Search

Herbert Blumer sought to develop 'naturalistic inquiry' to provide sociologists, especially those who subscribe to the perspective known as 'symbolic interactionism,' with an alternative methodology to positivism for them to use in their research. Since Blumer died before he could complete the job, an attempt is made to finish the work that he left undone on the method of naturalistic inquiry along the lines originally envisioned by him. Among other things, more details are provided to help researchers to carry out the two stages of naturalistic inquiry that he identified: 'exploration' and 'inspection.' A third stage, confirmation, is also added to the method. Although Blumer described naturalistic inquiry only in theory, it is described here both in theory and actual practice, which is essential to make the method more understandable to others. In addition to providing a more complete statement of naturalistic inquiry, the ideas that he drew on to develop the method are revealed. Several myths surrounding the method and the grounded theories that can be potentially developed from using it are also exposed. Finally, the case is made that naturalistic inquiry occupies a relatively unique position in the social sciences.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Scott A. Hunt. His detailed comments helped me greatly improve both the article's introduction and its conclusion. I delivered a short paper on violent encounters in which I provided a brief discussion of 'violent engagements' at the European Criminological Society Meeting held in Amsterdam from August 25 to 28, 2004. I later delivered a much longer paper on violent encounters in which I not only discussed violent engagements in much more detail but also discussed 'violent skirmishes' and 'dominance tiffs' at the Natural Decision Making Conference held in Amsterdam from June 14 to 15, 2005. From the author's study of violent and nonviolent offenders and non-offenders 'accounts, he drew two main conclusions about the interaction that takes place between the perpetrator and victim when violent crimes are committed. First, these crimes are committed during violent encounters that encompass five stages: (1) role claiming, (2) role rejection, (3) role sparring, (4) role enforcement, and (5) role determination. Second, based on how many of these stages are completed, violent encounters can be divided into three subtypes: (1) engagements, (2) skirmishes, and (3) tiffs. Violent dominance encounters that go through all five stages constitute engagements, those that enter only four of the stages constitute skirmishes, and those that enter only three of the stages constitute tiffs. Thus, for any theory to provide a complete explanation of violent crimes, it must be able to account for not only violent engagements but also violent skirmishes and tiffs. Keywords: dominance; encounters; skirmishes; violent interaction; violent situations; violent social action