Methodological Innovation Online (2012) 7(2) 41-63
Non-fiction literature and interpretive/qualitative research methods: reflections
on the meaning of ‘social science’.
Dr. Filip Sosenko
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland
Abstract
This article attempts to add a new dimension to the meta-scientific discussion about the status of interpretive enquiry and
the boundaries of „social science‟. It argues that while the existing debate tends to see qualitative research and
interpretive theories in opposition to quantitative methods and structural social theory, it is equally important to examine
what similarities and differences are between „professional‟ qualitative enquiry and non-scholarly enterprises such as
non-fiction literature (reportage, travelogue, essay), journalism and documentary filmmaking. The paper investigates
research methods used by non-fiction writers and compares the scholarly and non-scholarly approaches to interpretive
enquiry. The study exposes the existence of many similarities and shows that significant differences exist in theory but
not so much in practice.
Keywords: Non-fiction Literature, Interpretive Research, Qualitative Methods, Philosophy of Social Science
Introduction
The notion of „science‟ acquired its meaning before the idea of studying society in a scientific manner was
born, with Bacon, Galileo and Newton being the main contributors to shaping this meaning. From the
beginnings of Sociology thinkers have been aware of this issue and have taken pains to supplement the
substantial discourse („what is society like?‟) not only with the methodological discourse („how do we go
about studying the social world?) but also with the meta-scientific one („what is the status of our inquiry?‟, „in
what sense is our inquiry scientific?‟). The history of Sociology turned out to be the history of attempts to
reconcile the requirements of „scientificity‟ (as defined by natural scientists) with a social world that seemed
to have characteristics that were importantly different to those of the natural world. This tension tended to be
relieved either by distorting the nature of the social world (by leaving out meaning or agency), or by revising
the meaning of „science‟.
In the positivistic strategy using quantitative measurement and comparative statistical method became the
backbone of „scientific‟ sociological research and explanation. By and large, this way of thinking about
society and doing research is not far away from the natural-scientific understanding of what „science‟ should
________________________________________________________________________________________
Correspondence: Dr. Filip Sosenko, Heriot-Watt University, School of the Built Environment, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS,
United Kingdom.
Tel: +44 131 4514676
E-mail: f.sosenko@hw.ac.uk
ISSN: 1748-0612online
DOI: 10.4256/mio.2012.010
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42
be like. The positivistic program paid a price for this, however, as leaving agency and meaning out of analyses
frequently results in a distorted account of how individuals and groups operate.
The second strategy - to revise the meaning of „science‟ - was commonly adopted by „interpretivists‟. What is
important is that in spite of their anti-naturalism these scholars wished to see their enterprise not only as
humanistic or historical, but also as social-scientific. Specifically, some of them tried to address the metascientific problem by conceptualising their understanding of how society works as social theory. To this end
they had to revise the naturalistic meaning of „scientific theory‟ and „explanation‟. That revision was fairly
substantiali. Despite the depth of this revision, however, interpretive social theorists found themselves in a
fairly strong position in the fight for scientific status: no-one really questioned the theoretical status of their
constructs, and although there was little agreement on which interpretive theory is the right one, one could say
that positivists had an equal problem with choosing between Structuralism, Functionalism, Conflict Theory,
and so on.
Other, more empirically oriented students of society tried to achieve the same aim by classifying their nonnaturalistic research methods as scientific. From Malinowski and the Chicago School to Grounded Theory,
qualitative researchers took pains to distance themselves from humanities, journalism and lay enquiryii. Unlike
interpretive theorists, however, interpretive empirical researchers found themselves in a weak position in the
fight for scientific status. It was agreed that „interpretation‟ or „verstehen‟ be at the core of the method, and
that in-depth interviews and participant observation are research techniques that allow for „interpretation‟, but
it was disputable what, if anything, made these techniques scientific or different from lay enquiryiii.
Interestingly however, this predicament has not attracted a lot of attention. Instead, discussion of the
interpretivist approach has so far had four other threads. These show that those engaged in these discussions
tend to see interpretive research against the background of either „harder‟, quantitative social sciences, or (in
fewer cases) humanities. The first dimension was a discussion that took place between late 1960s and early
1980s and concerned the shortcomings of interpretive theories of society. Thinkers such as Habermas,
Giddens and Bhaskar pointed to weaknesses such as creationism (whereas reality is not created but
transformed), idealism (the material aspect of social life is neglected), the neglect of unintended consequences
of human actions, the neglect of the influence of power on meanings held by actors, and missing the
opportunity to emancipate the subjects through social criticism (Habermas 1988 [1967]; Giddens 1976;
Bhaskar 1979; Giddens 1982; Habermas 1984; Giddens 1987).
The second thread regards the relationship between the researcher and the subject. Since the 1970s
interpretive researchers began recognising that this relationship has a significant potential of being politically
oppressive. An alternative view has been put forward, where the „researcher‟ and the „subject‟ became reconceptualised as equals and as full-bodied persons rather than „roles‟. Various additional claims subsequently
have been made, most notably with regards to the process and product of writing up interpretive fieldwork
(Clifford & Marcus 1986). It has been recognised that the classic realist, third-person writing style is a sibling
of the oppressive relationship between the researcher and the subject and therefore should be abandoned as it
arbitrarily gives authority to the writer‟s voice. Since the classic form of writing was no longer fit for
purpose, more dialogical, multi-vocal or experimental forms of writing up research were tried (Denzin 1997).
The same direction has been taken by those who believed that the traditional, realist style of writing is illsuited for bringing the subjectivity and lived experiences of the Other to the reader, and those who recognised
that writing in itself is a method of inquiry (Richardson & Elizabeth 2005).
The third thread regards the quality of qualitative research, and ways of evaluating this quality. As Denzin and
Lincoln (2005) state, the „modernist‟ attempts to make qualitative research rigorous and formalised (coupled
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with reliability and validity as the evaluation criteria) have been subsequently re-thought by proponents of
new, emerging approaches. Thus „constructivists‟ such as Lincoln & Guba proposed to replace those
traditional criteria with credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (Lincoln & Guba 1985).
Feminist, ethnic, and queer theory approaches to qualitative research may employ yet other criteria, often
coming from gender and racial communities under study, such as emotionality and feeling, caring, personal
accountability, or dialogue (Denzin & Lincoln 2005).
The fourth thread regards the question of how qualitative methods can be combined with quantitative ones.
Positivistically-minded researchers tended to grant qualitative methods a supportive but secondary role in
relation to quantitative ones (e.g. Abel 1948). Those interpretivists who believe that the relationship between
theory and methods is „epistemological‟ rather than „technical‟ (see Bryman 1988 for a discussion) tend to opt
for the opposite, with quantitative measurement being excommunicated or allowed only for a descriptive
reason and not as an explanatory tool. Finally, those who take a „technical‟ approach to the relationship
between social theory and research method try to triangulate qualitative and quantitative methods and, in the
case of incongruent results, use localised reasoning to privilege one sort of data.
We can now see that participants in these debates omit two kinds of issues. Firstly, currently the most
prominent discussion - on how to write about cultures and experiences (second thread) – takes attention away
from questions about the best ways to become familiar with cultures and experiences. Secondly, disputants
have focused on the nature of interpretivism (e.g. what its shortcomings are; what criteria to employ to
evaluate it) rather than on its statusiv. This omission of the subject of status meant that a number of crucial
questions for interpretivism have been overlooked. These revolve around the issues of what social researchers
are for and what the nature of the knowledge they acquire is, particularly:
- „Why do we want to carry out research (and represent people) rather than to let - or even help - people
represent themselves?‟
- „How can we privilege the „actor‟s point of view‟ and then take this privilege back to the advantage of the
social scientist?‟v
- „How can one be trained to carry out a valid interpretation?‟; „can lay people be as effective (if not more
effective) „researchers‟ as professional qualitative researchers?‟
- „If the relationship between the researcher and the subject is dialogical (involves changing each other), isn‟t
research something that can only be experienced rather than written up/read about?‟vi.
