http://soc.sagepub.com Sociology RSS feed -- current issue October 2008 Sociology 0038-0385 http://soc.sagepub.com:80/icons/banner/title.gif http://soc.sagepub.com http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/42/5/813?rss=1 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094594 British Sociological Association 5 42 819 2008-10-01 813 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/821?rss=1 In matters of social research sociologists and other social scientists have tended to view documents primarily as sources of evidence and as receptacles of inert content.The key strategies for data exploration have consequently been associated with various styles of content or thematic analysis. Even when discourse analysis has been recommended, there has been a marked tendency to deal with records, files, and the like, primarily as containers — things to be read, understood, and categorized. In this article, however, the author seeks to demonstrate that by focussing on the functioning of documents instead of content, sociology can embrace a much wider range of approaches to both data collection and analysis. Indeed, the adoption of such a programme encourages researchers to see documents as active agents in the world, and to view documentation as a key component of dynamic networks rather than as a set of static and immutable `things'.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094564 British Sociological Association 5 42 836 2008-10-01 821 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/837?rss=1 The rise of digital technologies has the potential to open new directions in ethnography. Despite the ubiquity of these technologies, their infiltration into popular sociological research methods is still limited compared to the insatiable uptake of online scholarly research portals. This article argues that social researchers cannot afford to continue this trend. Building upon pioneering work in `digital ethnography', I critically examine the possibilities and problems of four new technologies — online questionnaires, digital video, social networking websites, and blogs — and their potential impacts on the research relationship. The article concludes that a balanced combination of physical and digital ethnography not only gives researchers a larger and more exciting array of methods, but also enables them to demarginalize the voice of respondents. However, access to these technologies remains stratified by class, race, and gender of both researchers and respondents.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094565 British Sociological Association 5 42 855 2008-10-01 837 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/857?rss=1 This article focuses on the interactions produced by the use of the digital camera in a mass observation into everyday fashions in Nottingham. The research project includes a team of researchers, and so there is no single research relationship. Therefore this article uses the mass observation, which includes photographs and interviews with in excess of 800 participants, to highlight the complexities of the research relationship. The definition of this relationship is widened out to include the interactions between researcher and participant, the relationship participants have to each other, and the relationship they have to themselves.The digital camera is seen as a site of negotiation between researchers and participants; in turn, the research relationship is redefined as a web of interactions which are mediated by the camera and the photographic images.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094566 British Sociological Association 5 42 872 2008-10-01 857 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/873?rss=1 For years, sociologists working in other countries or UK-based medical sociologists have complained about the effects of having to seek approval from a research ethics committee (REC) or its equivalent before starting work. With the arrival of the ESRC's Research Ethics Framework, concern about ethics review has expanded to sociologists working on a wider range of topics. This article uses ethnographic data from a study of UK RECs to examine how these bodies assess applications from social scientists, particularly those proposing qualitative research (which opponents claim is given an especially hard time by such committees). These data challenge the idea that RECs are somehow ideologically biased against qualitative research and that they cannot give an adequate assessment of applications from sociologists and other social scientists. The article concludes by suggesting sociologists' time would be better spent studying the institutional nature of the university RECs stimulated by the ESRC.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094567 British Sociological Association 5 42 886 2008-10-01 873 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/887?rss=1 This article discusses how ethical and political issues affect contemporary research relationships. It focuses on the responsibilities of researchers studying organizations and elites, and the discussion draws upon the author's experience of researching NHS primary health care services. The article reviews the spread of `ethical guidelines' from medical to social research. Such guidelines primarily address ethical problems relating to individual researcher—researched relationships. Sociologists have criticized the application of medically based guidelines to social research, while often accepting an ethical framework based on the researcher—researched dyad. But this limited conception of ethical responsibilities leaves complex organizational power hierarchies and their effects undertheorized. Researchers may then be vulnerable and lack guidance where organizational loyalties and market mechanisms have undermined the traditional supports of academic independence and professionalism. Sociologists could learn from critical medical scientists' responses to some related ethical dilemmas, as some medical researchers have experienced these issues more acutely and for longer.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094568 British Sociological Association 5 42 903 2008-10-01 887 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/905?rss=1 This article discusses the covert research relationship. Specifically, it explores the ethical dimensions of fieldwork with reference to a six-month covert ethnography of `bouncers', in Manchester. Drawing from sociological literatures, the article wishes to raise for scrutiny the management of situated ethics in covert fieldwork which, despite having some increased recognition via debates about risk and danger in fieldwork, remains glossed over. The standard discourse on ethics is abstracted from the actual doing, which is a mediated and contingent set of practices. Traditionally, professional ethics has been centralized around the doctrine of informed consent with covert methodology being frowned upon and effectively marginalized as a type of `last resort methodology'.What I highlight here is the case for covert research in the face of much conventional opposition. I hope the article will open debate and dialogue about its potential role and possible creative future in the social science community.