Class Notes 5

Qualitative Methods – 9.24.2013

What is the birthday present – it’s a symbolic present to stand for something that’s being made, like a chair or table. Either that, or he got her a wood plane (thing with which you plane wood, not a plane made of wood, though the tool could have wooden elements, I guess). Our guess should go on the website.

We need to begin engaging the concepts from class, answering the questions that were posed in the beginning of the course.

            Why do we do interpretive research at all? The focus is on the embedded meanings of action, linguistic, and/or symbolic texts. The work begins with surface expressions and moves below to the cultural structures that exist under the surface. Thick description is meant to reveal the meanings and cultural implications that draw out the surface expression. Social construction is what drove the turn to interpretive. In order to use the social constructive perspective, we must consider the requirements of the material practices. This is expressed through whatever is considered appropriate behavior. An example of this would be Julie’s observation of coffee shop behavior and being disciplined through disapproving glances for having a conversation. The truth in this material practice can be seen through latitudes of expression in action, speech, and self-presentation.

            When we look at the move from metric epistemology to interpretive epistemology, there are three defining characteristics. One of these is the security and trustworthiness of preferentiality and representation. As interpretive researchers, we must be willing to truth the answers that our participants give us, but we acknowledge that there may be more or different truths available. The metric researcher must assume that all answers are as valid as their methodology. There are different power relations between the researcher and informant. The informant has most of the power in interpretive work, whereas metric studies tend to give the researcher power over the informant. This can change depending on the particular method being used, however. We can evaluate the power dynamics by asking about the relational contract, who initiates and is responsible for the action, who has agenda control, and who determines value? Finally, the interpretivist tradition has a requirement of interpretation, whereas metric work does not usually need to be interpreted.

            One of the facets of study for interpretive researchers is space. We need to be able to distinguish between static and dynamic space. Space has intentional boundaries for action, and it is an expression of value, power relations, status, past history, appropriateness, cultural location, and other things. Space is a text. Dynamic space is also a text, and it is an action appropriated resource. We need to consider how the action appropriates the space and makes it its own.

            Field notes shouldn’t be connected—they are not the story or report of the observation. They are directed at problems, those you define as part of your research. There is an infinite number of things to focus on, and so we must choose to focus on something. Field notes are not the same as episodic narratives. We are trying to narrow the reach (the amount of things we describe) and thicken the description (get into the cultural implications). Ideally, we should implement a notational system to show time, ellipses, reconstructions (of conversations), intrusions, and commentary.

For next week, we need to go back to observe the place we went to this week. Begin the observation with an analysis of static space, followed by an analysis of dynamic space.

            Administrative improvement studies and classroom activities do not need to go through IRB. There is a protocol for public ethnographies (in public space with people who are not organizationally engaged), which is that they go to Jim and he approves it.

           

Activity: Putting together an interview guide for the Senior Center Project

We are going to take a collaborative-interactive stance at these interviews. We need to think through the potential solutions, and these are topics for the interviews.

Topics: Words/vocabulary; signs & symbols; navigation and instructions; computer/internet; family; expectations; wishes/wants; cell phones, cameras, apps, calculator/basics

We need to determine which of these topics we are able to best process and use. We can only ask about so many things, and we will tend to be more comfortable about some things over others.

We don’t need to systematize our data collection (between individuals at least).

            One of the differences between metric empiricism and interpretive empiricism is that metric is concerned with rates and interpretive is concerned with critical instances. The critical instance is the effective moment (that makes it all sensible) instead of standardized interviews.