This review essay* has two aims: to present recent literature in which qualitative 'soft' research methods are either discussed or used, and, secondly, to try to make general conclusions about the use of these methods and their relevance for social research and theorizing.
Two of the books are essentially methodological guides in which the techniques are discussed and exemplified. Four are examples of such qualitative techniques and their uses, going from a rather simple biogra phic analysis to an ambitious social scientific analytic scheme in which the qualitative method has been used, in principle, as a comparable method.
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