Giampietro Gobo

Glocalizing methodology? The encounter between local methodologies

Europe and USA have been the cradle of methodology. Consequently most of the contemporary methodological knowledge has been invented by Western academic culture. Throughout the twentieth century this indigenous culture has been transformed into a type of general knowledge, and social science methodology has become one of the most globalized knowledge. However the limits of globalization are evident in many fields, from economy to politics, from marketing to culture and social life. Methodology is not free from these limits. There is an emerging need for finding postcolonial methodologies and making culturally flexible contemporary research methods. The author explores the proposal for a glocal methodology, the possibility of thinking (methodologically) global and acting (methodologically) local, and its ambiguity. Finally, indigenous methodologies and participatory action research are questioned as effective ways out of methodological colonialism.

Glocalization: a critical introduction

As Victor Roudometof immediately points out, glocalisation is an under-theorised concept: strictly speaking, there is no theory or school of theories on glocalisation, as such, in the literature. T...

The next challenge: from mixed to merged methods

Purpose – In social sciences, after having witnessed several “turns” (cognitive, linguistic, pragmatic, interactional), the authors observe the rise of the “qualitative turn”. Therefore quantitative research methods are not mainstream anymore. One effect of this rebalance between quality and quantity is the recent “resurgence” of mixed methods. However, a new challenge presses social research: creating new methods, which could combine both qualitative and quantitative approaches in a single instrument, squeezing the advantages of both in a single technique. With the benefit of lowering the costs and making more consistent the findings. Some “merged” methods already exist and QROM could be a visionary laboratory. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – An overview of recent research on the spread and use of social research methods in different countries. Findings – In social sciences quantitative methods are not mainstream anymore. Research limitations/implications – The time ...

Set Them Free: Improving Data Quality by Broadening the Interviewer’s Tasks 1

The paper deals with a highly controversial issue in survey data collection: the standardization of the interviewer’s behaviour during the interviewee’s selection of response alternatives. In the light of a large set of data drawn from several methodological studies published in the last 50 years, the author documents a counter‐intuitive issue: (1) interviewer’s errors are of secondary importance and far smaller than respondents’ errors; and (2) in order to minimize respondent’s errors, we need to broaden the interviewer’s tasks. Focusing on the unsolved problem of multiple word meanings of response alternatives as a relevant part of response bias, the author argues that data quality can be achieved by entrusting to the interviewer a more active role. Of course, the aim of reducing respondent’s errors by broadening interviewer’s tasks will surely produce an increase in the interviewer’s effects on answers. However, the dilemma to be faced is which kind of errors we prefer (and are more useful) to minimize.

Why “merged” methods realize a higher integration than “mixed” methods: a reply

Purpose After the initial life (which coincides with the origins of social research in the 1850s, and lasts until 1940s), mixed methods revive at the beginning of 1970s. However, this second life (or renaissance) receives the deleterious imprinting of quantitative methods. In fact, some of the old positivist assumptions are still reproduced and active in most of mixed methods research. This imprinting is traceable in the ambiguity (and purposive semantic stretching) of the term “qualitative”: from the 1990s, it encompasses almost everything (even approaches considered positivistic in the 1950s!). Whereby the semantical extension of the term “qualitative” has become a sort of Trojan horse for a new legitimation of many quantitative and positivist researchers: a great swindle. Today “qualitative” is nonsense and acts as a bug, which muddies the qualitative-quantitative debate. For this reason, it would be better to remove the bug (i.e. to discharge the term “qualitative” from the language of social research and methodology), reset and start over from the level of specific research methods, considering carefully and balancing their diversity before mixing them. The purpose of this paper is to outline two (complementary) ways of integration of methods (“mixed” and “merged”), arguing that “merged” methods realize a higher integration than “mixed” methods, because the former overcome some weaknesses of the latter. Design/methodology/approach A semantic and pragmatic analysis of the term “qualitative.” Findings In social and behavioral sciences, the second life of mixed methods has been heavily affected by old positivist and quantitative assumptions. Research limitations/implications The term “qualitative” should be discharged from the language of social research and methodology. Practical implications The coveted integration in “mixed” methods, could be better pursed through “merged” methods. Social implications Disentangling the strands of a debate (the qualitative-quantitative one) become muddy. Originality/value An alternative framework, to interpret the mixed methods history and their recent developments, has been proposed.

Managing the decline of globalized methodology

In his preface to the World Social Science Report (ISSC, 2010) Gudmund Hernes, the President of the International Social Science Council argues that the contemporary confluence of crises generates a demand for more social science. At the same time, he claims that never before have social scientists had such impact on how the world is seen and acted upon though a rather mixed blessing. The problem is that our map no longer offers proper guidance, ‘while we live on one planet, we belong to worlds apart’ (ISSC, 2010, p. viii). This has instigated a call for developing alternatives to the European scientific legacy that in many ways has both subjugated non-Western social sciences to the Western cultural hegemony as well as reduced academic freedom elsewhere by presenting assumingly universal models or paradigms making their own less relevant. Chinese Deng Zhenglai (2010) calls for academic autonomy by a knowledge transition with ‘authentic participation in intellectual discourse, and academic exchange with social scientists from elsewhere’ (ISSC, 2010, p. 183). This includes developing methods and tools to make local contexts visible and to develop locally embedded responses. But, just as there are no context-free responses, we are also reminded that the social sciences are no power-free zones. The North Atlantic domination in social science journals and in publishing perpetuates a hegemony that tends to marginalize Southern voices. Access to this hegemonic superstructure is crucial to make research count as knowledge though access is systematically skewed in favor of the Anglo-American research communities. This complicates indigenous intellectual authority in the non-Western world and makes international legitimacy problematic as long as knowledge is not ‘global’ until disseminated in the West, and second, published in English. We may use Norwegian Eilert Sundt (1817–1875) (1866/1967) as an illustration; an ‘unknown’ methodological pioneer he walked throughout Norwegian valleys, combined qualitative and quantitative methodology, was well informed about international surveys of the time, and published extensively, but all in a minority language. Europe and the US have been the cradle of contemporary methodology. Consequently most of the methodological knowledge has been invented by a Western academic culture. Social research methods created by European and American indigenous (or local) cultures have throughout the twentieth century become a sort of general knowledge: journals, handbooks, and textbooks have slowly transformed a locally based product in general into context-free principles. This made Alatas (2004) refer to an ‘intellectual superstructure’ as a barrier to non-Western researchers as documented in the ISSC report. Due to this subtle transformation social science methodology has become one of the most globalized knowledges. International Journal of Social Research Methodology Vol. 14, No. 6, November 2011, 411–415

Useful resources: ethnography through the internet

The World Wide Web (WWW) is by now an everyday fact of life. Social scientists cannot work without being connected to this new world, where we can access articles, references, news reports, etc., which we would previously have known nothing about unless we were in direct contact with the authors. In some respects the Internet has also brought greater democracy in the sciences: we are better informed and therefore have more opportunities to participate in conferences, calls, initiatives and events, meeting other students and researchers, and forming new relationships. Email enables us to contact people and exchange opinions, to do research, and to write articles with colleagues whom we have never met physically. All this takes place in real time, while we are physically located in different and sometimes very distant places: things that were impossible 20 years ago. The main aim of this research note is to collect, order and classify the principal ethnographic resources to be found on the web, and to offer it to those who are interested in ethnographic methods. It is obviously a partial list, because new resources are constantly becoming available online. The list is organised as follows: