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2 Method or Methodology? Locating

Ethnography in the Methodological

Landscape

In: Doing Ethnography

By: Giampietro Gobo

Pub. Date: 2011

Access Date: July 21, 2021

Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd

City: London

Print ISBN: 9781412919210

Online ISBN: 9780857028976

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9780857028976

Print pages: 15-32

This PDF has been generated from SAGE Research Methods. Please note that the pagination of the

online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.

https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9780857028976

2 Method or Methodology? Locating Ethnography in the

Methodological Landscape

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• To understand that ethnography is a methodology (a style of thinking and doing),

not a mere technique.

• To learn an alternative classification of the array of social research methodologies,

avoiding the qualitative/quantitative opposition.

• To locate ethnography in the social research landscape.

2.1 Introduction

Defining a term is always difficult because there are as many definitions as there are different points of view.

Atkinson and Hammersley observe that the:

definition of the term ethnography has been subject to controversy. For some it refers to a

philosophical paradigm to which one makes a total commitment, for others it designates a method

that one uses as and when appropriate (1994: 248).

But the controversy extends further. More recently it has also involved the research practices that may or

may not be included under the heading ‘ethnography.’ Since the 1980s (see 4.1) the meaning of ethnography

has been expanded to such an extent that it encompasses forms of research extremely diverse from a

methodological point of view. Everything is now ethnography: from life stories to the analysis of letters and

questionnaires, from autobiography to narrative analysis, from action research to performance, from field

research lasting a few days to that lasting several years. Some years ago, James Lull pointed out that ‘what

is passing as ethnography in cultural studies fails to achieve the fundamental requirements for data collection

and reporting typical of most anthropological and sociological ethnographic research. ‘ “Ethnography” has

become an abused buzz-word in our field’ (1988: 242). The same opinion has been expressed by David

Morley (1992: 186).

Contrarily, Beverly Skeggs argues that ‘feminist ethnography is about understanding process’ (2001: 427).

However, even the American sociologist James S. Coleman (1926-95), a pioneer in the construction of

mathematical models in sociology, with his Foundations of Social Theory (1990) would agree that the task

of network analysis (a statistical technique) is to describe processes. Hence the definition of a methodology

(in this case ethnographic) cannot be derived from the topic of the study (processes). The methodology has

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to be defined according to the concrete research practices that it comprises, not according to its knowledge

objectives.

This is the only way to get out of this chaotic situation, as the term ‘ethnography’ has been diluted into a

multitude of sometimes contrasting and contradictory meanings and become synonymous with qualitative

studies. This is therefore a stretch of the term ‘ethnography,’ depriving it of its original meaning. But why do so

many authors still persist in calling research conducted with interviews ‘ethnographic’? Is the term ‘interview’

really so distasteful to them? One suspects that the term ‘ethnography’ has just become highly fashionable;

it is still a term little known to a large part of the community of policy-makers and practitioners, but also to

many members of the academic community; and it is a relatively new and esoteric methodology (compared

to the discursive interview and survey). It is also a term that evokes the exotic, epic and heroic, so that the

ethnographer is perceived as some kind of Indiana Jones figure (see Bryman, 1988: 89).

We shall now see how ethnography can be located in the panorama of contemporary social research in such

a way that its differences and distinctions, with respect to the other methodologies, emerge. To do this means

… classifying.

2.2 On classification

Barth's Distinction

There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't.

The Twin Towers

The date September 11, 2001 is tragically notorious. Two hijacked airplanes crashed into

the Twin Towers that soared above the New York skyline. Following the fires caused by the

impact, the two towers collapsed. A few days later, debate began in the upper echelons of

politics and in the media: was the attack an ‘act of terrorism’ or was it an ‘act of war’? To all

appearances this was a purely nominalist issue, i.e. that words function like labels. Yet the

problem of what name (term) to give to the event (referent) and the meaning (concept) to

attribute to it was anything but banal. Definition of the event was not a simple intellectual

exercise but had hugely significant concrete implications. If the attack was defined an

