a false binary – to be positivist and objectivist is to make theoretical assumptions of the nature of the answers to survey questions. The emergence of qualitative methods within demography has challenged this, with qualitative work highlighting that the answers to ‘simple’ questions, such as how many living children a person has, are, in fact, complex and socially and culturally shaped.

DISCIPLINARY ORIGINS AND TRADITIONS During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, colonial European census administrators incorporated approaches that could be thought of as ‘qualitative research’, although it was not articulated as such. The control and governance 147

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of people living under colonial regimes meant that censuses – with their focus on complete enumeration – were sometimes informed by colonial administrators’ understandings of residential and marriage patterns, and vocabulary to define and explain the units of data collection (Randall et al., 2015). However, as demographic data collection became more standardised and harmonised during the 1960s and 1970s, more demographers were trained, both from the Global South and Global North. Whatever their geographic origins, these demographers were trained in the Global North – or in Global South schools which followed these standardised paradigms, methods and definitions. Representativity and comparability were, and remain, key dimensions of these paradigms, and locally informed definitions and concepts were discarded in favour of UN sanctioned universal definitions. Overlaps between anthropological and demographic interests (reproduction, birth, family, marriage, migration) meant that some demographers acknowledged the relevance of anthropological insights for demography. Anthropological demography, however, tended to be dominated by anthropologists, trained in anthropological methods, theory and epistemology tackling themes which were of interest to demography. Some demographers (e.g., Jack Caldwell), eagerly embraced the integration of anthropological ideas into demographic research, although demography’s simplistic approach and functionalist vision of anthropology was criticised by many anthropologists: ‘the use of “culture” in demography seems mired in structural-functional concepts that are about 40 years old, hardening rapidly, and showing every sign of fossilization’ (Hammel, 1990: 456). Professional societies reflected the growing interest in the intersections of demography and anthropology. The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) set up a working group on Micro-approaches to Demographic Research in 1982. Two years later, they convened a workshop on ‘Micro-approaches to demographic research’ (Caldwell, Hill, and Hull, 1988) that brought together early career researchers whose work integrated anthropology and demography, many of whom went on to pioneer anthropological demography and qualitative demographic research. Other initiatives included the IUSSP Committee on Anthropological Demography (1998–2002) and in the early 2000s the European Association of Population Studies (EAPS) hosted a Working Group on Anthropological Demography (Bernardi and Hutter, 2007). The rapid increase in qualitative demographic data collection and research since the late 1990s is evidenced by analysis of key words in abstracts in mainstream demographic journals (Randall and Koppenhaver, 2004). This has accelerated more recently with the development and use of different qualitative methods, which battle to be acceptable to the demands for representative and comparable data by quantitative demography. Recent

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demographic conferences have reflected this in the uptick of qualitative strands, including ‘Qualitative demographic research: Challenging paradigms’ at the British Society for Population Studies Conference, 2021 (British Society of Population Studies, 2021), and ‘Sex, Childbearing, and Qualitative Perspectives’ at the Population Association of America Conference, 2021 (Population Association of America, 2021).

WHAT ARE DEMOGRAPHIC ‘FACTS’? As cogent disciplines like Sociology and Economics grapple with the ‘critical turn’ in their fields, there have been recent efforts to interrogate and reckon with some of the assumptions and ideas underpinning demographic work. Chatterjee and Riley (2018: 38) critique demography’s ‘facticity of numbers’ – a reliance on the ‘facts’ of its ‘objective’ numerical data. Others have described this penchant as ‘spreadsheet demography’ – where human beings are treated as ‘units’ in demographic exercises, overlooking sociological meanings and lacking critical self-reflection (Wang, Cai, Shen, and Gietel-Basten, 2018: 694–695). Within this ‘critical turn’, efforts like FemQuant (2021), a network of researchers drawing on feminist theories in their quantitative work, consider demographic knowledge production as political and mired in power. Drawing on the germinal theory of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989), Bauer (2014) and Green (2020), for example, demonstrate how it can be incorporated into quantitative population research without falling into an ‘additive’ trap. These critical turns underscore the importance of theory in demography as necessary to social science research and to enriching the discipline (Krieger, 2001; Williams, 2010). They also highlight that quantitative demographic data are no longer convincingly atheoretical nor apolitical (Horton, 1999; Sigle, 2016). Critical qualitative demographic research has challenged understandings of assumed universal or static notions (e.g., populations, households, fertility desires), highlighted persistent silences (e.g., infertility, men’s roles in reproduction), and problematised concepts (e.g., autonomy) and their implications for policy constructions (e.g., population policies) and analytical categories (e.g., categorical thinking).

SITUATING THE QUANTITATIVE-QUALITATIVE PARADIGM IN DEMOGRAPHY Greenhalgh (1997) argues that the role of qualitative approaches is not just methodological but also one of disciplinarity and how knowledge is produced and utilised. Qualitative methods in anthropology and demography, for example, may be similar (e.g., interviews, focus group discussions) but their

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use, understanding, and meaning differ between disciplines. Methods and their units of inquiry are linked to disciplinary priorities and frames. Qualitative methods when applied more critically in disciplines like Gender Studies, Sociology or Anthropology pay particular attention to ‘power’ and its many permutations, in addition to questioning and/or critiquing how knowledge is produced (see Chapters 3, 4 and 12 in this volume). Demographic work – at the risk of generalising – largely shies away from grappling with questions of power, despite a keen interest in measuring and documenting demographic inequalities. Despite the inclusion of qualitative research within demography, there has been an adherence to and strengthening of the centrality of quantitative research. Disciplinary backgrounds play a key role in shaping data and analytic approaches. Comparability is a core demographic value (Coast, Fanghanel, Lelievre, and Randall, 2016), reflected in the value for demography of national population censuses, which are the ‘most visible, and arguably the most politically important, means by which states statistically depict collective identities’ (Kertzer and Arel, 2002: 3). Quantitative surveys – often household-based – are a critical source of data for demographic analyses. Demographic research and its funding tend to privilege tools and instruments that allow for cross-contextual comparison. Harmonised surveys have been used to create global data, operationalised on the assumption that the global population can be measured, understood and explained using the same indicators. Such datasets are valued for their ability to achieve ‘representativeness’, allowing for claims and inferences to be made that are ‘generalisable’ to an entire population. These questionnaires and surveys – used to collect much demographic data – have become increasingly complex, elaborate and detailed. Demographic knowledge and evidence on population (fertility, mortality, migration and distribution) underpins much policy planning and agenda setting, confirming demography as a ‘policy science’ (Hodgson, 1983). A combination of drivers has led to qualitative methods: intractable problems or apparently inexplicable relationships identified by quantitative analyses; increasing demands to use data as a tool to effect change (desirable to those with power); and the imperative to understand the demography of people who might either avoid or be excluded from responding to large-scale data collection exercises. Qualitative methods and data have challenged the quantitative paradigm, including the questions asked, and the constraints, biases and consequences generated by the categories used in demographic research (Szreter, Sholkamy, and Dharmalingam, 2004; Randall and Coast, 2015).

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SPEAKING FROM THE MARGINS: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Demography tends to focus on the production of robust and reliable scientific evidence, with little reflexive engagement in its own scientific project. The strength of the quantitative data commodity chain in demography often renders qualitative research marginal (Erikson, 2012; Béhague and Storeng, 2013; Storeng and Béhague, 2017a). Quality standards and analytic expectations of mainstream qualitative methods (e.g., in-depth interviews, focus group discussions) are not tethered to notions of sub-/national representativeness or statistical generalisability. Rather, they rely on the assumption that people are not comparable but are unique and are shaped through their social interactions, constructing intersecting and diverging ways of thinking and knowing. Thus, their use in demography can play a dual role, where they are critical to demography whilst also being critical of demography. The disciplinary focus on understanding and counting populations has been strengthened by the increased sophistication and scale of quantitative survey techniques (Erikson, 2012; Béhague and Storeng, 2013; Storeng and Béhague, 2017a). The resulting epistemological tension has limited qualitative research in demography to three main uses. First, qualitative data and methods are treated as ancillary to quantitative research and methods, often utilised to ‘set the scene’ or inform the development of quantitative instruments. Second, they are used to explain outlying quantitative results or trends beyond the scope of quantitative explanation. Third, they can be seen as a mechanism to reach those made marginal in society, particularly hard to reach and hidden populations, who are frequently excluded from or invisible within large-scale quantitative enquiries. Qualitative data are often posited as ancillary to quantitative data within demographic research. Pushed to the margins, these data and the methods used to gather them are frequently applied either to describe the context of a survey, or to critique methods conventionally used to gather quantitative data. Ethnographic methods and data rooted in constructionist, qualitative epistemologies form the foundations of qualitative disciplines such as Anthropology (see also Chapters 3 and 4 in this volume). Within demography, ethnographies are often limited to being used as evidence to inform the creation of survey tools or describe the context of a quantitative study (Coast, 2003). By placing qualitative methods and data on the margins, demography limits the development of these methods, and is ill-equipped to grapple with the material, words, representations and relationships that are generated. This can result in an uncritical use of qualitative data to inform quantitative inquiry, without con-

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sidering what the qualitative data and methods might be (re)producing because of the assumptions, methods and analytical framework applied. Moreover, qualitative research is frequently used to explain components of population dynamics that are made inexplicable through quantitative analysis (Randall and Koppenhaver, 2004; Coast, Hampshire, and Randall, 2007). Where unexpected or inexplicable responses or trends are uncovered, qualitative research is used to supplement or explain away these findings. Demography tends towards removing or marking these incongruities or outlying trends as erroneous, as opposed to mapping the margins of data to understand the social, political and economic factors at play. Recent focus on the role of gender in fertility, for example, has led to an increased reliance on the role of qualitative data to counter the limitations of quantitative data in capturing complex, gendered realities (Schatz, 2003). Difficulties in constructing a category of gender have meant that quantitative data have been limited in understanding the relationships between gendered dynamics and fertility behaviours, with researchers predominantly using qualitative data to complement quantitative data (Schatz, 2003). The origins of demography as a discipline to ‘count’ cannot be separated from the deeply politicised nature of ‘counting populations’, one that historically threatened marginalised and oppressed communities with state violence (Randall, National Research Council, and Committee on Population, 2004). These realities can create populations who are either hard to reach due to ongoing marginalisation, and/or who make themselves less visible to avoid interaction with potential state mechanisms of population counting (Sydor, 2013; Bonevski et al., 2014; Randall, 2015; Rockliffe, Chorley, Marlow, and Forster, 2018). Where quantitative surveys and questionnaires exclude particular populations, or address complex or sensitive topics, qualitative methods are often treated as an alternate approach. This is due to the more culturally appropriate, contextually sensitive and iterated possibilities of qualitative methods, able to respond to the needs and desires of research participants.

DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH SURVEYS: A CRITICAL CASE STUDY The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) is a useful case study in understanding how demography as a discipline has approached and privileged quantitative data. The DHS contributes to understandings of trends, patterns and behaviours by providing evidence for comparative (time and space) demographic studies. Such ‘objective’ surveys with supposedly value-neutral frames can be interpreted as extending demographic surveillance and governance (Chatterjee and Riley, 2018). The DHS and other quantitative data are

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central to policy formulation and governance efforts (Casterline and Sinding, 2000; The DHS Program, 2020c). DHS data are collected via four model questionnaires, and the structure of these questionnaires assumes that emotional and deeply personal experiences and events (e.g., births, pregnancy loss, sexual intercourse, circumcision) or questions asking for ‘justifications’ (e.g., for hitting or beating partners, refusal of sex) can be categorised in legible ways (e.g., treating ‘depends/not sure’ as meaningfully the same response), overlooking the complexity of peoples’ lives that are not so easily countable, enumerated, or ranked (Chatterjee and Riley, 2018; The DHS Program, 2020a, 2020b; Strong, 2021). Many of these topics are also stigmatised, with implications for both interviewer effects and willingness to disclose, shaping the kinds and quality of demographic data available (Leone, Sochas, and Coast, 2021). Analysing the gendered nature of the DHS, as well as the categorisation of gender, gives insight into the assumptions and subjectivity that drives ‘objectivist’ survey data. Gender, rather than a static category, is a social phenomenon and is continuously (re)produced through interactions, exchanges and practices (Connell, 1987). Demography – until fairly recently (see Riley, 1998; Agadjanian, 2006; Williams, 2010; Fennell, 2011) – has largely focused on sex categories even when some of the behaviours and actions it focuses on are better served by attention to gender and gendered relations (Riley, 1997). Focusing on fertility – without specifically conceptualising and acknowledging it as mainly women’s bodies that experience interventions such as modern contraceptive methods – ‘de-genderizes’ (Presser, 1997: 298) the data, which in turn impacts policy and practice. By doing so it avoids entanglements with intersectional power relations of gender, class, race or caste (or other markers) and how it shapes and structures women’s reproductive autonomies and agencies. Herein lies the major tension for qualitative demography. Quantitative demography is predicated upon comparability and representativity – yet anthropological and qualitative research consistently shows that different social groups are frequently not directly comparable (Randall, 2020): they have different living arrangements, different priorities, use language in diverse ways that cannot always be translated, have different value systems, different power relations and so on. Differences permeate the social world and qualitative demographic research can go some way to challenging interpretations based on quantifiable data, understanding and interpreting findings and contributing to developing theory and policy.

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METHODS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN DEMOGRAPHY The increasing use of qualitative research in demography has been driven primarily by in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and life histories. These form the bulwark of methods that were operationalised to grapple with more nuanced and complex research, with an increasing proportion of studies using either one or a combination of these methods from the 1990s onwards (Randall and Koppenhaver, 2004). These methods remain popular within demography, in part due to their ability to allow for larger sample sizes, thereby grappling with demographic privileging of ‘representativeness’ and ‘generalisability’ within research. These methods have allowed for a greater exploration of people’s experiences of births, deaths and migration, and are able to grapple directly with issues deemed ‘sensitive’ (Coast et al., 2007). Qualitative demographic research has also enabled the study of stigmatised behaviours (e.g., abortion) or made-marginalised populations (e.g., sex workers) or linked to illegal or taboo activities (e.g., injecting drug users). In this context a much wider portfolio of methods has developed: photovoice, field journals, diaries, interviews, life histories, body mapping. Such studies have enriched understanding and approaches. They have contributed not just descriptive or predictive frameworks, but explanatory or theoretical ones, sharpening both qualitative and quantitative methods in the discipline (Riley and McCarthy, 2003; Fisher, 2006; Coast, Mondain, and Rossier, 2009). Document analysis has been an important emerging qualitative method in demography. Analysis of policy has been used to interrogate the role of governance systems in shaping notions of the reproductive citizen, creating structures that (re)produce inequalities and violence, and in building conditions for reproductive governance in India (Chimbwete, Watkins, and Zulu, 2005; Nandagiri, 2019, 2020). For example, analysis of policy documents allows for an understanding of how men and boys are not included in conceptualisations of wartime sexual violence (Touquet and Gorris, 2016). Document analysis of enumerator manuals for quantitative surveys have been used to critique the current construction and training of data collectors, and how critical definitions – such as the ‘household’ – lack cultural specificity and contextual realities (Randall et al., 2015). Such analyses complicate concepts and definitions that are used to create quantitative measures, by questioning the populations and people included or excluded from those definitions. Additional text-based qualitative methods include the use of journals, written by research participants, to create longitudinal qualitative data. Watkins and colleagues (Kaler, Watkins, and Angotti, 2015) set up a longitudinal qualitative study, utilising observational field journals to document infor-

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mal conversations and observations on AIDS and then religion in rural Malawi (1999–2015). Adapting ethnographic methods into conversational journals by 20 Malawians, the study was originally linked to a household survey as part of the Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project (Watkins, 2004). Diary data have produced important analyses for demography including on cultural change and authoritative knowledge (Kaler et al., 2015), prevention strategies to avoid infection (Watkins, 2004) and testing-related behaviours (Kaler and Watkins, 2010), amongst others. The increasing use of text-based qualitative data has implications for research. The proliferation of spaces and mechanisms to access large volumes of qualitative, text-based data – such as social media, online journals – can exceed the capacity of qualitative analysis. Mixed-methods futures for these include the integrated use of computational text analysis alongside more conventional qualitative approaches (Chakrabarti and Frye, 2017). Novel technologies are being used in demographic research exploiting social media data, photo elicitation techniques, and more participatory methods (Alburez-Gutierrez et al., 2019). The boundaries of qualitative research and the extent to which demography cross-pollinates with disciplines such as anthropology are made evident by the limited use of ethnographies and participant observation within demographic research. Exceptions include Hukin’s (2014) study of contemporary childbearing in Cambodia, Biruk’s (2018) ethnography of the data collection process itself and Alburez-Gutiérrez’s (2018) use of genealogies to understand mortality in Guatemala. That these qualitative methods are rare in demography highlight the continued weight given to representative, larger-scale, and shorter-term, more rapid methods privileged within the discipline (Coast et al., 2007). Research has increasingly reflected on the impact of making qualitative methods more central within core demographic inquiry. Fixed, positivist measurements of fertility and mortality have been questioned using qualitative methods. Fertility preferences and related behaviours are complex, fluid and non-linear. Trinitapoli and Yeatman (2018) argue the need for more qualitative approaches to survey methods to understand these realities better. Alburez-Gutierrez and colleagues (Alburez-Gutierrez, Kolk, and Zagheni, 2021) recommend that mortality data be more responsive to the impact of mortality, not merely its occurrence or prevalence, using qualitative methods to illustrate how experiences of child mortality have an impact on parents throughout their lifecourse. To a large extent, qualitative methods are used to complement and improve the quality of quantitative approaches.