All these questions point us in a different direction than questions typically asked and answered, such as „how
should qualitative research be done and evaluated?‟, „how can qualitative and quantitative methods be
combined?‟. The alternative direction of inquiry is not towards quantitative methods and structuralist social
theory, but rather towards what is regarded as un-scientific: lay enquiry, artistic enquiry, journalistic enquiry,
and so on.
This opens up a new, fifth dimension: to explore the similarities and differences between qualitative research
as applied by „professional‟ researchers, and methods of enquiry employed by non-scholars such as reporters,
travelogue writers, and documentary filmmakers. Specifically the genre of literary reportage is in my view the
closest non-scientific „cousin‟ of interpretive social sciences („ISS‟ further in the text) and therefore I am
going to focus the analysis on itvii. Three features particularly make this genre similar to ISS: the usual subject
matter is everyday life of ordinary people, seen from their point of view; it is based on first-hand fieldwork -
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personal experience, „participant observation‟, long interviews; and finally, it often embodies the „sociological
imagination‟ (Mills 1959)viii.
To our knowledge, so far the only attempts to explore „non-scientific‟ qualitative research regarded genres
other than literary reportage, such as fiction-writing (see e.g. Brinkmann 2009; Denzin 1997), New Journalism
(e.g. Denzin 1996; Agar 1995), poetic ethnography, performance texts, autoethnography, autobiography, and
„messy texts‟ (Denzin 1997). Additionally – and importantly - such attempts typically focused on writing
techniques rather than empirical research methods. By examining literary reportage this article seeks to fill in
a gap in existing literature on non-scientific, non-fictional genres, both with regards to methods of inquiry and
writing techniques. As for the latter, it will be shown later in the text that despite voluminous literature already
written about „realist tales‟ and writer‟s authority, it is still possible to point to some writing techniques used
in literary reportage that add to existing analyses of „realist tales‟.
It needs to be emphasised here that what has been written about the New Journalism does not automatically
apply to literary reportage. The two genres share, without doubt, some similarities, not least that like literary
reporters, „new journalists‟ tended to spend significantly more time with their subjects than press journalists
(Truman Capote took this „saturation reporting‟ to an extreme when he spent five years researching his In cold
blood (Wolfe 1975)). Also, New Journalism and literary reportage share a focus on the everyday and the
social, and use symbolism of events to reveal a deeper level of cultural experience (Denzin 1997). Despite
this, there are significant differences between the two genres that make a separate investigation of literary
reportage desirable. One is that New Journalism is written using different literary techniques which make it
read very differently to the way literary reportage or essay reads. While New Journalism reads like a nonfiction novel, literary reportage texts are a much stronger reminder of „realist tales‟ in sociology and
ethnography (Van Maanen 1988). Another key difference lies in the logic that guides the editing or
organisation of elements of the story. While „new journalists‟ are preoccupied with developing a plot with
characters and scenes linked spatially and temporally, literary reporters and essayists tend to develop a subject
and to that end use anything that logically contributes to this development, including spatially or temporally
unrelated characters, events etc. Last but not least, new journalists questioned objective reporting (Denzin
1997) while literary reporters did not.
It also needs to be emphasised that this article is not about newspaper journalism. Since literary reportage
writers are sometimes newspaper journalists by day, one could think that the two enterprises are similar. This
is, however, not the case. The key difference is that literary reportage is written in book rather than article
format. In press journalism the enforced conciseness of the message implies that the subject is not described,
explained and discussed in equal length and complexity as it is in literary reportage (Kapu ci ski 2003). This
feature, and the fact that literary reporters do not work to deadlines, is closely linked to another dissimilarity:
literary reporters spend more time in the field researching their subject than newspaper journalists.
Studying non-scholarly and scholarly methods of qualitative inquiry
It is far less easy to identify and scrutinise methods used by non-fiction artists than methods used by
„professional‟ qualitative researchers. In the latter case, one can use a variety of sources to inform the scrutiny:
secondary sources include fieldwork monographs (but see a discussion below on deficiencies of
methodological reporting in a typical monograph), textbooks on research methods, researchers‟
autobiographies, auto-reflective „confession‟ tales (Van Maanen 1988) and auto-reflective documentary films
(such as A Man Called "Bee": Studying The Yanomamo). Primary sources would mainly include interviews
with researchers themselves as well as interviews with people who have been studied in a qualitative manner.
Non-participant observation of researchers at work would be probably more problematic for epistemological
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and practical reasons. When it comes to non-fiction art, however, information of a methodological nature is
almost never present in works themselves (it is regarded irrelevant for the non-academic reader), and when it
is present, it is ad-hoc rather than systematic (typically, the „who‟, „when‟ and „what‟ happened to the author
is written about only if it was relevant for the main „message‟ of the story, or when there was some drama
around it). Apart from this, the only available secondary sources include autobiographies of non-fiction artists
and published interviews with practitioners. Instructorial materials written by them almost without exception
are focused on the product of research (i.e. how to write; see e.g. Cheney 2001), not the process (i.e. how to
carry out research).
The research underlying this paper involved, on the one hand, analysing rare pieces of methodologicallyrelevant information in distinguished works of non-fiction art and, on the other hand, studying secondary
materials in which literary non-fiction writers discuss their methods. Therefore the method employed for this
study could be described as content analysis of self-reported approach in publicly presented written sources.
As such it has a limitation as it could be argued that authors must be tempted to involve themselves in
„impression management‟ and to not disclose what was unethical, counterproductive, or otherwise not
„proper‟ in the research act. This limitation would be addressed, and the findings reported in this article would
be significantly strengthened, if information derived from secondary sources had been complemented with,
and successfully confronted by, information derived from first-hand empirical research, particularly
confidential in-depth interviews with practitioners. (Interviews with people who have been subject to „nonprofessional‟ research would no doubt be equally interesting, but probably difficult to arrange as their names
are very often anonymised). This was unfortunately not possible within my research project but presents a
clear line of action for a follow-up study.
With regards to „methodological‟ books written by non-fiction practitioners, I have found Ryszard
Kapu ci ski‟s Reporter‟s Self-Portrait [„Autoportret Reportera‟] (2003) to be by far the most comprehensive
account of this kind, and therefore I have drawn expansively on it. The author elaborates extensively on
possible every aspect of his work – from initial preparations, to fieldwork, to writing up. Perhaps relatively
unknown to social scientists, Kapu ci ski (1932-2007) was one of the most acclaimed reportage writers
(considered by many to be „the master of reportage‟) and a regular candidate to Nobel Prize in literature. His
nineteen books have had 120 translated editions. In 1983 The Sunday Times chose Kapu ci ski‟s „Emperor‟
for the book of the year.
Information about „professional‟ research methods has been drawn from three kinds of sources: textbooks of
qualitative research; journal articles taking up the subject of qualitative research practice; and books where
professional practitioners of qualitative methods discuss their own practices. As for the handbooks, I primarily
analysed seven of them, the criteria of choice being that a textbook is commonly used on academic research
courses or that it had multiple editions: Lofland & Lofland‟s Analysing Social Settings (1971), Burgess‟ In the
Field (1984), Flick‟s An Introduction to Qualitative Research (1998), Kirk & Miller‟s Reliability and Validity
in Qualitative Research (1986), Seale‟s The Quality of Qualitative Research (1999), Bryman‟s Social
Research Methods (2008) and Silverman‟s Doing Qualitative Research (2009). Several articles were
reviewed, including Fine‟s „Ten lies of ethnography‟ (1993) and Brown‟s „Qualitative method and
compromise in applied social research‟ (2010). Finally, scholarly books on the practice of qualitative research
included Foster and Robson‟s „Qualitative Research in Action‟ (Foster & Robson 1989), May‟s „Qualitative
Research in Action‟ (May 2002), Darlington and Scott‟s „Qualitative Research in Practice: Stories from the
Field‟ (2002), Merriam‟s „Qualitative Research in Practice: Examples for Discussion And Analysis‟ (2002),
Seale et al.‟s „Qualitative Research Practice‟ (Seale et al 2004), Wolcott‟s „The Art of Fieldwork‟ (2004) and
Ritchie and Lewis‟ „Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers‟
(Ritchie & Lewis 2003).