‘act of war,’ because the United States is a member of NATO (Article 5 of whose treaty

states that an armed attack against one of the signatories must be considered an attack

against them all), the other member-countries, among them England, France, Germany

and Italy, would also have gone to war (as they did). If, instead, the attack was defined

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an ‘act of terrorism,’ the United States alone would have responded. A huge difference,

therefore, with serious consequences ensuing from a simple decision on what name to

give to an event. But even more was riding on the outcome. The Twin Towers were insured

and, as we know, compensation for damage depends on the type of contract stipulated,

with its relative norms and clauses. In this case the towers were insured ‘only’ against

terrorist acts, not against acts of war. So how the attack was defined had other practical

consequences as well. Names are not simple labels; indeed, they themselves are things.

This tragic example helps us understand the importance of classifications, in social research as well. The

latter concerns itself with a broad and complex panorama of practices, usages and customs. Those who seek

to set order on this highly diverse array of research practices must bear in mind that any attempt to do so

necessarily involves a classification.

Systemic theories have shown that reality (and therefore also the reality of research methods) is chaotic

and turbulent. It is consequently nebulous, opaque and without clearly-defined boundaries. Any sort of

classification is nothing more than an attempt to impose order and sense on a reality with no meaning apart

from that given to it by the observer.

Hence, any classification (and therefore also the classification of social research into methods and practices)

is the outcome of a subjective activity (Marradi, 1990), of a practical attempt at order-making. As such it is an

imposition, a distortion of a reality always more complex than its classification. In other words, we may say

that the classification constructs the reality.

This, however, is not to imply that we are free to construct reality as we wish. For our descriptions to become

reality, they must acquire consensus in our linguistic community, and we must conduct long and constant

work to persuade our interlocutors that our classifications are valid. Classifications and concepts are not true

or false. They are not objective and they do not stand in a direct relationship with reality. Rather they are

heuristic tools invented for practical purposes (for all practical purposes, ethnomethdologists would say), and

which at most can hope to gain general consensus and become dominant in the public discourse.

2.3 Contemporary classifications of research methods

Diverse classifications of research methods (some of them alternative to each other) have been propounded

in the past.

The earliest and still today most widely-used classification distinguishes between qualitative and quantitative

methods. The former base their descriptions and explanations on accounts and detailed analyses of specific

cases; the latter on figures and statistics. Historically, the distinction first arose from the contrast between

positivism and hermeneutics, between explanation and understanding, between idiographic research

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(conducted to understand a single case) and nomothetic research (conducted to discover social laws),

between positive methods and interpretative methods. This antithesis has today been attenuated into a

less emphatic distinction between qualitative research and quantitative research which emphasizes practical

aspects (research) more than strictly theoretical ones (methods).

More recently, the traditional qualitative versus quantitative opposition has been criticized as tenuous and

artificial by several authors. It is argued that there is constant co-penetration between the two kinds of

research, that a rigid distinction between them is not possible and that they converge and overlap at

numerous points. It is consequently urged that the antithesis between them be resolved. However, it should

be noted that the distinction in the literature between qualitative and quantitative research is by now also

institutionally recognized: there exist, in fact, numerous university courses which teach either qualitative or

quantitative methods.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any classification, given that it is merely a heuristic tool with which to

investigate social phenomena. In other words, classifications are used to shed light on social phenomena and

to bring out those of their aspects of interest to the researcher.

Nonetheless, every classification has two inevitable shortcomings:

(1) it simplifies reality (‘it reduces complexity,’ systemic theorists would say); and

(2) it emphasizes some aspects of a phenomenon to the detriment of others.

Bearing this caveat in mind, we now examine yet another classification of research methods: the one

proposed by the author of this textbook. The reader might ask at this point whether yet another classification is

really necessary. I believe that the answer is yes, and this is because the classifications currently available are

highly abstract and only poorly depict the actual practices of social research. They do not aid understanding of

the empirical decisions which researchers must take, the tacit knowledge on which they base their reasoning,

or the local knowledge which they utilize in their research practices. The classification proposed here has

precisely the purpose of giving sharper focus to the practical reasoning and behavior of researchers as

situated actions.