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CRITIQUING DEMOGRAPHY Methodological innovations in qualitative approaches to demographic research have underscored their importance in collecting robust and rigorous data. They have offered richer and more nuanced understandings of ‘culture’ in demographic behaviours (Coast, 2003; Bernardi and Hutter, 2007), challenged demographic theories and explanations (Bauer, 2014; Senderowicz, 2019) and attempted explanations of behaviours (Von der Lippe and Fuhrer, 2004; Johnson-Hanks, 2006). These contributions have demonstrated how crucial qualitative research is to demography, shaping new ways of collecting and analysing data. Qualitative methods in their ‘critical turn’ have drawn on theory and knowledge from a range of disciplines, questioning and critiquing demography whilst at the same time deepening and complicating demographic knowledge. Biruk’s ethnographic research (2018) on the collection of DHS data in Malawi demonstrates how the making of statistical data is a social process, challenging understandings of such quantitative data as ‘pure’ and ‘objective’. This critical approach demonstrates how the production of demographic knowledge (e.g., statistics) is mired in what Biruk calls social and cultural scaffolding. It deepens demographic claims and subsequent programmes to see that numbers alone do not reflect authoritative knowledge but depend on who makes the claim and the contexts which give rise to it. Brunson (2020) explores family planning and contraception use in Nepal. Utilising a case history of a social and behavioural change communication campaign, Brunson examines its meanings and uses. She demonstrates how discursive ideas of ‘small family’ are tied to the economisation of life and health (Murphy, 2017), as part of larger global agendas surrounding replacement fertility and population stabilisation. Senderowicz (2019, 2020) draws on reproductive justice frameworks (Ross and Solinger, 2017) to challenge long-held demographic measures of contraception (non)use and the assumptions that underpin them. Operationalising a new, expanded understanding of contraceptive autonomy, she offers a novel indicator for demographic research on fertility. In unpacking how quantitative data are collected, framed, measured, evaluated and reproduced within demographic research, these scholars draw on qualitative research and critical theories to critique established assumptions and ideas within demographic research, whilst at the same time questioning how the discipline (re)produces knowledge (amongst others, see for example, Siri Suh (2021), Katerini Storeng (Storeng and Béhague, 2014, 2017b; Storeng and Ouattara 2014), Marlee Tichenor (2017), Vincanne Adams (2016; Adams, Graig, and Samen, 2016)). Through qualitative methods they make explicit the implicit assumptions within quantitative data collection and

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analysis, highlighting how rather than ‘objective truths’, quantitative data are also partial approximations and constructions of the social world. Scheper-Hughes (1997) highlights that while demographic research can make attempts to be culturally sensitive in its data collection it may perhaps overlook its own disciplinary cultures that structure the questions posed and the ways in which it accounts for differences. Instead of relying on reductionist variables to account for ‘culture’, qualitative research could help challenge the ways these variables and categorical forms are constituted. For example, Kriel and colleagues (Kriel, Randall, Coast, and De Clercq, 2014; Kriel and Risenga, 2014) conducted a qualitative study in South Africa, demonstrating how ‘households’ are complex social structures and formations, at odds with the universal and simplistic definitions largely utilised in national surveys and census data collection. Sochas (2021), drawing on Connell’s (1987) work on ‘categorical thinking’, applies a mixed-methods approach to interrogating health inequalities in Zambia. Her work highlights the context-specific and grounded meaning of socio-economic status categories (e.g., urban or rural, wealth quintiles, education) and rejects frames of specific categories as problematic or non-compliant to instead emphasise the political and structural institutions that give rise to and reproduce inequalities. Strong and colleagues use a mixed-methods approach to survey design that incorporates open-ended questions to explore the roles of men and masculinity in abortion and emergency contraception in Ghana (Strong et al., 2020; Strong, 2021). This approach offers data that do not necessarily fit a categorical approach (Sochas, 2021) and enables responses that capture non-standard responses (e.g., on patterns of partnership or relationships) or challenge assumptions underpinning the survey questions (e.g., focus on fertility alone, overlooking infertility concerns). It also enables survey feedback loops and notes on language or contextual cues from data collectors, capturing more nuanced (meta-) data for analyses.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS Since the 1980s, the use of qualitative methods in demography has been complemented by an increase in interdisciplinary connections, offering new opportunities for understanding complex social phenomena. Despite the increased acceptability of these methods within demography, they are still made marginal by the standards of representativeness and generalisability to which demographic research is held. We argue that qualitative research, far from being ancillary in demography, is essential to understand complex social processes, as well as the biases that emerge in the production of apparently representative, generalisable and comparable data.

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In consigning qualitative methods to the margins, demography has yet to fully benefit from innovations both critical to and critical of the discipline. Where qualitative research has been given space, it has encouraged demography to acknowledge the political and theoretical assumptions that underlie all research, regardless of its epistemological alignment. The implications for researchers mean that they are frequently tasked with ‘convincing’ demographic journals how their work aligns to these privileged epistemologies, adapting and translating methodologies that reinforce their marginality. This does not negate the importance of quantitative data. Rather, it encourages the discipline to consider the constraints of privileging some approaches above others. Newer demographic inquiry shows that qualitative approaches to research can be embedded within the structures of traditionally quantitative methods (such as surveys) to allow for novel, intersectional, contextual understandings of complex demographic behaviours and practices. By sketching the methodological margins of demography, we aim to highlight the possibilities that can be achieved by inverting the discipline and centring qualitative alongside quantitative research. The limits of quantitative demographic research need to be more fully acknowledged, and the potential of mixed-methods and qualitative research needs to move beyond criticisms of representativeness and comparability. Making explicit the theoretical assumptions behind methodological decisions, unpacking the assumptions and positionality of the researcher/research team, and critiquing what quantitative methodologies are unable to do, are core qualitative expectations that can be centred more firmly. People are complex, their lives are shaped by the social, political, economic conditions around them, constructed through interactions with others. As demography moves as a discipline towards better understanding the behaviours of people and populations, we inevitably question the demographic tradition of ‘counting’. In failing to grapple with the complexities and potentials of qualitative research and in discounting or ignoring some of the challenging ideas that qualitative research reveals, demography risks constraining its progress towards understanding peoples’ plural realities.

NOTE 1.

Joe Strong’s work on this chapter was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/P000622/1). Rishita Nandagiri’s work on this chapter was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/V006282/1).

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10. Qualitative methods in economic sciences Mirjana Radović-Marković INTRODUCTION The challenges from the external environment facing the modern global economy require us more than ever to think critically about the methods used by economists in their research and their implications for economic predictions and decisions. Economic policy-makers and the public ask numerous questions, sometimes exceedingly difficult ones, that require quick answers from economics. Although such issues are sometimes discussed in a general way, they are often causally related to what the specific challenges are and drawn from the aspect of economic philosophy. Considering that, within the methodology, we study countless ways on the basis of which measurements are made, explanations are given, economic theories and models are formed, and predictions of various economic phenomena are made, the boundaries between economics and philosophy are very fluid. The famous American philosopher Thomas Kuhn (1962) first used the term paradigm, which means the philosophical way of thinking. In other words, a paradigm is a worldview related to the interpretation of research data (Mackenzie and Knipe, 2006). The role of economic philosophy was particularly emphasised by Heilbroner (1996), which is reflected in its importance in determining its contribution to social welfare. The complexity of economic phenomena requires more complex knowledge and an interdisciplinary approach (Frost, 2013). Interdisciplinary research can involve different disciplines within a single scientific culture and can also cross cultural boundaries in studying the behaviour of people and their environment (Tobi and Kampen, 2018). Existing qualitative methods can serve as an adequate tool for researching these complex phenomena. Despite the extensive literature that provides logical guidelines for qualitative research (Starr, 2014; Maxwell, 2013), those qualitative methods that serve to build an interdisciplinary conceptual research framework are lacking. The conceptual framework according to one of the definitions represents 164

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a network of interconnected approaches, which together provide a comprehensive understanding of phenomena (Yabareen, 2009). Consequently, the question arises: ‘How should economists incorporate sociological, psychological, cultural, organisational behaviour, and other aspects into their economic analyses?’ Obtaining answers to this question is of particular importance to enable more scientists to engage in interdisciplinary research. The aim of this chapter is to examine the role and value of qualitative research methods in economics, as well as different ways of using qualitative and interdisciplinary research methods in economics in different contexts. In addition, as the famous scientist Popper (1972) once pointed out, the task of science is partly theoretical – explanation, and partly practical – prediction and practical application. Accordingly, the purpose of this chapter is to show that these two goals are, in a way, two different aspects of one and the same action. This chapter is divided into eight main sections. In the first section, we briefly outline the role of economic philosophy and its contribution to social welfare. In addition, we point out the complexity of economic phenomena which requires an interdisciplinary approach and a new paradigm. The second section mainly discusses economic methods and theories which should be adapted to consider research insights from other scientific disciplines. In line with this, efforts have been made to create a holistic paradigm for integrating economic thinking with other different dimensions of research. The third section considers possibilities to improve the quality of research. We focus mainly on the role which qualitative research methods play in providing scientifically valuable results that are useful for increasing the existing ‘economic knowledge fund’. Also, we pay more attention to the basic characteristics of qualitative research. The fourth section provides the different kinds of approaches that grounded the philosophical thinking in doing research in social and economic science. Namely, this section provides a short summary of some of the major schools of thought that have made an impact on qualitative research. In the fifth section the aim of qualitative data analysis is discussed. This section concludes that qualitative analysis is important for generating theory, developing economic policy, improving educational practice, and shedding light on other economic issues. New tools for qualitative research are discussed in the sixth section. In this section it is pointed out that cutting-edge thinking and innovative qualitative techniques (for example, working with visual and video data and thinking outside the box) will contribute to a better understanding of the business and economic world. Consequently, they will shape economic and business decisions in the future. In the seventh and eighth sections, special attention is paid to research in economics based on predictions. In this context, a better and more complete understanding of future trends and their effects will improve theories and

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models in economics. These improvements will greatly benefit those who explicitly seek to create a ‘ready society and adaptive economy’. Finally, in order to conduct research in social and economic science, the researcher should be aware of the philosophical background, the methodology to be employed and the way of analysing the data. The integration of all these elements will have an impact on the success of the research. To sum up, this chapter intends to attract the attention of the scientific community and provoke discussion on the limitations of the implementation of the scientific method in economics.

VARIOUS VIEWS ON THE INTEGRATION OF AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS The need for interdisciplinarity in research has become widely recognised. An interdisciplinary approach involves attempts to merge related yet different scientific disciplines (Shirazi, 2015). Thus, interdisciplinary economics uses approaches from other scientific disciplines, with the intention of determining what impact they have on existing economic methods, theories and solutions to economic problems (De Gijsel and Schenk, 2005; Roquigny, 2016). In interdisciplinary approaches, economics, like other social sciences, is a relatively separate discipline, with a specific object of study, a specific approach, and a set of research methods/techniques that are relatively consolidated (Neves, 2017). In short, without a disciplinary approach, there is no adequate knowledge of the economic system. Thus, economic methods and theories may need to be adapted to take into account research insights from other scientific disciplines. They may even have to replace them with methods and theories developed by other disciplines. Some scholars suggest a broad framework for integrating research methods into the social sciences. In this regard, it can be understood why Myrdal (1973) provided great support to the study of sociological and psychological mechanisms by placing them within the framework of the economic profession. In recent years, efforts have been made to create a holistic paradigm for reuniting and integrating economic thinking with political, legal, social, organisational, environmental, and psychological dimensions. Further, there are increasing indications in scientific circles of limitations in modern economic theory and policy, which in turn reflects on the under-utilisation of natural and other resources on a global scale (Jacobs et al., 2017). Therefore, in the view of Jacobs and colleagues, the real science of economics must be based on the ‘integrated science of society’. In line with this, the relationship that economics establishes with ‘neighbouring’ disciplines is critical to understanding the nature of economics itself. Discussing this connection involves thinking

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about the definition of boundaries and connections that we could or should establish and, ultimately, it means thinking about the very nature of what we call ‘economics’ (Neves, 2017). Namely, the scientist Neves (2017) raises the question of the boundaries between different social sciences, considering the theoretical constructions, which correspond to or do not agree with the nature of the subject of study. In short, the choice of method very much depends on the specific problem we want to deal with and the suitability of the method for the research goal, as well as the type of questions we need to answer. In addition, a number of scientists are in favour of integrating research methods for the social and natural sciences, i.e., they believe that the social sciences should be quantified like the natural ones (Nuijten, 2011). However, the quantification of the social sciences is not recent. It was introduced in the 1920s, when sociology and economics were young sciences. Today, their quantification is needed to consolidate their status as science (McCloskey, 2005). Paul Samuelson (1947) and Kenneth Arrow (1951) argued several decades later for the use of mathematics in economic research. In recent times, there have also been many supporters of the mathematisation of economics (McCloskey, 2005; Edesess, 2012; Velupillai, 2012; Capozzi, 2019). According to Edesess (2012), mathematics is used too much in economics, and too much of it is of poor quality. In other words, the economy cannot overly rely on accurate mathematical models, considering that economics and mathematics cannot be equated. For example, Edesess (2012) offers a mathematical approach to some of the key problems facing an economic theory by launching a series of economic debates. Consequently, in these economic debates, advocates for finding alternatives to the mathematisation of economics have also emerged (Lee, 2012). Alternative ways of mathematising are offered by the call for ‘Algorithmic Economics’, which is already being applied. It involves studying new phenomena on the Internet from a computer point of view, and considering why insights from areas such as sociology, game theory and economic theory are needed. As more information is collected online, businesses can better understand consumer behaviour in this way, and economists can better understand digital microeconomics. In line with this, it has been concluded that researchers in the field of economics and business have to make a very difficult decision when choosing an appropriate research approach that can support interdisciplinary research. These considerations call for gathering researchers from different scientific disciplines in order to have an interdisciplinary dialogue, which should serve as a basis for both understanding and policy-making for future decisions.

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ARE QUALITATIVE METHODS A SIGNIFICANT ‘PART OF THE ECONOMISTS’ TOOLKIT’? There has been a long debate in scientific circles about which methodology should take precedence in economic research in order to improve its quality. No final choice or determination has been made since both approaches are important for conducting research, and each of them contributes to increasing knowledge. Many economists believe that the power of economics is the ability to generate verifiable predictions from rigorous mathematical theoretical models. Consequently, qualitative research in economics has traditionally been irrelevant compared to quantitative research. Qualitative research in economics is rare because qualitative methods are not entirely a significant ‘part of the economists’ toolkit’ (Starr, 2014: 1). Nevertheless, qualitative research methods can provide scientifically valuable results useful for increasing the existing ‘economic knowledge fund’, especially when applied to research questions for which they are very suitable (Starr, 2014). Starr’s work is often cited as a well-rated economic paper that resulted from structured interviews with business decision-makers (Delaney, 2017). Qualitative methods are scientific, but they are more focused on the meaning of different aspects of people’s lives and on their reports on how they understand their own and other people’s behaviour and beliefs. It is a systematic examination of social phenomena in natural environments (Liamputtong, 2020). These phenomena may include, but are not limited to, the behaviours of individuals and/or groups of people, what their interaction is, and how organisations function under the influence of that interaction. For example, qualitative methods have an advantage in studying groups of people who are not traditionally represented in the economy – women, workers in the informal economy and other marginalised groups (Liamputtong, 2007; Chamlee-Wright, 2010). Particularly at the end of the twentieth century, qualitative research became popular and widely applied in market research (Walker, 1985), psychological research (Richardson, 1996), and sociology and other social sciences (Gilhooly and Green, 1996; Bhandari, 2020). Cassell and Symon (1994) define qualitative methods as those that rely more on interpretation than on quantification. Merriam and Tisdell (2015) argue that causality is not the main goal of qualitative research, which focuses on meaning, often through the rich description, and relies on the researcher as the instrument for collecting data. In addition, Peter (2018) states that scientists who are satisfied with qualitative research methods use theories in their research, trying to explain certain postulates that a certain theory contains. These researchers not only use theory to

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assess a situation based on observation, but sometimes try to build a theory that can be universally accepted.

BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Key aspects of qualitative research include: • • • • •

the overall research perspective; research flexibility; scope and quality of qualitative data; a unique approach to data analysis and interpretation; the types of results from qualitative research.

In literature, commonly mentioned qualitative approaches to economics include interviews, focus groups, and case studies. Besides, it is more important to recognise that there is no one generally accepted way to conduct qualitative research. However, the most popular method of collecting qualitative data used by researchers is through interviews. They offer different tools and better ways to understand people’s views in depth. But, how scientific research will be conducted depends on a large number of factors (Radović-Marković, 2019: 69): • • • • •

on the goals and tasks of the research; on the knowledge and skills of researchers; on the characteristics of research participants; on financial resources; on research conditions.

Qualitative research seeks to answer the following questions: • Why do people behave the way they do? • How are opinions and attitudes formed? • How do events in the external environment affect people? Parker (1999) expands the framework of qualitative research that sets out: (a) an attempt to understand the meaning behind what we are saying; (b) an elaboration and systematisation of the meaning of the identified phenomenon; and (c) an attempt to understand and explain other people’s interpretations and meanings of a particular issue or problem. The basic characteristics of qualitative research are shown in Figure 10.1. The contribution of qualitative methods is reflected in the fact that they give good results in researching phenomena that are difficult to measure quantitatively. They serve to generate the necessary data for a complete understanding

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Source: Radović-Marković (2019).

Figure 10.1

Basic characteristics of a qualitative approach to research

of the problem, monitor organisational and other economic processes, and give detailed descriptions of individual experiences. The reasons for choosing a qualitative approach can be (Radović-Marković, 2019): 1. The nature of the research question (e.g., understanding of organisational behaviour in a company, employee motivation, and so on); 2. Little knowledge about a phenomenon (e.g., key factors in choosing a strategy, which would contribute to the recovery of the chosen organisation); 3. Deepening knowledge of a known phenomenon (e.g., how do employees experience the reward system in a particular organisation?); 4. Clarification of quantitative findings; 5. Directing the practical work of experts; 6. Generating findings for commercial use; 7. Creating new (fundamental) knowledge.

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PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Social research has changed since the emphasis of logical positivism, the approach based on the use of a scientific method to study human action. Positivist studies mostly try to test the theory, attempting to increase the predictive understanding of phenomena. Positivism is a philosophical direction that wants to measure those phenomena that can be measured on a scientific basis. The principles of positivism are: (a) avoiding subjectivity in the research procedure as much as possible; (b) applying the same principles for the development of natural and social sciences; (c) solving practical problems in society; and (d) separating ‘normal’ from ‘pathological’ social phenomena – everything that ‘stands out’ from the average is ‘pathological’ (Radović-Marković and Avolio Alecchi, 2019). Crowther and Lancaster (2008) emphasise that the general rule in positivism is the adoption of a deductive approach. According to the positivist view of the world, science should help to understand the world well enough to be able to make predictions (Radović-Marković and Hanić, 2016). One of the greatest proponents of positivism was the famous Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, who promoted ‘positivism’ in his famous 1953 essay. For Friedman, the only relevant data will be successful predictions that ensure the usefulness of one’s model or theory. Early positivism evolved into neo-positivism (Lazarsfeld, 1954). Post-positivist researchers agree with the positivist paradigm but believe that differences in the environment have an impact on individuals and that these differences are important and must be acknowledged. Clark (1998: 1242) argue that ‘through a better understanding of post-positivism and greater focus on explicating the philosophical assumptions underpinning all research methods, the distinctions that have long been perceived to exist between qualitative and quantitative methodologies can be confined to the past’. In line with this, methods should be selected according to the nature of research questions. The opposite approach to positivism is the normative method. Normative economics, as opposed to positive economics, considers different aspects of the economy, and assesses whether they are useful or harmful (Hardin, 2013). It aims to find what is the norm, standard and average in the world and life, which are subject to permanent change. Its advantage is that results have practical value and benefit, primarily because the normative method seeks to clearly outline the phenomena under research and appropriately interpret the outcomes of economic behaviour. Researchers can use a normative method, a positivist method, or any other theorist approach. However, the decision to employ one of them should be

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based on whether these methods can provide the proper understanding of economics and business phenomena and be appropriate to our research aims. It should be especially emphasised that the most significant opportunity for innovative research practice which offers the cross-disciplinary adoption of qualitative methods has not been sufficiently exploited so far. It is, therefore, necessary for better communication, exchange of knowledge, experiences, research ideas and problems between social scientists.

