"But I think the underlying issue here is that people need to be free to
deviate from social conventions about research or method in order to
provide new possibilities, in order for the dialogue to be able to move on.
Research agendas or methodological approaches do not need to be private to
be free, they only need to be subject to minimally-coercive social control."
I agree. I teach fieldwork and qualitative analysis to people in many
fields. Also from studying scientists, they *do* deviate from social
conventions. Sometimes that provides new possibilities; often it provides
shame. Most everyone who does fieldwork thinks they don't do it right
(enough, rigorously, according to the "real" method, etc.). A really
wonderful book that discusses this is Roger Sanjek's edited volume,
Fieldnotes. One of my favorite articles in there, by Jean Jackson, is
entitled "I Am a Fieldnote." Another person pointed to an ashtray they
were given by a respondent as a field note. What's refreshing about the
book is the open admission of uncertainty about these private practices.
Leigh
***************************************
Susan Leigh Star
address until January 3, 1998:
539 Summit Drive
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Phone: (408) 454-9218 (h) (408) 454-0965 (w)
FAX: (217) 244-3302 email: s-star1 who-is-at uiuc.edu
After January 3:
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois 123 LIS Building
501 East Daniel St.
Champaign, IL 61820 Phone: (217) 244-3280
FAX: (217) 244-3302 email: s-star1 who-is-at uiuc.edu
---------
In speaking of lies, we come inevitably to the subject of the truth. There
is nothing simple or easy about this idea. There is no 'the truth,' 'a
truth' -- truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing
complexity. The pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely,
or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in
the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet.
That is why the effort to speak honestly is so important."
--Adrienne Rich. (1979). "Women and honor: Some notes on lying, In her
On Lies, Secrets and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978 (pp. 185-194).
New York: Norton.