Before I set out the classification, however, I must define two terms of central importance to my treatment:

‘methodology’ and ‘method’ (or ‘technique’).

2.4 What is a methodology?

There are some methodologies and numerous methods in the social sciences. A methodology can be defined

as a global style of thinking, ‘a general approach to studying research topics’ (Silverman, 2000: 77, 88 and

300), or an ‘overall research strategy’ (Mason, 1996: 19).

A methodology comprises at least the following four components:

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(1) a pivotal cognitive mode among the many available to us for knowledge-acquisition (for

example listening, watching, observing, reading, questioning, conversing);

(2) a theory of scientific knowledge, or a set of pre-assumptions about the nature of reality,

the tasks of science, the role of the researcher, and the concepts of action and social

actor;

(3) a range of solutions, devices and stratagems used in tackling a research problem;

(4) a (more or less) systematic sequence of procedural steps to be followed once the

cognitive mode has been selected.

CASE STUDY The four components of a methodology

Each of these components is now examined in detail.

1. Cognitive modes. Every knowledge-gathering act is guided by at least

one cognitive mode: we learn by listening (to the radio for example), watching

(television for example), reading (a newspaper, magazine or a book),

questioning someone (for example a person under arrest or a suspect), talking

with someone, or with ourselves through introspection. The cognitive sciences

have documented that our senses interact with each other in such a way that

our learning is driven by multisensory processes. The examples abound and

they pertain to our everyday experience. Our ears ‘look’ when we are convinced

at the cinema that the voice of the actor is emanating from the screen, when

instead the loudspeakers are positioned along the sides of the cinema hall. We

‘understand’ with our hands (like a doctor when he palpates a patient's body).

Or we ‘listen’ with them: to decide whether wood has been planed to sufficient

smoothness, a carpenter wipes the planed surface with a thin sheet of paper, so

that he can better perceive any roughness through the scraping noise. We also

‘see’ with our hands, as in the case of a sightless painter able to draw by touch:

recent studies have shown, in fact, that his visual cortex is activated on touching

an object. The eyes are able to ‘smell,’ as exemplified by the oenologist who

judges the density of a wine not only from its aroma but also from its color.

Indeed, some researchers have been able to deceive sommeliers’ taste buds

by dyeing white wine red (Pascual-Leone, et al., 2005). Every methodology is

guided predominantly (though not exclusively) by a particular cognitive mode.

2. Theories of scientific knowledge. A methodology is also the product of

the particular conception of science adopted by the inventor of that particular

methodology. This conception consists of assumptions concerning at least five

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aspects, viz.:

(a) The nature of reality. To simplify, we may say that there are

some researchers who embrace the neopositivist paradigm; others

who adopt the realist one (a là Popper); others who assume the social

constructivist perspective (a là Glasersfeld) or the costructionist

perspective (a là Latour); yet others who describe themselves as

relativists (a là Bloor).

(b) The tasks of science. Again simplifying, some researchers

believe that science should stop at the description and explanation of

phenomena (positivism) but only find natural and solid laws; others

argue that science should also intervene to change the phenomena

investigated; others (like the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis and

Jurgen Habermas) maintain that the principal task of science is to

emancipate humankind.

should do no more than objectively survey and record the

phenomena which they observe, and that they are external observers

(neopositivism and positivism); others claim that researchers actively

participate (albeit unwittingly) in construction of the reality observed:

they are therefore ‘co-constructors’ and subjects internal (not

external) to the phenomenon studied.

(d) Concepts of action. At least three different perspectives are

taken on action:

(i) methodological collectivism (holism);

(ii) methodological individualism;

(iii) methodological situationism.

Methodological collectivism pertains to theories which conduct

structural analyses of society on the basis of an objectivist view

of social phenomena (for example, Marxism, the structural-

functionalism of Talcott Parsons, the functionalism of Robert K.

Merton, the structuralism of Émile Durkheim in sociology and of

Claude Levi Strauss in anthropology).