THE AIM OF QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS The aim of qualitative data analysis is to discover new topics, patterns, concepts, insights and understandings (Patton, 2015; Creswell and Poth, 2018; Liamputtong, 2020). This type of research is important for generating theory, developing economic policy, improving educational practice and shedding light on other economic issues. Further, qualitative research can be used to explain the results of previous quantitative studies or to prepare new quantitative studies. The results of qualitative research are descriptive, not predictive. In order to reach valid conclusions, the data collected should be holistic, and the findings obtained by careful analysis. Conducting qualitative research requires researchers having knowledge related to the topic of the study in order to be able to ask the most relevant questions. In addition, it is necessary that they keep the focus on the complexity of the social phenomenon. The person conducting the qualitative research plays an active role during the interview, communicating directly with the participants in order to find out as much as possible. Investing time in understanding the context is critical to ensuring the rigour of qualitative research (Liamputtong, 2020). Qualitative studies often use a network of related philosophical concepts. They are supported by a certain set of theories, in order to understand the series of events and determine the relations between them. There are several different qualitative research methods. However, the three most commonly used are in-depth interviews, focus groups, and observations of various occurrences or phenomena. Just as there are different philosophical perspectives that can serve qualitative research, so there are different qualitative research methods. The research method is a research strategy that shifts from basic philosophical assumptions to research design and data collection (Myers, 1997). The choice of research method affects the way the researcher collects data. Specific research methods also involve different skills, assumptions and research practices. It is characteristic of qualitative methods that there are a large number of approaches in terms of data collection and processing (Rose et al., 2020). This implies that qualitative methods use many different opinions and creative views, which

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can be used in qualitative research. Good qualitative research contributes to science because of logical reasoning and multiple sources of convergent evidence supporting the explanation. Despite the differences in approach, all qualitative research shares certain common characteristics. First of all, good qualitative research has equalled, if not exceeded, quantitative research in relevance and methodological precision. In addition, all qualitative research uses interviews, personal observations and documents as the most common sources of qualitative data (Patton, 2015). For example, decades ago, organisations used qualitative research to determine what products their potential customers wanted. This primarily meant the quality and type of product. The collection of this qualitative data has traditionally been carried out through focus groups and personal interviews, which was considered an expensive process. Also, the process takes a long time because it requires data collection by interacting with people over a long period. Then, after collecting the data, analysing the conversation and presenting the insights also takes a lot of time.

NEW TOOLS FOR QUALITATIVE RESEARCH In recent years, there has been an expansion of new tools for qualitative research due to the expansion of the Internet (Billups, 2020). First of all, the emergence of new technologies and especially the emergence of mobile devices have influenced changes in the way qualitative research is conducted. High-quality tools and applications adapted to mobile devices have appeared. Digital tools for qualitative research allow the research process as a whole to be supported by technological tools in ways that can save time and add depth to qualitative research. This development of technological tools has made qualitative research much more useful for organisations – and at the same time more accessible. Not only can new platforms help them to obtain quality data faster and cheaper, but they also enable companies to make better business decisions. The reason for this is that researchers have the opportunity to participate in conversations with consumers over a multi-day period, instead of talking to them once – as has been the case in the past. This is a significant change because companies can now repeat multiple questions within the same study. Finding the right qualitative approach on the Internet can have a great impact on the speed and results of research. Focus group network platforms are often used. As with the traditional approach, open-ended questions or multiple-choice questions are used. These platforms can also be used on mobile devices. Further, mobile phones have found great application in interviews. With the help of smartphones, researchers receive quick feedback from respondents about their experiences and current ideas related to the questions

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Table 10.1

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

Differences between traditional and new qualitative research techniques

Traditional qualitative techniques

New qualitative techniques

Personal interaction and connection with the

They use the Internet and thus extend their reach to

respondent, which is necessary in some research

a larger number of respondents

Data collection takes a lot of time

Feedback is obtained quickly, thus speeding up research (time-saving)

Real-time reactions

Delayed reactions

There is no possibility of multiple repetition of

Possibility of multiple repetition of questions within

questions within the same study

the same study, which deepens qualitative research

Expensive

Research costs are reduced

Source: Author.

asked. Consumers answer multiple-choice questions or open-ended questions. There is no doubt that these platforms have facilitated and accelerated qualitative research (Lyall and Barnard, 2021). Newer methodologies that build on the successes of traditional qualitative techniques typically use the efficiency of technology to achieve similar goals. In this case, surveys and discussions use the Internet to geographically expand the reach of what might otherwise be done locally. In many cases, working on these techniques is not entirely new, but range and speed are. Nevertheless, there are differences between them that need to be noticed and explored individually. Video research is also increasingly used. Video provides unique analytical possibilities to researchers, but it also has certain limitations, which have not yet been adequately addressed in the literature. Video research is most closely related to traditional qualitative techniques, Video and/or web groups tend to offer some of the best of both approaches (Freund, 2013). Groups of respondents can be geographically diverse, but still in this way it is possible to see physical reactions. Compared to traditional methods, they are more cost-effective due to the reduction of travel and other costs. Some of the newer innovative techniques in qualitative work are not comparable to traditional methods because they rely heavily on the technologies or platforms used (Freund, 2013). In the conditions of the pandemic, many limiting factors appear for researchers, given the insufficient opportunities to travel and conduct field research. Therefore, the new circumstances have created a climate for the greater application of digital tools in qualitative research. This has influenced the wider acquaintance of researchers with the tools and their possibilities for digital management of qualitative research initiatives. Although a large number of innovative tools in relation to digital platforms appear every day,

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video research, interviews via webcams, blogs and listening to social media have found significant applications. Researchers can also conduct interviews on meeting platforms such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams to collect data (Lyall and Barnard, 2021).

POSSIBILITY OF FORECASTS IN ECONOMIC SCIENCES According to Radović (1996: 151), ‘economics was studied for many years as a theoretical discipline, which was based on a set of qualitative analyses and definitions’. However, to be able to follow the requirements with which it was faced under the influence of constant changes in the socio-economic environment, economics had to evolve throughout its history and change its development model (Radović-Marković and Avolio Alecchi, 2019). This has consequently led to the quantification of economic theory, and, as a result, the descriptive and historical orientation in economic science gave way to the formalist approach (Radović, 1996). Radović (1996: 153) states that whether we are ‘going to choose a mathematical or theoretical approach to economic analysis is not of such a significance, but how important the benefits of mathematics [are] in terms of improving the analysis and greater explicitness at each level of reasoning is’. Also, mathematical economy should be seen as a specific approach to economic analysis, which is no different from today’s focus on the non-mathematical economy. The main difference between ‘mathematical economics’ and ‘theoretical economics’ is the fact that the economy in mathematical assumptions and conclusions is expressed in mathematical symbols instead of in words. In addition, the ‘language’ that uses mathematical economy is characterised by conciseness and greater precision, which in theoretical economics is not always the case (Radović, 1996). Although numerous mathematical methods have proved to be useful in a large amount of economic research, mathematical logic has a high practical value given its rich set of tools used to explain verbal premises and statements in a very precise and clear form. Namely, the value of this method is in its ability to reduce the complexity of a problem down to its utmost simplification and explanation. Bearing this in mind, the exploration of applicative features of the logical method ends with a conclusion that this method is yet to become particularly important in the research of modern economic phenomena and issues characterised by high complexity of interrelations and inter-conditionality. It can be concluded that although the quantification of social and economic phenomena from the start of its application had a lot of supporters, but even more opponents, mathematics and methodological knowledge have passed the test of time and have lost none of their importance to the present day.

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ECONOMIC THEORY AND FORECASTING Many social scientists consider the ability to make predictions to be the ‘real mark of a good theory’ (Streeck, 2010: 2). Until the end of the 1960s, scientific theories were judged on the basis of their abilities to make predictions. In line with this, Friedman (1953) is considered to have a good economic theory that provides accurate and useful predictions, whereas Simon (1982) suggests that prediction is elusive even for some of our most well-accepted social science theories. Popper (1972: 195) states that ‘the task of science is partly theoretical – explanation – and partly practical – prediction and technical application’. Great attention is paid to research based on predictions in the social sciences. However, such predictions may prove unsuccessful for many social situations (Ascher, 1979). Despite the scientific method enjoying great applicability in economics and business, its capabilities are very limited. This opinion is confirmed by Martin (2011), who concludes that there are no new ideas derived from the analysis of the past with the help of inductive and deductive logic; the two forms of logic used by modern scientific methods. The predictions in the recent past have proved to be completely wrong. Yet, on the basis that a kind of prediction is better than nothing, governments of modern states and large corporations insist on projections of conjectural developments. They deal with forecasts of employment rates, inflation rates and an increase or decrease in the gross domestic product; almost every aspect of strategic enterprise management refers to the future, from planning to the production of goods and sales for business expansion or the opening of a new organisation. Nevertheless, these predictions of the future by economists in certain segments have been limited, given that some aspects that are related to the other social sciences are not taken into account. However, in recent years, things have begun to change; this was due to those scientists who bring down the barriers among the scientific disciplines (Ioannides and Nielsen, 2007; Beckert, 2013; Poli, 2014). Very often, the question can be heard among ordinary people and scholars: ‘Could the 2008 financial crisis have been predicted and avoided?’ The answer is simple if we know that the ‘ability of the social sciences to predict the future is not only currently and coincidentally, but also fundamentally limited’ (Streeck, 2010: 2). Namely, predictions are particularly associated with a high degree of risk due to their failure to meet the conditions of the economic crisis. The problem is that ‘in terms of fundamental uncertainty, expectations cannot be understood as a result of the calculated optimal choice, taking into account all available information, but as a potential interpretation of the situation in the context of the prevailing institutional structures, cultural patterns and social networks’ (Beckert, 2013: 325). Hence, extrapolating the future to be

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a straight-line projection of the past is neither accurate nor is it helpful in creating better understanding and newer ideas (Martin, 2011). In other words, the past does not have to be of particular importance for assessing the future of new products, new competitive strategies or new business circumstances, and factors that reduce the similarity between the past and the future should be taken into account. Therefore, forecasters need to better understand the scope of forecasting capabilities.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS Introducing innovations in data collection and, more precisely, in qualitative techniques, makes these techniques attractive. In comparing new tools of qualitative research with traditional methods, it can be concluded that some do not exclude others. In some cases, personal interaction cannot be replaced with virtual contact. For these reasons, it is important to see new qualitative techniques as a supplement to the traditional ones, and not as a replacement for them. In business economics, forecasts are very important for the successful operation of companies in the future. The companies that have shown the most success in rapid innovation are primarily technology companies that have embraced an agile development path to collect data from consumers and gain rapid team alignment at every stage of development. As companies increasingly opt for agility in business, this entails the need for new qualitative research technologies that reduce research time and costs, and enable rapid team business decisions. The forecast helps to determine the volume of production, the required working time, the need for financing, the determination of potential consumers and the volume of sales, labour force and others. The person making the prediction must clearly understand the assumptions on which a particular prediction method is based in order to achieve maximum benefit (Putra, 2009; Pinder, 2020). The choice of forecasting technique is significantly influenced by the phase of the product life cycle, and sometimes by the size of the firm or the type of industry for which the decision is made. Prediction with the help of qualitative methods often offers subjective results since they are often biased. They are based on the knowledge, intuition and experience of experts, and rarely on data, making the process non-mathematical. Namely, forecasting is done quickly and easily, without the need for detailed statistics. Prediction techniques generally assume that the same basic cause-and-effect relationship that existed in the past will continue in the future. The prognosis is rarely perfect. A qualitative approach to forecasts can be useful in formulating short-term estimates, as the long-term

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forecast is generally more inaccurate than the short-term one due to greater uncertainty.

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Peter, A.M. (2018), Qualitative political inquiry and its foundations. In B.O. Nwanolue, C.C. Ezeibe, E.T. Aniche, and V.C. Iwuoha (eds.), Political inquiry and research methodology: Logic, designs, processes, methods, and approaches. Tarakletos Immunis Drive: Enugu. Pinder, H. (2020). What are the assumptions of qualitative research? Available at: What are the assumptions of qualitative research? (findanyanswer.com) (accessed June 20, 2021). Poli, R. (2014). Anticipation: A new thread for the human and social sciences? Cadmus, 2(3), 22–49. Popper, K. (1972). Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Putra, L.D. (2009). Qualitative forecasting methods and techniques. Available at: Qualitative Forecasting Methods and Techniques | Accounting, Financial, Tax (accounting-financial-tax.com) (accessed June 10, 2021). Radović, M. (1996). Economic analysis on new quantitative basis. In R. Aničić (ed.), Introduction to the method of economic analysis and theoretical philosophical underpinnings of the scientific method. Faculty of Economics Press, University of Belgrade: Belgrade, Serbia. Radović-Marković, M. (2019). Methodology of research work in the social sciences. University Donja Gorica Press: Podgorica, Montenegro. Radović-Marković, M., and Avolio Alecchi, B. (2019). Qualitative methods in economics. Routledge: New York and London. Radović-Marković, M., and Hanić, H. (2016). Research methodology in economic sciences. Institute of Economic Sciences and Belgrade Banking Academy: Belgrade, Serbia. Richardson, J. (1996). Handbook of qualitative research methods for psychology and the social sciences. Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford. Roquigny, Q. (2016). Do economists have an issue with interdisciplinarity? Available at: Do economists have an issue with interdisciplinarity? | by Quentin Roquigny | Economics Introspection | Medium (accessed February 7, 2021). Rose, H., McKinley, J. and Briggs Baffoe-Djan, J. (2020). Data collection research methods in applied linguistics. Bloomsbury Academic: London. Samuelson, P.A., (1947). Foundations of economic analysis. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA. Shirazi, B. (2015). Integrative research: Integral epistemology and integrative methodology. Integral Review, 11(1), 39–52. Simon, H.A. (1982). Reason in human affairs. Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA. Starr, M. (2014). Qualitative and mixed-methods research in economics: Surprising growth, promising future. Journal of Economic Surveys, 28(2), 238–264. Streeck, W. (2010). Social sciences: Between theory and intuition. Max Planck Research 4/10, Available at: Social sciences: Between theory and intuition | Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (mpg.de). Tobi, E. and Kampen, J.K. (2018). Research design: The methodology for interdisciplinary research framework. Quality and quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 52(3), 1209–1225. Velupillai, K. (2012). Taming the incomputable, reconstructing the nonconstructive and deciding the undecidable in mathematical economics. New Mathematics and Natural Computation, 8(1), 5–51.

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Yabareen, Y. (2009). Building a conceptual framework: Philosophy, definitions, and procedure. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(4), 49–62. Walker, R. (1985). Applied qualitative research. Gower: Aldershot, UK.

11. Qualitative methods in social work Catherine Flynn INTRODUCTION Social work is both a discipline and a profession. The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW, 2014: 2) provides this definition: Social work … promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work. Underpinned by theories of social work, social sciences, humanities and indigenous knowledges, social work engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing. The above definition may be amplified at national and/or regional levels.

As is evident here, empowerment, liberation, and justice are foundational values. These suggest a particular orientation, a seeking of connection with people, to understand their circumstances and experiences, and to use knowledge(s) to create change. This focus on ‘living with and learning from’ people, has a strong history in social work, from the early days of the settlement houses (McDermott, 2018: 383). A tradition of seeking deep connection and understanding is clear, and resonates with a qualitative approach. Liamputtong (2020) describes such an approach as one that has a focus on the human social world, rather than natural phenomena, one that seeks people’s subjective experiences, and is reliant on their words and stories. According to Hammarberg, Kirkman and de Lacey (2016: 499), ‘“qualitative” methods are used to answer questions about experience, meaning and perspective, most often from the standpoint of the participant’. Further, across all arenas in which social work is present, it is common for individuals, groups and communities we work with to be at the margins, excluded via multiple disadvantages and vulnerabilities. The term ‘hard-to-reach’ is a common descriptor. Many have had poor or exploitative experiences of systems and services, and have a resulting lack of trust in researchers (Smirnoff et al., 2018). The labelling of groups as somehow holding these characteristics, of being difficult or resistant, is deceiving, and places undue responsibility 182

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on them. In contrast, it is suggested that it is the obligation of the researcher to bridge divides, to move closer (Flynn and McDermott, 2016). Among the broader strategies posited to collaborate with and empower people, the use of qualitative methods is core, given the focus on researchers’ deep listening and connection. While now well embedded in research traditions, qualitative methods have continued to develop, with creative and participatory methods, particularly those engaging with digital technologies, expanding rapidly in recent years. Indeed, approaches that rely less on verbal and/or written skills, for example images (e.g., Photovoice), are argued to better capture the views and experiences of marginalised groups (Keating, 2021), thereby addressing issues of representation and voice more appropriately. The chapter begins with an introduction to social work, as a discipline and profession, and how this has intersected generally with research, and specifically with qualitative methods. The core issues confronting social work practice and research are presented. This chapter argues that qualitative methods have much to offer social work in terms of research that allows for the participant’s voice, is nearer to people’s experiences, is less structured, less expert, and listens more. The more traditional approaches to qualitative research evident in social work – interviewing and focus groups – are then presented, before moving on to examine two emerging visual methods – the use of diagrams and photo elicitation. Illustrative examples are provided, along with analysis of the strengths and limitations of each approach, and likely ethical issues. The chapter concludes with thoughts about ways forward.

