Whites Writing Whiteness Reading List
Methodology
Liz Stanley
Please reference as: Liz Stanley (2020) ‘Methodology’, www.whiteswritingwhiteness.ed.ac.uk/Reading-List/methodology/ and provide the paragraph number as appropriate when quoting.
1. Introduction
1.1 The broad methodological approach of the Whites Writing Whiteness project is a Qualitative Longitudinal Research (QLR) one. This is being used in a particular way in relation to the letters data being used in the project, in recognising the fact that letters collections are inherently sequential in terms of their contents.
1.2 The concept of the figuration is extremely helpful for thinking about (a) the coming and going of letter-writers and addressees in a family collection, and (b) the fact that many South Africans did not (and do not) actually live in families, nor in households (family plus others) but in figurations, in which people of both family and non-family kinds move in and out over time. This concept is being used in both the conventional and the more expansive senses in WWW research, regarding thinking about its letter collections, and also regarding project data as a whole.
1.3 Re-reading within a documentary analysis is the basic activity that the analysis uses. This includes the ‘how’ of how document are understood, analysed and interpreted. Among other things, it involves close textual analysis as well as placing this in a broader interpretive work. It is demonstrated in detail in a series of essays working from a project to publishing and all the stages in between working, to be found on the Whites Writing Whiteness ‘How to…’ pages.
1.4 In addition, the tools of Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA) are helpful for thinking through the contextual, emergent and rhetorical articulations of whiteness and its ‘Others’, for letters like other documents, and like speech, use categories of various kinds for thinking about and positioning people, behaviours, things, events and so on. An MCA-based analysis of ethnic and related categories is helpful in providing some fairly precise analytic help in looking at letters in detail.
1.5 Occasionally, the letters collections investigated in WWW research contain comments on comments on or descriptions of or descriptions of major events of both a social (eg. the Frontier War between 1850-52, 1910 and Union, the Sharpeville massacre) and a familial kind (eg. Katie Findlay’s younger son George shot himself, Robert Godlonton went to Britain for an extended period, Roger Price died), and these have reverberations and consequences for the letter-writing of the people involved. In teasing this out, an event structure analysis provides useful ideas and tools for thinking about such events.
1.6 In what follows, recommended key reading is indicated with ** against author names
2. Qualitative Longitudinal Research
Robert Burgelman (2011) ‘Bridging history and reductionism: a key role for longitudinal qualitative research’ Journal of International Business Studies 42: 591-601. (From within a different paradigm, an interesting if oddly written discussion of QLR as providing a bridge between historical and reductionist quantitative work.)
A. Corden and J. Millar (2007) ‘Time and change: a review of the qualitative longitudinal research literature for social policy’ Social Policy and Society 6: 583-92. (Some interesting discussion. Deals with a focused set of reading, rather than being a systematic review.)
Rosalind Edwards & Susie Weller (2012) ‘Shifting analytic ontology: using I-poems in qualitative longitudinal research’ Qualitative Research 12, 2: 202-17. (Concerned with how different approaches situate the researcher.)
Sheila Henderson, Janet Holland, Sheena McGrellis, Sue Sharpe, and Rachel Thomson (2012) Storying qualitative longitudinal research: sequence, voice and motif’ Qualitative Research February 12: 16-34. (Helpful discussion of issues of representation and methodological issues arising in QLR research.)
Jane Elliott, Janet Holland & Rachel Thomson (2007) ‘Qualitative and quantitative longitudinal research’ in (eds) L. Bickman, J. Branen & P. Alasuutari Handbook on Social Research Methods London: Sage, pp.228-48. (Useful overview.)
**Jane Lewis (2007) ‘Analysing qualitative longitudinal research in evaluations’ Social Policy and Society 6: 545-56. (Helpfully sets out seven ways of analysing QLR data. It presumes an individual person will be the unit of analysis in all QLR.)
** Julie McLeod. and Rachel Thomson (2009) Researching Social Change: Qualitative Approaches. London: Sage. (Ch 4 is especially relevant, although the whole book is helpful and interesting.)
Bren Neale & Jennifer Flowerdew (2003) ‘Time, texture and childhood: the contours of qualitative longitudinal research’ International Journal of Social Research Methodology 6: 189-96. (Interesting, although tends to conflate the time/s OF the data, and time/s IN the data)
Henrietta O’Connor & John Goodwin (2010) ‘Utilizing data from a lost sociological project’ Qualitative Research 10, 3: 285-98. (Interesting discussion of whether and to what extent the ‘lost project’ and then later research fits or not within a QLR framework; usefully raises issues around the complexity and size of QLR datasets)
Elisabetta Ruspini (1999) ‘Longitudinal research and the analysis of social change’ Quality and Quantity 33: 219-27. (Introduction to a special section on longitudinal and social change. None of her three kinds of QLR fit historical and ‘found’ data of the letters and documents kind.)