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Research methods used by non-fiction writers
The primary research activity of non-fiction writers and filmmakers is travelling to a certain place or places to
acquire first-hand knowledge and experience. Kapu ci ski calls it „the reporter‟s journey‟. This kind of
journey is all but tramping around the world; it is a conscious exploration of a certain phenomenon or a
society:
„In a reporter‟s journey there is no room for tourism whatsoever. This journey demands hard
work and huge theoretical preparations. Learning about the region one is travelling to. Such a
journey does not know any relaxation‟ (Kapu ci ski 2003: 13, translation mineix)
The above statement reveals a strong similarity between the „reporter‟s journey‟ and „professional‟
ethnographic fieldwork. The emphasis on „learning about the region‟ must sound particularly familiar to
„professionals‟. Kapu ci ski is renowned for teaching students of reportage that „one page of own text
requires reading one hundred pages written on the subject by others‟ (Gazeta Wyborcza 2010).
Despite the fact that literary reporters often go where something important is happening (social changes,
conflicts, etc.), they are still interested in the way ordinary people cause, experience, and suffer from the
consequences of those events. Kapu ci ski says: „More than in revolution I am interested in what happened
before revolution; more than in frontline – what is going on behind it; more than in war – what is going to
happen after the war‟ (2003: 117). This very much likens her to the social scientist and distinguishes her from
the press journalist.
Kapu ci ski uses the classic method of data collection: „...for me data collection first of all consists in
reaching people and creating situations when I am most absent and they are most natural‟ (2003:48). This is
why he chooses not to use the tape recorder: „From my experience I have learned that people sat next to the
microphone begin talking in a different way, they formulate thoughts differently. All naturalness of language
is lost; it becomes more formal, artificial and constrained‟ (ibid 47).
There exists an element of „grasping the moment‟ in the reporter‟s work:
„[Reporter‟s journey] involves full concentration, focus. We need to be aware that the place we
have reached may be given to us only once in a lifetime. We‟ll never come back here, but we
have one hour to get to know it. In one hour‟s time everything has to be witnessed, heard,
memorised. We need to preserve the mood, situation, atmosphere‟. (Kapu ci ski 2003: 13)
Similarly, the reporter can select information and pick what she finds essential. Such a method is closely
related to the fundamental principle of literary reportage and documentary filmmaking – exposing the general
through the particular: „I barely take any notes. I try to remember, and what I later preserve on paper is twothree memorised pictures that yield the essence, the synthesis of a phenomenon and impressions, reflections
arising on that occasion‟ (Kapu ci ski 2003: 73).
Kapu ci ski emphasises the role nonlinguistic information plays in learning about the subject: „I perceive
information not only from what someone says, but from the whole landscape, climate, from the way people
behave, from a thousand details. It all speaks, this whole reality that surrounds me‟ (2003: 50). Interestingly,
Baudrillard‟s America contains passages suggesting the same approach:
„I went in search of astral America, not social and cultural America, but the America of the
empty, absolute freedom of the freeways, not the deep America of mores and mentalities, but the
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America of desert speed, of motels and mineral surfaces. I looked for it in the speed of the
screenplay, in the indifferent reflex of television, in the film of days and nights projected across
an empty space, in the marvellously affectless succession of signs, images, faces, and ritual acts
on the road (…)‟ (Baudrillard 1988: 5).
Kapu ci ski also emphasises the role of the reporter‟s character and her interpersonal skills in winning the
subjects‟ trust:
„I reckon that good reporters are modest and able to show respect and esteem to other people.
(...) Her life and work‟s results depend on what she is told, on what other people do for her. In
order to be accepted she should learn how to live with people. To me, the reporter has to be a
humble and empathic person‟ (Kapu ci ski 2003: 54).
„The reporter is a peoples‟ captive, she can do only as much as they allow her. (…) [the interlocutor] will
tell me only as much as she likes, she can tell me nothing. I know that being successful depends on the
way the rapport is established‟ (ibid 59).
Literary Non-fiction & Interpretive Social Sciences: a methodological comparison
Once we have reviewed the methods used in literary non-fiction („LNF‟ further in the text), we are now ready
to compare them against methods used in ISS. So far we have been using the term „research method‟ quite
loosely. I am going to distinguish the following key components of research: research design, data collection,
data analysis, research report, followed by professional quality control. (This distinction is for analytical
purposes only; the elements are simultaneous rather than linear (Agar 1995; Wiseman 1974)).
1. Research Design
In Kapu ci ski we have seen that non-fiction writers do prepare thoroughly before setting off to explore their
subject. No doubt the same can be said about research design undertaken in interpretive social sciences (ISS).
But isn‟t there anything more in the latter‟s preparations? One could expect that „professional‟ social
researchers follow a systematic plan, which means that no important element gets missed out. Most
importantly, researchers are expected to properly match the method to the subject of research (Flick 1998;
Lofland 1971) and to carry out sampling. But in reality no preset, rigid design is possible to follow. Flexibility
characterises the researcher (Burgess 1984; Lofland 1971) as much as circularity characterises research design
(Flick 1998). Two methodologists say: „Naturalistic research is first and foremost emergent‟ (Lofland 1971:
19); „Research design will be continually modified and developed by the researcher throughout the project‟
(Burgess 1984: 5)x. What this means is that there are at least three potential „dangers‟ to the scientificity of the
research design: the researcher may take the research act in an unproductive or mislead direction; the
researcher may find it difficult to defend her decisions; and two researchers could make different decisions.
The fact that research design is flexible also means that scholarly research design is not, automatically, more
rigourous than its non-scholarly alternative (although scholars may give it a rigourous look on funding
applications); both scholars and non-scholars can only be „rigourous‟ in the common-sense of being „diligent‟
or „attentive to detail‟, but not in the sense of „following a procedure‟.
The „scientificity‟ of research design is further weakened by the fact that sampling decisions are often
intuitive or opportunistic: „…Countless field studies where the willingness of members of the institution to
cooperate with the researcher, convenience and ease of access influence the choice of the location‟ (Burgess
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1984: 59); „a judgement or accidental sample is the most familiar form of sampling‟ (ibid 213); „recruitment
routinely happens on an ad-hoc and chance basis‟ (Rapley 2004: 17). Summing up, it does not seem that
differences in the way research is designed in literary non-fiction (LNF) and ISS are significant enough to
justify awarding one group with a higher status.
2. Data Collection
The basic similarity of interpretive social sciences and literary non-fiction lies in the first-hand cognitive
experience of the researcher: the validity of findings is essentially derived from this immediacy (Lofland
1971). Linked to that, the ability to understand and interpret is possessed naturally by everyone, and these
aspects of research cannot really be „taught‟. Additionally, we saw that the „lived experience‟ of fieldwork and
its challenges are shared between „professional‟ and „unprofessional‟ researcher. Furthermore, both scholars
and artists cannot rely on any set procedure for carrying out fieldwork because no element of qualitative
research is or could be codified: “No „rules‟ can be given about how to record, code, index, analyse and
report observations that are made in field settings” (Burgess 1984: 183; see also Flick 1998: 3) ; „It is not all
that clear exactly what anyone does look at, should look at, or should record to fulfill the role of observer
adequately‟ (Wolcott 2004: 122). Carrying out fieldwork is something that one learns in practice.
The list of similarities is, however, much longer. For example, the LNF practices of „stopping over‟ for long
periods of time (see e.g. Bouvier 1992: 168) and returning to some places repeatedly, closely resemble
anthropologists‟ practice and calls into question Mary Louise Pratt‟s statement that „The authority of the
ethnographer over the „mere traveller‟ rests chiefly on the idea that the traveller just passes through, whereas
the ethnographer lives with the group under study‟ (Pratt 1986: 38).Also, the reporter‟s character and her
interpersonal skills play an enormous role in both kinds of research. Such skills help to win subjects‟ trust and
ultimately to establish fruitful relationships with them. But they cannot really be acquired merely by training;
they are, in many ways, talents. So it may be that a lay person with good interpersonal skills will acquire more
valuable knowledge than a scientific researcher with poor interpersonal skills. Social scientists and social
research textbooks tend to underplay this fact, whereas it is widely acknowledged in literary reportage and
documentary filmmaking. Last but not least, both professionals and non-professionals share the human
condition of being imperfect observers: „We [professional fieldworkers] mishear, we do not recognise what
we see, and we might be poorly positioned to recognize the happenings around us‟ (Fine 1993: 279).
