Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This paper explores some of the implications for qualitative researchers within sociology of developments in Grid technology and thereby aims to contribute to the debate on the future of sociological research in an increasingly digitised world. The well-established field of humanities computing provides an interesting counterpoint.

We use the methodological techniques of ‘secondary analysis’ and ‘visual research’, two currently marginal approaches within sociological research but with huge potential within e-environments, as lenses through which the potentials and pitfalls of Grid-supported qualitative work might be anticipated. Rather than a concern with the technical however, we argue for a concurrent attention to the methodological in relation to technological developments.

We find that current developments in the qualitative field are more in line with the interests of the humanities and this may shape and constrain the research that sociologists could do. Also, that the conditions to support innovative sociological developments for qualitative Grid computing are not currently well developed or supported. We conclude that in order for a more progressive e-social science agenda to emerge, a broader constituency of sociological researchers should engage with the technological debate, otherwise we risk missing out on opportunities to shape emerging technologies to our research needs.

Keywords

Grid Technology E-Social Science Secondary Analysis Visual Sociology Humanities Computing

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adam

(1998) Artificial Knowing: Gender and the thinking machine. London: Routledge.

Akrich

(1992). The De-scription of technical objects. Ch.7 in Bijker & Law (ed.s) Shaping technology/building society: studies in sociotechnical change. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press.

BA (2005). E-resources for research in the humanities and social sciences. A British Academy Review.

Ball

, and SMITH

G.W.H.

(1992) Analyzing Visual Data. London: Sage.

Banks

(2001) Visual methods in social research. London: Sage.

Bateson

, and MEAD

(1942) Balinese character: A photographic analysis. New York: New York academy of sciences.

Becker

H. S.

(1974) Photography and Sociology. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication, 1, pp. 3–26.

Becker

H. S.

(2000) What Should Sociology Look Like in the (Near) Future? Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 333–336.

Berman

, and BRADY

(2005). Workshop on Cyberinfrastructure for the social and behavioral sciences: Final Report. Available from <http://director.sdsc.edu/pubs/SBE/reoprts/SBE-CISE-FINAL.pdf> [date of access 20/4/07]

10.

Brackenbury

(2004). The 18th century British Parliamentary Papers digitisation project. A case study in the use of robotic book-scanning techniques and workflow automation to create large-scale digital libraries from bound printed texts. Available from <http://www.bopcris.ac.uk/curl_newsletter_soton_dl_2004_10_18.pdf> [date of access 4/8/06].

11.

Corti

, and THOMPSON

(2004). ‘Secondary Analysis of Archive Data’ in, C. Seale et al. (eds.), Qualitative research practice. London: Sage Publications, pp. 327–343.

12.

Emmison

, and SMITH

(2000) Researching the Visual. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

13.

ESRC (2006). <http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/methods/festival/> [date of access 10/11/06]

14.

Fielding

N.G.

(2000). The Shared Fate of Two Innovations in Qualitative Methodology: The Relationship of Qualitative Software and Secondary Analysis of Archived Qualitative Data. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research [Online Journal], Vol. 1, No. 3. Available at: <http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-00/3-00fielding-e.htm> [date of access: 02/12/05]

15.

Fielding

N.G.

(2003) Qualitative research and E-Social Science: appraising the potential. Manchester: National Centre for E-Social Science. Available from: <http/www.esrc.ac.uk/esrccontent/DownloadDocs/Fieldingreport.doc> [date of access: 07/12/05]

16.

Fielding

N.G.

, and MACINTYRE

(2006). Access Grid nodes in field research, Sociological Research Online, Vol. 11, No. 2, <http://www.socresonline.org.uk/11/2/fielding.html> [date of access 4/8/06].

17.

Foster

, KESSELMAN

, and TUECKE

(2001). The Anatomy of the Grid: Enabling Scalable Virtual Organization. International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 200–222.

18.

Gladney

H.M.

(2004). ‘Trustworthy 100-year Digital Objects: Durable encoding for when it's too late to ask’, Available from ERPAePrints <http://eprints/erpanet.org/7/> [date of access 3/1/07].

19.