Johnny Saldana (2003) Longitudinal Qualitative Research: Analyzing Change Through Time Walnut Creek, C: AltaMira Press. (Whole book is important. It is a ‘do it my way’ text, but very useful within this frame.)
Noel Smith (2003) ‘Cross sectional profiling and longitudinal analysis’ International Journal of Social Research Methodology 6: 273-77. (Presents itself as a sort of science of QLR, but is basically using NVivo to analyse themes, then look for the person across these themes.)
** Rachel Thomson (2007) ‘The qualitative longitudinal case history: Practical, methodological and ethical reflection’ Social Policy and Society 6: 571-82. (Insightful discussion including of the idea of building a QLR case study and having ‘conversations’ between parts of a dataset, rather than scientistic comparisons between cases.)
Rachel Thomson & Janet Holland (2003) ‘Hindsight, foresight and insight: the challenges of longitudinal qualitative research’ International Journal of Social Research Methodology 6: 233-44. (Useful discussion of methodology aspects and tensions between narrative and thematic analysis, cross-section and longitudinal.)
Smiljka Tomanovic ‘Capturing change: doing research in a society undergoing transformation’ International Journal of Social Research Methodology 6: 267-71. (Two or more cross-sections are assumed to equal longitudinal.)
L. Yates (2003) ‘Interpretive claims and methodological warrant in small-number qualitative longitudinal research’ research’ International Journal of Social Research Methodology 6: 223-32. (Cogently argues comparison is good, but never quite gets to grips with what QLR is.)
3. Figurational Sociology
**Baur, N. and Ernst, S. (2011) ‘Towards a process-oriented methodology: modern social science research methods and Norbert Elias’s figurational sociology’, in eds N. Gabriel and S. Mennell Norbert Elias and Figurational Research Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp.117–39. See also Sociological Review (2011) 59: 117-39. (Useful discussion of how to use figurational sociology in research practice.)
**Norbert Elias (1994/2000) The Civilizing Process, Oxford: Blackwell. (Elias’s discussion of figuration is dotted about, but see pages 314-16, 365-6, 437-8, 481-3 in particular.)
N. Gabriel and S. Mennell (eds, 2011) Norbert Elias and Figurational Research Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. (Useful edited collection; published from a special issue of Sociological Review.)
Goudsblom, J. (1977) ‘Responses to Norbert Elias’s work’ in R. Gleichman et al (eds) Human Figurations: Essays for Norbert Elias, Amsterdam: Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdschrift. (Useful discussion on the reception of Elias’s work.)
** Robert van Krieken Norbert Elias London: Routledge, Chapter 3 ‘Towards a theory of human society’ pp.42-83. (Good introductory text.)
Mouzelis, N. (1993) ‘On figurational sociology’, Theory, Culture and Society, 10: 239-53. (A review of Dunning on sport using an Eliasian framework; short but interesting.)
4. Re-Reading & Documentary Analysis
(i) Re-reading in analysing letters
** Helen Dampier (2008) ‘Re-reading as a methodology: the case of Boer women’s testimonies,’ Qualitative Research 8, 3: 367–77. (Helpful and accessible look at exactly how re-reading can be done.)
Helen Dampier (2011) “Re-readings of Olive Schreiner’s letters to Karl Pearson: against closure” in ed, Stanley “Olive Schreiner and Company: Letters and ‘Drinking in the External World’” OSLP Working Papers on Letters, Letterness & Epistolary Networks No 3, University of Edinburgh, pp. 46-71 http://www.oliveschreinerletters.ed.ac.uk/OSandCompany2011PDF.pdf (As the title says – using re-reading to tease out complexities in Schreiner’s letters to Pearson)
Salter, Andrea (2013) “Stories, or ‘someone telling something to someone about something’: Stories in Olive Schreiner’s Letters and Nella Last’s Mass Observation Diary” in (ed) Liz Stanley Documents of Life Revisited Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishers, pp.93-105. (Re-reads letters to focus on the story-telling aspects.)
Liz Stanley (2002) “‘Shadows Lying Across Her Pages’: Epistolary Aspects of Reading ‘The Eventful I’ in Olive Schreiner’s Letters 1889–1913.” Journal of European Studies 32: 251–66. (How someone writes their letters can tell us as much or more as what they write, because there can be speaking silences of various kinds.)
**Liz Stanley (2004) ‘The Epistolarium: On Theorising Letters and Correspondences’, Auto/Biography 12: 216-50. (Sets out the key conceptual framework of the epistolarium.)
