Best, Worst, and Good Enough

Metatheme Analysis: A Qualitative Method for Cross-Cultural Research

“…Despite this burgeoning renaissance, methodological research on cross-cultural ethnography has exploded only in the last 5 years. The recent work has focused on how to: conduct local and regional case comparisons (Schnegg & Lowe, 2020), scale-up ethnographic findings (Bollig et al, 2020), develop shared questions and data collection procedures across ethnographic fieldsites (Hirsch et al, 2020), examine phenomena that are inherently multi-sited (Falzon, 2016), and apply findings to inform public policy (Pacheco-Vega, 2020). A major challenge to emerge from this work is how to bridge locally-grounded and broader-scale findings (Lowe & Schnegg, 2020, p. 16), a challenge that can be addressed using metatheme analysis.…”

“…One key aspect of cross-cultural, team-based, multi-sited research is the need to develop a shared protocol, based on theoretical domains that can be explored in parallel across the sites (Hirsch et al, 2020; Wutich & Brewis, 2019). Our interview protocol anticipated comparing and contrasting themes related to body weight across all four sites.…”

“…First, researchers must select non-probability samples in ways that produce comparative data across sites (Hagaman & Wutich, 2017). Second, they must structure semi-structured protocols to yield comparable data from every site while also keeping in mind the specific linguistic, cultural, and social context of each study site (Hirsch et al, 2020, Wutich & Brewis, 2019. Third, they must make culturally-sensitive decisions around how rapport-building, positionality, and reflexivity will be navigated at each site (Mendenhall, 2019;Manohar et al, 2017;Pacheco-Vega, 2020;Suwankhong & Liamputtong, 2015).…”

“…Our protocols were designed carefully to avoid documented pitfalls to the largest extent possible, such as eliciting non-comparable datasets or the lack of documentation for implicit cultural knowledge (Hirsch et al, 2009, Quilgars et al, 2009). We prioritized the systematic aspects of research, developed shared sampling strategies, and built shared interview protocols that drew on our linguistic and ethnographic knowledge of each of the sites (Hirsch et al, 2020; Wendt, 2020; Wutich & Brewis, 2019). This included bringing on additional team members with relevant long-term ethnographic field experience to ensure adequate capacity at each field site.…”

“…In recent years, there has been a florescence of cross-cultural research using ethnographic data. This cutting-edge work confronts a range of significant methodological challenges in undertaking cross-cultural ethnography (Bollig et al, 2020; Falzon, 2016; Hirsch et al, 2020; Pacheco-Vega, 2020; Schnegg & Lowe, 2020). While this new methodological scholarship is rapidly and significantly advancing our understanding of how to conduct qualitative cross-cultural research, it currently provides very little guidance on how to do thematic analysis cross-culturally.…”