THE DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL WORK As noted in the introduction, social work is a values-driven profession – with a focus on intervention to alleviate human problems, as well as a university-based, academic discipline. Social work is relatively young, having begun in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with an initial focus on action to address poverty. Its status as a discipline, however, is much more recent, with major shifts towards knowledge development – research – not occurring until around the 1950s. Indeed, as recently as the early 21st century, Lyons et al. (2004) described its disciplinary status as uncertain and still emerging. Social work’s practical focus has remained central to its identity. It is often described as a ‘broad church’ (Hardy, 2015: 8). It encompasses many fields of practice, including health, mental health, housing and homelessness, criminal justice, family and domestic violence, alcohol and other drugs, and disability (Alston, McCurdy and McKinnon, 2018), accompanied by multiple modes of intervention. Considerable variation with regard to focus, interventions and autonomy, among others, is evident across countries (Ornellas et al., 2019; Weiss-Gal and Welbourne, 2008). Yet, Hardy (2015: 8) suggests that

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this diversity is brought together ‘by a shared understanding of the broadly defined social roots of social problems and the attendant need to intervene socially to alleviate their impact, whether at the level of the individual or the collective’. In working with and for individuals, families, groups and communities (Australian Association of Social Workers [AASW], 2020), social work brings a multi-layered orientation, from individual counselling, to group therapy, to advocacy and community organising. Whatever the intervention, a central tenet is to start where the client is at (Goldstein, 1983), seeing the service user as the expert in their own life. While this client-centred mantra may gesture towards an embracing of flexible and qualitative research methods, that is not always the case; it is not a given. While Gould (2004) reminds us of the central place of the clinical case study (a prime example of in-depth, qualitative data) in knowledge in social work, its disciplinary foundations are more closely aligned with quantitative methods. It is evident that in the latter half of the 20th century, alongside other social sciences, social work was striving to demonstrate its ‘utility, … practicality, and … reliability in providing “real” solutions to “real” problems, to become … more “scientific”; more methodologically rigorous and above all more quantitative, in short, more hard’ (Butler and Pugh, 2004: 60). In Australia, social work, both in practice and research, remained heavily influenced by the US, with a preference for quantitative enquiry and methods. Fook (2010) points out that it was only from the 1980s that attention was given to the role and value of qualitative methods.1 From this time, there has been ongoing growth in this area, with the synergy between qualitative methods and social work emphasised. Jane Gilgun (1994: 115), a noted social work scholar, proposed in the mid-1990s that using qualitative methods in social work was ‘like sliding a hand into a well-made glove’. These methods are considered to be more responsive, better able to manage sensitive issues and to apprehend and address complexity – both common in the realm of social work. This synergy was also seen to result from the common processes involved in qualitative research and social work practice. Gould (2004: 138) identified these as: beginning where the client is at, paying attention to context and environment, and prioritising an individualised approach to intervention. The growth in and acceptance of such methods was also evident in the launching of the journal Qualitative Social Work in 2002: ‘[a] forum for those interested in qualitative research and evaluation and in qualitative approaches to practice’ (Qualitative Social Work, 2021). It is clear then, that research in social work is inextricably tied to practice, and that qualitative methods play a key role. Whether taking a broad or a narrow focus, research using qualitative methods seeks to better understand, in a detailed and nuanced way, a set of circumstances, and to intervene and support individuals, families or groups in more informed ways.

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RESEARCH FOR SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE In recent years, there has been a considerable and logical push for social work to embrace Evidence-Informed Practice (EIP),2 to ensure client-centred and ethical practice, by maximising service users receiving the most helpful interventions (Rubin and Bellamy, 2012). While the core of this EIP framework is the location and appraisal of research evidence to guide practice decisions, this is but one part of the process. In full, this aspect, ‘requires practitioners to extend themselves beyond the realm of practice wisdom and combine [clinical expertise and client values and expectations] with the best evidence’ (Rubin and Parrish, 2007: 409). It is contended here that to be a critically informed, reflective and truly evidence-informed practitioner involves engaging with the research of others to inform our direct practice. But further, this also requires us to be inward-facing and reflective, critically examining our own approaches to practice. This means being both a consumer and producer of research. Within social work, this latter approach to research is commonly referred to as practice-based research (PBR), or practice or practitioner research. This is not a specific method, but instead ‘a meeting point between practice and research that needs to be negotiated every time and everywhere it is established’ (Helsinki statement on social work practice research, 2014: 8). Dodd and Epstein (2012: 5) describe it as ‘research conducted by practitioners for practice purposes … to inform practice and practitioners’. It is a highly contextualised and grounded approach to research, with a clear fit with qualitative methods, requiring new or adapted methods, and a focus on collaboration and complexity. Flynn and McDermott (2016: 14) further describe PBR as typically being small scale, and focused on ‘the issues, problems and situations that they [practitioner researchers] encounter in their day-to-day practice which challenge, surprise or perplex them’. Arguably all research in social work falls into one of three broad purposes or categories (Flynn and McDermott, 2016): to uncover hidden issues (exploration); to map/understand needs and populations (description); or to evaluate interventions (explanation). Given the relative youthfulness of social work’s engagement in research, combined with the small scale and highly contextual nature of most PBR (Lunt, Shaw and Mitchell, 2009; Mitchell et al., 2010), it is not uncommon for much research in social work, or that done by social workers, to be at an exploratory level. While qualitative data and methods can be used across all study levels, it is perhaps easiest to see the connections to exploratory research, in offering the opportunity to get closer to people, to identify issues, to begin where the client is at, and to map out new lines of enquiry (Gould 2004).

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TRADITIONAL QUALITATIVE APPROACHES IN SOCIAL WORK Two qualitative methods synonymous with Social Work are individual interviewing and focus groups (Flynn and McDermott, 2016). These are discussed in terms of key features, strengths and limitations, and addressing power. Interviewing Asking questions and getting answers is a much harder task than it may seem at first. (Fontana and Frey, 2000: 645)

Interviews have been described as the most common method in child and family research (Cousins and Millar, 2007). Interviewing is ‘an open-ended, discovery-oriented method, which allows the interviewer to deeply explore the respondent’s feelings and perspectives on a subject’ (Guion, Diehl and McDonald, 2011: 1). It involves gathering in-depth data from individuals via discussion, typically face-to-face. But more recently, with the challenges of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, we have seen a rise in the use of technology, specifically video conferencing as an alternative, which is addressed briefly below. The broad aim of interviewing is to seek understanding and interpretation (Serry and Liamputtong, 2022). Interviewing is arguably most similar to client-facing, individually-focused, social work practice, and is anecdotally described as the method with which social workers feel most comfortable and confident. Key features of interviews While some talk about categories (or silos) of interviewing styles (unstructured, semi-structured and structured), it is suggested here that these ‘categories’ are more akin to a spectrum. Each definitely has its own characteristics: • Unstructured: this approach is conversational. It may begin with just one question, (a bit like Irvin Yalom’s3 opening question to those entering therapy ‘What ails you?’). In this style of interview, the interviewer comes with no set questions or interview plan, just a willingness to ask a question, to hear the initial response, and then to ask follow-up questions, led by what the interviewee presents. This could mean that in any one study, each interview goes in a very different direction, covering different material. This makes it a good approach for topics about which knowledge is limited, or for gathering data about highly sensitive or taboo matters. Although beyond the scope of this chapter, it is important to note the contribution to knowledge and practice in this area by First Nations scholars

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and practitioners in Australia, with a growing discourse for example about ‘yarning’ as a specific research method – which involves an unstructured, conversational approach to sharing stories and building knowledge (e.g., see Walker, Fredericks, Mills and Anderson, 2014). • Semi-structured: this approach typically relies on a small number of topics (5–7 is common), that are covered with each participant, but the sequencing, wording, etc., will be shaped by what the interviewee presents. This approach is most useful when you have some existing knowledge, and specific subjects you want to cover in all interviews, but the boundaries of what is needed are still a bit ‘loose’, and your variables of interest are not well defined. This approach allows you to pursue unanticipated issues raised by interviewees, but still maintain a general shape and focus to the data gathering. • Structured: in this approach, the same questions are asked in the same ways, and in the same order, to all interviewees; this approach typically means that there are a limited range of possible responses to each question. This type of approach is most useful when you have sufficient existing knowledge that you can ask specific and measurable questions; and where you need highly comparable data between your participants. You may have seen in these above descriptions the potential for considerable overlap, evident in the example given in Box 11.1.

BOX 11.1 A HYBRID APPROACH Alannah, was a PhD student doing research in a prison setting with mothers experiencing mental illness. She developed and implemented what she called a ‘structured, semi-structured’ interview. While the topic itself, being underexplored, needed an open approach – expecting the unexpected, being able to ask open questions, probe, and so on, she also needed a degree of structure and closed questions. This was necessary so that she was able to gather the same data within the sample, compare this against a broader group of mothers who were not experiencing mental health problems, as well as being able to provide a degree of safety and predictability for participants about the boundaries of the interview. She also needed to be able to work in pen and paper format, capturing accurate responses, as recording equipment was not permitted in the prison. Her solution was a tool that had 50/50 open and closed questions, typically using Yes/No or scaled questions, with a follow-up open, probing question. You can read more about Alannah’s study in Burgess and Flynn (2021).

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For the purposes of the discussion in this chapter, the focus is on unstructured/ semi-structured interviews more generally, as those that are fully structured have more in common with administered questionnaires – a quantitative approach. The benefits and considerations of interviewing There are many known benefits to interviews. As an interactive, ‘in the moment’, method, interviews bring flexibility, and the capacity to both prompt and clarify (such as ‘Did I hear that correctly?’, ‘Could you tell me a bit more about that?’), and to follow up leads, which is particularly helpful in very new areas of research, where you are likely to be presented with ideas you may not have considered. This capacity for real-time and respondent-driven interaction leads to greater depth and detail in the data gathered, which is key to qualitative methods. The individual nature of an interview can mean that more complex and sensitive materials are able to be discussed in ways that are mindful of privacy; and as Cousins and Millar (2007: 452) state, they ‘can enable overlooked and disempowered individuals to express their views freely’. This is aided by being present ‘in the room’, and using key social work skills. In interviews conducted by the author with adolescents who had experienced the imprisonment of their mother, core skills identified included ‘critically informed, participatory practice, skills in listening, hearing and tolerating, and personal qualities of empathy, and a genuine willingness to learn from participants … Actively engaging with participants’ emotional responses [allowing] these experiences to be heard, validated and contained’ (Flynn, 2010: 66). Being present in the room with someone also ensures that in research that may evoke an emotional response, these reactions, if not anticipated, then certainly can be observed, heard and contained, and responded to. As learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, many interview-based studies planned for that time needed to be adapted, often using videoconferencing technology. Somewhat pre-emptively Deakin and Wakefield (2014) shared some reflections on using such methods for interviewing. Some of the benefits include: having some degree of non-verbal communication (with the researcher being able to see the interviewee, and any emotional reaction or apparent confusion); being able to widen the scope of your interview pool – not being tied to a particular physical location; and interviewees having a convenient, neutral and private space from which to speak to you as the interviewer. There are also limitations, such as the potential for exclusion of those with limited access to relevant technology, as well as the reliance on technology, which may not always function. Not physically being in the same space also means that as the researcher, you have no control over what else may be going on, or who else may be present, outside the video frame. For example, is the space private and

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safe? These are new questions and considerations that need to be built in at the initial stages. The need to be prepared for (and have a planned response to) what might emerge when you use interviews to gather data is an important ethical issue. This also means, somewhat paradoxically, having an awareness of the possible unanticipated consequences of using your skills well. Flynn and McDermott (2016) argue that social work researchers need to use their skills cautiously, noting that rapport building, using empathy, or asking about and listening to difficult things, can create such a safe space for participants that they may over-disclose, something they may regret later. There is clearly potential for blurred boundaries when social workers (or other human service/helping professionals) engage in data gathering via interview, as this medium is so close to what is often the day-to-day work of social workers. Some thoughts about strategies and skills to manage are offered in Box 11.2.

BOX 11.2 SKILFUL STRATEGIES Regular ‘check-ins’ with participants about the direction and focus of the interview: for example: ‘We have moved quite a bit away from what we said we would talk about in this interview. Are you still happy to keep discussing this, or shall we return to the topics agreed?’ Bring awareness of yourself and your role: If, for example, your chosen data collection strategy is a one-off interview, be aware that you will not have an ongoing role in the participant’s life, beyond the interview space. Therefore, you need to be aware of what issues you pick up for exploration as lines of enquiry, and what issues should not be opened up, and then left hanging, for the person to manage. Keeping a firm eye on the study’s research question is an excellent compass. Ensuring back up-support is available as part of your ethics management plan is also relevant here. Be intentional about any shifts in your role from researcher to social worker. For example, if someone is distressed, and you feel obliged to act (to support, risk assess or refer) Alston and Bowles (2018) insist that you clearly signal these shifts, in words and actions (e.g., ‘I am going to step out of my role as researcher now, and turn off the recording equipment, so we can talk about …’). This allows us to respond in ways that are in line with the expectations of our profession, and ensures ethical practice more generally. Participants are clear what information is being used for research purposes, and what information they are sharing as part of a help seeking/ giving process.

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Addressing power In some instances, individual interviews may be perceived as neither supportive nor safe, and indeed paradoxically, may feel intense and intrusive, with a clear power difference between the researcher and the researched. A range of intersecting factors may exacerbate power differences. These include individual factors such as age, gender, language; community factors such as being from a marginalised or over-researched group; or the context of the research environment, for example if the research is being conducted in/about your organisation, on which the participant is in some way reliant or dependent for services; if the environment is perceived to be coercive; or if the topic is seen to be particularly sensitive or personal. These challenges are not insurmountable, but do need researcher attention. A range of strategies may be useful, beginning by simply acknowledging that a power dynamic exists. It helps to openly discuss with potential participants any perceived obligations they may feel, to hear their concerns, and to reassure them of your commitment to free and informed participation. You need to be particularly mindful of the impact of the environment here; for example, talking about choice whilst sitting inside a prison may seem paradoxical, so noting this can be transparent starting point. Time spent discussing informed consent is never wasted time, knowing that it can be hard for participants to remove themselves once they are in an environment. Naming dissent/non-participation as a real option can assist here, as can revisiting consent throughout. Sometimes, for matters considered highly sensitive or taboo, less direct methods, such as a questionnaire, can feel less intrusive, as people can answer in their own time and space. However, if you think that people may be distressed by some of the questions, make sure you flag this in information you provide to potential participants, and provide contact details for relevant resources or support services, or offer the researcher as a contact point. Focus Groups A focus group is a small group discussion focussed on a particular topic and facilitated by a researcher. (Tonkiss, 2018: 238)

As social beings, people ‘[move] in and out of different groups throughout their lives’ (Crawford, Price and Price, 2014: 13), with social groups fundamental to the human experience. Groupwork then, unsurprisingly, is common in both social work practice and research. As with interviewing, there is a degree of crossover and similar social work skills used in focus groups, as there is in offering groupwork: managing multiple interactions and lines of communication, multiple relationships, and being aware of power.

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It is important to outline firstly what a focus group is (and is not). A focus group is not a group interview. The key difference lies in the pattern of interactions (Liamputtong, 2016, 2020). A group interview relies on interactions centred on the facilitator. This may include them asking the same questions of all individuals in the group, or asking people to work in pairs/small groups to present a response. A focus group, on the other hand, focuses on the interactions within the group, between group members. The job of the facilitator then is to encourage participation, facilitating developments, either in the connection to associated ideas, the clarification of ideas, or in seeking contrasting or alternative ideas. Key features of focus groups Successful focus groups have a few common characteristics. Flynn and McDermott (2016: 12) suggest that ‘If we want to ask a small sample, say 7–10 people, about their views on a ‘topic’, then a focus group might be best’. This group size provides a greater opportunity for all to contribute, although ensuring this is up to the facilitator, bearing in mind that not all people contribute in the same way/to the same degree. Focus groups also work best when they have a specific focus, which they explore in-depth, with the interactions enhancing data quality by expanding on ideas presented, or even suggesting new areas not previously considered. Similar to a semi-structured interview, 5–7 topics works best. Balance in the participant group is an important ingredient. Participants having a shared or similar background, or some shared experience or concern, gives an appropriate balance between homogeneity and heterogeneity. The example below is from Baidawi and Sheehan’s (2019: 193) research with professionals – seeking their opinions on the experiences of and responses to children involved in both child protection and youth justice systems. It shows how balancing shared characteristics (in this case, participants’ professions), with diversity (here, differing roles within the organisation) allows varied views to be expressed, and captured in the data: Some professionals were concerned with what they perceived as children’s unconcerned or disrespectful attitudes towards the criminal justice system. Yet in multiple instances, another person involved in the focus group challenged these perceptions: Participant 31: I’m not talking about the first offence and the second offence, I’m talking about kids who offend 10 times or more you know – Participant 29: But ultimately as you grow – Participant 31: – these kids are still getting away with – Participant 29: It’s not that they’re being getting away with it – again it’s the underlying issue. Participant 31: That’s the way they see it. (Focus Group 11)

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It is common in social work to see studies that use focus groups, very often for research that seeks practitioner perspectives or experiences. This may be for methodological and/or ethical reasons. Practitioners, while providing qualitative data (for example, anonymised case examples) can provide information about multiple cases – giving a more comprehensive view, albeit from one perspective, and this may be deemed less burdensome than seeking data from those in receipt of services. For example, this author was involved in a study that sought to better understand how children who have experienced parental imprisonment are responded to by the adult systems with whom they come into contact. Part of the data collection strategy involved seeking the views of a range of professionals involved in these adult systems: did they see these children as their ‘clients’; how did they currently respond; what did they perceive to be the issues, etc.? To achieve this, we ran a series of focus groups, each with a different professional cohort, including: child protection workers, teachers, police, prison officers, and post-release staff. Groups ran separately to ensure that participants could talk specifically about their day-to-day experiences, and the system in which they worked, and that each group had enough shared knowledge to be able to connect experiences and build an in-depth picture. This allowed us to gather data from distinctive groups, and to form a view of this experience drawing from multiple perspectives (see Flynn, Naylor and Fernandez Arias, 2016). But, focus groups are not without practical challenges. Being able to ask fewer questions means that you need to be very clear on what your focus is, and how the questions you ask will generate the data you need to respond to your overall research question. A group also necessarily means that each individual has less ‘air time’. This is where careful consideration of methods in planning your study is important. If you are seeking individual stories, experiences and details, then perhaps an individual interview, rather than a focus group may be a more suitable option. Even things like group size need some planning. For example, with a larger group it is better to have two facilitators – one to ask questions and one to record interactions and reflections; you might need two audio recorders to hear everyone (best not to discover that after the fact). Addressing power As flagged above in interviewing, and with regard to group make-up, power is an element in focus groups. Interestingly focus groups are often suggested as a good way to reduce the power difference between researchers and the researched (simply on the basis of numbers – there are more of them than of you!), particularly with children (Adler, Salantera and Zumstein-Shaha, 2019). However, as suggested above, there are also other, within-group, power issues to be mindful of, specifically but not exclusively, in pre-existing groups, such as workgroups, friendship groups, etc. An awareness of wider community

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patterns of power – age, gender, language and literacy, job roles etc. – and their likely implications, will also aid you in putting together a group, in which people will feel comfortable to share their views.

