Conference Report: Workshop: „What is the Smell of Spring“? Invective Dynamics of Digital Visual Communication as a Challenge for Qualitative Social Research
In March 2019, the German DIY store chain Hornbach published on the online video hosting platform YouTube, an advertisement named "The Smell of Spring." The video led to a heated online debate and triggered a transnational wave of indignation in various media. Based on this explosive media event, the fine line between humor and invective particularly in relation to the global context, was addressed in an interdisciplinary workshop. The discussions focused on methodological diversity and the challenges in the analysis of digital communication. In this report I give an overview of the joint work and document the presentations and discussions. The program included lectures on invectivity heuristics in digital communication research by Heike GRESCHKE, ethnomethodological analysis of visual data by Ruth AYAß, and media-linguistic multi-level analysis of commentary by Jannis ANDROUTSOPOULOS. In addition to the summary of the lecture series, I also outline how the multi-perspective exchange of methods and theories reveals and brings together a multitude of possibilities for investigating invective phenomena.
Quelle: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3529
Collective Review: Transdisciplinary and Transformative Research: Living Labs in Practice
Social laboratories for testing policy instruments in the public space have become increasingly popular over the last decade. In the volumes reviewed here, the authors evaluated a series of social laboratories initiated in Baden-Wurttemberg. Both volumes present in detail a variety of transdisciplinary and transformative research methods applicable in social laboratories (and more generally in transdisciplinary and transformative research projects). The authors sought to link methodological questions with broader theoretical concerns. The compilations are of interest for the qualitative research community since they present innovative participatory research methods, the vast majority of which are grounded in the qualitative research paradigm.
Quelle: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3605
„It’s Been Always Clear to Me That We Actually Take My Husband’s Name“: (How) Do Heterosexual Couples Negotiate the Determination of Their Surname at Marriage?
The evolution of gender relations illustrates both a growing equality between males and females and, yet, a persistence of male dominance. Marriage is therein ascribed perpetuating effects. The choice of the surname at marriage allows the analysis of the interplay between patriarchal structures and individual action patterns. Choosing a surname is neither solely bureaucratic nor merely a matter of personal choice. Not only have restrictive regulations been loosened, the egalitarian relationship between male and female has become an ideal as well. However, gender equality is not established: 75% of German couples choose the husband’s last name as their surname. Based on narrative interviews with couples, I scrutinize the reasons for the continuity of this inequality. I reconstruct couples' negotiation processes and the underlying rationales. Although a change can be ascertained, the dominance of hegemonial male practices become apparent. For the majority the couples interviewed, reality was shaped by the limitedness of the choice, despite the easing of regulations. Women in particular were faced with a higher legitimization pressure and the challenge of coping with the effects of a changing identity due, in part, to the fact that men are not faced with the same pressure.
Quelle: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3418
From Practices to Situations: Situating Negotiations of Social Practices in a Scottish Community Project
In the past few years, practice theories have been increasingly employed within social scientific research on the environment and sustainability. Thereby, researchers have not only illustrated the valuable insights that can be made, based on these theories, but have also shown the shortcomings of practice theories. Some scholars have recommended combining practice theories with pragmatistic approaches. These would enable the integration of ambivalence, creativity, and instability into practice theoretical approaches. Adele CLARKE's situational analysis (CLARKE, 2003; CLARKE, FRIESE, & WASHBURN, 2018) provides a theory-methods bundle based on American pragmatism. Within this article, I combine practice theories and situational analysis in order to show the analytical-theoretical gains that derive from such a combination. Using the example of two conflicts which evolved within the context of a Scottish community organization, I exemplify which aspects and relationships come into the analyst's view when using either practice theory or situational analysis. This provides the basis on which I then show how these two concepts can be used to enhance each other.
Quelle: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3330
The Chicago School is Dead, Long Live the Chicago School! Why the Transatlantic Dialogue on Ethnography is in Need of an Update
In this article, I argue for an updating of the transatlantic reception of ethnography with the aid of a thick description of the current ethnographic landscape in the USA. Ethnographers working in the interactional Chicago School are facing an essential need to reposition themselves. Michael BURAWOY and Loïc WACQUANT, two important interpretative players with varying theoretical perspectives, have argued for a differentiation of ethnographic approaches. This has caused both profound reconstruction within sociology and led to the ethnographic credibility of the classical Chicago School of ethnography being put in the crossfire outside of the discipline. This is exemplified in the case of Alice GOFFMAN. In order for the transatlantic reception relationship to be considered valid, it must be detached from the predominantly historicizing reference to the founding years of the Chicago School, recognize the current influential shift in the field of sociological ethnography, and include the epistemologically strong connections within the transatlantic dialogue that are present in this country.