**Liz Stanley (2011) ‘Letters, the Epistolary Gift, the Editorial Thirty-Party, Counter-Epistolaria: Rethinking the Epistolarium’, Life Writing 8: 135-52. (Brings conceptual thinking regarding the epistolarium concept up to date.)
Stanley, Liz and Dampier, Helen (2012) “‘I just express my views & leave them to work’: Olive Schreiner as a feminist protagonist in a masculine political landscape with figures and letters” Gender and History 24: 677-700. (Analyses Schreiner’s letters to focus on their performative aspects.)
Liz Stanley, Helen Dampier and Andrea Salter (2010) ‘Olive Schreiner Globalising Social Inquiry: A Feminist Analytics of Globalisation’, Sociological Review 58: 656-79.(Explores Schreiner’s epistolary theorising and in particular her concern with aspects of social change now glossed in sociology as globalisation.)
Liz Stanley, Andrea Salter & Helen Dampier (2013) “The epistolary pact, letterness and the Schreiner epistolarium” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 27: 262-83.(Forwards development of theorising letters and the epistolarium regarding the elements of the ‘epistolary pact’.)
(ii) Documentary analysis
** Paul Atkinson & Amanda Coffey (2004) ‘Analysing documentary realities’ in David Silverman (ed, 2001 2nd ed or 2004 3rd ed) Qualitative Research London: Sage, pp.77-92. (Accessible, helpful, covers the nitty-gritty of it.)
Alan McKee (2004) Textual Analysis, A Beginner’s Guide London: Sage, Ch 1 ‘What is textual analysis?’ pp.1-33, Ch 4 ‘How do I know what’s a likely interpretation’ pp.83-117. (A helpful ‘how to’ approach.)
** Lindsay Prior (2003) Using Documents in Social Research London: Sage, esp Ch 3 and Ch 4, ‘Documents in action’ pp.50-69 and pp.70-88. (Sees documents as agentic in their own right, dubious when pushed too far but interesting if used more cautiously.)
Lindsay Prior (2004) ‘Using documents in social research’ in David Silverman (ed, 2001 2nd ed or 2004 3rd ed) Qualitative Research London: Sage, pp.92-110. (Overviewing guide to Prior’s ideas re analysing the agentic aspects of documents.)
Lindsay Prior (2008) ‘Repositioning Documents in Social Research’ Sociology 42: 821-36. (Argues the case for the importance of documentary analysis.)
John Scott (ed, 2006) Documentary Research (4 Volumes) London: Sage. (Huge compendium of relevant work, alas prohibitively expense for mere people to buy.)
**David Silverman (2001, 2nd ed) Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analyzing Talk, Text and Interaction London: Sage Ch 5 ‘Texts’ pp.119-58. (Sensible helpful introduction to the basics of analysing documents.)
(iii) Membership Categorization Analysis
MCA provides an important way of thinking about letters and how they are written, enabling the letter-writer’s use of categorisation, including racial categorisation, to be focused on. For details,For details, see the extended reading list on MCA, available here:
5. Event Structure Analysis
William Corsaro and D. Heise (1990) ‘Event structure models from ethnographic data’ in (ed) C. Clogg Sociological Methodology Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, pp. 1-57.
Nan Dirk de Graaf (1999) ‘Event history data and making a history out of cross-sectional data’ Quality and Quantity 33: 261-76. (At the quantitative end of event structure analysis.)
** Larry Griffin (1993) ‘Narrative, event-structure analysis and causal interpretation in historical sociology’ American Journal of Sociology 98: 1094-1133. (Interesting discussion, with a case study around a lynching in 1930s Mississippi; important reading on things to do with event-structure analysis.)
Cliff Brown (2000) ‘The role of employers in split labour forces: an event structure analysis of racial conflict and AFL organising 1917-1919’ Social Forces 79: 653-81. (As the title indicates; a good case study.)
** William Stevenson, Heidi Zinzow, and Sanjeev Sridharan (2003) ‘Using Event Structure Analysis to Understand Planned Social Change’ International Journal of Qualitative Methods 2: 43-52. (Helpfully describes how it can be done; organised around pinning down what the narrative is.)
Edwina Uehara (2001) ‘Understanding the dynamics of illness and help-seeking: event-structure analysis and a Cambodian–American narrative of “Spirit Invasion”’ Social Science and Medicine 52: 519-36. (As the title indicates; good case study.)
See the free software, Ethno, developed for analysing event structures; there is also a useful references page – go to http://www.indiana.edu/~socpsy/ESA/
USEFUL JOURNALS
Journal of African Studies
Journal of Commonwealth & Imperial History
Journal of Southern African Studies
South African Historical Journal
South African Review of Sociology
Last updated: 30 June 2020