So what are the arguments „against‟ granting artistic research a status equal to scholarly qualitative research?
We have seen that „professional‟ data collection cannot be judged as more rigourous than artistic data
collection if by „rigourous‟ we mean „sticking to a procedure‟. But one could argue that „professional‟ data
collection, even despite the lack of set „rules‟ of how to go about it, seems to be more rigourous in the sense of
being more comprehensive and more thorough in social sciences than non-fiction art. Non-scientific data
collection appears to be more intuitive, opportunistic and contingent – in short, less rigourous. This sounds
logical: as an artist‟s work is going to be assessed more by its artistic values than the „accuracy‟ of its claims,
there is less pressure on the artist in this respect than there is on the social scientist. Artists are not
professionally obliged to carry out thorough sampling, to keep fieldnotes, or to employ „remedy‟ tools such as
triangulation (see below). Consider also one aspect of data collection that is obvious for fieldworkers: keeping
detailed fieldnotes (Burgess 1984; Seale 1999). While non-fiction artists‟ practice may be strong here, it may
be equally „weak‟ or un-professional (e.g. Kapu ci ski admitting that he barely takes notes and tries to
remember instead).
This view has a partial proponent in Gary Alan Fine, who argued that qualitative research used to be very
laborious in the past, but is not any longer. He observed that „…some decades ago, succeeding as a qualitative
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researcher required a steely diligence that is all too often not in evidence today. (…) field research was
grounded on extensive observations (…) [nowadays] Too often researchers engage in “slash-and-burn”
ethnography, spending relatively brief periods of time in the field‟ (Fine 1999: 533; see also Lofland 1974 and
Wolcott 2004 for a similar argument).
Unfortunately, it seems to me that judging whether „professional‟ research is more rigorous than non-scholarly
research is near-impossible as fieldwork reports are likely to cover up the „slash-and-burn‟ approach: „Field
researchers usually try to convey a sense of commitment consistent with in-depth study. That does not
guarantee the sense is genuine‟ (Wolcott 2004: 117). I discuss the issue of methodological „concealment‟
further in the article.
For the same reason, it is not possible to judge an argument that non-scholarly research is less serious because
artists may draw their interpretations from nonlinguistic or more elusive data, or can rely on „grasping the
moment‟. While the lecture of qualitative research handbooks clearly indicates that these are not considered to
be a good basis for social scientific claims, there is no reason to think that just because researchers do not
admit to employing them, this does not happen in practice.
Perhaps a stronger argument against granting artistic research a status equal to qualitative research would be
that scholarly researchers‟ arsenal contains specific „remedy tools‟ that help them collect data that are more
reliable and valid than the data of lay or artistic researchers. Three such „tools‟ commonly mentioned in
handbooks of qualitative research are triangulation (be it of data, investigator, theory, or methods), search for
negative instances and member check. The argument that using such tools gives a crucial advantage to
„professional‟ researcher over a non-scholarly one can be criticised, however, in at least two ways. To begin
with, it is perfectly possible that a non-professional researcher may also intuitively use such tools, as one does
not need to know what the names of those techniques are (or to be formally trained in using them) to employ
them. Secondly, member check does not work in situations where respondents have a political interest in their
meaning being the dominant one; as anthropologists say, „treat what your respondents tell you as data, not
truth‟.
In conclusion, there does not seem to be enough evidence to consider „professional‟ data collection to be of
higher value or status to non-scholarly data collection. Even more perversely, one could ask whether, in
principle, it may be possible that nowadays non-professional fieldwork is less characterised by „slash-andburn‟ than the professional one.
3. Data Analysis
So is it data analysis where the most pronounced difference lies? Looking at data analysis in ISS provides
enough hints to answer the above question negatively. This assertion may be astonishing as data analysis is
seen as the core of qualitative research (Flick 1998). But, to one‟s surprise, this core element is simply
underdeveloped. In fact, the term „interpretation‟ appears surprisingly seldom in methodological textbooks. If
the term appears, it is treated as unproblematic (Bryman 1988: 73). None of the textbooks analysed for this
article addresses the issue of „meaning‟. (One of them states that „one of the key jobs of the social analyst is to
articulate latent meanings‟ (Lofland 1971: 74), but he does not expand on this). Methodologists seem to be
much better at discussing coding techniques such as coding than at elucidating the nature of interpretation.
Some methodologists believe that good or true interpretation is „natural‟, whereas bad or false interpretation
results from researcher‟s errors or bias (Lofland 1971; Seale 1999) rather than from the complex nature of
meanings or phenomena. Therefore those methodologists suggest that qualitative data analysis is about
distinguishing adequate data from inadequate data. Other methodologists seem to think that analysing
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qualitative data means abstracting and generalising findings. But they are presented with a logical difficulty: it
is not coherent to assume that there are no fixed meanings in the social world while trying to produce
typologies, which in turn presume that identical meanings and actions (re)appear in different locations.
But perhaps we should not be too discouraged by the fact that textbooks fail to agree what qualitative data
analysis is about, and should look at publications on how analysis is done in practice instead? This, however,
turns out to be another disappointing exercise. Practitioners typically agree with methodological textbooks
about the purpose of data analysis: for example, Foster and Robson (1989) claim that data analysis is the
stage where the researcher has to make „judgements‟ about the data and therefore has to go beyond the „face
value‟ of data. At the core of such judgement-making is „seeking patterns and relationships within the data,
exploring and constructing hypotheses, and developing understanding‟ (ibid 89). But when it comes to actual
analytical procedures, researchers develop their own, preferred ways of doing data analysis. As one of the
practitioners stated, „To ask a group of [qualitative] researchers how they go about their analyses resembles
asking eight women in Sheffield how they make gravy – apart from a few basic components, the idiosyncratic
permutations are endless‟ (ibid 90). Perhaps even more importantly for our argument, there is no recipe for
detecting connections between data and carrying out other intellectual activities that occur in the researcher‟s
mind, as illustrated by one participant: „The term „black box‟ might have been coined to describe how
qualitative researchers reach their conclusions‟ (ibid 96). It is my conclusion that if this is the case, then
„making sense of the data‟ cannot be taught. Also, where interpretations go beyond the „face value‟ of data
(and therefore cannot be supported by direct quotes), or in other words where interpretations have been
arrived at as a result of the researcher picking up a myriad of pieces of verbal and non-verbal information, the
process of arriving at those particular interpretations cannot really be described in print and thus cannot really
be quality-verified: the audience needs to trust the researcher that her interpretations are right. Last but not
least, I would argue that one consequence of data analysis being contingent and individual by nature is that the
quality of interpretation, or the depth of insight may be higher in non-scholarly works than in scholarly works
on the same subject.
Apparently „professional‟ qualitative analysis can also fail, in practice, to meet scholarly standards. In
commissioned qualitative research, tight timescales mean that data analysis is sometimes compromised
(Brown 2010). As one of the participants in Brown‟s study observed, „The problem with a lot of policy
research is they [commissioners] want it done quickly. People [researchers] don‟t have time to do the data
justice‟ (ibid 238). Brown concluded that the timescale of commissioned research determines when the
process of analysis stops, rather than stopping when the research question has been answered adequately.
Summing up, it does not seem to me that there are strong enough grounds to consider data analysis to be the
key difference between scholarly and non-scholarly qualitative research. My examination of LNF works,
complemented by Kapu ci ski‟s remarks in The Reporter‟s Self-Portrait (2003), suggest that there exist one
key and one key difference with regards to the way they analyse their data. The similarity between LNF and
ISS is that both non-fiction writings and „professional‟ field monographs do not simply represent the reality
but rather represent the author‟s train of thought. In Kapu ci ski‟s words, the author „explores the problem,
filters it through her own personality, polishes up‟ (2003: 42).
The difference between LNF and ISS is that the former „explores the subject humanistically‟ while the latter
„systematises‟ it. This difference stems from the fact that non-fiction writers and interpretive social scientists
write for very different audiences. Literary works treat their readers as everyday persons; by representing and
commenting on reality previously unfamiliar to the reader, they aim at enriching this person as a person. In
contrast, the link between the social scientist and the reader is, at least in the traditional view, professional.