Methodological individualism instead takes a subjectivist view (Max

Weber, Raymond Boudon, John Elster and the symbolic

interactionism of Herbert Blumer), or sometimes even a solipsistic

one (Alfred Schutz). Contemporary versions of methodological

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individualism are utilitarianism, which is based on a voluntarist theory

of action whose parameters are the concepts of ‘interest,’ ‘intention,’

‘value-orientation,’ ‘rationality,’ ‘motivation’; and phenomenology, with

its concepts of ‘consciousness,’ ‘mental states’ and so on.

Finally, methodological situationism (ethnomethodology, cognitive

sociology, etc.) seeks to synthesize the above two approaches by

transforming the mental processes of phenomenology into

contextually-situated scenic activities which it investigates using

ethnographic research methods. According to Randall Collins (1981),

methodological situationism is a new practical empiricism which

adopts a more radically empirical stance than does any previous

sociological approach.

(e) Concepts of social actor. Some disciplines and approaches

(for example, cognitivism, microeconomics, neo-utilitarianism, etc.)

consider the social actor to be a rational subject; others as an

irrational subject driven by the emotions and corporeality

(postmodern theories); yet others as a situational subject conditioned

by the context of action (ethnomethodology).

3. The range of solutions. The third component of a methodology consists of

the ‘tricks of the trade’ (Becker, 1998a), the set of ad hoc procedures (Schutz,

1962), remedies and stratagems not usually found in textbooks but which

are part of the researcher's experience and are exchanged informally among

colleagues, sometimes being made public in papers or journal articles.

4. Procedural steps. Finally, a methodology is also a (more or less) systematic

sequence of procedural steps (research design, research questions, sampling,

grids for data collection, data organization, data analysis and so on)

implemented once the methodology has been selected. This fourth aspect is

the meaning usually attributed to the term ‘methodology.’ However, it should

by now be clear that this is only one of the many components that make up a

methodology.

A methodology can therefore be defined as a pathway which differs according to the cognitive mode adopted.

Obviously, not everything is codified in a methodology. It sometimes happens that the solutions, devices,

‘tricks of the trade’ and procedures available to the researcher do not suffice to solve a particular problem or

a new problem arising in the course of research. The researcher must therefore invent a remedy. The one

that he or she comes up with if it is subsequently accepted by the scientific community (or at least a part of it)

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increases the conceptual and material assets of the methodology in question.

2.4.1 What about ethnography?

It should be clear from the discussion thus far that it is reductive to define survey or ethnography as (simple)

methods, tools selected by a competent researcher according to the occasion or according to the research

problem at hand. The stereotype that research questions should dictate the method is without any empirical

ground. In fact, if this were the case, we would expect to find a large degree of interchangeability among

the methods employed by social researchers. But it is not the case. In fact survey, ethnography, discursive

interview and so on, are not methods. Rather, they relate to the concept of ‘paradigm’ first formulated by

Thomas Kuhn (1962). That is to say, they are sets of ways to see (cognitive) and sets of ways to do (social)

things.

According to Kuhn, a scientist will embrace at most two paradigms during his or her career: the paradigm

in which he or she has been trained; and should he or she decides to change, the one to which he or she

subsequently converts. The majority of scientists, however, work within one particular paradigm throughout

their careers (they also do so in order to save on cognitive and practical effort: it is costly to abandon habitual

theories, and data collection and analysis techniques, and to learn new ones). Scientific paradigms are rather

like religions: a believer usually embraces two religions at most in his or her lifetime.

The choice of methodology (survey rather than ethnography) is likewise not just a technical question; it also

depends on the researcher's theoretical stance this being made up of the various components previously

described. When we reason from a particular theoretical standpoint, it never occurs to us to ask certain

questions. For all these cognitive and practical reasons, therefore, a researcher normally embraces only

one methodology in the course of his or her career. For these reasons I maintain that ethnography is a

methodology and not a method.

2.5 What is a method?

A method can be a tool, a technique or a specific, codified and widely used operational procedure which

comprises solutions devised over time in cumulated and reified form. There are techniques for collecting

information or for constructing data; and there are techniques for analyzing that information and data.