BOX 11.3 SKILFUL STRATEGIES To foster a diversity of viewpoints: begin by thinking carefully about the make-up of the group, for example, are there any pre-existing power dynamics or patterns (e.g., between work colleagues)? Might this mean they are more or less comfortable disagreeing with one another and presenting alternate points of view, or that they may bring existing patterns of communicating to the focus group? With your groups more generally, what broader power dynamics exist? What ‘minority’ groups may be present? What will need to be in place to ensure that the group is a safe space to express a range of ideas? You may want to consult with an informed person from the group or community you are conducting the research with to get a clearer picture on these patterns if you are an ‘outsider’ researcher. Spend some time planning how you will establish the group at the outset of the session, with regard to the guidelines, how you will seek a diversity of viewpoints. This will ensure that the boundaries and expectations are clear. You may want for instance, to do some warm-up exercises or have an active discussion about seeking varied viewpoints, pre-empting the fact that you will be provocative, that you will ask who disagrees, or has a different viewpoint, making diversity the ‘typical’ position. Two issues closely related to power are confidentiality and anonymity. If a focus group is to be a data source, then, obviously, anonymity (not being identifiable) is not possible. If having your participants remain anonymous is desirable for your study, best to think early on about using an individual method. Confidentiality in focus groups (not sharing any information heard in the group or about group members with anyone else) can be sought from participants, but cannot be guaranteed or enforced. It is nevertheless an important issue to discuss and obtain agreement on before commencing any groupwork. Visual Methods While visual methods are not new in social sciences (notably ethnography), it has only been in the last decade or so that social work has begun to embrace

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these approaches. Visual methods encompass a wide array of activities, including photo­graphs, diagrams, film and video, maps, memory books, drawings or cartoons, which Flynn and McDermott (2016: 151) describe as being appropriate in a range of instances in the fields of social work and social care. These may more readily capture direct experience; for example, rather than asking a participant to describe their community, they can take photos, thereby capturing the ordinary or everyday. These methods can be more accessible or attractive to those who may not feel confident in their verbal or written communication. The core benefits, however, are that at their heart, these approaches are collaborative – thereby addressing power, embracing plurality, and offering a richer and more contextualised view and understanding of people’s lives. For the purposes of this chapter on social work, we focus on the use of diagrams and photographic methods for collecting qualitative data. Diagrams Similar to interviews and focus groups, the use of diagrams in many ways is close to social work practice, where tools such as genograms (a visual representation of familial relationships, similar to a family tree, capturing the quality of relationships, connections to family both dead and living, etc.) and eco-maps (a visual representation of the connections between a family and their environment) are foundation tools. These common tools allow practitioners to visually locate the person in their social environment, capturing complex histories, interactions, family patterns, and so on in one place, all aiming to guide and shape practice. Harold et al. (1997) argued that eco-maps were a ‘cross-over’ tool for both research and practice. Their conclusions are relevant to visual methods more generally, and diagramming specifically. Gathering data via diagrams can facilitate collaborative relationships, enhance both the quantity and quality of data gathered, provide a vehicle for probing and exploration on key issues, as well as allowing for alternative forms of expression for those less verbally descriptive. In PhD research examining the experiences of young people in or formerly in residential care in the Philippines (Roche, 2020a), Steve conducted life-history interviews, making use of two tools commonly used in practice: a time-line and a network map. He shares his observations and reflections in the case study below.

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CASE STUDY: USING VISUAL METHODS WITH CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE TO PROMOTE PARTICIPATION The combination of participatory and visual research methods can be of significant value in qualitative research with children and young people. These interviews utilised participatory techniques to engage participants to maximise their participation, as well as to reduce anxiety for children and young people, particularly for those who may be less skilled at verbal communication (Kendrick et al., 2008). These included using paper and markers to create a life history timeline (Figure 11.1) as well as a relationship and network map (Figure 11.2).

Note: Permission was given by participants to reproduce these images.

Figure 11.1

Life history timeline example

The life history timelines were written down (by researcher or participant) during the interview with the participant on a large piece of paper beginning at each participant’s birth, and tracing their family background and relationships, care locations and histories, education history, and support from NGOs and others, in addition to other life events and experiences deemed significant by

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the participant (Roche, 2020b). Detail was requested around ‘critical moments’ in their lives in order to explore the relationship between participants and their social contexts and social structures (Kearns, 2014), which offered a visual representation of the overall interview data being collected. One advantage of the timeline was its capacity to provide historical depth, and invite reflections on how they connected with contemporary experiences, views and perspectives (Lewis, 2008). Another participatory and visual method used in interviews involved a relationship and network mapping exercise. Participants were asked ‘Who are the most important people in your life, and how do they support you?’, and invited to write down the important people in their lives in a diagram, with the most important people positioned towards the middle (see Figure 11.2).

Figure 11.2

Relationship and network map example

A concurrent discussion followed about each person, how they were important, and what support they provided. This approach gave control over the detail and depth of information given, and afforded the researcher and participant shared

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agency over the direction of the discussion, leading to in-depth data about the participant’s meaningful relationships with key people in their lives (Roche, Flynn and Mendes, 2021). Rogers (2017: 45) similarly concluded from his study of the social networks of young people in out-of-home care (OOHC) in the UK, that visual methods such as ecomaps and photo-elicitation (discussed below) were effective, and offered the means by which data could be gathered ‘that may otherwise have gone unobserved’. He also noted the value of such methods in going some way to redressing power imbalances by maximising participation.

Source: Adapted from Armitage (2016).

Figure 11.3

Adapted sociogram

Lana, a PhD student reflected on her research incorporating a visual method into her interviews, with a different study cohort. Her research examined the post-study experiences of international social work graduates, seeking not only capture participants’ social networks, but changes over time. The use of a visualisation tool [Figure 11.3] helped enhance the analysis of the data in several ways. The specific tool was adapted to retrospectively capture different phases of time, and how they were experienced by each participant, after completing their degree. The visualisation tool was filled in collaboratively during interviews, which aided in building rapport and enabled a more spontaneous exploration of lived experience. Participants were asked to create ‘chapter titles’ for each of the

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phases to capture and narrate their own experience over time, allowing a more in-depth understanding of the meaning of experience from the unique perspectives of each participant. A benefit of this approach was that interview data became more structured and manageable, and allowed greater capacity to draw comparisons between participants and their diverse experiences. This further gave insight into how experience was influenced by the broader social and political contexts in which they had worked and lived over time.

In summary, diagrams may be tools worth considering for research that seeks to capture rich and detailed data about interactions, relationships, processes, time, or to deepen understanding of meaning-making processes. Photography as method The use of photo images has grown considerably since the 1990s, when Photovoice emerged. Wang and Burris (1997: 369) pioneered this method and describe it as a ‘process by which people can identify, represent, and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique’. Grounded in participatory research and action, this method was promoted as a creative and participatory way to gather qualitative data, on the basis that anyone can use a camera, with the method not being reliant on language or status. From this basis, the use of photos has expanded beyond community-focused participatory research, with, now, a much broader focus known as photo elicitation. Kolb (2008: 2) describes this method quite simply as inviting participants to ‘answer a research question by taking photos and explaining their photos to the researcher’. Originally this involved instant or disposable cameras, but has now moved more to smart phones, including capturing and uploading images on social media (e.g., see Yi-Frazier et al.’s (2015) study, where adolescents documented and reflected on their daily experiences with Type 1 diabetes, uploading photos to Instagram). Photo elicitation importantly involves subsequent discussion with the participants about their photos, and the meaning they attribute to them, rather than the interviewer’s interpretation of the images. This method enables the capturing of ‘a more holistic picture of participants’ day-to-day lived experience, specifically the activities they are involved in and their relationship with places and spaces’ (Rogers, 2017: 48). Keating (2021) recently conducted research on experiences of mental health and mental health services with black men in London. Participants were given a digital camera and asked to take 10 photos over the week, choosing five to discuss. A creative method was deemed appropriate to enable those ‘who have been silenced or marginalised to produce testimonies that capture their views and lived experience’ (Sutton-Brown 2014, cited in Keating, 2021: 757). This group were described as having very poor mental health outcomes, being reluctant to seek help, with difficult pathways to care, which often resulted in coercive interventions. The authors reflect that this method allowed them to

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‘get at’ material which would have been challenging to traverse just through talking; and that beginning with an external and impersonal image created a pathway to talk about ‘personal and nuanced’ experiences (Keating, 2021: 768). It was concluded that photo elicitation was the right medium, and created a safe space.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS Social work practice regularly requires the use of skills akin to qualitative methods. Key to progressing as a discipline is recognising the skills held, and using these intentionally in the doing of research, which allows us to hear diverse and marginalised voices, to be nearer to people’s experiences; to be less structured, less expert, and to listen more. Although a range of qualitative methods have been outlined in this chapter, it is clear that there are many common characteristics, in terms of seeking in-depth, holistic and nuanced data relevant to social work practice. There are a range of skills that are arguably useful across all methods (the following list is adapted from Guion, Diehl and McDonald, 2011); all are skills used in social work practice: • Open-mindedness and curiosity: A willingness to pose necessary questions and to hear a diversity of responses. This requires researcher self-awareness to manage one’s own expectations and opinions; any sense of a researcher as judgemental will create barriers in communication. • Flexibility: Like effective practitioners, effective qualitative researchers need to ‘think on their feet’, to be responsive to unanticipated topics presented or to respond to problems (perhaps adapting one’s style of questioning, or speed of speech). • Active ‘listening’: It is often said that ‘social workers need to talk less and listen more’. This is particularly good advice for those doing qualitative research. Being patient, allowing space for participants to talk, or to be silent, will allow them to speak freely, at their own pace; this will result in richer and more detailed data. • Boundaries: While being a social work researcher means you will have relevant skills from practice that will support you in gathering qualitative data, being mindful that these are different roles, with different purposes, is important to ensure that participants are clear on what role you are acting at any one time, and what the implications are for the information they are sharing with you. When doing research, holding your research question in mind is a good way to keep a clear focus. • Power: Being aware of power is central to any research, but certainly in qualitative research, where, as researchers, we may be privy to personal

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and sensitive information about people, including those for whom time with a researcher may be one of the few times they get to share their thoughts and opinions. Bring this awareness to study design, recruitment, choice of methods, data collection and beyond. With our existing skill-set, social workers are well placed to be excellent qualitative researchers, but this also requires commitment from the profession and discipline as to the value and contribution of such approaches to knowledge development and evidence-informed practice. If we are to remain true to social work’s core, that is seeing people as experts in their own lives, with whom we seek to engage collaboratively and respectfully to alleviate problems, then we need to hear a variety of voices authentically. That inevitably means we need to adapt and move closer, listen more deeply and, importantly, hear what is being said. Using a range of qualitative methods in research enables us to achieve these aims.

NOTES 1. 2. 3.

This is not to say that there was no qualitative research occurring; see Gould (2004) for a good account of this history. This is also known as evidence-based practice. The shift in language to ‘informed’ signifies that while research evidence is informative, it is not prescriptive or determining. Irvin Yalom is an existential psychotherapist, who has written a range of textbooks and what he calls ‘teaching novels’ about therapy.

REFERENCES Adler, K., Salantera, S., and Zumstein-Shaha, M. (2019). Focus group interviews in child, youth, and parent research: An integrative literature review. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1–15. doi: 10.1177/1609406919887274. Alston, M. and Bowles, W. (2018). Research for social workers: An introduction to methods. Melbourne: Routledge. Alston, M., McCurdy, S., and McKinnon, J. (2018). Social work: Fields of practice. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Armitage, N. (2016). The Biographical Network Method. Sociological Research Online, 21(2), 1–15. doi:​10​.5153/​sro​.3827. Australian Association of Social Workers [AASW]. (2020). Code of ethics. Retrieved from https://​www​.aasw​.asn​.au/​document/​item/​1201. Baidawi, S. and Sheehan, R. (2019). ‘Cross-over kids’: Effective responses to children and young people in the youth justice and statutory child protection systems. Report to the Criminology Research Advisory Council. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. Burgess, A. and Flynn, C. (2021). Maternal mental illness: Mediating women’s trajectory through the Victorian criminal justice system. Women and Criminal Justice. doi: 10.1080/08974454.2021.1942399.

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Butler, I. and Pugh, R. (2004). The politics of social work research. In K. Lyons, R. Lovelock, J. Powell, L. Jordan, and P. O’Leary (Eds.), Reflecting on social work – discipline and profession (pp. 55–71). Retrieved from http://​ebookcentral​.proquest​ .com/​lib/​monash/​detail​.action​?docID​=​4816842. Crawford, K., Price, M., and Price, B. (2014). Groupwork practice for social workers. London: Sage Publications. Cousins, W., and Millar, S. (2007). Small voices: Children’s rights and representation in social work research. Social Work Education, 26(5), 447–457. doi: 10.1080/02615470601118589. Deakin, H., and Wakefield, K. (2014). Skype interviewing: Reflections of two PhD researchers. Qualitative Research, 14(5), 603–616. doi: 10.1177/1468794113488126. Dodd, S.-J., and Epstein, I. (2012). Practice-based research in social work: A guide for reluctant researchers. Retrieved from http://​ebookcentral​.proquest​.com/​lib/​monash/​ detail​.action​?docID​=​957448. Flynn, C. (2010). Young people who have experienced maternal imprisonment: Ensuring their wellbeing and voice in research. Advances in Social Work and Welfare Education, 12(1), 53–72. Retrieved from https://​search​.informit​.org/​doi/​10​ .3316/​ielapa​.81114271987. Flynn, C., and McDermott, F. (2016). Doing research in social work and social care: The journey from student to practitioner researcher. London: Sage Publications. Flynn, C., Naylor, B., and Fernandez Arias, P. (2016). Responding to the needs of children of parents arrested in Victoria, Australia. The role of the adult criminal justice system. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 49(3), 351–369. doi: 10.1177/0004865815585390. Fontana, A., and Frey, J.H. (2000). The interview: From structured questions to negotiated text. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd edn) (pp. 645–672). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Fook, J. (2010). Social work research in Australia. Social Work Education, 22(1), 45–57. doi: 10.1080/02615470309134. Gilgun, J. (1994). Hand into glove. The grounded theory approach and social work practice research. In E. Sherman and W.J. Reid (Eds.), Qualitative research in social work (pp. 115–125). New York: Columbia University Press. Goldstein, H. (1983). Starting where the client is. Social Casework, 64(5), 267–275. doi: 10.1177/104438948306400502. Gould, N. (2004). Qualitative research and social work: The methodological repertoire in a practice-oriented discipline. In K. Lyons, R. Lovelock, J. Powell, L. Jordan, and P. O’Leary (Eds.), Reflecting on Social Work – Discipline and Profession (pp.  55–71). Retrieved from http://​ebookcentral​.proquest​.com/​lib/​monash/​detail​ .action​?docID​=​4816842. Guion, L.A., Diehl., D.C., and McDonald, D. (2011). Conducting an In-depth Interview, University of Florida. Retrieved from http://​ greenmedicine​ .ie/​ school/​ images/​Library/​Conducting​%20An​%20In​%20Depth​%20Interview​.pdf. Hammarberg, K., Kirkman, M., and de Lacey, S. (2016). Qualitative research methods: When to use them and how to judge them. Human Reproduction, 31(3), 498–501. doi​.org/​10​.1093/​humrep/​dev334. Hardy, M. (2015). Governing risk: Care and control in contemporary social work. London: Palgrave. Harold, R.D., Mercer, L.R., and Colarossi, L.G. (1997). Eco maps: Tool to bridge the practice-research gap. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 24(4), 29–44.

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Helsinki statement on social work practice research (2014) Helsinki statement on social work practice research. Nordic Social Work Research, 4(Sup1), 7–13. doi: 10.1080/2156857X.2014.981426. International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW]. (2014). Global definition of social work. Retrieved from https://​www​.ifsw​.org/​what​-is​-social​-work/​global​-definition​ -of​-social​-work/​. Kearns, S. (2014). Working reflexively with ethical complexity in narrative research with disadvantaged young people. Qualitative Social Work, 13(4), 502–521. doi: 10.1177/1473325013502067. Keating, F. (2021). Black men’s conversations about mental health through photos. Qualitative Social Work, 20(3), 755–772. doi: 10.1177/1473325020922293. Kendrick, A., Steckley, L., and Lerpiniere, J. (2008). Ethical issues, research and vulnerability: Gaining views of children and young people in residential care. Children’s Geographies, 6(1), 79–93. Kolb, B. (2008). Involving, sharing, analysing – Potential of the participatory photo interview. Forum Qualitative Social Research, 9(3), Article 12. Retrieved from https://​www​.qualitative​-research​.net/​index​.php/​fqs/​article/​view/​1155/​2564. Lewis, D. (2008). Using life histories in social policy research: The case of third sector/ public sector boundary crossing. Journal of Social Policy, 37(4), 559–578. doi: 10.1017/S0047279408002213. Liamputtong, P. (2016). Focus group methodology: Principle and practices. London: Sage (ebook version). Liamputtong, P. (2020) Qualitative research methods (5th edn). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Lunt, N., Shaw, I. and Mitchell, F. (2009). Practitioner research in CHILDREN 1st: cohorts, networks and systems. Institute for Research and Innovation in the Social Services. Retrieved from www​.iriss​.org​.uk/​sites/​default/​files/​iriss​-practitioner​ -research​-children1st​-report​-2009​.pdf. Lyons, K., Lovelock, R., Powell, J., Jordan, L., and O’Leary, P. (Eds.) (2004). Reflecting on Social Work – Discipline and Profession. Retrieved from http://​ ebookcentral​.proquest​.com/​lib/​monash/​detail​.action​?docID​=​4816842. McDermott, F. (2018). Researching practice: The role of the journal, Australian Social Work, 71(4), 383–385. Doi: 10.1080/0312407X.2018.1488507. Mitchell, F., Lunt, N., and Shaw, I. (2010). Practitioner research in social work: A knowledge review. Evidence and Policy, 6(1), 7–31. Ornellas, A., Spolander, G., Engelbrecht, L.K., Sicora, A., Pervova, I., Martínez-Román, M.-A., … and Strydom, M. (2019). Mapping social work across 10 countries: Structure, intervention, identity and challenges. International Social Work, 62(4), 1183–1197, doi: 10.1177/0020872818788395. Qualitative Social Work. (2021). Qualitative social work. Retrieved from https://​ journals​.sagepub​.com/​home/​qsw. Roche, S. (2020a). Residential care as a child protection mechanism in the Philippines: An analysis of children’s life histories and their community-based protection. Doctoral Thesis: Monash University. Roche, S. (2020b). Conceptualising children’s life histories and reasons for entry into residential care in the Philippines: Social contexts, instabilities and safeguarding. Children and Youth Services Review. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.104820. Roche, S., Flynn, C., and Mendes, P. (2021). ‘They became my second family’: Children’s relational lives and relationship-based practice in residential care in the Philippines. Child & Family Social Work, 26(4), 652–663. doi: 10.1111/cfs.12846.