The reader is not treated as a full person but as a fellow critic. The writer does not want to enrich the critic but
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strives to convince her of the argument. As a result of this different relationship with the audience, LNF and
ISS explore the subject matter in different ways: while ISS tend to break down and systematise their subject,
LNF tends to explore lives, cultures and societies in a humanistic, un-systematic way. But what exactly do we
mean by the latter?
As some humanists rightly observed, studying alien cultures and societies grants the researcher a „mirror‟ of
her own culture. This „mirror‟ allows us to look in a new, different way at ourselves and our lives - to imagine
our lives led in a different way, to imagine ourselves involved in different matters, values and emotions. What
is obvious for me, taken for granted (the metaphor of „air‟ is often evoked), needs the ‟Other‟ to be
conceptualised. Now, artistic works such as film, literature or poetry make intentional use of this „mirror‟.
They are, in the broadest sense, attempts at approximating the experience of being someone else than one is,
of being the Other. Flaubert‟s words capture this concisely: „I wish I could live all lives‟ (in Bourdieu &
Wacquant 1992: 205). The point of non-fiction art is also precisely this: to broaden one‟s knowledge about
one‟s own life, culture and society by looking at other lives, cultures and societies. The following excerpt
from non-fiction literature is an example of the „mirror‟ that stimulate the reader to think critically about her
own society, culture and life:
„The Georgian likes his day of work and wants it to be closed with a cheerful accent. To let
some ceremonial moment endow that day with value and preserve it in memory. No day will
be repeated twice and that is why each of them should be separately celebrated, treated as an
event. So the Georgian gives himself fully to this rite. He cleanses himself, finds his
completeness. (…) The feast is nothing like gulp, feed, gobble. One doesn‟t come here to
black out, to get smashed. The Georgian despises heavy drinking, hates drinking for the
quantity‟s sake. The table is only a pretext, tasty and full of wine, but nothing more than a
pretext. An opportunity to celebrate life‟. (Kapu ci ski 1990a: 19, translation mine).
In this example the „mirror‟ is used implicitly: there is no direct, explicit reference to the reader‟s culture or
life. It is left to the reader to carry out the comparison. Sometimes, however, non-fiction writers use the
„mirror‟ in a direct way, as in this fragment of Octavio Paz‟s essay on America and Mexico:
„The North Americans are credulous and we [Mexicans] are believers; they love fairy tales
and detective stories and we love myths and legends. […] We get drunk in order to confess;
they get drunk in order to forget. They are optimists and we are nihilists […]. We are
suspicious and they are trusting. We are sorrowful and sarcastic and they are happy and full of
jokes. North Americans want to understand and we want to contemplate. They are activists
and we are quietists; we enjoy our wounds and they enjoy their inventions. They believe in
hygiene, health, work and contentment, but perhaps they have never experienced true joy‟
(Paz 1961: 23).
Now, how does this phenomenon of „mirror‟ relate to interpretive social sciences? Very often they study
peoples who are culturally or socially different to us. Hence, the potential of them being a „mirror‟ for the
reader is inherently present in this kind of research. Brian Fay clearly sees this potential of interpretive social
sciences:
„New ways of living become real alternatives when one is able to see the sense of alternative
life styles and different ways of looking at the world. At the least one‟s own assumptions are
thrown into relief and therefore one becomes more fully self-conscious; at other times one
may well come to redefine oneself and therefore to act differently‟ (Fay 1975: 81).
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Paradoxically however, when interpretive research is pursued and understood as science, this potential is
suppressed, and the „mirror‟ occurs only as a side effect rather than as the aim. The researcher is expected to
study the subject systematically, thoroughly, rather than to choose aspects that are interesting for her and the
readers as cultural and social beings. (As one commentator stated: “The scientific idea seems to press on them
[anthropologists] acutely, calling for codified field methodology, professional detachment, a systematic writeup”; Pratt 1986: 41). Compare the following fragment of scientifically understood interpretive research with
the earlier fragments of non-fiction literature:
„(…) as in all other magic, there are several types of wayugo spells. The ritual is always
practically the same: five coils of the creeper are, on the previous day, placed on a large
wooden dish and chanted over in the owner‟s hut by himself. (…) In one of the wayugo
systems, there is an additional rite, in which the toliwaga (canoe owner) takes a piece of the
creeper, inserts it into one of the holes pierced in the rim of the dug-out for the lashing, and
pulling it to and fro, recites once more the spell‟ (Malinowski 1922: 137).
It should be quite clear that this account results from a systematic study and is valuable for the discipline of
ethnography, but is not significant for the lay reader in the way earlier examples are. To quote Mary Louise
Pratt again: “There are strong reasons why field ethnographers so often lament that their ethnographic writings
leave out or hopelessly impoverish some of the most important knowledge they have achieved, including the
self-knowledge. […] the main evidence of a problem is the simple fact that ethnographic writing tends to be
surprisingly boring” (Pratt 1986: 33).
4. Research Reporting
We can see that the first three phases (research design, data collection & analysis) are pivotal for obtaining
quality findings, whereas the last two (research reporting and quality control) are critical for communicating
those findings and putting them under scrutiny of a scientific community. These elements are essentially
interlinked. The quality of reporting depends on the quality of research: if there is a mistake or negligence
during the fieldwork, it cannot be corrected or made up for „on paper‟ (although it can, arguably, be
concealed). Quality control in turn depends on the quality of reporting; good reporting allows for good quality
control.
Reporting evidence
There are two dimensions of research reporting: reporting of evidence and reporting of research methodology.
The former is responsible for the validity of findings. In this regard, professional qualitative researchers and
ethnographers are renowned for their detailed descriptions of peoples and places under study. If anything,
reviewers of those works could have a better reason to complain about the overabundance of evidence than the
lack of it. It has been pointed, however, that despite high volume of detailed evidence in general, specific key
interpretations may remain unsupported, or evidence brought to support them may equally be used to
formulate alternative interpretations (Jones 1998). Another issue has been raised in relation to commissioned
qualitative research; confidential interviews with applied qualitative researchers revealed that reporting of
evidence may suffer from the client‟s interference: „Disagreements with clients were often over whose voices
should be heard or given priority‟ (Brown 2010: 236).
Non-fiction works are also usually abundant in evidence supporting the correctness of interpretations being
made. Where they differ from „professional‟ monographs is that they expose the general through the
particular. In interpretive social sciences, claims are usually general, for example „Balinese cockfights have
such-and-such features‟. Accounts of particular events and actions are only brought after the general
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statement, as evidence supporting it. Non-fiction artists, perhaps with the exception of essayists, adopt the
opposite strategy: they show the universal through the particular, they use the ‟power of the detail‟. They
render individual events (actions, decisions) in such a way that they portray something general for a certain
group, nation or mankind: „To achieve great expression, one must choose one subject and organise the image
(story) around it‟ (Kapu ci ski 1990b: 96). An example from a piece of literary reportage on the Caucasus:
„Our host had a little hand bell, which he used to communicate with his family. Ding, dong - and his wife was
approaching quickly. Using gestures he showed her an empty dish or decanter. The wife disappeared in to the
kitchen and after a few seconds came back, adding roast-meat and pouring wine. Ding, dong, ding, dong – the
youngest son appeared. “Cigarettes!” – commanded his father and a short while later he was opening a new
pack. The feasters, all of them men, were clearly impressed. “Caucasian macho” – I was thinking, observing
Fejzudin. That evening the bell was busy and the wife couldn‟t keep pace topping up the wine. Eventually the
guests left; I stayed overnight. I was woken by thirst. I dragged myself to the kitchen and saw the „macho‟
bustling about pots. He had already done the dishes, and was just about to start peeling potatoes. His wife and
sons were fast asleep‟ (G recki 2002: 39, translation mine)xi .