Techniques for either data collection or analysis can be used in diverse methodologies, although each of

them will employ the techniques for different purposes (Silverman, 2000: 89). An extreme case is what is

commonly called the ‘Delphi method’ whereby information is collected first by in-depth interviews, and then

by a questionnaire (Dalkey and Helmer, 1963).

We can gain clearer understanding of the relationship between methodology and technique by drawing an

analogy with the treatment of anorexia (but also bulimia, alcoholism or addictions in general).

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There are three main methodologies (or base philosophies) for the treatment of anorexia:

(1) the first considers it to be a problem of the individual, who suffers from a constant lack

of appetite, sometimes accompanied by a disgust with food. Because anorexia is due to

an ‘interior’ malaise, the methodology consists in acting upon the anorexic individual;

(2) the second methodology regards anorexia as a relational problem, one which is

therefore internal to the patient's interactional context (typically the family). The

methodology consequently consists in treating the unhealthy relationship, acting upon the

distorted communication between the anorexic and his or her family members (parents or

partner);

(3) finally, anorexia can be viewed as a social problem afflicting only the affluent societies

(are there many anorexics in the so-called ‘developing countries’?) or as a generational

problem, in the sense that it spreads socially in a particular period (for example, in the

Western world since the 1990s).

Table 2.1 shows that corresponding to each methodology is a particular technique (in this case a therapy): the

individual interview for those who believe it essential to treat the individual (psychoanalysis, psychotherapy,

psychiatry); the family interview for those who think it crucial to work on relations among the members of the

family (family psychotherapy, relational psychotherapy, systemic approach, etc.); finally, the group interview,

for those who consider anorexia to be a generational problem (sociotherapy).

Table 2.1 Methodologies and methods for the treatment of anorexia

2.6 The main methodologies of the social sciences: An alternative

classification

On the basis of the above terminological and conceptual premises, we can identify at least six methodologies

with their relative cognitive modes.

The six main cognitive modes for the study of a social phenomenon are the following:

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(1) listening;

(2) questioning;

(3) observing;

(4) reading;

(5) operating: i.e. seeking to change actors (putting them to the test, having them interact

with each other or stimulating them in order to control their reactions); and

(6) introspecting/reflecting.

These cognitive modes constitute the family of methodologies. This is a rather small set, but it is connected

with a wide range of research techniques (see Table 2.2).

The main purpose of the discursive interview methodology is to enable the researcher to hear what social

actors have to say. Its distinctive feature is that the interviewee is given ample space to use his or her own

words and to structure his or her discourse in accordance with personal schemas, metaphors and metonyms.

It correspondingly restricts the space available to the interviewer, whose task is to adapt his or her cognitive

aims (research objectives) and the interview outline to the situational context and to the subject's discursive

needs. The interviewer may therefore reverse the order (if there is one) of the questions, change their form,

or decide not to ask some of them. The discursive structure of the interview also determines the type of

interaction that takes place.

The survey and poll methodology consists of questioning a person by means of a questionnaire. The

interviewer reads the interviewee a series of questions (stimuli) in a fixed order and with standardized texts.

The subject chooses a reply from a number of fixed response alternatives provided by the questionnaire

itself. The respondent therefore expresses his or her thoughts through categories proposed by the researcher.

These thoughts the interviewer merely records without comment, given that he or she follows a standardized

procedure. In some (though rare) cases, the interviewee is able to reply in his or her own words. The

conversation structure created by the questionnaire determines a particular type of interactive synchronism

usually consisting in short verbal exchanges (turns).

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Table 2.2 Main methodologies and techniques of social research

The in-depth and survey methodologies jointly account for almost all the practices of social research.

They also represent the mainstreams in respectively qualitative and quantitative research1 (for details

on the methodological and philosophical common roots of survey and discursive interview, go to

http://www.sagepub.co.uk/gobo).

The cognitive mode of ‘reading’ guides the documentary methodology. Unlike the other methodologies, this

one is based on the process-based collection of information created during the ordinary activities of people,

or of private and public organizations, rather than in the course of surveys with more strictly scientific ends.

