The Politics of Field Research: Sociology beyond Enlightenment

By David Silverman

What can or should social research offer to funding agencies, to social groups, to the researcher, and to the subjects of the research? How does research in the "field" differ from other forms of social research? In The Politics of Field Research an international team of distinguished researchers draw on their extensive fieldwork experience to address these and other fundamental questions. They explore the political and philosophical context of social field research in general, and examine its role and influence in such fields of study as advertising, service policy, and management. Moreover, the contributors investigate the ways in which social research is used in the field through detailed examples including community care, therapeutic communities, and "green" political movements. The Politics of Field Research will interest those concerned with social theory and qualitative methods in a wide range of disciplines. "There is much of interest in Strong and Dingwall′s chapter. . . . It presents a thoughtful analysis of the present state of sociology. . . . Papadakis provides a very interesting discussion of different modes of involvement of researchers with new social movements and the implications of these for the various models of the relationship between researcher and research that have been offered in the literature. . . . This is a book that raises important issues and introduces some interesting ideas about the current crisis facing sociology." --Reviewing Sociology "The editors have done a good job in getting their contributors to write in terms of a consistent set of themes, so that there is less of the divergence that characterizes many collections. There is also little doubt that the book as a whole raises many often uncomfortable issues about research practice and relevance." --Sociology "I recommend this volume to any reader interested in the nature and use of social scientific research in ′western′ society. I found the analytic level of individual articles to be consistently high, the writing clear, and the eclectic subject matter often absorbing. The authors′ concern with qualitative ethnography, their use of case materials, and their consistent emphasis on reflexive inquiry, particularly on the quality of power relations which define, limit, or shape ethnographic action in a ′post enlightenment era′, enhances the relevance of the collection for all social scientists in general, and anthropologists in particular." --NEXUS: Canadian Journal of Anthropology

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803982267
• ISBN13: 9780803982260
• Release Date: September 1989
• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.0"