When it comes to showing evidence of representativeness of statements however, non-fiction works are
unsatisfactory. Artists often generalise as they wish, sometimes from a few cases. It may not be that important
in the case of „internal‟ validity, as artists usually have good knowledge of the case under study, but when it
comes to „external‟ representativeness, it falls short of standards expected from good ISS. Non-fiction writers
are aware of this weakness and employ a number of „tricks of the trade‟ to build up authority and, as a result,
strengthen the impression that their claims are valid and representative. (Interestingly, „professional‟
researchers do exactly the same, which we will see below). Amongst others, those techniques include:
(a) Literary reporters (similarly to qualitative researchers) heftily juggle third- and first person accounting.
Using third-person voice helps the author to cover up the fact that it was him or her who experienced (heard,
seen, was told about) what is represented. Therefore the author avoids being questioned about the
representativeness or validity of his or her experiencesxii. Using first-person voice, in turn, is a reversed
technique. This mainly aims to show that the author gained the trust of respondents, and thus endows the
author‟s personal experience and knowledge of the described reality with authority and validity. Similarly,
ethnographers typically precede a third person fieldwork monograph by a first person description of entering
the group. (Just to remind the famous introduction to Malinowski‟s The Argonauts of the Western Pacific;
Malinowski, 1922: 4)xiii.
(b) Another technique commonly used by non-fiction writers enhances generalisibility and validity by
suggesting that the author has extensive evidence. It consists in manipulating the „size‟ of the subject, as for
example in the sentence „Nobody remembered a drought that horrible and long-lasting‟. From the point of
view of scientific logic this sentence is false since the author simply could not reach „everybody‟. However, it
clearly and strongly illustrates for the reader the significance of the thing described. Interestingly, Vincent
Crapanzano suggests that interpretive academic researchers such as Geertz do the same, e.g. in the sentence
„Everyone ignored us [Geertz and his wife] in a way only a Balinese can do‟ (Geertz, 1973: 412 cited in
Crapanzano, 1992: 70, emphasis mine).
(c) A similar technique that establishes authority is „quoting‟ a collective subject, e.g. „What really matters is
whether you have anything to put in the pot, I was told by the people of Kabul‟. Quoting is the main method
of showing that what we know is grounded in empirical evidence - that indeed the author heard what is being
quoted. Relating this to the collective subject (residents of Kabul) is to convince the reader that plenty of the
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people met by the author said it, and thus that the statement is representative. As in the previous point, there is
a logical abuse here: it is not possible that all residents of Kabul articulated exactly the same words.
(d) Yet another technique that enhances validity but may be suspicious from an empirical point of view is
bringing subjects‟ intentions of the means/ends type, e.g. „One-eyed Mulla Omar wasn‟t a king, and he needed
the prophet‟s cloak precisely to become one‟ (Jagielski 2002: 22). Typically, it is not said whether such a
piece of information comes directly from an interview with the subject, or from interviews with other
informants, or has simply been guessed by the author. However, the same problem often occurs in interpretive
social sciences, for instance in Goffman‟s work on patients in mental health institutions.
The issue of „rhetorics‟ in both kinds of enterprises has received a significant amount of scholarly attention (in
anthropology, e.g. Clifford 1983; Geertz 1988; Van Maanen 1988). For example, Golden-Biddle & Locke
(1993) provide an interesting discussion of „how ethnographic texts convince‟. They point to a number of
strategies that get used, such as „qualifying personal biases‟, „drafting the reader‟, „legitimating the atypical‟
etc. On the other side of the spectrum, Caulley (2008) takes a closer look at techniques of writing creative
nonfiction that he believes may be employed by „professional‟ qualitative researchers to make their research
reports „less boring‟. His focus is, however, on dramatising the message rather than on making it sound more
valid or representative.
Apart from the issue with the representativeness of statements, non-fiction works do not live up to the ideals
of „scientists‟ in yet another aspect: to achieve a strong literary effect, writers may „embellish‟ facts or even
make them up. In the context of our discussion, such crossing the border between fact and fiction is seen by us
as being to the disadvantage of non-fiction art. (We therefore disagree with an argument put forward by
Denzin (1996) that the distinction between facts and fiction does not hold any longer). The discussion could
be closed at this point, but it may be more productive and interesting to dig deeper and go beyond the blackand-white view. While it is clear to us that any major misrepresentation should not take place in non-fiction
art, it seems that what happens much more often is „improving the detail‟, so to speak, in that writers would
introduce a fictional prop, character feature or character‟s utterance in order to create a stronger, more
appealing account of reality. For example, Domosławski (2010) who tried to retrace protagonists of
Kapu ci ski‟s books established that while some of his works are exemplary works of reportage, others
contain many un-checked stories or embellished facts (such as the rebel was killed with two bullets, not seven;
or a fish that Kapu ci ski saw caught in Lake Victoria became gigantic due to mishandled ecological
experiment and not due to being fed with bodies of Idi Amin‟s political opponents). We do not intend to enter
a debate here to what extent these misrepresentations and minor fictions really diminish the „reliability‟ of
non-fiction art; instead, we want to point to the very important fact that non-fiction art predominantly strives
to re-create the atmosphere, a „flavour‟ of events. This is much less the case for interpretive social sciences,
although one could argue that the most popular ethnographies are those that manage to achieve this effectxiv.
Interestingly, professional researchers have been similarly accused of „turning near-fictions into claims of
fact‟ (Fine 1993: 277; see Tullis Owen et al. 2009 for a similar argument) when they are presenting events and
conversations from the field as „data‟: „We trust that quotation marks reveal words that have been truly
spoken. This is often an illusion, a lie, a deception of which we should be aware. (…) To recall the exact
words of a conversation … is impossible. (…) In such situations, we become playwrights…‟ (Fine 1993: 277).
Fine admits that reporting research as „facts‟ serves and masks a vital interest: „The illusion of verisimilitude
is crucial for the grounding of qualitative research‟ (ibid, 278).
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Reporting of the methodological side of research
The second dimension of research reporting - methodological reporting - aims to neutralise the potential
arbitrariness resulting from the flexibility of the researcher and circularity of research design. The researcher
is asked for a detailed description of research procedures, and particularly for justifications of research design
decisions. The quality of methodological reporting determines the reliability of evidence, as it allows for the
assessment of whether research procedures were carried out correctly.
By and large, non-fiction writers do not report research decisions and problems at all. We do not usually know
how long the author spent with her subjects, how many representative subjects she got to know well, what
challenges she encountered, etc. There is one exception, however: travelogue writers often inform readers
about the length of time spent in each place and other circumstances of their „fieldwork‟. By the very nature of
the genre the author is expected to be present in her work, and so are descriptions of her fortunes and
misfortunes. Since systematic approach is not required, however, the author‟s decision what should be
included or excluded depends on how interesting it is going to be for the reader, rather than on other criteria.
With regards to „professional‟ ISS, social research textbooks put stress on rigourously revealing to the readers
how the research was done: „The research report with its presentation of and reflection on the methodological
proceedings, with all its narratives about access to and the activities in the field, (…) is the only basis for
answering the question of the quality of the investigation.‟ (Luders 1995: 325 in Flick, 1998: 243); „Reliability
depends essentially on explicitly described observational procedures‟ (Kirk & Miller 1986: 41); „Field
researchers need to defend their actions by discussing the principles by which they select some situations,
events and people but reject others while working in the field‟ (Burgess 1984: 53); „Values, assumptions and
theoretical perspectives must be shown to the readers‟ (Seale 1999: 154). But it is frankly admitted that in
most cases the practice of scientific reporting diverges from these prescriptions significantly – the reporting
rigour that is called for does not materialise. The list of complaints is fairly devastating: „Reliability in
replication studies requires a complete specification of background assumptions and field procedures,
information which many researchers, in practice, do not provide‟ (Seale 1999: 141); „Sociologists who engage
in field research seldom discuss the ways in which they analyse their data‟ (Burgess 1984: 177); „it is
relatively rare for researchers to indicate how theories are developed and generated within their studies or to
indicate the procedures that are adopted‟ (Burgess 1984: 160); „it was extremely rare for researchers to make
explicit a theoretical orientation in commissioned research‟ (Brown 2010: 236); „it is rare to find a systematic
discussion of the principles of selection that are used in a particular study‟ (Burgess 1984: 53); „Often
researchers are not concerned about whether a site is „typical‟ or „representative‟ (ibid, 59); „Rarely has any
researcher or student actually seen another‟s field notes‟ (Kirk & Miller 1986: 52); „There is a considerable
difference between the interviews that are discussed in standard methodology texts and the practice of
interviewing‟ (Burgess 1984: 101), „…much of the process of fieldwork is hidden and backstage… Analysis
is private, field notes are rarely available…‟ (Fine 1993: 269).