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http://www.sagepub.co.uk/gobo

Examples of documentary sources are registry office files or other public records, newspapers, television

programs, ordinary conversations, the statistics gathered by corporations for their business plans, census

data, the photographs collected in family albums, the official programs of political parties and so on. The

researcher does no more than select the information, and adapt it to the purposes of his or her analysis.

Social researchers use the transformative methodology to study subjects by controlling and manipulating

certain states (for example, with experiments and simulations) or by inducing changes in those states. This

methodology thus combines knowledge-gathering with an operational intent. In the former case, the setting

in which the study takes place is deliberately manipulated in order to produce (or help produce) behaviors

which can then be collected and analyzed. In the latter case, the research starts from the assumption that

knowledge and intervention are parts of the process itself of the researcher's cognitive structuring: hence,

every analysis is already an intervention and every intervention is also an analysis. This approach shares

several data-collection and data-analysis techniques with other methodologies. But it also uses ‘active’ ones

designed to make social actors aware of their situation so that they are induced to modify it. Examples are the

experimental approach or the psycho-social ones (as ‘co-operative research,’ ‘participatory action research,’

‘action science,’ ‘process consultation,’ ‘empowerment,’ ‘intervention research’ among others) which might

fit under the general heading of ‘action-research.’ The pivotal cognitive mode in transformative research is

‘operation,’ in the sense that the researchers work to change the properties under investigation. For example,

the aim of evaluation research is to pass judgment, to improve social programs, and to help decision-makers

take considered decisions, unlike basic research which only aims to acquire knowledge.

Speculative methodology is based on introspection (in the case of phenomenological inquiry) or on reflection

(relative to the logical-formal connections among dichotomous variables). Phenomenological inquiry has

its roots in Husserl's Cartesian Meditations (1950), Merleau-Ponty's armchair experiments (1945), Schutz's

thought experiments (1962: 104-9). Although these studies are abstract, they have inspired various social

and practical research studies such as Garfinkel's breaching studies (1967: 42-8), which are attempts to

discover the foundations of experience and subjectivity: how we perceive and recognize (through the senses)

the objects that surround us; the common-sense knowledge that guides us in our judgments; and the implicit

presuppositions upon which our reasoning is based. Schutz describes this type of inquiry as follows:

The phenomenologist does not deny the existence of the outer world, but for his analytical purpose

he makes up his mind to suspend belief in its existence - that is, to refrain intentionally and

systematically from all judgments related directly or indirectly to the existence of the outer world.

Borrowing terms from mathematical technique, Husserl called this procedure ‘putting the world

in brackets’ … the technical device of phenomenology for radicalizing the Cartesian method of

philosophical doubt, in order to go beyond the natural attitude of man living within the world he

accepts, be it reality or mere appearance … the purpose of such technique is only to reach a level

of indubitable certainty which lies beyond the real of mere belief in other words, to disclose the pure

field of consciousness (1962: 104).

These speculative practices do not rely on interviews, ethnographic or otherwise; instead, they consist

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exclusively of inquiry into the self and into personal knowledge.

Formally different, but substantially akin, is the reflection provided by Ragin's ‘qualitative comparative

analysis’ (1987), which is based on the analysis of cases (Ragin and Becker, 1992), the characteristics

of which are inserted into truth tables and analyzed according to formal causal logic. This is a formalized

methodology which uses the structures of enunciative and predicative calculus as its syntax. The starting-

point is, on the one hand, the algebra of George Boole (1815-64), who formalized logic by means of special

connectors (accordingly called ‘Boolean’), and on the other, the methods of John Stuart Mill (1872), who

applied his ‘five canons’ to test causal propositions. The main concepts used by this methodology are ‘cause/

effect,’ ‘triggering cause,’ ‘structural cause,’ ‘simple, compound and multiple causes,’ ‘sufficient condition’

and ‘necessary condition.’ Other approaches in this category are comparative narrative analysis, sequence

analysis and event structure analysis, which has been applied, though only for exemplification purposes, also

to ethnographic data (Corsaro and Heise, 1990). As well as in the social sciences, this methodology is widely

used in political science, usually for the comparison of forms of government (for example, democracy) across

hundreds of countries.

