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Interpretive Social Research his volume is a clear introduction to methods of data collection and analysis in the social sciences, with a special focus on interpretive methods based on a logic Tof discovering hypotheses and grounded theories. The chief methods presented are participant observation, open interviews and biographical case reconstruction. The special advantages of interpretive methods, as against other qualitative methods, are revealed by comparing them to content analysis. Empirical examples show how the methods presented can be implemented in prac- tice, and concrete problems connected with conducting empirical research are dis- cussed. By presenting individual case studies, the author shows how to apply the principle of openness when collecting empirical data, whether through interviews or observations, and she offers rules for analysis based on the principles of reconstruc- tion and sequentiality. Gabriele Rosenthal is Professor for Qualitative Methodology at the Center of Methods in Social Sciences, Georg- August-University of Göttingen, Germany. Her major research focus is migration, ethnicity, belonging, vio- lence, collective and armed conflicts and trauma. She is the author and edi- tor of numerous books, including The Gabriele Rosenthal Holocaust in Three Generations (1998), Established and Outsiders at the Same Time. Self-Images and We-Images of Interpretive Social Research Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel (2016), and, together with Artur An Introduction Bogner, Biographies in the Global South (2017). Gabriele Rosenthal Interpretive Social Research ISBN 978-3-86395-374-4 Universitätsverlag Göttingen Universitätsverlag Göttingen Gabriele Rosenthal Interpretive Social Research This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Published in 2018 by Göttingen University Press Gabriele Rosenthal Interpretive Social Research An Introduction Göttingen University Press 2018 Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über <http://dnb.dnb.de> abrufbar. First German edition of this book published by Juventa in 2005 as: Gabriele Rosenthal: Interpretative Sozialforschung. Eine Einführung. This translation is based on the 5th updated and enlarged German edition, Beltz Juventa, 2015. This work is protected by German Intellectual Property Right Law. It is also available as an Open Access version through the publisher’s homepage and the Göttingen University Catalogue (GUK) (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de). The license terms of the online version apply. Translated by Ruth Schubert Set and layout: Steffen Herrmann Cover design: Jutta Pabst Cover picture: shutterstock 392321632 Arthimedes: Large and diverse group of people seen from above gathered together in the shape of a magnifying glass icon © 2018 Göttingen University Press http://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de ISBN: 978-3-86395-374-4 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2018-1103 Contents Preface ........................................................................................................... 9 Introduction ................................................................................................. 11 1 Qualitative and interpretive social research ......................................... 13 1.1 What is qualitative social research? ......................................................... 13 1.2 What can interpretive social research achieve? ........................................ 18 1.3 The historical beginnings of interpretive social research .......................... 25 2 Basic assumptions and principles of interpretive social research ........ 35 2.1 The interpreted social world ................................................................... 35 2.2 The principle of communication ............................................................ 39 2.3 Empirical example: changing framings in the context of a family interview ..................................................................................... 41 2.4 On the principle of openness in the research process and in interviews ... 43 1. Openness for modifications to the research plan ................................ 43 2. Empirical example: discovering the significance of historical generations ......................................................................... 45 3. Openness in the data-collecting situation .......................................... 47 2.5 On the principle of openness in interpretive text analyses ....................... 49 1. The principle of reconstruction .......................................................... 50 2. The principle of an abductive approach ............................................. 52 3. Empirical example: on reconstructing the function of the “disruptive son-in-law” ...................................................................... 55 4. The principle of sequentiality ............................................................. 63 5. Theoretical generalization and development of types on the basis of an individual case .......................................................................... 65 6. Empirical example: developing different types on the basis of a case reconstruction ..................................................................... 68 6 Gabriele Rosenthal: Interpretive Social Research 3 Research process and research design .................................................. 75 3.1 Theoretical sampling and theoretical saturation ...................................... 76 3.2 The research process in a study based on interviews ................................ 79 1. Making the first contact with possible interviewees and arranging an interview ....................................................................................... 79 2. Memos and global analyses ................................................................ 81 3. First and second theoretical samples .................................................. 83 4. Minimal and maximal contrastive comparison of cases ...................... 85 5. Presentation of the results: intersubjective verifiability and anonymization of the data ................................................................. 87 4 Ethnographical field research – Participant observation – Video analysis ....................................................................................... 89 4.1 From the historical beginnings of field research to present-day ethnography ........................................................................................... 89 4.2 Participation in the field ......................................................................... 93 4.3 Empirical example: Physical and emotional challenges for the participant observer ................................................................................ 95 4.4 Recording observations and sequential analysis ...................................... 97 1. Field notes or observation memos ...................................................... 97 2. Sequential analysis of observation memos .......................................... 101 4.5 Analyzing video films by Nicole Witte & Gabriele Rosenthal ..................... 108 5 From open guided interview to narrative interview ............................ 123 5.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 123 5.2 On wrestling with an open method oriented towards the interviewee ..... 124 5.3 Different variants of a semi-standardized method ................................... 128 5.4 Narrative interviews ............................................................................... 133 1. On the basic idea of the narrative interview ....................................... 133 2. On the advantages of long narrations ................................................ 135 3. On the technique of conducting narrative interviews ......................... 139 5.5 On the necessity of asking in-depth questions ........................................ 148 1. Processes of understanding in the interview situation ........................ 148 2. Empirical example: what is the significance of the mother’s death for different research questions? ......................................................... 150 Contents 7 6 Biographical research and case reconstruction .................................... 155 6.1 Biographical research and its theoretical basis ......................................... 155 6.2 Biographical case reconstruction ............................................................ 166 1. Experienced life history and narrated life story .................................. 166 2. Sequential analysis of biographical data ............................................. 168 3. Text and thematic field analysis ......................................................... 175 4. Reconstruction of the experienced life history and sequential microanalyses .................................................................................... 181 5. Comparing narrated life story and experienced life history and construction of types ......................................................................... 185 6.3 Case reconstructions on a different case level .......................................... 186 7 Content analysis – Coding in grounded theory – Discourse analysis ...............................................................................
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