Perhaps the least faulty in this respect are postmodern anthropologists, who deconstruct the way their
fieldwork occurred. For example, Kevin Dwyer (1982) describes in his Moroccan dialogues how the
development of his relationship with the key informant influenced his interpretation of the community under
study. He also presents interview transcripts in almost full, giving the readers an opportunity to challenge his
own conclusions. Not all methodologists are convinced, however, to this approachxv.
Methodologists are also disillusioned with regards to the honesty of researchers and their eagerness for
exposing their research to peer criticism: „Field researchers usually try to convey a sense of commitment
consistent with in-depth study. That does not guarantee the sense is genuine‟ (Wolcott 2004: 117); „The
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failure of qualitative research is discussed much too seldom‟ (Flick 1998: 280); „What typically goes into
describing how the study was done are „the second worst‟ things that happened‟ (Lofland 1971: 149); „We
delude ourselves if we expect naturalistic researchers actually to „tell all‟ in print‟ (Lofland 1971: 149);
„Conventional reporting covers something up‟ (Seale 1999: 166); „Opportunities for deception are great‟ (Fine
1993, p.269); „No one wishes to look “bad”, and as a consequence, much information – unknown to the reader
– is censored by a self-concerned ethnographer‟ (ibid, 282, see also Brown 2010: 243). The main reason why
the practice of „telling how the study was done‟ is so divergent from the „theory‟ of it seems to lie in an
inherent conflict between presenting one‟s findings in an authoritative way and exposing oneself to scrutiny.
This conflict takes place in the context of career motives: „Being candid becomes a situated choice that is
forever linked with how the candor is likely to affect one‟s reputation as a scholar. We have our careers to
think of.‟ (Fine 1993: 283).
In conclusion, we have seen that the picture of methodological reporting in both kinds of enterprises is a
mixed bag. Where a particular instance of „professional‟ research has gone well, it should be judged more
reliable than non-professional research on the same subject because a research report written by the
„professional‟ researcher is likely to provide not only more methodological information about the research
process than non-scholarly research report, but also because no information is hidden from the audience.
Where there have been problems with collecting data or analysing it, however, it would be naïve to believe
that „professional‟ research findings are more reliable. This is because failures are likely to remain hidden
from the audience.
5. Quality Control
LNF works are evaluated by their artistic quality rather than the quality of data and interpretations. But how
about the ISS? Methodologists agree the growth of general knowledge requires „scientific‟ quality control
exercised by a research community (Seale 1999). There are two ways of controlling quality: replication of
research and peer critique.
Replication of research, the most effective way of controlling quality in natural sciences, in practice proved to
be very difficult to employ in social sciences: „Replication of studies is rarely seen in qualitative social
science‟ (Seale 1999: 41). And when such attempts have been undertaken, „The history of replications has
been a disappointing one. Replications have generally revealed discrepancies between the first and second
study‟ (Seale 1999: 142). This is disappointing not only because findings generally do not get confirmed, but
also because exposing such discrepancies, surprisingly and unfortunately, has not led to a productive critical
discussion (see Seale, 1999: 145 for an example)xvi.
Controlling quality via the peer review route is not really discussed by methodologists. Lofland states that
peer criticism is infrequent: „Peculiarly, despite considerable professional and philosophical concern about
error and bias in naturalistic studies, those topics rarely arise in connection with accomplished works. They
appear rarely, even, as unpublished allegations along the grapevine of professional social science‟ (Lofland
1971: 50). In some cases critics do point at methodological shortcomings, but nevertheless the works in
question remain influential and relied on by other researchers despite meeting severe criticism. (As happened
for example with Goffman‟s and Mead‟s studies). In other cases, researchers who did similar fieldwork come
up with criticism of data (see e.g. Baumann, 1996: 88) rather than the criticism of methods. It seems that the
lack of agreement on how exactly to carry out good research entails no agreement on what criteria are to be
used in assessment (Burgess 1984; Flick 1998)xvii. Seale quotes Clifford: „The criteria for judging a good
account have never been settled and are changing‟ (Clifford 1986: 9 cited in Seale, 1999: 32)xviii. This is
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amplified by deficiencies of research reporting: „so much of the process of fieldwork is hidden and backstage
that judging texts is complex… much ethnographic writing is accepted on faith‟ (Fine 1993: 269).
Conclusion
In this article we argued that from the beginning, despite their efforts to distance themselves from nonscholars, interpretively minded social researchers have faced challenges in justifying the scientific status of
their methods. We then overviewed the main themes that dominated the discussion of interpretivism and
found that, firstly, the status of interpretive method has not been given much discursive attention and,
secondly, that the tendency to see interpretivism against structural or quantitative approach resulted in
overlooking a number of important epistemological questions for interpretivism. Using that as a background,
we argued that there is a scope and need to open a new dimension in the discussion on interpretivism, namely
to explore similarities and differences between „professional‟ interpretive research and non-professional
research used by literary non-fiction writers and documentary filmmakers. We hoped that this should help to
clarify the status of scholarly interpretive research and also to inform potential answers to those
epistemological questions that have been overlooked.
The comparison of methods used by „professional‟ and „unprofessional‟ researchers has exposed the existence
of many similarities and showed that significant differences exist in theory but not so much in practice. In my
view, one crucial similarity is that the ability to interpret meaning is universal and cannot be „taught‟; another
lies in the fact that interpersonal skills play a central role in establishing fruitful relationships with subjects
(and again, cannot really be learned). Furthermore, both non-fiction writers and interpretive social scientists
use flexible research design and do not undergo scrupulous quality control. The lack of set „rules‟ on how to
carry out data analysis also means that the two groups cannot be differentiated on this aspect. (It also means
that the depth of interpretation can be higher in non-scholarly research). Last but not least, both kinds of
authors use similar writing techniques to render their reports convincing.
Data collection is a stage where some differences begin to appear, albeit not particularly strong: both sides
heavily prepare for fieldwork and spend a long time with their subjects (although, arguably, „slash-and-burn‟
research is on the rise in the scholarly camp), but ISS tend to be more „professional‟ in their data recording xix
and may apply triangulation or „member check‟.
The stage of research reporting does not, again, reveal strong differences. Our discussion exposed the fact that
professional researchers are in theory obliged to reveal indiscriminately what happened during the project, but
in practice are not keen on following this recommendation. On this basis I have argued that research findings
reported from relatively unproblematic projects are more reliable than findings in non-scholarly reports on the
same subject, as nothing is hidden from the audience.
Overall we have seen that in certain circumstances „professional‟ findings are more reliable than nonscholarly ones, but there is no strong methodological reason to treat non-professional interpretations as less
valid, or of lower quality.
What does this all mean for „professional‟ researchers, philosophers of science, policy makers? What are the
implications for the definition of „social science‟? To start with, our findings mean that reading non-fiction
literature on a particular subject, or watching relevant documentaries may be a worthwhile endeavour, as they
usually can provide valid observations and interpretations. Having said that, it is important not to rely on the
representativeness of LNF, and treat representations as individual case studies of particular people even if the
author tries to make her observations sound general. Secondly, the discussion showed that what
„professionals‟ can learn from non-professionals is the importance of interpersonal skills. Policy makers
F. Sosenko / Methodological Innovation Online (2012) 7(2) 41-63
58
oriented towards „evidence-based‟ social policy could also benefit from our findings; for example, they could
recognise that the requirement of recording „evidence‟ put on researchers may sabotage validity of data.
Finally, our findings strengthen and give support to the general feeling that the boundaries of „social science‟
are (in practice) essentially blurred. This is not to say that ISS and LNF are almost identical; in fact, our
discussion shows that they are quite different but complementary: while ISS tends to be more systematic and
reliable, LNF can be very effective at capturing the atmosphere and lived experiences of people, and at
exploring the subject „humanistically‟ rather than „analytically‟.
