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This volume brings together writers from a variety of disciplines to explore and illustrate the possibilities of new narrative forms in social research. The book is arranged into four areas of concern: representation, subjectivity, critique, and postmodern discourse.
Fiction and Social Research brings together writers from a variety of disciplines to explore and illustrate the possibilities of new narrative forms in social research. At the intersections of fiction, ethnography, and cultural studies, these essays demonstrate narratives that simultaneously enrich fieldwork and enliven research reporting. By arranging this volume into four areas of concern, this volume demonstrates how fiction can express issues of representation, subjectivity, critique and postmodern discourse. This volume is unique in its accessibility and will prove a valuable tool to the veteran scholar and beginning ethnographer alike.
The turn to fiction as a social research practice is a natural extension of what many researchers and writers have long been doing. Patricia Leavy, a widely published qualitative researcher and a novelist, explores the overlaps and intersections between these two ways of understanding and describing human experience. She demonstrates the validity of literary experimentation to the qualitative researcher and how to incorporate these practices into research projects. Five short stories and excerpts from novellas and novels show these methods in action. This book is an essential methodological introduction for those interested in studying or practicing arts-based research.
In spite of their differing rhetorics and cognitive strategies, sociology and literature are often concerned with the same objects: social relationships, action, motivation, social constraints and relationships, for example. As such, sociologists have always been fascinated with fictional literature. This book reinvigorates the debate surrounding the utility of fiction as a sociological resource, examining the distinction between the two forms of writing and exploring the views of early sociologists on the suitability of subjecting literary sources to sociological analysis. Engaging with contemporary debates in this field, the author explores the potential sociological use of literary fiction, considering the role of literature as the exemplification of sociological concepts, a non-technical confirmation of theoretical insights, and a form of empirical material used to confirm a set of theoretically oriented assumptions. A fascinating exploration of the means by which the sociological eye can be sharpened by engagement with literary sources, Fiction and Social Reality offers a set of methodological principles according to which literature can be examined sociologically. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and literary studies with interests in research methods and interdisciplinary approaches to scholarly research.
This groundbreaking book brings creative writing to social research. Its innovative format includes creatively written contributions by researchers from a range of disciplines, modelling the techniques outlined by the authors. The book is user-friendly and shows readers: • how to write creatively as a social researcher; • how creative writing can help researchers to work with participants and generate data; • how researchers can use creative writing to analyse data and communicate findings. Inviting beginners and more experienced researchers to explore new ways of writing, this book introduces readers to creatively written research in a variety of formats including plays and poems, videos and comics. It not only gives social researchers permission to write creatively but also shows them how to do so.
Professor Peyton Wilde has an enviable life teaching sociology at an idyllic liberal arts college--yet she is troubled by a sense of fading inspiration. One day an invitation arrives. Peyton has been selected to attend a luxurious all-expense-paid seminar in Iceland, where participants, billed as some of the greatest thinkers in the world, will be charged with answering one perplexing question. Meeting her diverse teammates--two neuroscientists, a philosopher, a dance teacher, a collage artist, and a farmer--Peyton wonders what she could ever have to contribute. The ensuing journey of discovery will transform the characters' work, their biases, and themselves. This suspenseful novel shows that the answers you seek can be found in the most unlikely places. It can be read for pleasure, is a great choice for book clubs, and can be used as unique and inspiring reading in qualitative research and other courses in education, sociology, social work, psychology, and communication.
"This work′s quality, diversity, and breadth of coverage make it a valuable resource for collections concerned with qualitative research in a broad range of disciplines. Highly recommended." —G.R. Walden, CHOICE The Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Inquiry: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues represents an unfolding and expanding orientation to qualitative social science research that draws inspiration, concepts, processes, and representational forms from the arts. In this defining work, J. Gary Knowles and Ardra L. Cole bring together the top scholars in qualitative methods to provide a comprehensive overview of the past, present, and future of arts-based research. This Handbook provides an accessible and stimulating collection of theoretical arguments and illustrative examples that delineate the role of the arts in qualitative social science research. Key Features Defines and explores the role of the arts in qualitative social science research: The Handbook presents an analysis of classic and emerging methodologies and approaches that employs the arts in the qualitative research process. Brings together a unique group of scholars: Offering diverse perspectives, contributors to this volume represent a wide range of disciplines including the humanities, media and communication, anthropology, sociology, psychology, women′s studies, education, social work, nursing, and health and medicine. Offers comprehensive coverage of the genres employed by qualitative researchers: Scholars use multiple ways to advance knowledge including literary forms, performance, visual art, various types of media, narrative, folk art, and more. Articulates challenges inherent in alternative methodologies: This volume discusses the issues and challenges faced when employing art in research including ethical issues, academic merit issues, and even funding issues. Intended Audience This is an essential resource for any scholar interested in qualitative research, as well as a critical resource for all academic and public libraries.
The Lonely Soldier--the inspiration for the documentary The Invisible War--vividly tells the stories of five women who fought in Iraq between 2003 and 2006--and of the challenges they faced while fighting a war painfully alone. More American women have fought and died in Iraq than in any war since World War Two, yet as soldiers they are still painfully alone. In Iraq, only one in ten troops is a woman, and she often serves in a unit with few other women or none at all. This isolation, along with the military's deep-seated hostility toward women, causes problems that many female soldiers find as hard to cope with as war itself: degradation, sexual persecution by their comrades, and loneliness, instead of the camaraderie that every soldier depends on for comfort and survival. As one female soldier said, "I ended up waging my own war against an enemy dressed in the same uniform as mine." In The Lonely Soldier, Benedict tells the stories of five women who fought in Iraq between 2003 and 2006. She follows them from their childhoods to their enlistments, then takes them through their training, to war and home again, all the while setting the war's events in context. We meet Jen, white and from a working-class town in the heartland, who still shakes from her wartime traumas; Abbie, who rebelled against a household of liberal Democrats by enlisting in the National Guard; Mickiela, a Mexican American who grew up with a family entangled in L.A. gangs; Terris, an African American mother from D.C. whose childhood was torn by violence; and Eli PaintedCrow, who joined the military to follow Native American tradition and to escape a life of Faulknerian hardship. Between these stories, Benedict weaves those of the forty other Iraq War veterans she interviewed, illuminating the complex issues of war and misogyny, class, race, homophobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Each of these stories is unique, yet collectively they add up to a heartbreaking picture of the sacrifices women soldiers are making for this country. Benedict ends by showing how these women came to face the truth of war and by offering suggestions for how the military can improve conditions for female soldiers-including distributing women more evenly throughout units and rejecting male recruits with records of violence against women. Humanizing, urgent, and powerful, The Lonely Soldier is a clarion call for change.
From question development and research design to data collection and statistical analysis, this text guides the reader through every aspect of social research. Encouraging a critical approach in each chapter, this 4th edition includes enhanced coverage of internet sampling, mixed methods, conversation analysis and feminist research.
Presenting the landmark Pioneers life stories project, this one-of-a-kind book documents how modern social research in the UK was shaped. It combines a fascinating history of the generations who built outstanding and influential social research with a valuable resource for future research and teaching on methods.