2.7 On methodological pluralism

As said at the beginning of this chapter, every classification highlights some aspects of reality and neglects

others. Moreover, it is never possible to systematize an empirical reality in its entirety, with all its complexity

and innumerable facets, into a classification. Definitions serve to specify categories; they are conceptual

containers. Definitions are not accounting tools, and are not required to grasp all and everything; all they have

to do is identify and characterize.

Hence the classification just proposed also has its shortcomings, one in particular: it does not take account of

the research practices which fall under the headings of ‘triangulation’ (Webb et al., 1966; Denzin, 1970; Jick,

1979; Miles and Huberman, 1984), ‘methodological pluralism’ (Bell and Newby, 1977) or ‘mixed methods’

(Brannen, 1992).

According to Hammersley's interpretation (1996) of the ways in which researchers employ different types of

data, these research practices compare different kinds of data (for example, qualitative and quantitative) and

different methodologies (for example, ethnography and survey). They seek to:

(1) corroborate data sources reciprocally (triangulation) in order to determine the ‘true state

of affairs’ and to reveal ‘the whole picture’ of a phenomenon;

(2) gain preliminary understanding about a topic in order to assist with the design of a survey

(auxiliary function or facilitation); and

(3) fulfill diverse research objectives (for example, understanding a social process and its

statistical distribution in the population (complementarity).

However, doubts have been expressed as to the plausibility of these research practices (Hammersley and

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Atkinson, 1983: 199; Silverman, 1993: 156-8; 2000: 99; Fielding and Fielding, 1986; Mason, 1996: 27). These

authors argue that different types of data cannot be unproblematically added together; and they are doubtful

whether it is methodologically sound to compare data collected with such diverse instruments and cognitive

purposes.

As we have seen in the previous chapter, various studies have shown that there is a significant difference

between what is said by interviewees and their observed behavior. In this case, should the researcher rely on

the material collected from the interviews or should he or she rely on ethnography?

2.7.1 Measuring versus counting

I, personally, do not deny the existence or the feasibility of these practices, although I believe that a plurality

of methods (techniques) is more plausible than mixed methodologies. I would point out, however, that there

is a certain confusion as to what actually constitutes a quantitative method. It is not necessarily the case

that researchers who use official statistics or the frequency distributions of a variable in qualitative inquiry

are mixing methods. Just because research involves numbers does not mean that it is quantitative. More

is required, especially a different way of thinking with numbers. The main difference between qualitative

and quantitative methods, in fact, is that the latter adhere to the ‘measurement paradigm’ (formalized by

psychometric Stevens in 1946) which affirms that it is possible to measure meanings, while the latter does

not set out to measure things, but at most seeks to count them.

Consider for a moment why the verb ‘measure’ is used for height, but not for age. Have you ever heard talk

of ‘measuring’ age or the number of children?

One should therefore not confuse measurement with counting; nor, therefore, units of measurement with

units of count. Measurement concerns itself with the continuous properties of an object: properties, that

is, for which there is no outright ‘jump’ between one state and another, so that the differences between

them are difficult to discern. Income, for instance, belongs to this category: if one person earns $1,264 and

another $1,265, there is no obvious ‘jump’ between the two states. But having one or two children is a

different matter. Although one is the difference in both cases, we feel that there is a substantive difference

between the two cases. It is likewise difficult to establish with precision the height of a person or the distance

between two objects. We need an instrument (a tape-measure) to perform the operation accurately. By ‘unit

of measurement,’ therefore, a standard quantity of the property that we want to measure is meant. A unit of

measurement may also be a mathematical combination of other units of measurement (kilometers per hour,

for example).