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Rogers J. (2017). Eco-maps and photo-elicitation: Reflections on the use of visual methods in social work research with children and young people. Journal of Applied Youth Studies, 1(4), 45–56. Retrieved from https://​search​.informit​.org/​doi/​pdf/​10​ .3316/​informit​.607880498553114. Rubin, A. and Bellamy, J. (2012). Practitioner’s guide to using research for evidence-based practice (2nd edn). New York: Wiley. Rubin, A. and Parrish, D.E. (2007). Challenges to the future of evidence-based practice in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 43(3), 405–428. Serry, T., and Liamputtong, T. (2022). The in-depth interviewing method. In P. Liamputtong (ed.), Research methods and evidence-based practice (4th edn) (pp. 76–92). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Smirnoff, M., Wilets, I., Ragin, D.F, Adams, R., Holohan, J., Rhodes, R., … Richardson, L.D. (2018). A paradigm for understanding trust and mistrust in medical research: The Community VOICES Study. AJOB Empirical Bioethics, 9(1): 39–47. doi: 10.1080/23294515.2018.1432718. Tonkiss, F. (2018). Focus groups. In C. Seale (ed.), Researching society and culture (4th edn) (Chapter 13). London: Sage. Walker, M., Fredericks, B., Mills, K., and Anderson, D. (2014). ‘Yarning’ as a method for community-based health research with Indigenous women: The Indigenous women’s wellness research program, Health Care for Women International, 35(10), 1216–1226. doi: 10.1080/07399332.2013.815754. Wang, C. and Burris, M.A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education and Behavior, 24(3), 369–387. Weiss-Gal, I. and Welbourne, P. (2008). The professionalisation of social work: A cross-national exploration. International Journal of Social Welfare, 17, 281–290, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2397.2008.00574.x. Yi-Frazier, J.P., Cochrane K., Mitrovich C., Pascual, M., Buscaino, E., Eaton, L., … and Malik F. (2015). Using Instagram as a modified application of Photovoice for storytelling and sharing in adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes. Qualitative Health Research, 25(10), 1372–1382. doi: 10.1177/1049732315583282.

12. Conducting qualitative research in education Jennifer Gao and Radhika Chugh INTRODUCTION The focus of the qualitative research approach is on understanding experiences or phenomena, and it is often applied to generate in-depth insights that may inform subsequent studies (Liamputtong, 2020). This chapter provides a brief introduction to the world of qualitative research in the education discipline. Educational research spans a broad range of topics and settings, ranging from school and higher education, vocational and professional education, teacher education, delivery modes, social and cultural differences, to adult learning and non-traditional forms of education. A series of examples will help illustrate how qualitative research can advance our understanding of the education field by offering insights into complex realities and meanings as experienced and interpreted by actors in educational contexts. In this chapter, we first outline traditional qualitative approaches to data generation in education research, including case studies, ethnography, interviews and focus groups, and archival data, followed by common data analysis methods, including content analysis, grounded theory, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis. Next, we present emerging qualitative research methods in the education discipline, providing specific examples of studies that integrated mixed data sources collected across multiple phases, made use of videos and other types of emerging technology, drew from social media and the Internet as new data sources, or employed culture-specific research methods. Finally, we conclude with a brief commentary on qualitative methods in education research. While we do not aim to provide a comprehensive literature review, based on the selected examples, we hope to shed light on the core characteristics and key strengths of qualitative methods in contributing to our understanding of educational phenomena.

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TRADITIONAL QUALITATIVE RESEARCH APPROACHES We start by reviewing traditional qualitative methods that are commonly adopted across studies in the educational setting. In the sections below we first consider four data generation methods (case studies, ethnography, interviews and focus groups, and archival and secondary data), followed by four common data analysis methods (content, discourse, narrative, and grounded theory analyses) in educational research. We attempt to supplement each method with recent examples of educational studies published in relevant academic journals. Data Generation or Collection Case studies The case study approach is suitable for investigating complex phenomena or problems within their respective contexts (Baxter and Jack, 2008; Yin, 2018; Liamputtong, 2020). Most importantly, case studies allow for in-depth exploration of educational issues and themes through combining multiple data sources and methods of data collection (Robson, 2002), which in turn leads to a compilation of rich descriptions from different participants’ points of view (Stark and Torrance, 2005). For example, to examine the implementation of special education policies, Stelitano, Russell, and Bray (2020) conducted a multiple-case study and compared routines implemented in two high schools. Data collected from the two cases included a total of 47 interviews with school staff members ranging from administrators, general educators, and special educators to assistants; 60 hours of observations and special educator shadowing (documented in the form of field notes); over 450 artefacts (in the form of copy or photos); and 173 responses to a social network survey. Adopting the case study method allowed Stelitano et al. (2020) to consider the effectiveness of each school’s support model in their respective contexts and strengthen the robustness of research findings through triangulating different sources and types of data. As a variation of the case study approach to data collection, the narrative case study allows educational researchers to focus on delving deeper into the lived experience and stories of research participants. Pazey’s (2020) narrative case study shows a stronger focus on the accounts, voices, and meanings for participants as they experience neoliberal reforms on a turnaround high school. Beyond documents including newspaper articles, board meeting records, and websites, Pazey (2020: 1875) collected data as a nonparticipant observer and recorded the structure of school board meetings, the way in which commu-

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nication was conducted, and the ‘emotion-ridden testimonies’ provided by the different parties involved (including students and their parents, teachers, alumni, and the community). Ethnography With its roots in anthropological studies, ethnography aims to capture rich and holistic insights that reflect interactions between and the perceptions of those in a specific social setting (Liamputtong, 2020; see also Chapters 3 and 4 in this volume). This data collection approach requires researchers to participate ‘in people’s daily lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, and/or asking questions through informal and formal interviews, collecting documents and artefacts – in fact, gathering whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are the emerging focus of inquiry’ (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2019: 3). Hammersley (2018) summarised the ethnographic approach as having characteristics of a relatively extended period of data collection; greater reliance on participant observation and personal engagement in naturally occurring settings; a focus on documenting what happens; and an emphasis on culture (see also Chapters 3 and 4 in this volume). In his study of teacher evaluation policy implementation, Lane (2020) spent more than three months at three middle schools and collected data through interviews and observations of organisational processes and routines, as well as examining public and private documents ranging from policy documents and written correspondence. Three years later, a follow-up data collection phase was carried out to compare emerging findings with any changes that may have taken place over time (Lane, 2020). Extending from ethnography, Freidus (2020: 815) adopted a critical ethnographic approach to study stakeholders’ debates, fears, and hopes concerning shifting school demographics, as this allows the researcher to ‘situate ethnographic and narrative material in relationship to the political economy and racial formations’. Data for this study were collected through observing and taking field notes for more than 30 community education council and district meetings, events, and forums, and supplementing these with media coverage ranging from newspaper articles and blog and social media posts to radio show transcripts. Moreover, Freidus (2020: 816) noted her position as a researcher in relation to those being studied, which illustrates the incorporation of reflexive inquiry in critical ethnography: I was acutely aware that as a white, professional resident of a neighborhood that had gentrified only recently, before I arrived, I entered these public conversations from the perspective of a newcomer rather than a longtime resident ... As a consequence, I generally restricted my own participation in the public meetings’.

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Interviews and focus groups Interviews and focus groups are a common method for data generation in educational research and are often conducted in combination with other data collection methods, such as questionnaires. Interviews are often conducted in semi-structured format to achieve a balance between flexibility for different themes that may emerge from individual accounts and comparability across data gathered from participants (Serry and Liamputtong, 2022). On the other hand, focus groups are usually conducted with a small number of participants to gain an understanding of a particular topic or experience (Liamputtong, 2020; Davidson et al., 2022). For example, caregivers and students may discuss engagement in their collective learning experiences. An important rationale underlying focus groups is that this data collection approach ‘promote(s) self-disclosure among participants’ (Krueger and Casey, 2014: 4), thereby shifting the attention from the interviewer to the participants. To find out how students and teachers conceptualised engagement and disengagement in mathematics and sciences learning, Fredricks et al. (2016) used a combination of semi-structured individual interviews with 12 middle school teachers, 22 high school teachers, and 36 students, and 16 semi-structured focus group interviews with 68 students. Researchers in this study organised interview questions around broad themes, including the meaning of engagement and disengagement, student behaviours when they are engaged in mathematics and science, and factors that influence student engagement and disengagement in these subjects. The researchers first elicited information from participants with low levels of prompting, followed by more ‘directed probing questions’ (Fredricks et al., 2016: 7) to confirm whether there is an alignment between participant views and the researchers’ multidimensional conceptions of engagement. However, in the process of conducting focus groups, the researchers noted that this format limited the opportunity for those conducting the interview to pursue deeper responses and did not give all participants enough space to be active in the discussions. Hence, adjustments to the data collection approach resulted in the aforementioned combination of both individual interviews and focus groups with student participants. Archival data Another data collection method for educational researchers, particularly those focusing on educational policies or historical events, is the examination of archival data. Archival data encompasses any type of information already collected by others, for example, for administrative or evaluation purposes, and may range from public records, annual reports, census data, and meeting minutes to legal commentaries. As examples of studies based on archival data, Duff and Wohlstetter (2019) examined data from the federal feedback and state response process to analyse political interactions between the federal

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government and the state governments under the Every Student Succeeds Act. On the other hand, Gabriel (2020) focused on written testimony responding to the state legislature on dyslexia and special education to explore stakeholder experiences and positioning in relation to Connecticut’s 2014 Act Concerning Dyslexia and Special Education. Another example is Tobiason (2019), who examined popular media including magazines, newspaper articles and websites, advocacy discourse generated by think tanks and political advocacy groups, and policy-messaging from the Department of Education between 2008 and 2016 to investigate the role of value-added modelling in teacher evaluation. Data Analysis Qualitative analysis is guided by sense-making or understanding the why and how of a phenomenon. The choice of data analysis methods depends on the research paradigm and the corresponding data collection methods (Liamputtong, 2020). The rich qualitative data gathered from interviews, observations, and so on are often analysed using an inductive coding method; this helps to obtain main themes or ideas from the text and these are reported as results or findings. Most often, transcribed interviews act as the starting point. The overall text is read and re-read to get a sense of the interview as a whole. At this point, the researcher may already form a good understanding of the main ideas in the text. Thereafter, the text is divided into small meaning units – units that denote the same idea and are close to the actual text. These meaning units are then condensed and labelled or ‘coded’. The researcher moves to higher levels of abstraction wherein categories and themes are developed (Liamputtong, 2020). Content analysis The coding techniques may vary primarily depending on whether the coding process is guided by the theoretical framework informing the research, if it is grounded in the data itself, or if it is a combination of the two. Content analysis is one such technique used for ‘making replicable and valid inferences from text’ (Krippendorff, 2004: 18). It is a relatively structured approach that allows multiple researchers to apply a consistent coding protocol to reduce data into distinct themes or categories (Leung and Chung, 2019). The process begins with the identification of concepts or ideas of interest to the research team. This is a time-consuming task that often requires researchers to engage with both the existing theories and literature, and the data. It can involve both inductive abstraction from the data (or an initial subset of data in case of large volumes of data) and deductive reasoning from the existing literature. The researchers then create a codebook that consists of these concepts or codes, and

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their definitions. Having multiple researchers allows for the measurement and improvement of interrater reliability as the codes are refined, articulated, and modified for researchers to reach an agreement. The content analysis approach can be seen in a research study by Williams, Burt, Clay, and Bridges (2019) that employs counter-narratives rooted in a critical race methodology to highlight the contributions of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In this study, interviews with HBCU presidents were analysed by coding them as per a coding scheme developed by the first author and scrutinised and refined by the first and third authors. The researchers articulate the data analysis process in a step-wise, logical, and easy to follow manner. Another example of the content analysis technique is the study by Vanlommel and Schildkamp (2019). In this research study, the authors examine the way teachers make sense of data in the context of high-stakes decision making, such as decisions related to student placement in educational tracks. In this study, the first researcher developed a coding scheme or codebook based on the theoretical framework being used. The scheme was then analysed, discussed, and finalised after discussions with the second researcher. The authors detail the disagreements in codings and the process of resolving these to reach higher interrater reliability, thus providing an excellent insight into the coding process. The structured approach of content analysis allows researchers to analyse large volumes of data across multiple settings. This makes content analysis best suited for studies aimed at the elaboration of adolescent theories (Sonpar and Golden-Biddle, 2008). Grounded theory In cases where the aim is theory generation, a grounded theory approach is better suited (Liamputtong, 2020; Wong et al., 2022). Grounded theory is a well-known methodology that seeks to generate theory from the data – data that is obtained and analysed inductively using the constant comparison practice. The researcher starts the process with no pre-conceived ideas or hypotheses to prove or disprove. The issues that are most pertinent to the participants emerge from the stories that they tell about the topic of interest. Constant comparative analysis refers to simultaneous data collection and analysis; the researcher codes the data and compares these codes across categories to identify patterns, and these patterns are refined as new data are collected. In the evolution of grounded theory, Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1994, 1998) acknowledge the existence of multiple perspectives of a phenomenon. Therefore, it becomes imperative that the researchers engage in reflexivity to understand how their worldviews and positionalities may affect the interpretations of the data (Green, Creswell, Shope, and Clark, 2007). Burt, Williams and Palmer (2019) used grounded theory techniques to analyse the data collected from 30 Black men in engineering graduate pro-

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grammes to shed light on their experiences and uncover factors that promote their success. The data were collected in two waves. The first wave was inductive (with codes derived from the data), iterative, and ongoing. The codes developed in this stage were constantly scrutinised as per the principles of constant comparison (Corbin and Strauss, 2008, 2015). Memoing throughout the research process allowed researchers to be reflexive about how their biases may have impacted their interpretations of the data (Burt et al., 2019). The second wave of data was collected and analysed deductively as the purpose was to gain a deeper understanding of one of the categories already defined in the first stage. Much like this research study, Burt, Williams, and Smith (2018) also used grounded theory techniques to shed light on the intersectional experiences of Black male graduate students after they entered graduate school. In yet another example, Burt (2019) applied the grounded theory approach for data analysis to uncover how members of a research group undergoing the same practices had vastly different learnings, and how their experiences influenced their professorial intentions. Discourse analysis The methods described till now help researchers analyse data to glean the broad themes or ideas from it. The focus of these approaches is on the written text. Discourse analysis is a distinct qualitative approach that rejects the notion of language as a neutral means of describing the world (Gill, 2000; Liamputtong, 2020). It examines how language (written, verbal, or in any other form) is used to accomplish certain goals and studies language in relation to its social context (Potter and Edwards, 1996). The method is usually applied to naturally occurring data – conversations, newspaper articles, speeches, symbols, Internet sites, documents, and so on. It can also be used to analyse data collected from interviews and focus groups, where the aim is to understand the connection between the use of language and the contextual factors. Freedman (2020) used discourse analysis techniques to compare two ninth-grade classes’ productive disciplinary engagement (PDE) in a whole-class discussion on a particular historical incident. Based on the findings, the paper presents a model for promoting PDE in historical discussions. The author analysed the two discussion transcripts in terms of the discursive moves (statement, question, follow-up, etc.) and shifts in discursive style (e.g. monologic to dialogic). A full coding guide is provided and this may be very useful for a researcher interested in employing discourse analysis techniques. Narrative analysis Narrative analysis refers to data analysis techniques used to interpret stories told by participants within a research context or in everyday life (Liamputtong, 2020; Ennals et al., 2022). The starting point, therefore, of this analysis is

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a narrative. People faced with a need for ‘constructing and representing the rich and messy domain of human interaction’ tend to ‘organize experience and memory of human happenings mainly in the form of narrative – stories, excuses, myths, reasons for doing and not doing, and so on’ (Bruner, 1991: 4). Researchers make different interpretations and draw different conclusions based on the element of the narrative on which they focus. This could range from how the narrative is structured and why it is being narrated to who are the main actors of the narrative. A prime focus of narrative analysis has been on understanding how lives are lived; in other words, how people view themselves in relation to those around them and their social context. This makes narratives central to the question of identity. By telling stories of their specific struggles or triumph at different points in time, people essentially convey who they are (Slay and Smith, 2011). As an example, Caraballo (2019) utilised narrative analysis to explore how high achieving students of colour construct their identities and highlighted the tensions between what it takes to achieve academically and the students’ race, class, and gender-based identities. Winkle-Wagner and colleagues (2019) also used narrative analysis from an identity perspective. The researchers analysed critical life stories of Black alumnae, from predominantly White institutions, to understand the ways in which they managed the expectations and resisted the stereotypes imposed on them by those around them. Their article provides a step-wise guide to follow the coding logic and protocol that helped the researchers to highlight the unique ways in which the participants crafted particular pathways for asserting their authentic selves or identities.

