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Telling materials

Crang, M.

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Authors



Contributors

M. Pryke
Editor

G. Rose
Editor

S. Whatmore
Editor

Abstract

This chapter asks us to think carefully about what we do with material we have created out in the field. The way it is going to approach this is by thinking about the actions involved in analysis making sense out of the material you have so painstakingly gathered. However, I am not going to present a discussion of the criteria of a ‘good’ or ‘valid’ analysis, since there are many types of epistemological theories that underlie different sorts of analysis. That is, there are theories about how we know what we can claim to know, about how we judge truth claims and assess the reliability or validity of our work. The sort of claims you can then make and the type of analysis needed are thus going to vary according to your approach, your questions and hence the data, and the sort of answers, you need. So rather than work through a list of philosophies and their assumptions about validity, this chapter will focus on the actual activity of analysis, as a material process, an idea we will come back to shortly in the next section. When we write research proposals and timetables we often pencil some period for ‘analysis of data’. This chapter is going to unpack this process, first by suggesting analysis is a messier business than this suggests and second, by highlighting the tangible processes of interpretation.

Citation

Crang, M. (2003). Telling materials. In M. Pryke, G. Rose, & S. Whatmore (Eds.), Using social theory, thinking through research (127-144). SAGE Publications

Publication Date Jan 1, 2003
Deposit Date Mar 9, 2010
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Publisher SAGE Publications
Pages 127-144
Book Title Using social theory, thinking through research.
ISBN 07619437654
Publisher URL http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book226267

Files

Accepted Book Chapter (381 Kb)
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Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications.





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