Counting instead concerns the discrete properties of an object; properties among which it is relatively easy

(without the use of specific instruments) to discern differences: a person's number of children; the number

of patients in the waiting room of a doctor's surgery; the number of times a person goes to the cinema in a

month. Calculations of this kind are quite frequently made in ethnographic research in particular (see 12.5),

and in qualitative research in general. It is therefore entirely inappropriate to consider discrete properties to

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be measurable. In this regard, Cicourel (1964: 1822) stressed many decades ago that it is very difficult to

talk of measurements in the social sciences because, unlike the general concepts of the physical sciences,

those of the social sciences do not have corresponding definitions (lexical and operational) on which there is

general consensus in the scientific community. Whilst a tape-measure, a pair of scales and a chronometer are

(consensually considered) necessary for the operational definition of ‘quantity of motion,’ there are no equally

(consensually accepted) instruments with which to obtain operational definitions of concepts like ‘democracy,’

‘rationalization,’ ‘authority’ or ‘political participation.’

2.8 Concluding remarks

It is consequently important to avoid a confusion frequently to be found in the methodology handbooks. First,

it is incorrect to say that one of the main differences between quantitative and qualitative research is that,

when they describe or explain phenomena, the former uses figures and the latter only words. Second, the

fact that qualitative research also uses numbers and cross-tabulations does not mean that there is not a clear

distinction between quantitative and qualitative research: in fact, counting is not the same as measuring.

Finally, I believe that the use of different methodologies in a single research project does not signify that all

of them are of the same importance. For example, in recent years, several social researchers (as we shall

see in 6.4, 8.5 and 9.5) have conducted visual ethnography, thus combining traditional ethnography with

new tools for audio-visual documentation, and in some cases also multimedia systems for the transcription

of speech and other components of interaction. In this case we have the integration of two methodologies:

the ethnographic and the documentary. However, it is my impression that when a phenomenon is interpreted

and studied, one methodology always prevails over the others: there is a dominant methodology which the

researcher uses more extensively or intensively, and an ancillary methodology which backs up the dominant

one. It is the methodology used to test or document the main research hypotheses that, I maintain, should be

considered the more important.

For all these reasons, I believe that the classification which I have proposed, despite its shortcoming of not

taking adequate account of methodological pluralism, is more satisfactory than those that are conventionally

used.

KEY POINTS

• A methodology is a global style of thinking used to investigate a research topic.

• The concept of methodology can be likened to that of a ‘paradigm’: a set of ways

to see (cognitive) and to do (social).

• A method is a tool, a technique or a specific, codified and widely used operational

procedure which comprises solutions devised over time in cumulated and reified

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form.

• There are methods with which to collect information (to construct data) and

methods with which to analyze data.

• The main methodologies in social research are the following: discursive interview,

survey, ethnography, documentary, transformative and speculative.

• Therefore ethnography is not a (simple) method, but a general approach.

KEY TERMS

Classification(see

p. 17)

Grouping of acts, objects and referents into classes. From a cultural point of view, a

classification is an arbitrary tentative practice which imposes order and gives sense to a reality

with no intrinsic meaning independently of the observer.

Concept (see pp.

701)

Idea, mental representation. A concept is a meaning. Moreover, a concept is not a snippet of

reality, but a snippet of belief and experience.

Count (see p. 29)

The progressive numeration of objects (referents) to determine their quantity. Counting is a

procedure which assigns values to discrete properties of an object; properties among which it is

relatively easy (without the use of specific instruments) to discern differences. Counting is

based on a unit of count. Counting is not the same as measuring.

Measurement

(see p. 28)

Measurement takes place when the property quantified is continuous and there is a unit of

measurement relative to it. From a practical point of view, a property is continuous when no

‘jump’ occurs from one of its states to the next. A unit of measurement is a standard quantity of

the property being measured.

Methodology (see

pp. 1822)

A global style of thinking, a general approach to studying research topics or an overall research

strategy. A methodology has at least four components:

(1) a pivotal cognitive mode;

(2) a theory of scientific knowledge;

(3) a range of solutions, remedies and ‘tricks of the trade’; and

(4) a systematic sequence of procedural steps.

Method (see pp.

223)

A tool, a technique or a specific, codified and widely used operational procedure which

comprises solutions devised over time in cumulated and reified form. There are techniques to

collect information (to construct data) and techniques to analyze it/them. Techniques of

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information and data collection can be used within diverse methodologies, although each of

these will use them for different purposes and in different ways.

Term (see p. 70) Word, linguistic expression.