EMERGING APPROACHES Mixed-Data Sources and Multi-Phased Studies Increasingly, qualitative studies in education are adopting mixed-data sources and multi-phased study designs. This allows researchers to triangulate across time points and sources of data with the aim of strengthening the validity of research findings (Mathison, 1988). Yet, as Patton (1980: 331) noted, such triangulation ‘will seldom lead to a single, totally consistent picture ... the point is to study and understand when and why there are differences’. When researchers find that different data sources are producing inconsistent results, it is likely to indicate that ‘different kinds of data have captured different things and so the analyst attempts to understand the reasons for the differences’ (Patton, 1980: 331). As a recent example, Unstad and Fjørtoft (2021) followed a design-based research model and conducted a four-phased study (two data collection phases and two analysis phases) to explore how a conceptual tool is designed to

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enhance students’ subject content knowledge in religious education. Data were collected from four classes in three lower secondary schools in Norway. The first wave of data collection focused on initial problem analysis and took place between January and September 2017. Researchers collected data through classroom observations and interviews (individual interviews and focus groups). Following the second phase of design proposition development, interventions were implemented, and the second wave of data collection (phase three of the study) was conducted via observations, student group interviews, and teacher interviews. Through adopting a longitudinal design (conducting data collection pre- and post-intervention), drawing on multiple sources of data (exploring the experiences from teachers’ and students’ perspectives), and collecting data via multiple methods (observations, individual interviews and focus group interviews), the researchers could effectively evaluate the role of the conceptual tool in supporting inclusive teaching. Dryden-Peterson (2016) examined refugee education from World War II to the present and conducted a combination of historical and policy analysis. She collected and analysed two sources of data, including 214 archival documents ranging from education reports to strategies, and policies published between 1951 to the present, and semi-structured interviews with 208 informants ranging from government and nongovernmental organisation staff, refugee community leaders, and teachers of refugees. The former represents an organisational perspective as the documents are produced or commissioned by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, whereas the latter represents the perspectives of those involved in decision-making on refugee education. In yet another example, combining qualitative research methods helped a researcher to explore different facets of a research problem in an effective manner. Mensah (2019) combined a critical race methodology, an intersectionality analysis, and techniques of constructivist grounded theory to chronicle the journey of an African American female in science teacher education. A critical race theory methodology helped to focus on issues of race, racism, and power in analysing the narratives. Intersectionality analysis permitted a focus on the fluid nature of and intersections between the participant’s social categories of differentiation like race, gender, and class. Constructivist grounded theory enabled the researcher to use an inductive and iterative approach to theorise from the data. The combination of these approaches led to the emergence of four racial narrative themes that denoted how race and racism were prevalent in many aspects of the participant’s personal life and career. Video and Technology-Aided Qualitative Research Beyond transforming the teaching and learning experience, digital technology has also provided new opportunities for the collection and analysis

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of qualitative data. Other than a range of qualitative data analysis software that assists with data transcription, visual representation, data coding, text interpretation, and different types of analysis, the use of video recordings and other technology-aided means of data collection is also becoming increasingly common. As Ratcliff (2003: 113) suggests, ‘because video can transfer (visual and audio components of events, contexts, and interviews) in a fairly direct manner for later study and analysis, the quality and detail of virtually any research study can potentially be improved by the use of video’. In examining how the quality of educational dialogue is related to student academic performance, Muhonen et al. (2018) selected subjects for the qualitative data collection based on findings from multilevel modelling and video-recorded 158 grade 6 lessons. Through recording these lessons that represented typical school days, the use of video recordings as a source of data captures richer information compared to observational field notes and audio recordings. Video recordings also make it possible for coders and/or researchers to review the recorded interactions as many times as required, and even focusing on coding or analysing different aspects (body language, expressions, tone, dynamics, different participants) of the situation as required. Furthermore, the use of videos is also useful for research contexts such as play-based pedagogy. Kindergarten teachers face the challenge of integrating contemporary assessment practices with play-based pedagogy. Pyle, DeLuca, Danniels, and Wickstrom (2020) addressed this challenge by presenting a kindergarten assessment framework rooted in theory and current classroom practices, based on teacher interviews and observational data collected in 20 kindergarten classrooms. Ten teachers subsequently participated in extended observations and video elicitation interviews. Through employing a two-phase qualitative methodology, including in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and teacher video elicitation analysis, the researchers were able to explore approaches to assessment in 20 play-based Ontario kindergarten classrooms. Use of video in interaction analysis Interaction analysis has been used as an umbrella term for methods that explore the dynamic, real-time process of learning in an interaction. In other words, researchers closely examine moment-by-moment interactions among participants as they interact with each other in some form of knowledge-building exercise (discussion, activity, debate, and so on). Interaction analytic studies regard learning as ‘a distributed and ongoing social process, in which evidence that learning is occurring or has occurred must be found in understanding the ways in which people collaboratively do learning and do recognize learning as having occurred’ (Jordan and Henderson, 1995: 42).

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Walkoe and Luna (2020) called for utilising interaction analysis methods to explore the process of teacher learning in collaborative professional development environments. They make a case by demonstrating that a shift of focus away from exploring whether teachers are progressing towards a particular learning goal, to understanding how learnings occur in moments of interaction has the potential to shed new light on teacher learning. For this purpose, the authors apply interaction analysis techniques to a sample excerpt from a conversation/interaction among teachers and a facilitator from a separate study (see also Walkoe, 2015). Interaction analysis often begins with video footage of the interactions. Video technology, therefore, has been critical in this interaction analytic studies. Walkoe and Luna (2020) offered a concrete example to explore how to create a detailed version of a transcript from raw video footage, noting different modes of interaction beyond just the verbal communication (gestures, gaze, utterances, silence, and so on), and to draw interpretations from it (Jordan and Henderson, 1995). Use of video in reflective assessment Reflective assessment is a term used for a process through which students can experience assessment as a part of learning, rather than as a separate evaluative process. As compared to traditional assessment which focuses on gaps between current and desired student performance, reflective assessment focuses on building student agency. Students take an active role in identifying their knowledge gaps and the gaps in the education being provided; they help determine steps forward – personally and as a community. Reflective sessions in the form of discussions are often video-taped. Yang, van Aalst and Chan (2020) used such video recordings of reflective-assessment sessions for investigating designs for developing knowledge building and higher order competencies among academically low-achieving students. Other technology-aided methods Beyond the use of videos, other types of technology are increasingly used to help with data collection and analysis. As an example of technology-aided qualitative data analysis, Koon (2020) applied Gephi – a visualisation and exploration software, to provide network visualisation across 63 policy reports published on school climate or discipline between 2000 and 2014. Based on the 389 organisations identified as having been involved in the publication or presentation processes, the software helped to generate social network maps based on node-lists (focal actors) and edge lists (relationships or flows between actors). Through such visualisations, the researcher was able to investigate changes in ‘the overall size and complexity of the network, the changing centrality of different notes, the changing distribution and relative location of the

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varying organizational types in the network, and the location and ties between particular nodes of interest’ (Koon, 2020: 383). Social Media and the Internet as an Emerging Data Source With the proliferation of the Internet economy, people are creating more and more digital data. As of 2021, around 4.6 billion people were using the internet every day and 350,000 tweets are likely to have been sent in the past minute (Kettle, 2021). In his book Stephens-Davidowitz (2017) illustrated how data from the Internet may represent a powerful source of information that helps researchers to reveal the ‘truth’ about people’s real thoughts. Yet, the use of the Internet as a source of primary data (excluding online surveys) remains a relatively new qualitative data collection approach in education research. We draw on two studies that collected qualitative data through making use of or examining social networking sites. To answer the research question ‘What are the opportunities for lifelong learning engagement in the city, and why are people engaging?’, Lido, Reid and Osborne (2019) collected naturally occurring Twitter data in the city of Glasgow with hashtags such as ‘#Learning City[ies] Glasgow, #Skills [share/ exchange] Glasgow, and #Open Learning Glasgow. While data collected through Twitter was helpful towards triangulating findings from surveys and qualitative interviews conducted in this multi-phased study, Lido et al. (2019) also noted several limitations of drawing on Twitter as a source of data. First, given the nature of the types of data generated through the Internet, there is a lack of standardised methods for cleaning, analysing, and interpreting this data. Second, researchers will need to consider ethical protocols for protecting individual rights and data, in light of the increased accessibility of Internet platforms. Third, there may be issues with representativeness and sampling biases in collecting data via social media. It is therefore important for educational researchers to keep these potential issues in mind when designing data collection methods that would best fit the purpose of their studies. On the other hand, Le, Dobele and Robinson (2019) specifically investigated electronic word-of-mouth information-seeking behaviours of prospective university students through analysing actual online conversations on Quora, one of the largest community-driven social media question and answer (sQ&A) sites. Le, Dobele and Robinson first searched for all questions and publicly visible contents related to Australian higher education between 2011 and 2016. After removing 39 questions that are not associated with university selection, 865 questions remained in the dataset. In the context of this study, the key strength of this particular data collection approach is the high accessibility of online word-of-mouth data compared to collecting private conversation data. Moreover, given that sQ&A sites are now among the most popular informa-

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tion channels for prospective students, analysing the content and themes of the questions being asked on these platforms yields important and relevant insights, particularly for education providers. Culture-Specific Qualitative Methods Increasingly, qualitative researchers are establishing cultural integrity in the methods they apply to data collection and analysis. As an example, a growing number of Latina/Chicana scholars are employing pláticas (Fierros and Delgado Bernal, 2016) as a research method to gather ‘family and cultural knowledge through communication of thoughts, memories, ambiguities, and new interpretations’ (González, 2001: 647). Pláticas are, quite simply, conversations; they are different from interviews as they are reciprocal exchanges in which both parties are co-collaborators and co-contributors in the research process. Irrespective of whether the researcher has a significant relationship with the contributor, or the relationship is a new one, this research method regards the contributor as a significant holder and creator of knowledge (Fierros and Delgado Bernal, 2016). Garcia and Mireles-Rios (2020) used pláticas or intimate and informal conversations to explore how father–daughter relationships impact the higher education choice processes of young women. By focusing on the ‘sharing of cultural teachings through intimate and informal conversations’ (Garcia and Mireles-Rio, 2020: 2), the authors move beyond traditional models of examining gendered and raced experiences of people of colour. While this method relies on stories of lived experiences, it is distinct from narratives where the researcher asks all the questions and the participant is the one narrating the story. Pláticas, as mentioned earlier, involve a two-way conversation; while the researcher’s interests may guide the conversation, there is room for the co-contributor to discuss issues salient to him/her (Fierros and Delgado Bernal, 2016).

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS In this chapter, we have drawn upon examples from recent studies to illustrate traditional and emerging approaches to qualitative data generation and analysis in education. Qualitative methods are often criticised for the lack of generalisability of the findings to a larger population given their context-specificity. However, as demonstrated through various examples, qualitative methods hold merit by enabling researchers to explore new topics and phenomena that are relatively less known and gain insights into the actors’ or participants’ lived experiences. Further, it is important for researchers to acknowledge the transferability of findings from qualitative studies. The transferability of qualitative study results can be established through providing a rich description and

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details regarding the research context and making assumptions explicit. This allows readers to make an informed judgement on the extent to which research findings may apply in a different context. We hope that by drawing attention to the new and emerging qualitative research methods, particularly in the context of current proliferation of digitalisation, technological tools, and online learning, researchers and students will be encouraged to explore and adopt new and creative approaches to qualitative data collection and data analysis in the field of education.

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Index Avis, M. 22, 26

abduction 25 Abend, G. 20–21 abortion 157 abstraction 108–10 action research approach 28 active listening 199 Adams, T.E. 48 adversary democracy 122 affinity focus groups 119–20 after-hours call-out number 65, 66 Alburez-Gutierrez, D. 155 alcohol consumption 74, 79–80, 81–8 alcohol and drug residential treatment centre 62–4 Algorithmic Economics 167 Allen, P. 103, 105, 107 Alston, M. 189 American Anthropological Association 39 analysis data analysis, see data analysis radical focus group 106–8 Angotti, N. 154–5 anonymity 193 anthropological demography 148 anthropology 149–50 cultural, see cultural anthropology four-field 35, 38, 52 medical, see medical anthropology archival data 207–8 Arnhem Land, Northern Territory 60–62 Arrow, K.J. 167 arts-based methods 69–70 assessment in kindergartens 213 reflective 214 Atkinson, P. 62, 206 audio recordings 141 authority, feminist voices of 106–8 autoethnography 48–9, 68–9

Bacchi, C. 125 Back, L. 7 Baidawi, S. 191 bail applications and obtaining a surety 136 vulnerable defendants and 140–41 Baird, M. 127 Barnes, R.H. 49 Becker, H.S. 5 Beckert, J. 176 Behar, R. 47 being present in the room 188 Bendasolli, P.F. 21, 25 Berger, R.J. 5 Bertagni, J. 100–101 Bilodeau, A. 16 Biruk, C. 156 black male graduate students 209–10 black young offenders 137–8 Boas, F. 36, 38, 52 body hair 100 body mapping 69–70, 71 body-positivity 108 bonding 104–6 boundaries 167, 199 Bourdieu, P. 41 social class 78, 80–81 Bourgois, P. 137, 139 Bowles, W. 189 Bradbury-Jones, C. 25–6 Bray, L.E. 205 breast cancer 74, 79–80, 81–8 Bridges, B.K. 209 British social anthropology 35–6 Brunson, J. 156 Burgess, A. 187 Burris, M.A. 99, 198 221

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Burt, B.A. 209–10 business economics 177 Butler, I. 184 Caldwell, J. 148 capitalism 106–7 capital, forms of 80, 83, 84 Caraballo, L. 211 Cardano, M. 10 career criminals 139 Carlson, B. 127 Carpiano, R.M. 16 Carter, S.M. 22 case study approach 205–6 Cassell, C. 168 censuses 147–8, 150 Chabot, P. 16 Chan, C.K. 214 Chang, H. 68–9 Chenhall, R. 62–4, 70 Cherokee people 37 childbirth 58–9 children who have experienced parental imprisonment 192 Clark, A.M. 171 classed analysis 81–9, 90 processes of class relations 86–8 Clay, K.L. 209 client-centredness 184 coding 81–2, 208 collaborative anthropology 67–8 Collins, C.S. 23 Collyer, F.M. 75 colonialism 35–6, 38–9, 127, 147–8 community-based palliative care programme 64–6 comparability 148, 150, 153 Comte, A. 75 conceptual/thematic categorisation 82–3 confidentiality 193 conflict 63–4 Connell, R. 29 consciousness-raising (CR) 93–4, 94–6, 97, 110–11 and feminist pedagogy 95–6, 100–101 radical focus group 103, 104, 106, 110 constructivism 28 social 2, 3–4, 77–8

constructivist grounded theory 212 consumption 81 content analysis education 208–9 political science 123 contraception 156, 157 conversation analysis 139–41 conversations 216 counter-hegemonic emancipation 43 court ethnography 132, 135, 136 crack house 137, 139 Crawford, C. 96 criminal lawyers 135, 136, 139 criminology 9, 132–46 innovative qualitative research 141–4 cultural criminology 142–4 new technologies 141–2 researching offenders 137–9 researching professional work 134–6 uneasy relationship with qualitative research 132, 133–4 value of discourse analysis 139–41 critical race theory 212 cultural anthropology 7–8, 35–54 discipline 37–9 emerging ethnographic approaches 46–51 digital research 51 engaged fieldwork 50 multivocality and multilocality 49–50 reflexivity 47–9 traditional ethnographic approach 39–46 research process 42–6 cultural capital 80, 83, 84 cultural criminology 142–4 cultural relativism 38 culture-specific methods 216 Curato, N. 122 curiosity 199 Daniels, D. 68 Danniels, E. 213 data analysis 23–4 aim of in economic sciences 172–3 cultural anthropology 42, 46 education 208–11 political science 123–6

Index

stage of qualitative research 27, 29, 30 data collection education 205–8 stage of qualitative research 27, 28–9, 30 Women’s Studies 98–101 data generation education 205–8 political science 118–23 Deakin, H. 188 de-colonisation 127 deductive approach 24–5, 176 defence lawyers 135, 136, 139 defendants obtaining a surety in bail applications 136 vulnerable and bail 140–41 Delgado Bernal, D. 216 DeLuca, C. 213 democracy 122 demographic conferences 149 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 152–3, 156 demography 9, 147–63 critiquing 156–7 demographic ‘facts’ 149 disciplinary origins and traditions 147–9 marginalisation of qualitative research 151–2, 157–8 research methods 154–5 situating the quantitative-qualitative paradigm in 149–50 Denzin, N.K. 11 Dew, K. 23 diagrams 194–8 diaries 44, 154–5 Diehl, D.C. 186, 199 diet culture 101–10 digital technologies cultural anthropology 51 economic sciences 173–5 education 214–16 disadvantaged groups 119 disagreements 104–6 discourse analysis criminology 139–41 education 210 political science 124

223

disengagement, student 207 distinction 80–81 Dobele, A.R. 215–16 document analysis 154 documents 120–21 Dodd, S.-J. 185 Dorsey, J. 49 dramaturgical analysis 125–6 drug and alcohol residential treatment centre 62–4 Dryden-Peterson, S. 212 Duff, M. 207–8 during design stage 27, 28, 30 Durkheim, E. 75 eco-maps 194 economic sciences 9, 164–81 aim of qualitative data analysis 172–3 basic characteristics of qualitative research 171–2 forecasting 175–8 innovative approaches 173–5 integration of an interdisciplinary conceptual framework 166–7 philosophical approaches to qualitative research 171–2 qualitative research as significant part of the toolkit 168–9 economic theory 176–7 Edesess, M. 167 education 10, 204–20 emerging qualitative research approaches 211–16 culture-specific methods 216 mixed-data sources and multi-phased studies 211–12 social media and the Internet 215–16 video and technology-aided 212–15 traditional qualitative research approaches 205–11 data analysis 208–11 data generation or collection 205–8 electronic patient records 58 elite interviews 118–19 Ellis, C. 48