It needs to be recognised that arguments of this paper are based on research that should be judged as
preliminary. This study has been limited in two ways: firstly, it has relied on content analysis only, and
secondly, it has been hampered by a shortage of sources on the methodological approaches taken by nonscholars. (It presumed that views and experiences expressed in Kapu ci ski‟s Reporter‟s Self-portrait are
representative of LNF. While this source carries a special weight – since the author is considered to be the
„master‟ of the genre – its representativeness nevertheless requires to be checked). What this means is that
there is a clear need for a further empirical inquiry that would remedy these limitations. Two lines of further
inquiry are possible. One, to undertake a single empirical study focused on LNF. It would consist primarily
of confidential interviews with practitioners. Conducting interviews with people who have been studied would
no doubt be desirable but most likely such interviews would be more difficult to set up than interviews with
practitioners.
The second possibility would be to „go big‟ and conduct a comparative study of LNF and ISS. The advantage
of such a study would be that what is known about the practice of „professional‟ researchers would be
significantly expanded. In particular, I believe that conducting confidential interviews with practitioners
would at least create an opportunity to bust a few myths about ISS. Unfortunately, the existing literature on
the subject (almost exclusively) contains accounts authors of which are not anonymised, which throws up the
issue of „impression management‟ and covering up fieldwork‟s real failures. It is symptomatic that when
Lawless, Sutlive and Zamora tried to recruit contributors to their edited volume entitled Failed Fieldwork,
they could not get anyone (Lawless et al. 1983).
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Biography
Dr Filip Sosenko is a Research Associate at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, Scotland), where he is
involved in qualitative research in Urban Sociology. In 2007 he received his PhD from the University of
Edinburgh (thesis title: On the Scientific Status of Interpretive Inquiry).
i
Although core concepts of their theories were general, abstract and interconnected (such as „meanings are changed by
people in the course of social interaction‟), it was not possible to deduct from them any particular statement about the
conduct of a given group or individual. (This had to be achieved by empirically studying particular meanings and
„definitions of the situation‟). Additionally, interpretive social theories entailed that no firm prediction is possible, as we
do not know the meanings and „definitions‟ of tomorrow.
ii
Later interpretivists recognised that boundaries between their studies and humanities are essentially „blurred‟ (Geertz
1973; Geertz 1983), but they still upheld the claim that a methodological boundary exists between such studies and
literature, journalism, and other non-scholar enterprises.
F. Sosenko / Methodological Innovation Online (2012) 7(2) 41-63
62
iii
Grounded Theory has made some progress in this respect, but it has not been used by the majority of qualitative
researchers nor is it unproblematic itself. GT is, in fact, not a theory: it leads to creating a theory of the subject matter,
but itself is an epistemological approach to studying the social world.
iv
To be precise, Bhaskar and Giddens made marginal statements with this respect. The former claimed that research that
is limited to understanding meanings is „truistic‟ (Bhaskar 1979, p.164), while the latter similarly stated that „The tasks of
social science then [under interpretive assumptions – F.S.] seem precisely limited to ethnography […] Such a paralysis of
the critical will is […] logically unsatisfactory‟ (Giddens 1984, p.336).
v
If the social scientist confines herself to describing the actor‟s perspective (meanings, motives), this knowledge is new
only for her, but not for the subjects, and therefore there is no way of calling it „science‟. If, on the other hand, she
challenges the actor‟s concepts and knowledge as inadequate, she would contradict her own presumption that first-order
conceptualisations constitute the carcass of the social world.
vi
Using Gadamer‟s term (Gadamer 1975), the „fusion of horizons‟ is never the same for two researchers, as neither two
researchers nor two subjects have identical „prejudices‟.
vii
For an extended discussion including other genres such as travelogues and documentary films see Sosenko 2007.
viii
To be precise, the category of „nonfictional prose‟ contains several other genres, such as biography and autobiography,
as well as moral, religious, philosophical and political writings (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009), and finally journalism.
I do not believe, however, that these genres bare enough closeness to interpretive social sciences to be included in our
discussion. The biography and autobiography are going to be left out due to the fact that they are not focused on a
selected social or cultural entity. Moral, religious, philosophical and political writings, in turn, do contain accounts of
social phenomena but those accounts fulfil only a secondary role: they provide a vehicle or frame for exposing the
author‟s own view on social issues. These writings are also usually based on ad hoc personal experience and second-hand
knowledge rather than on systematic first-hand research.
Some journalism resembles ISS when it is based on own first-hand research and investigates lifestyles and social issues
rather than delivers news. The enforced conciseness of the message implies, however, that these issues are not described,
explained and discussed in length and complexity (Kapu ci ski 2003). Additionally, the character of the journalistic job
means that the journalist cannot spend as much time researching the subject as professional social researcher.
ix
All quotes from Kapuscinski have been translated by the author.
x
Agar similarly writes, „You can‟t specify the questions you‟re going to ask when you move into the community; you
don‟t know how to ask questions yet. You can‟t define a sample; you don‟t know what the range of social types is and
which ones are relevant to the topics you‟re interested in‟ (in Burgess, 1984, p. 34).
xi
Exposing the general through the particular works not only on the level of sentences or paragraphs, as in the above
example, but also on the level of the whole work: „It is my ambition to write a book that would carry a universal
message. I wrote Shah of Shahs not to describe the Iranian revolution. I was interested in the event, the phenomenon
consisting in the fact that an old, traditional culture and civilisation opposed the attempted imposition of an alien cultural
model, a progressive model‟ (Kapu ci ski 2003, p.80).
xii
Note the similarity between this technique and „ethnographic present‟ used commonly in anthropology. Ethnographic
present also relies on third-person voice and „locates the other in a time order different from that of the speaking subject;
field research on the other hand locates both self and other in the same temporal order‟ (Pratt 1986, p.33).
xiii
Pratt noticed interestingly that this personal narrative is indebted to travelogues (Pratt 1986). In her view, personal
narrative persists alongside objectifying description in ethnographic writing because it mediates a contradiction within
the discipline between personal and scientific authority (ibid).
xiv
It needs to be noted, however, that the accusation of crossing the line between fiction and fact does not apply to LNF
writers universally. For the chapter of his book on Kapuscinski that deals with the issue, Domoslawski interviewed
another acclaimed Polish reportage writer, Wojciech Jagielski. Jagielski expressed a personal view against „embellishing‟
facts, and stated that he would always reveal alterations to the readers. For example, he created a composite character (a
cross between a few real persons), but he disclosed this in the foreword (Domosławski 2010).
xv
Seale, for example, thinks that „telling how the study was done‟ may be jeopardised or be only apparent if it takes the
form of „confession‟ rather than „reflexivity‟. „Confession‟ does not serve discussing field decisions – although it may
seem to do so - but „is a strategy for gaining authority rather than giving it away‟ (Seale 1999, p.161).
xvi
Replication meets substantial epistemological problems: the social reality is never frozen in time, and social research
always changes its subjects to some extent. Last but not least, poor reporting of research methodology means that critics
do not know exactly what procedures were originally applied, which in turn means that their replication may diverge
from the original.
xvii
Take, for example, „theoretical‟ sampling (i.e. sampling cases until the study is „saturated‟). What if the researcher
picks „wrong‟, unrepresentative individuals, and terminate the research before all important people are included? There is
a problem with assessing such decisions. How can relevance be measured? Can someone not familiar with a certain field
criticise the researcher‟s decision?
xviii
This is amplified by deficiencies of research reporting. But, on top of these central difficulties, several further factors
are at play: since replication by definition is not original, it is difficult to obtain funding for it; mainstream publishers are
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not keen on methodological chapters; researchers naturally tend to convince the readers that the research was carried out
professionally rather than reveal their errors; there is no agreement on whether the whole body of data/fieldnotes should
be revealed (Burgess 1984; Seale 1999); and quality control may be effectively undermined by the tendency on the part
of the researcher to shower the readers with minute details (Burgess 1984; Kirk & Miller 1986)
xix
Interestingly, some professional researchers go against the orthodoxy and do not recommend recording interviews
(e.g. Lincoln &Guba 1985).