>the problem here is that we will continue to disagree, fundamentally, on
>the potential (or not) of certain kinds of research practices to escape
>their disciplinary presuppositions. connected, _but not reducible to
>this_, is the issue of how one would work within such a discipline and
>institutional setting.
actually i don't think you've s provided an argument as to why these research practices are tied to disciplinary pressuppositions and can't possibly be reworked in a way as to avoid them as much as possible.
basically, my concern is that you paint everything with a rather broad brush. you haven't really explained what you mean by the terms you use. it's not simply the *method* but the *methodology* that differentiates interpretive sociologies from postivist sociologies from critical sociologies. i also find it extraordinarily odd that you seem to have no idea that sociologists have been struggling with the issues you raise for decades now. gimme a break. you write as if this is news to anyone, particularly anyone trained in interpretive methods and methodologies. entire journal issues are devoted to the topic ferchrisakes. and, as i told you offlist, a big brouhaha ensued this summer over the editorship of the flagship journal that involved many of these issues we've spoken of.
fine. you don't think sociology can overcome it's pressupositions. i'm asking you to make an argument, state your case, provide some examples. what is it about ethnographic methods and methodologies that are awful? they get in people's lives? your example of immigration etc are good ones.
but the fact is there is plenty of feminist research that employs these methods and methdologies to reveal important processes that wouldn't otherwise be captured. there was some discussion of women's entry in the workplace and lower productivity recently. the concepts deployed by conventional econ research couldn't possibly get at the issues, but arlie hochschild spent some time getting in people's lives and revealed a whole host of things that the economists never thought of. etc.
your statements are moral judgments. there is nothing wrong with a moral judgment. i never said that and made it quite clear that they were welcome and inevitable. what i did find problematic was your proposed solution to a problem you see: get out of people's lives [without explaining why that has anything to do specifically with the methodology] or stop operating from the social control perspective. this, to me, is the same thing as blaming individual capitalists rather than analyzing capitalism. and, as far as i can tell, the underlying structure of your argument is seriously flawed: you conflate method with methodology.
>hence, the statement below is not a moral judgement, as you well know
>but for some reason feel it is, but a claim that, faced with the real
>question of working or not working in crappy jobs, as we all are, there
>are ways of working with that crappiness or against/around it. hence
>the statement which you cited explicitly says: _either_ one abandons
>the institutional and disciplinary setting, _or_ one continues
>to work there but with a decision to not ask or seek to answer the
>questions which the discipline sets forth as originary and necessary
>questions (of social control, cohesion and motivation), _or_ one places
>distance between the discipline and people's lives, which includes a
>consideration of what techniques are used and not..
well wowser! this latter suggestion--do you honestly think that sociologists who understand these issues don't try to do this? this is a great big fat duh ange. you still have answered the question as to why specifically ethnographic methods and methodologies are a problem.
>ah, so here's the problem: it's not really that i'm making a moral claim
>(which i wasn't) but that i was making a judgement! enough with the
>whining, kelley...
no problem ma. but what on earth are you doing?
are judgements "according to some
>theoretical/political vision" not allowed? now there's a strange
>judgement.
if you read my concluding remarks i, in fact, said they are welcome. you need an argument, not assertions.
i've not read an argument as to why ethnography is bad. what you've claimed as examples are problems with the researchers logic of research--they've asked certain kinds of questions about social structure and used methods and methodologies that can't ask those questions. that doesn't make the methods and methodologies inherently wrong.
>> i'd like to say the same
>> thing as you do about all kinds of social research
>
>go ahead. but i haven't mentioned any folks on this topic other than
>sennett, connell, the church researchers and our esteemed govt. who do
>you think i've talked about?
you made broad sweeping claims about ethnography.
>why not? everyone has the right to disagree with your 'shoulds', just
>as you have the right to decide what those 'shoulds' are. nothing
>here, including any statement by anyone on anything, finally decides
>between one set of 'shoulds' and another; and it certainly isn't me who
>makes that final judgement, though you keep complaining as if i do in
>order to then remove my ability to have an opinion or make a judgement
>(that diverges from your opinions and judgements). enough already!
>
please. i ask only that you make an argument, not sweeping generalizations --as if the church workers or sennett or whoever is representative of all sociology, as if no one has critiqued the social control perspective, as if no one is aware of the problems w/ ethnographic research.
>if -- for reasons which you continue to obscure by getting shitty at me
>for 'judging' -- you think it is important to do research which is
>'useful do from the perspective of social control, motivation, and
>social cohesion', then you'll have to either explain the reasons why you
>want to do that (if you feel
>the need to confront my arguments and claims),
i didn't say that people should. in fact, there are very few people who think the social control perspective is valid and there are plenty of people--indeed entire subdisciplines--devoted to weeding out the remnants of it.
i read your paper. but we're having a debate on a list. it's public. so you have to make your arguments here.
or frankly, you'll have
>to drop these tantrums.
only if you give me a lollipop.
kelley