Surrender and Community Study: The Study of Loma

Wolff, Kurt H.

doi:10.1007/978-94-010-1526-4_13

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…It does not mean removing the self; on the contrary, it means immersing the self. There is some consensus that researchers achieve objectivity to the degree they get closer to phenomena under study Wolff (1964), for example, suggested that the best method for achieving objectivity for researchers is not to distance themselves but to &dquo;surrender&dquo; to phenomena they wish to understand. This involves &dquo;total involvement, suspension of received notions, pertinence of everything, identification and the risk of being hurt&dquo; (p. 236).…”

Section: Locating the Missing Person: Re-placing Theory In Ethnographymentioning

confidence: 98%

Re-Placing Theory in Ethnography: A Postmodern View

Daly

1997

Qualitative Inquiry

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Does the postmodern climate mark the certain death of theory in ethnographic work? In this article, the author argues that postmodernity does mark the death of traditional forms of theory but it need not mark the end of theorizing activity in ethnography. What is required to keep theory in play is a rearticulation of what theory is in the postmodern view. To this end, the author examines how theory has been treated in the interpretive tradition and then discusses what theory is or can be in postmodern ethnography. Specifically, the author focuses on the relationship between theory and the theory teller, the characteristics of postmodern ethnographic theory, and the textual form of ethnographic theory. Throughout this discussion, the self is problematized in the theory endeavor. THEORY AS A MISSING PERSONEthnographic theory under a postmodem lens is like a missing person: we know of its absence but we are reluctant to have a formal funeral in the event that it reappears. In the same way that people experience a sense of ambiguous loss when a person close to them goes missing, ethnographers are increasingly experiencing ambiguous loss in relation to theory. With ambiguous loss, there is usually an experience of ongoing psychological presence but physical absence. Social scientists still carry the presence of theory around with them, but when we begin to look for its physical presence, it is conspicuously absent. In this article, I make an attempt to at least talk about where theory has gone rather than deal with a vague and unarticulated sense of its absence. I argue that we should continue to have theory in the work that we do. However, we need to rearticulate what theory is according to the lessons of postmodemity before we can re-place it into our ethnographic work.

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Section: Locating the Missing Person: Re-placing Theory In Ethnographymentioning

confidence: 98%

Re-Placing Theory in Ethnography: A Postmodern View

Daly

1997

Qualitative Inquiry

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“…It has much to do with surrender to the human condition and with making oneself vulnerable even at the risk of pain (Wolff 1964). An example of negative empathy that was, however, transformed into positive empathy and led to a theoretical breakthrough will illustrate the point.…”

Section: Karla Poewementioning

confidence: 98%

Writing culture and writing fieldwork: The proliferation of experimental and experiential ethnographies

Poewe

1996

Ethnos

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“…One particular concern is eliminating the effects of the researcher on the data, which is often approached through the standardisation of research procedures, presuming that it is ever possible to isolate a body of research uncontaminated by the researcher (Wolff, 1964). However, reliance on the ethnographer's personal experience of the world he or she is studying may be considered a methodological strength rather than a weakness.…”

Section: Ethnography and Comparative Housing Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnography and Comparative Housing Research

Ronald

2011

International Journal of Housing Policy

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Housing systems across advanced societies are typically compared in terms of quantitative measures of aggregate variables, with little regard for local complexity, diversity and cultural contingency. This paper seeks, through the exploration of ethnographic techniques, to reflect on both the meaningfulness of quantitative comparative studies that neglect local differences as well as qualitative research designs that fail to embed informant discourses with material, cultural and historic contexts. Ethnographic investigations have been rare among housing studies, despite their capacity to connect structural and subjective dimensions of social reality. The first part of the paper explores how ethnography has been applied in urban and housing research. The second considers a particular ethnographic study of Japanese housing consumption as a means to illustrate its comparative application. A specific concern is the disposition of the ethnographer as an outsider and both the cultural and analytical reflexivity realised through the process of acquiring insider perspectives. The paper concludes by considering the ways ethnography may contribute further to the development of comparative understanding in housing research.

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Surrender and Community Study: The Study of Loma

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

Re-Placing Theory in Ethnography: A Postmodern View

Re-Placing Theory in Ethnography: A Postmodern View

Writing culture and writing fieldwork: The proliferation of experimental and experiential ethnographies

Ethnography and Comparative Housing Research

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