Couch theBricoleur: Using Ethnographic and Laboratory Traditions to Establish Data Careers

Abstract

Carl Couch reinvigorated the Iowa School of Symbolic Interaction by combining the theoretical and methodological tenets of ethnography and laboratory science. He thus resembled a bricoleur, or researcher who masters several seemingly diverse practices in order to create a seamless whole. Couch's new Iowa School also produced a bricolage, or a sum total of research findings, that I call a data career. This article pays tribute to Couch the bricoleur and his bricolage by elaborating on his data career and discussing how he created ethnographies in the laboratory. I further link the notions of bricoleur, data careers, and ethnographies in the laboratory with Couch's democratic vision. I contextualize this vision in light of a particular representative‐constituent study (RCS) which served as a metaphor for Couch's pragmatic outlook.

Resources in play: Bricolage in the Toy Store(y)

“…From its origins in anthropology, the notion of bricolage has proved useful in an extremely broad range of scholarly fields. Disciplines invoking use of Levi-Strauss's insights include-not surprisingly-anthropology (Chao, 1999;Dumont, 1996) and sociological ethnography (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994;Katovich, 1995;Weinstein and Weinstein, 1991), but also political science (Lanzara, 1998); women's studies (Gray, 1982), interpersonal relationships (Conville, 1997), complex information systems design (Lanzara, 1999), legal studies (Hull, 1991;Tushnet, 1999), education (Dent and Hatton, 1996;Hatton, 1988;Rynes and Trank, 1999) and evolutionary genetics, biology and economics (Campbell, 1997;Duboule and Wilkins, 1998;Hirabayashi, 1996;Hirabayashi and Kasai, 1993;Jacob, 1977;Lavorgna et al, 2001). Baker and Nelson (2005) conducted an extensive review of this literature and found three main themes that were common across disciplines.…”

Bricolage and Bodies of Knowledge: Exploring Consumer Responses to Controversy about the Third Generation Oral Contraceptive Pill

“…The way that I use 'bricolage' throughout this article both develops and critiques its usage in social theory (Hess, 1997;Katovich, 1995;Lévi-Strauss, 1968;Preston, 1996;Turkle and Papert, 1990;Weinstein, 1991;Weinstein and Weinstein, 1991). The conventional definition of a bricoleur is someone who is a 'handyman ' [sic] or 'jack-of-all-trades' [sic] (Hess, 1997).…”

“…The term entered social theory in Lévi-Strauss's (1968) major work on the 'primitive' mind, but it has subsequently been embraced by qualitative researchers who promote bricolage as a legitimate field of inquiry (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994). Researchers have interpreted other theorists as bricoleurs (Katovich, 1995;Weinstein and Weinstein, 1991) and the transcripts of interviewees have been interpreted as narratives of bricolage (Preston, 1996). Bricolage is also likened to 'epistemological pluralism' and advocated as a valid approach to knowledge (Turkle and Papert, 1990).…”