Methodological imaginations

This collection of papers from the 1993 British Sociological Association conference, 'Research Imaginations', held at the University of Essex, brings together essays which look creatively and imaginatively at issues of research methodology in sociology. Some of the papers revisit and redefine existing techniques of data collection, such as those used in the Mass Observation project of the 1930s, the classic community study, diaries, in-depth interviews and visual materials like photographs and paintings; some examine the need for reflexivity in the research process; others confront important epistemological issues.

• Notes on the Contributors - Introduction - Surrealism, Mass-Observation and Researching Imagination
• J.Shaw - Imagining the Community: Some Reflections on the Community Study as a Method
• G.Payne - Researching Moving Targets: Using Diaries to Explore Supply Teachers' Lives
• M.Morrison & S.Galloway - Uncovering Key Aspects of Experience: The Use of In-Depth Interviews in a Study of Women Returners to Education
• S.Smith - Every Picture 'Tells a Story': Uses of the Visual in Sociological Research
• B.Harrison - Visual Imagery and the Iconography of the Social World: Some Considerations of History, Art and Problems for Sociological Research
• A.Pryce - Ethnography, Ethnicity and Work: Unpacking the West Midlands Clothing Industry
• M.Ram - Emotional Labour and Qualitative Research: How I Learned not to Laugh or Cry in the Field
• K.Ramsay - The Research Process: Context, Autonomy and Audience
• G.Cooper & S.Woolgar - Gender, Poet and Epistemology: Can Men know Feminist Truths?
• A.M.Liddle - Doing What Comes Naturally?: Standpoint Epistemology, Critical Social Research and the Politics of Identity
• P.Connolly - Index

This book brings together a collection of essays which look creatively and imaginatively at issues of research methods and methodology in sociology. Some papers critically revisit and redefine techniques such as the classic community study, the use of diaries, photography and art, others examine the need for reflexivity in the research process and the epistemological issues arising from being a researcher in administrative and political contexts. The diversity of research approaches discussed in this reader should make it an important contribution to research methods teaching for undergraduate and graduate students of sociology.

• Notes on the Contributors - Introduction - Surrealism, Mass-Observation and Researching Imagination
• J.Shaw - Imagining the Community: Some Reflections on the Community Study as a Method
• G.Payne - Researching Moving Targets: Using Diaries to Explore Supply Teachers' Lives
• M.Morrison & S.Galloway - Uncovering Key Aspects of Experience: The Use of In-Depth Interviews in a Study of Women Returners to Education
• S.Smith - Every Picture 'Tells a Story': Uses of the Visual in Sociological Research
• B.Harrison - Visual Imagery and the Iconography of the Social World: Some Considerations of History, Art and Problems for Sociological Research
• A.Pryce - Ethnography, Ethnicity and Work: Unpacking the West Midlands Clothing Industry
• M.Ram - Emotional Labour and Qualitative Research: How I Learned not to Laugh or Cry in the Field
• K.Ramsay - The Research Process: Context, Autonomy and Audience
• G.Cooper & S.Woolgar - Gender, Poet and Epistemology: Can Men know Feminist Truths?
• A.M.Liddle - Doing What Comes Naturally?: Standpoint Epistemology, Critical Social Research and the Politics of Identity
• P.Connolly - Index