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094569 British Sociological Association 5 42 918 2008-10-01 905 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/919?rss=1 Drawing on analysis of relevant literature, focus groups, and web-based discussion board postings, assembled as part of an inquiry into risks to the well-being of qualitative researchers, it is argued that emotional harm is more prevalent than physical harm and may be particularly associated with reflexivity and the important influence of feminist research methods. The particular concern of feminist researchers with reflexivity, with research relationships and with the interests of research participants may make them especially vulnerable to emotional harm.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094570 British Sociological Association 5 42 933 2008-10-01 919 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/935?rss=1 Recent debates within sociology and feminist theory have identified a need for reflexive research and noted the importance of emotion in the researcher's relationship to the object of research and the research process.This article contributes to these debates by arguing that emotionally mediated apprehensions of the object of study and the practice of critical reflexivity in sociological research cannot be separated. This is because emotional identifications and attachments are central to the (re)framing of the object of study and the politics of knowledge production. Thus, attempts to find more reliable grounds for knowledge claims must be located in the interrelated landscapes of feeling, intellect and politics.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094571 British Sociological Association 5 42 952 2008-10-01 935 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/953?rss=1 Despite a number of references to research fatigue and over-researching in the literature, the concepts have yet to be empirically investigated within qualitative contexts. This article, therefore, seeks to explore how researchers understand and account for research fatigue and over-researching. Using the results generated from a grounded analysis, a number of precursors are identified and discussed. These include lack of perceptible change attributable to engagement, increasing apathy and indifference toward engagement, and practical causes such as cost, time, and organization. It is suggested that marked levels of research fatigue are likely to occur where the mechanisms that challenge research engagement increase and the supporting mechanisms decrease. Furthermore, claims of over-researching are likely to be reported in contexts where repeated engagements do not lead to any experience of change or where the engagement comes into conflict with the primary aims and interests of the research group.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094573 British Sociological Association 5 42 970 2008-10-01 953 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/971?rss=1 This article critically examines team and collaborative research as an `academic mode of production'. Our main argument is that while theoretically qualitative social science research is rooted within a postfoundational epistemological paradigm, normative team-based research practices embody foundational principles. Team research relies on a division of labour that creates divisions and hierarchies of knowledge, particularly between researchers who gather embodied and contextual knowledge `in the field' and those who produce textual knowledge `in the office'. We argue that a theoretical commitment to a postfoundational epistemology demands that we translate this into concrete research practices that rely on concerted team-based relations rather than divisions of labour, and a reflexive research practice that strives to involve all team members in all aspects of knowledge construction processes.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094574 British Sociological Association 5 42 985 2008-10-01 971 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/987?rss=1 The acquisition of a sociological identity during the process of PhD supervision is reported, drawing on detailed analysis of selected observations of the supervision sessions, written communications and other aspects of interaction over the period of a single case study supervision which involved the authors as participants. The transition from an `applied' identity (in nursing) to a `pure' or `professional' identity in sociology is documented, identifying the precise interactional mechanisms for encouraging and achieving this transition. These include `bracketing' out of common-sense interpretations of behaviour that draw on the old identity and `distancing' from the normative judgements of professionals inhabiting a dispreferred, non-sociological position. Taking place in a context of enthusiastic, directive and insistent exhortation and presenting a particular and somewhat locally determined version of adequate sociological work, the study shows both supervisor and student collaborating in the social construction of a sociologist.

]]> 2008-09-25 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508094575 British Sociological Association 5 42 1002 2008-10-01 987 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/5/1003?rss=1 The research reported here is from the first national survey of British undergraduate attitudes to the methodological character of the discipline and specifically to quantitative methods.The study found that most sociology students saw their subject as closer to the humanities than the sciences. However, whilst as anticipated many students expressed anxiety about quantitative methods and `number', a slight majority nevertheless expressed no such anxiety. The methodological issue for sociology is perhaps less to do with a numeric deficit and more to do with a lack of student interest in the use of quantitative methods. It may be concluded that the views held by present undergraduates do not augur well for a methodologically pluralist discipline in the future, or more generally for key numeric and analytic skills sociology graduates can bring to other professions and occupations.

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