What is Remix? A research method oriented sketch
[this post continues discussion from previous posts:] Remix as a lens for qualitative methods Complications of social (research) contexts in the 21st Century Remix is a term that came into usage in the late 20th century to refer to the practice and product of taking samples form audio tracks and putting them together in new and creative ways. The history of remix is most often linked to the music form of Jamaican Dub, represented well by artist King Tubby. King Tubby–whose work influenced generations of hip hop artists engaged in dub, scratch, rap, and DJ–began deconstructing and reconstructing musical tracks in the late 60s. We’re now very familiar with the way songs are remixed in ways that extend or reinterpret them for different...
Read MoreQualitative Analysis as Sensory Performance
I am reading about synaesthesia, the blending or blurring of senses that happens when one becomes particularly attenuated to a way of knowing that eludes a single sense. I’ve been thinking about this for years, actually, drawing inspiration from naturalist writers like David Abrams or Diane Ackerman, who invoke Merleau-Ponty to describe our perception of the natural world. I’m most intrigued by how synaesthesia relates to the process of interpretation, particularly in social research. We are bodies in motion, constantly sorting out our experiences through our senses. In online contexts, this can become more evident through the absence of certain perceptual filters. I’ve written about this in regards to interviewing and participant...
Read MoreDeconstructing the term “Fieldwork”
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we use “Fieldwork” as an umbrella term, sometimes without really reflecting on what this means, or might not mean. Particularly in digital contexts, the activities of fieldwork must be so radically adjusted, they hardly resemble fieldwork anymore. How much do we have to shave the square peg of ‘participant observation’ to fit it into the round hole of Twitter? And how can I take seriously someone who doesn’t problematize this practice or the outcomes? I’d like to debunk, or maybe deconstruct the term. My desire to do this emerges from another quest; to help qualitative researchers embrace innovation and invention without constantly reinventing the wheel or embracing the...
Read MoreFrom Network Analysis to Network Sensibilities: Part I
(First of a four-part essay on my recent thoughts about using a network perspective in qualitative studies of internet-related contexts) Maybe it’s the pretty pictures generated by big data. Maybe it’s the impulse to unfocus the analytic gaze from location to locomotion. Whatever. The question that prompted me to start thinking about network analysis went something like this: “Could network analysis offer something that another method or lens couldn’t?” My immediate response was to answer simply: “No.” As a tool for identifying elements of a system, network analysis works well. As a method for understanding meaning in context, it has always been inadequate, at best. From an interpretive or poststructuralist ethnographic standpoint,...
Read MoreKenneth Gergen, on the way from Goffman to Method as Ethic.
…or, similar song, different decade. Today, in thinking about research methods, I am thinking about symbolic interactionist practices, Goffman and the performance of everyday life, and reading Kenneth Gergen’s Relational Being (Oxford Press, 2009). It seems to me that to grapple with the complexity of everyday life, from a symbolic interaction perspective, if one is using Goffman as the baseline, it is necessary to either read more carefully Goffman’s work on the performance of everyday life, read his other works, or to remix Goffman, using a heavy dose of postmodern concepts of how self, other, relationship, and structure is negotiated. Enter Kenneth Gergen, talking early 1990s about multiphrenia and the saturated self and later about...
Read Moretwitter feed
- listening to fab talk on collage as qualitative analysis at #ICQI13 by Teri Holbrook. Wish network was better-i'd tweet pithy quotes
- listening to fabulous talk on collage as qualitative analysis at #ICQI by Teri Holbrook. Wish network was better--i'd tweet pithy quotes
- wow, not much tweets of #ICQI13 --maybe a different hashtag? or just not a twitter-ish conference?