QUALITATIVE RESEARCH SOCIAL METHODS

1. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH SOCIAL METHODS SC20062 Leah Wild Week Four

2. WEEK FOUR-OVERVIEW • Sampling in qualitative projects • Fieldwork issues in qualitative projects • Case study: ‘New-Age’ Travellers • Group work

3. REASONS FOR SAMPLING • Complete coverage not possible • Complete coverage is not advantageous • Less demanding, quick results • More economical • More detailed information

4. SAMPLING • Quantitative sampling aims at representativeness • Qualitative sampling aims at information-rich cases • Be realistic and practical • Upper and lower limits • For assignment: 3/4 per group • Dissertation: 5-10 • Need range and diversity • Link to research aim

5. QUALITATIVE SAMPLING Is directed • typical cases • a sample that is flexible in size and type or subjects • not towards statistical or random sampling • purposive sampling • theoretical sampling • Choose a case in terms of your theory • Choose deviant cases • Change the size of your sample

6. VALIDITY & RELIABILITY • Validation • Cumulative • Communicative • Argumentative • Ecological • Reliability

7. FINDING INTERVIEWEES • Pick a realistic site • Using lists of name and addresses • Screening questionnaire • Networking/snowballing • Selecting from a captive audience • Involvement of gatekeepers

8. FIELDWORK ISSUES • Recruitment • Incentives • Where to interview • Home • Work • Where comfortable • Reflective methods

9. CASE STUDY: ‘New Age’ Travellers Identity and Community. • The nature of contact between groups is varied and complex. • Generational differences. • Geographically dispersed. • Differing views on • The influence of politics in motivations to travel • How community is shaped and maintained. • Overall aim of the research: to determine how Travellers construct their identities and a sense of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’.

10. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES • To find out what motivated individuals to become Travellers. • To explore the ‘ascribed’ identities of Travellers. • To explore the impact of ascribed identity of the formulation of collective identity? • To examine concepts of Risk and ‘otherness’ in relation to collective identity. • Where do Travellers get notions of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’ from?

11. RESEARCH METHODS • Pilot questionnaire (participant led approach) • Questionnaire. • In-depth interviews • 14 individual interviews (France, Spain, UK) • 2 Group Interviews. • participant observation • Focus Groups to discuss literature. • Allowing myself to be interviewed by an informant.

12. Reflexivity 1 • Personal reflexivity “Reflexivity requires an awareness of the researcher's contribution to the construction of meanings throughout the research process, and an acknowledgment of the impossibility of remaining 'outside of' one's subject matter while conducting research. Reflexivity then, urges us "to explore the ways in which a researcher's involvement with a particular study influences, acts upon and informs such research." (Nightingale and Cromby, 1999: 28). • Epistemological reflexivity epistemological reflexivity encourages us to reflect upon the assumptions (about the world, about knowledge) that we have made in the course of the research, and it helps us to think about the implications of such assumptions for the research and its findings. Willig, (2001: 32)

13. Reflexivity 2 • Bourdieu reflexive practice to free intellectuals from 'their illusions’ • Harold Garfinkel (1967) actions and can only be fully understood from within the context that they were produced. • 'truth' and validity contingent on both time and space • Referential reflexivity the study of the relations between the person who engages in the research and the persons or groups who are the focus of that research.( May 1998) • Worsley (1997) communities have their own ontological structures the researcher runs the risk of imposing ontological structures from their own already dominant culture. • Issues of Power.

14. Subjectivity, Reflexivity and Ethics. • Qualitative inquiry as subjective. • Locating the self in ones research • Epistemological questions • Ontological Questions. • Questioning relations between researcher and researched • Research as one interpretation among many. • The issue of authorial authority. • making the methodologies and the use I make of them more transparent and accountable. • Linking this to ethics.

15. OTHER METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES TO CONSIDER. • Gatekeeper bias • Participant led research. • Honesty in interviews • Data collection • Data analysis. • ‘Insider’ or ‘Outsider’ and the question of epistemological privilege. • Researching a sensitive topic • The issue of harm • What do with contentious data. • Writing culture the issue of representation and misrepresentation.

16. KEY FINDINGS FROM MY OWN RESEARCH • Common representations of Travellers in media highly negative. • In academic discourse ‘hero’ and ‘victim’ dichotomy’. • Travellers react in unexpected ways to negative stereotyping. • ‘Otherness’ a structuring principle through which travellers formulate their own identities. • Outsider status used to consolidate a sense of home and community.

17. KEY ISSUES ARISING IN RELATION TO REFLEXIVITY IN MY RESEARCH. • Research always autobiographical. • Own interests impossible to remove from the process and practice of research • Claims to epistemological privilege hugely problematic • Costs as well as benefits in conducting insider research. • Reflexive engagement can be ‘paralysing’, need for strategies to overcome this. • Research always a collective endeavour between researcher and researched