Search

Ethnomethodologists have made some fundamental criticisms of conventional forms of ethnography. For example, it has been argued that they fail to examine the processes through which the phenomena studied have been constituted, and that they lack rigour because they rely upon unexplicated common-sense knowledge. In my view, these criticisms have not been given sufficient attention. This article outlines them in detail and then goes on to provide an evaluation. It is concluded that they do not provide a sufficient basis for the radical-re-specification of the focus of inquiry that ethnomethodologists propose. However, they do raise issues to which ethnographers should give more attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on what has been referred to as the 'radical critique' of interview data, to which Paul Atkinson has been an important contributor. This critique challenges the two main uses of such data in qualitative research, and in other forms of social science: to tap the knowledge of informants; and to draw inferences about the typical beliefs, attitudes, etc. of some group or category of actor to which the informant belongs. I argue that this radical critique relies upon a constructionist attitude towards the social world, and I examine one source of this: the influence of ethnomethodology. However, I suggest that a naturalistic stance can take account of the features of interviews to which the radical critique properly draws attention, without undercutting the normal uses of interview data. I emphasise that this does not obviate the need for careful consideration of how such data are produced, and particularly of the discourse practices involved. I illustrate my argument by briefly examining the opening section of an interview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to a previously published article on the ethics of interviewing for discourse analysis.

The focus is an ethical dilemma that arises, in an acute form, in interviews for studies using constructionist forms of discourse analysis. Informants typically assume that researchers are aiming to document their experiences, feelings, perspectives, etc., as features of a collectively shared world; an assumption that is probably reinforced by the rationales researchers provide, and by their behaviour. Yet, in such studies, the purpose of interviews is actually to generate displays of discursive practices, rather than to elicit information about the world or about people’s individual subjectivities. This discrepancy amounts to deception, but attempts to remedy it are likely to be counterproductive because of the gap between the natural attitude and a constructionist analytic orientation. From the perspective of some currently influential views about ethics, relating to informed consent and doing research ‘with’ rather than ‘on’ people, this would disqualify such research. However, these views are by no means beyond challenge. In these terms, discourse analysis poses important questions about currently accepted views of research ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Identity is not only an important and difficult theoretical issue but also one that arises as a methodological problem. Indeed, which of the available conceptions of identity is adopted has implications for the very form that social inquiry takes. In this article, three quite different notions of identity are explored, as substantive agency, as a matter of discursive attribution, and as an analytic model. The issues involved in the use of each of these versions of identity in research are explored. In the second half of the article, in order to examine these problems in more concrete terms, we look at how they emerge in internet ethnography concerned with 'pro-ana' websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Howard Becker's article 'Whose side are we on?' has been widely cited, and widely misunderstood. It has frequently been interpreted as recommending partisan research, or as suggesting that social research cannot be objective. This article examines Becker's position in detail, arguing that while there are some ambiguities within it, what it proposes is neither epistemologically nor politically radical in the way that is frequently assumed. What is true, though, is that Becker believes that systematic and rigorous sociological research inevitably tends to have radical political implications. In addition, he adopts a form of cultural relativism, whilst holding on to a notion of objectivity that is grounded in a commitment to pragmatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]