Silverman, David, 2001. Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction, 2nd Edition. London: Sage.
Validity
Count where it makes sense to count
Constant comparative method
Chapter 10: The Potential of Qualitative Research: Eight Reminders, 285-302.
1. Take advantage of naturally occurring data
2. Avoid treating the actor’s point of view as an explanation
3. Study the interrelationships between elements
4. Attempt theoretically fertile research
5. Address wider audiences
6. Begin with “How?” questions, then ask “Why?”
7. Study “Hyphenated” [hybrid] phenomena
8. Treat qualitative research as different from journalism (300-301). By this Silverman means:
· Avoid the assumption that research is only newsworthy if it reveals what is hidden or secret.
· Recognize that what is usually of most interest is what is unremarkable to participants
· Avoid ironic comparisons between what people say and what we (think we) know about what they do
· Recognize that ‘experience’ is not more or less ‘authentic’ but is narrated in ways that are open to lively investigation
Concluding remarks (301)
· [In qualitative and interpretive research] …how can we find any secure ground from which to speak?
· Are we not inevitably led to an infinite regress where ultimate truths are unavailable?
Silverman’s response:
· First a question: “Isn’t it a little surprising that such possibility should be found threatening when natural sciences, particularly quantum physics, seem to live with them all the time and adapt accordingly, even ingeniously?”
· “Secondly, instead of throwing up our hands in horror at the context-boundedness of accounts, why not marvel at the elegant solutions that societal members use to remedy this? For practical reasons, the [infinite] regress seems no problem at all.”
· Interpretive research does not mean that ‘anything goes.’
“The trick is to produce intelligent, disciplined work on the very edge of the abyss.”