Greengrass

, HITCHCOCK

, CIRAVEGNA

, and CHAPMAN

(2005). Armadillo: Information Mining in Distributive Research Datasets in the Arts and Humanities. Sheffield: Humanities Research Institute Online Press. Available at <http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/armadillo/index.html> [date of access 07/12/05].

20.

Haggerty

K.D.

(2004). Ethics creep: governing social science research in the name of ethics. Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 27, pp. 391–414.

21.

Hammersley

(1997). ‘Qualitative data archiving: some reflections on its prospects and problems’, Sociology, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 131–42.

22.

Heaton

(1998). Secondary analysis of qualitative data. Social Research Update, Autumn issue. Guildford: University of Surrey Institute of Social Research.

23.

Hinds

, VOGEL

, and CLARKE-STEFFEN

(1997). The possibilities and pitfalls of doing a secondary analysis of a qualitative data set. Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 408–24.

24.

Howell

, and PREVENIER

(2001) From reliable sources: an introduction to historical methods. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press.

25.

Jordanova

L.J.

(2000) History in Practice. London: Arnold.

26.

Jorgensen

(1999). Access to pictorial material: A review of current research and future prospects. Computers and the humanities, Vol. 33, pp. 293–318.

27.

Katz

(2005). Why technology matters: the humanities in the 21^st century. Interdisciplinary science reviews, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 105–118.

28.

Kirschenbaum

M.G.

(2002). Image-based humanities computing. Computing and the humanities, Vol. 36, pp. 3–6.

29.

Latour

(2007). ‘Click-era spawns a data-rich world’. The Times Higher Educational Supplement, 06/04/07, p.16.

30.

Linden

, MARTIN

, MASTERS

, and PARKER

(2005). The large-scale archival storage of digital objects, Technology Watch Report, The Digital Preservation Coalition: British Library. Available at <http://www.dpconline.org/docs/dpctw04-03.pdf> [date of access 3/1/07].

31.

Mackenzie

, and WAJCMAN

(1999). The social shaping of technology. 2nd Ed. Buckingham: Open University Press.

32.

Marwick

(2002). Knowledge and language: History, the humanities, the sciences. History, Vol. 87, pp. 3–18.

33.

Mccarty

(1999). We would know how we know what we know: Responding to the computational transformation of the humanities. Available from <http://www.cch.kcl.ac.uk/legacy/staff/wlm/essays/know/know.html> [date of access 10/11/06].

34.

Mccullach

C.B.

(2004) What do historians argue about? History and Theory, Vol. 43, pp. 18–38.

35.

NCESS (2005). National Centre for E-Social Science (2005) Pilot demonstrator projects [online]. Manchester: National Centre for E Social Science. Available from <http://www.ncess.ac.uk/research/pdp/> [date of access: 25/11/05]

36.

NESC (2006). National E-Science Centre, <http://www.nesc.ac.uk/nesc/define.html> [date of access 20/06/06]

37.

Nissenbaum

(2001) How computer systems embody values. Computer, 34(3), pp. 118–120.

38.

Pink

(2004) Doing visual ethnography: images, media and representation in research. London: Sage.

39.

Plummer

, 2001. Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism. London: Sage.

40.

PROSSER, J. (ed), (1998) Image-based research: A sourcebook for qualitative researchers. Bristol, PA: Falmer.

41.

RCUK (2004). Research Councils UK, Summary of Generic Grid Middleware and Demonstrator Projects <http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/research/esci/middleware.pdf> [date of access 20/4/07]

42.

SROa <http://www.socresonline.org.uk/threads/qual/qual.html>

43.

SROb <http://www.socresonline.org.uk/threads/computers/computers.html>

44.

SRO (2005). <http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/1/contents.html>

45.

Wagner

(2002). Contrasting images, complementary trajectories: sociology, visual sociology and visual research. Visual studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 160–171.

46.

Woolgar

(2003) Social Shaping Perspectives on e-Science and e-Social Science: the case for research support. A consultative study for the European Social Research Council (ESRC). Manchester: National Centre for E-Social Science. Available from <http://www.ncess.ac.uk/docs/social_shaping_perspectives.pdf> [date of access: 07/12/05].

Sociological Engagements with Computing: The Advent of E-Science and Some Implications for the Qualitative Research Community

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References