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jp 5 ny

David Wästerfors

Professor

jp 5 ny

Designing for observation

Author

  • David Wästerfors

Editor

  • Uwe Flick

Summary, in English

Design can be tricky for qualitative researchers who want to use observations. In the academic world we are often asked to have linear ambitions: proposals, applications, personal websites and presentations. But good practice in ethnography means documenting social life as process, not as a box, and grasping people’s active “doing” of social life rather than rendering it reducible or machinelike. In this chapter I explore a set of accounting procedures for designing observational studies that I find accessible and productive for dealing with this and other dilemmas, and I also explore a kind of flexible preparedness that many projects most likely will benefit from. I try to clarify hands-on ways of managing the design task in this area, I exemplify how to account for the method in advance and how to employ such accounts in practice, and I discuss how to set up a feasible project in terms of getting close to phenomena and sustaining field relations.

Department/s

  • Sociology

Publishing year

2022

Language

English

Pages

716-730

Publication/Series

The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Design

Volume

2

Document type

Book chapter

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 978-1-5264-8432-1