Quelle: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3474
Researching Family Secrets: Methodological Approach, Reflections and Recommendations
In this article, I consider writing by research participants as a method of gathering data on sensitive, difficult or shameful topics. In doing so, I draw on the example of a research project on family narratives and family secrets. Gathering data on hidden, uncomfortable or even painful aspects of a family's past and present poses several challenges in a research project: Most people are reluctant to volunteer intimate insights into their family lives and dynamics. Moreover, in an interview situation, it is challenging to create the kind of rapport that allows a deeper conversation. Writing has been used by a number of scholars from different disciplines to gather data. In the first section, I review these approaches, as well as their benefits and disadvantages. I then describe and reflect upon the methodological approach taken for a project on memories of family members' actions and involvement during the Nazi era in Germany. Finally, I offer recommendations and reflections when using writing as a data gathering method.
Quelle: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3515
Indoctrination as „Doing“: A Sequence-Analytical Reconstruction of How Loyalty to State-Party Ideology Was Instilled and Maintained Among the Career Officers of the East German Secret Police
The career officers of East Germany's secret police, the Ministry for State Security (MfS), is regarded to have been the most aggressive defender of the regime's political ideology. Although historians repeatedly assert that this group was very robustly indoctrinated and highly loyal to the state party, there are no convincing empirical evidence and plausible theoretical explanations for this. In this article, I explore the extent to which interpretative-reconstructive sequence analysis is capable of closing this gap in the research. Based on a case study it is shown that full-time MfS personnel were indeed loyal, but that their indoctrination did not always go smoothly. During their training, every deviation from the official party line was recorded, negatively connoted, and sanctioned. By means of various techniques of control and discipline, MfS employees were pressured to willingly internalize the political-ideological mindset that dominated the secret police. In addition to describing this specific form of externally directed self-discipline within the MfS, I also discuss the reliability of autobiographical statements by contemporary witnesses. To what extent are their answers meaningful in qualitative interviews and what exactly can be revealed by means of systematic methods of interpretation?
Quelle: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/2960
„Logical Condensation“: A Proposal to Handle Ambiguity in Contextural Analysis Using the Example of a Schizophrenic Patient in Forensic Psychiatry
Ambiguity and indexicality of utterances are key challenges in qualitative research. In this article we propose "logical condensation" as a novel approach to this challenge. Logical condensation reduces a text to its propositional structure. This technique is based upon ideas of WITTGENSTEIN (2003 [1922]) and aims at getting to the (onto-)logical core of a text. As each text always is ambiguous, this attempt will undoubtedly fail. Consequently, we can learn from the fractures within the logical structure of a text about the different layers of meaning involved. Therefore, logical condensation can be the key to a polycontextural understanding of texts and the basis for a thorough contextual analysis. We demonstrate this using the example of a schizophrenic patient in forensic psychiatry.
Quelle: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3504
Moralizations as Modes of Sense Making: A Discussion Concerning the Quality of Professional Knowledge Based on Stories About Residency Decisions and Counseling
In this article, I discuss moralizations as attitudes and habits of valuation. As I reconstructed the implicit knowledge in narratives about professional case work, these kind of moralizations became apparent. My data include interviews with federal police officers, administrators in immigration offices, and counselors, who give advice on residency issues. From my analysis, I identified three typical modes of narration, each in every professional group. Those modes of narration refer to the professional’s experiences and actions in situations in which clients acted differently from the way they were expected to. Based on the praxeological theory of knowledge, I discuss those modes of narrations as situated and sense making implicit knowledge and I emphasize the moralizing character of this knowledge. As such, the moralizations I found can be discussed as habits of valuations—a concept known from praxeological theory. Subsequent to the methodological discussion, I reflect on my findings in the light of organizational theory, theory of professional knowledge, and concepts of the moral.
Quelle: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3460