Interactionist research : extending methods, extending fields

Whitaker, EM ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1370-1071 and Atkinson, P 2021, 'Interactionist research : extending methods, extending fields' , in: The Routledge International Handbook of Interactionism , Routledge International Handbooks , Routledge, London, pp. 425-434.

Preview

PDF - Accepted Version Download (184kB) | Preview

Abstract

Symbolic interactionist research has long been associated with qualitative methods, and with ethnographic fieldwork in particular. This chapter outlines the basic principles that underpin such affinity, while acknowledging that there is no one-to-one correspondence between interactionism and any one research strategy. It is suggested that too much qualitative research and methodology has lost its fundamental sociological commitments. The relevance of interactionism therefore needs to be reasserted, It then goes on top discuss some of the ways in which ethnographic fieldwork has been ‘extended’. Those extensions include: extending ‘fields’ beyond face-to-face encounters, to incorporate virtual environments; extending the ethnographer’s gaze, by means of digital cameras and camcorders; extending the senses, through the development of sensory ethnography; extending the ethnographer through critical self-reflection; extending analysis and representation through multiple forms of non-traditional styles of writing and representation.

Actions (login required)

Edit record (repository staff only)