224

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

Ellwood, C.A. 75 emergency contraception 157 emerging/innovative qualitative research methods 6–7 criminology 141–4 cultural anthropology 46–51 demography 156–7 economic sciences 173–5 education 211–16 medical anthropology 66–70 political science 126–7 synthesised theoretical model 26–30 Women’s and Gender Studies 101–11 emic perspectives 41 empowerment 182 engaged fieldwork 50 engagement 207 productive disciplinary engagement (PDE) 210 Engels, F. 76 epistemological position 17–18, 28 epistemology 22 Epstein, I. 185 equality 126 Ercan, S.A. 125–6 ethnographic comportment 41–2 ethnographically informed body mapping 69–70, 71 ethnography 7–8 autoethnography 48–9, 68–9 criminology 135, 137–8 cultural criminology 142–4 cultural anthropology 36–7, 39–51 emerging approaches 46–51 research process 42–6 techniques 44, 45–6 traditional approach 39–46 demography 151, 155 education 206 key principles of 56 medical anthropology 55–70 emerging approaches 66–70 institutional ethnography 62–4 meaning of health in Arnhem Land 60–62 multidisciplinary teams 64–6 traditional approaches 55–66 nature of the approach 56–7 political science 121–3

etic perspectives 41 European Association of Population Studies (EAPS) 148 evaluation of a palliative care programme 64–6 teacher evaluation policy implementation 206 evidence 137–8 Evidence-Informed Practice (EIP) 185, 200 evolutionary scale 37–8 ‘facts’, demographic 148 Fahs, B. 100–101 feminist consciousness 97–8 feminist pedagogy consciousness-raising and 95–6, 100–101 radical focus group 103–4 feminist research 97–101, 115 methodologies and data collection approaches 98–100 feminist standpoint theory 99, 100 feminist voices of authority 106–8 FemQuant 149 Fernandez Arias, P. 192 Ferrell, J. 142–4 fertility 152, 153, 155, 156, 157 fieldnotes 42, 44–6 fieldwork cultural anthropology 40, 41, 43, 46, 51 engaged fieldwork 50 reflexive fieldwork 47–8 medical anthropology 53, 56 Fierros, C.O. 216 Fjørtoft, H. 211–12 flexibility 199 Flynn, C. 185, 187, 189, 191, 192, 194, 197 focus group network platforms 173–4 focus groups 29 demography 154 economic sciences 172, 173 education 207 political science 119–20 online focus groups 126–7 radical focus groups 101–11 social work 190–93

Index

addressing power 192–3 key features 191–2 skilful strategies 193 Fontana, A. 186 Fook, J. 184 forecasting 175–8 four-field anthropology 35, 38, 52 frame analysis 124–5 Frazer, R. 127 Fredricks, J.A. 207 Freedman, E.B. 210 Freidus, A. 206 Freire, P. 96 Frey, J.H. 186 Friedman, M. 171, 176 functionalism 38 Gabriel, R.E. 208 Garcia, N.M. 216 Geertz, C. 48 gender 152, 153 gender studies (GS) 96–7, 150; see also Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) Gendron, S. 16 genograms 194 Gephi software 214–15 germ theory 15–16 gesture analysis 142 Giddens, A. 1 Gilbert, A. 142 Gilgun, J. 184 Goffman, A. 133, 137–8, 138–9 Goffman, E. 124 Goodwin, S. 125 Gould, N. 184 graffiti artists 143–4 ‘grand’ (macro) theories 15–16, 17–18 Green, H. E. 21, 23–4 Grbich, C. 4, 15–16 grounded theory 24–5 education 209–10, 212 group interviews 191 Guion, L.A. 186, 199 habitus 41–2, 81 Hajer, M.A. 125 Hammersley, M. 21, 24, 206 Hanish, C. 94 Hansen, E.C. 15, 16, 27

225

Harding, S. 99 Hardy, M. 183–4 Harrison, A.K. 41–2 Hayward, K. 142–3 health 16 benefits of living on outstations 67 exploring the meaning of in Arnhem Land 60–62 medical anthropology, see medical anthropology studying social class and 79–80, 81–8, 89 Heilbroner, R. 164 Henderson, A. 213 Hendriks, C.M. 125–6 Hesse-Biber, S.N. 4 heterogeneous focus groups 119 Hick, R. 4 high-stakes decision making 209 historical particularism 38 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) 209 holism 56 holistic anthropology 52 homogenous focus groups 119, 126–7 hooks, b. 96 Horton, S. 44 hospital labour ward 58–9 households 157 Hughes, E. 135, 136 ideal visions 108–10 idealism 17, 18, 28 imagination 6–7 sociological 7, 75, 79 in-depth interviews 6, 154 indigenous ethnography 50 inductive approach 24–5, 176 informed consent 190 innovative research methods, see emerging/innovative qualitative research methods institutional ethnography 62–4 integrative approach 166–7 interaction analysis 213–14 interactionism 23, 133 interdisciplinarity anthropology 52 economic sciences 164–5, 166–7

226

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) 182 International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) 148 Internet 173–5, 215–16 interpretivism 3–4, 18, 116, 117 intersectionality 149, 212 interviews/interviewing 6, 28–9 cultural anthropology 40, 50 demography 154 economic sciences 169, 172, 173 digital approaches 173–5 education 207 group interviews 191 medical anthropology 62–3, 67 political science 117, 118–19 social work 186–90 addressing power 190 benefits and considerations 188–9 key features 186–8 skilful strategies 189 sociology 79–80, 81–8 walking interviews 67 Women’s Studies 99 intimate and informal conversations 215 Jackson-Best, F. 96 Jacobs, G. 166 Jacobs, K. 124 Joergensen, M.W. 124 Jones, S. 121 Jones, S.H. 48 Jordan, B. 213 journals 44, 154–5 Kaler, A. 154–5 Kara, H. 6 Katz, J. 143 Keating, F. 198–9 Kelly, A. 98 Kelly, M. 24 kindergarten assessment practices 213 Knitting Nannas Against Gas (KNAG) 125–6 Kolb, B. 198 Kolk, M. 155 Komter, M. 139–40 Koon, D.S.V. 214–15

Kriel, A. 157 Kroeber, A. 35 Kuhn, T.S. 164 La Flesche, F. 49 La Flesche, J. 49 La Flesche, S. 49 labour ward 58–9 Lane, J.L. 206 laptops 51 larger-bodied women 107–8 Layder, D. 78 Le, T.D. 215–16 Lemert, C. 15 levels of theoretical visibility 25–6 Liamputtong, P. 103, 110, 182, 208 liberal feminists 94 liberation 182 Lichtman, M. 3 Lido, C. 215 Liebenberg, L. 99–100 life histories 154 social work 194–7 lifelong learning engagement 215 lifestyles 80 listening, active 199 Little, M. 22 ‘Little Orphan Annie’ newspaper cartoon 123 Lorenz, L.S. 5 Lubet, S. 138 Luna, M.J. 214 macro (‘grand’) theories 15–16, 17–18 Malinowski, B. 36, 44, 55–6 Malterud, K. 23 Mansbridge, J. 122 marginalised groups/individuals 5, 10–11, 152, 168, 182–3 Marsh, D. 121 Martin, R. 176, 177 Maruyama, G. 1 Marvasti, A. 78 Marx, K. 15, 76 maternal mental illness 187 mathematical logic 175 mathematisation of economics 167, 175 Matoesian, G. 142 McDermott, F. 185, 189, 191, 194

Index

McDonald, D. 186, 199 McMahon, R. 69 Mead, M. 36 medical anthropology 8, 55–73 emerging qualititative research approaches 66–70 autoethnography 68–9 collaborative anthropology 67–8 ethnographically informed body mapping 69–70 traditional qualitative research approaches 55–66 ethnographic approach 55–9 institutional ethnography 62–4 meaning of health 60–62 multidisciplinary teams 64–6 medicalisation of birth 59 Megarry, J. 94, 95 Mendes, P. 197 Mensah, F.M. 212 mental health 69, 187, 198–9 Merriam, S.B. 168 meso theories 15–16, 17–18 methodological theories 16–17, 22, 23–4, 28 methods 16, 17, 22 Metzner, E. 57 Meyer, S. 24–5 micro-level social relationships 76 micro theories 15–16 Mies, M. 103 Mill, J.S. 115 Mills, C. Wright 1–2, 5, 75 Mills, J. 16 mindedness 86 Mireles-Rios, R. 216 mixed-data sources 211–12 mixed methods research 134 mobile devices 173–4 Moen, A. 58 Montell, F. 103 Moore, S. 16 Morgan, L.H. 37–8, 40 mortality 155 Muhonen, H. 213 multidisciplinary teams 64–6 multilocality 49–50 multi-phased studies 211–12 multivocality 49–50

227

Myrdal, G. 166 narrative analysis 210–11 narrative case study approach 205–6 Native American peoples 36, 37 Navajo people 37 Naylor, B. 192 neoliberalism 97 network mapping 194, 196–7 network visualisation 214–15 Neves, V. 167 New South Wales (NSW) palliative care programme 64–6 new technologies, see digital technologies; technology-aided research Newby, H. 1–2 Newnham, E.C. 58–9 Ngukurr Aboriginal community 60–62 non-elite interviewing 119 non-participatory observation 121 normative economics 171–2 observation economic sciences 172, 173 participant, see participant observation with different degrees of involvement in political science research 121–3 Obstfelder, A. 58 occupational perspectives 135, 192 offenders 137–9 contact with criminals in the field 138–9 cultural criminology 143–4 evidence and politics 137–8 one-time decision on theory 20, 22–3 online discussion boards 51, 126–7 online focus groups 126–7 online gaming 51 ontological position 17–18, 28 open-mindedness 199 opening up 104–6 optionality of theory 20, 21–2 Osborne, M. 215 O’Toole, T. 121 out-of-home care (OOHC) 197 output, theory as 23–4

228

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

outstations 67–8 palliative care programme 64–6 Palmer, G.J. 209–10 paradigms 28, 164 parenting online discussion boards 51 Parker, I. 169 Parrish, D.E. 185 participant observation 56 cultural anthropology 40, 44, 45 medical anthropology 58–9, 60–66, 71 political science 121–2 participatory action research (PAR) 99–100 participatory and visual methods 195–7 patriarchy 106–7 Patton, M.Q. 78, 211 Pazey, B.L. 205–6 personal diaries 44, 154–5 Peter, A.M. 168 phenomenological approach 22–3, 28 Phillips, L. 124 philosophical approaches 171–2 photo-elicitation 121, 141, 198–9 photography 194, 198–9 photovoice 99–100, 198 pláticas 216 pluralistic methodological approach to theory verification and generation 24–5 police interviews 139–40 policy analysis 154 policy networks 122 political science 8–9, 115–31 data analysis 123–6 data generation 118–23 innovative methods 126–7 research topics in 116–18 politics, in criminology 137–8 Polsky, N. 138, 139 Popper, K. 165, 176 positivism 17, 116, 117 economic sciences 171–2 post-positivism 171 Potvin, L. 16 power 150 addressing in social work qualitative research 190, 192–3, 199–200

cultural anthropology 43–4 identifying in the radical focus group 106–8 sociology 75–6, 89 practice-based research (PBR) 185 practitioner perspectives 135, 192 Pratt, T. 134 pre-coding 82–3 prediction 175–8 preferences 84–6 ‘Preschool in Three Cultures Studies’ project 50 primary sources 120 prior to design stage 27, 28, 30 prisons children who have experienced parental imprisonment 192 maternal mental illness 187 private troubles 1–2 privilege 76, 80–81, 89 privileges, in a treatment centre 63–4 productive disciplinary engagement (PDE) 210 professional work, researching 134–6 public health 16 public issues 1–2 Pugh, R. 184 Pyle, A. 213 qualitative inquiry 3–5 rationale for using 4–5 Qualitative Research Level of Alignment Wheel (QR-LAW) 26 Qualitative Social Work 184 quantitative behaviouralists 117 quantitative research criminology 133–4 demography 147, 150, 151–2 Demographic and Health Survey 152–3, 156 economic sciences 167, 175 political science 116 sociology 77 questionnaires 190; see also surveys Quroa 215 radical feminism 94, 100–101 radical focus groups 101–11 abstracting 108–10

Index

analysing 106–8 limitations and future considerations 110 opening up and sharing 104–6 research context 101–2 Radović, M. 175 Radović-Marković, M. 169, 170 Rappaport, R. 43–4 Ratcliff, D. 213 realism 17 reality 3–4 Reeves, S. 21, 22–3 reflective assessment 214 reflexivity 110, 122–3 cultural anthropology 47–9 refugee education 212 Reid, K. 215 Rein, M. 124 relationship and network mapping 196–7 religious education conceptual tool 211–12 remote outstation 67–8 representativeness 148, 150, 153 research questions ethnography 42, 43–4 political science 116–18 residential care 194–7 resistance 108–9 responsibility 63–4 Rhodes, R.A.W. 122 Richards, R. 68 Robinson, L.J. 215–16 Robinson, V. 95, 96 Roche, S. 194–7 Rogers, J. 197 role shifts 189 Rosenthal, N.B. 97, 106 routines 57–9 Rubin, A. 185 ruined cars 68 Russell, J.L. 205 Ryan, C.S. 1 Samuelson, P.A. 167 Sapir, E. 49 Sayer, A. 80 Schatz, E. 152 Schatzki, T. 76 Scheper-Hughes, N. 157 Schildkamp, K. 209

229

Schön, D.A. 124 self-awareness 189 semi-structured interviews 118, 187, 188–90 Senderowicz, L. 156 Senior, K. 60–62, 64–6, 67–8, 70 sexual harassment at work 127 sexual health 70 Shannon, L.W. 123 sharing 104–6 Sheehan, R. 191 Silverman, D. 89 Simon, H.A. 176 sites of the social 76 smartphones 51 Smith, W.A. 210 Sochas, L. 157 social anthropology 35–6; see also cultural anthropology social class 8, 74, 76–7, 78–90 approach to qualitative sociological analysis 81–3 descriptions of preferences and tastes 84–6 identifying classed patterns in data 83 meaningful engagement with classed analysis 88–9 ‘seeing’ 80–81 ‘seeing’ the processes of class relations 86–8 social constructionism 18 social constructivism 2, 3–4, 77–8 social injustice 10–11 social justice 5, 182 social media 120, 215–16 social media question and answer (sQ&A) sites 215–16 social orders 76 social practices 76, 78 social science, nature of 1–3 social stratification theory 15 social work 9–10, 182–203 definition 182 discipline of 183–4 research for social work practice 185 traditional qualitative research approaches 186–99 focus groups 190–93 interviewing 186–90

230

How to conduct qualitative research in social science

visual methods 193–9 useful skills 199–200 socio-economic status categories 157 sociograms 197–8 sociological imagination 7, 75, 79 sociology 8, 74–92, 133, 150 defining 75–6 qualitative research approach in 76–8 social class research, see social class Solanas, V. 100–101 sorcery 61 special education policies 205 Stake, J.E. 96 standpoint theory 99, 100 Stanley, L. 97–8 Starr, M. 168 statements 139–40 Stelitano, L. 205 Stephens-Davidowitz, S. 215 Stockton, C.M. 23 strategies to challenge diet culture 108–10 Streeck, W. 176 street-level bureaucrats 122 Strong, J. 157 structural-functionalism 38 structuralist sociology 75 structured interviews 187 student engagement and disengagement 207 substantive theory 23 supernatural causes of illness 61 surety for bail, obtaining a 136 surveys 150, 151 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 152–3, 156 Symon, G. 168 synthesised theoretical model 26–30 data analysis 27, 29, 30 data collection 27, 28–9, 30 during design 27, 28, 30 prior to design 27, 28, 30 writing up 27, 29–30 tastes 84–6 Tavory, I. 25 taxonomy of meanings of theory 20–21 teacher evaluation policy implementation 206

teacher learning 214 technology-aided research criminology 141–2 cultural anthropology 51 economic sciences 173–5 education 212–16 textual data demography 154–5 political science 120 thematic/conceptual categorisation 82–3 theme analysis, see content analysis theoretical categorisation 82–3 theory 7, 14–34 concept and why it is needed 15–16 at different stages of the research process 17–18 existing qualitative research approach 18–26 five levels of visibility 20, 25–6 inductive, deductive or abductive approaches 20, 24–5 one-stage theoretical decisions 20, 22–3 theoretical decisions occur at 2 or 3 stages of research 20, 23–4 theory has no universally accepted meaning 19, 20–21 theory is optional 20, 21–2 methodological theory 16–17, 22, 23–4, 28 synthesised theoretical model 26–30 theory-driven approaches 24–5 ‘thick’ description 6, 56, 115, 122 timelines 194, 195–6 Timmermans, S. 25 Tisdell, E.J. 168 Tobiason, G. 208 Tobin, J. 50 Tonkiss, F. 190 Toulmin, C. 2 traditional qualitative research methods 5–6 criminology 134–41 cultural anthropology 39–46 demography 154–5 economic sciences 172–3, 174 education 205–11

Index

medical anthropology 55–66 political science 118–26 social work 186–99 Women’s Studies 97–101 Tratner, S. 51 Travers, M. 132, 134, 136, 139, 140, 141 triangulation 211 Trinitapoli, J. 155 Twitter 215 Two Crows 49 Tylor, E.B. 37 United States (US) anthropology 35, 36 Unstad, L. 211–12 unstructured interviews 186–7, 188–90 Van Aalst, J. 214 Vanlommel, K. 209 Verhoest, X. 70 video data criminology 141 economic sciences 174 education 212–14 videoconferencing 189–90 videocued multivocal ethnography 50 visual methods political science 120–21 social work 193–9 diagrams 194–8 photography 194, 198–9 promoting participation 195–7 Vromen, A. 126–7 vulnerable defendants, and bail 140–41 vulnerable groups/individuals 5, 10–11, 119, 182–3 Wakefield, K. 188 walking interviews 67 Walkoe, J.D. 214 Wang, C. 99, 198 Ward, P. 24–5 Ward, P.R. 79 Warren, N. 57 Watkins, S.C. 154–5 weight-loss dieting norms 101–10 ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ approach 125 Wickstrom, H. 213 Wilkinson, S. 103

231

Williams, K.L. 209–10 Williams Veazey, L. 75 Willis, E. 95 Willis, K. 15 Wilson, N. 7 Winkle-Wagner, R. 211 Wise, S. 97–8 Wohlstetter, P. 207–8 women’s alcohol consumption 74, 79–80, 81–8 Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) 8, 93–114 discipline 94–7 radical focus group approach 101–11 women’s liberation movement (WLM) 93 second-wave 94 Women’s Studies (WS) 93–101 consciousness-raising (CR) 93–4, 94–6, 97 in the curriculum 95–6 traditional qualitative research approaches 97–101 CR and feminist pedagogy in feminist research 100–101 feminist methodologies and data collection approaches 98–100 word-of-mouth information-seeking behaviours 215–16 Wright Mills, C. 1–2, 5, 75 writing 46 fieldnotes 42, 44–6 personal diaries 44, 154–5 writing up stage 27, 29–30 Yalom, I. 186, 200 Yang, Y. 214 yarning 127, 187 circles 127 Yeatman, S. 155 Young, J. 142–3 young black offenders 137–8 young people’s sexual health 70 youth justice system 191 Zacka, B. 122 Zagheni, E. 155