Researching Values with Qualitative Methods: Empathy, Moral Boundaries and the Politics of Research

131 Pages·2015·0.77 MB·English

by  Antje Bednarek-Gilland

ReseaRching Values with
QualitatiVe Methods
For Debra
Researching Values with
Qualitative Methods
Empathy, Moral Boundaries and the
Politics of Research
antje BednaRek-gilland
The Social Sciences Institute of the Evangelical Church in Germany
© antje Bednarek-gilland 2015
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
antje Bednarek-gilland has asserted her right under the copyright, designs and Patents act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing company
wey court east 110 cherry street
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British library.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Bednarek-gilland, antje.
Researching values with qualitative methods : empathy, moral boundaries and the politics of
research / by antje Bednarek-gilland.
pages cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-1-4724-1929-3 (hardback) – isBn 978-1-4724-1930-9 (ebook) –
isBn 978-1-4724-1931-6 (epub) 1. Values. 2. social sciences – Research. 3. Qualitative
research. i. title.
Bd232.B383 2015
303.3’72072--dc23
2014037670
isBn 9781472419293 (hbk)
isBn 9781472419309 (ebk – PdF)
isBn 9781472419316 (ebk – ePuB)
Printed in the united kingdom by henry ling limited,
at the dorset Press, dorchester, dt1 1hd
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1 Values in the Social Sciences 5
2 Empathy, Verstehen and Values 31
3 Moral Values and Qualitative Research 53
4 The Political Values of the Research Community 75
Conclusion: How to do Value-Sensitive Fieldwork 97
Bibliography 109
Index 121
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Acknowledgements
I am indebted to a number of people who assisted me during the research
for and the writing of this book. The initial inspiration to write it grew out
of my doctoral research at the University of Aberdeen. I want to thank
Andrea Anderson, Abdallah Baguma, James Camilleri and Jenny Grieve-Laing
at Aberdeen in particular for their good friendship and for sharing their
experiences of growing up and living in Scotland with me. Over many years, this
sharing in particular has helped me to become more aware of my own values
and opinions and how they relate to my experience. Lesley Hunt at Lincoln
University (NZ) who is a wonderful and passionate qualitative methods teacher
opened my eyes to the countless possible topics which can be researched using
qualitative methods. The impetus coming from her was later reinforced by Chris
Wright at Aberdeen – thank you both. Specific support for this book project
came from Markus Mühling, whose keen and critical interest has motivated
me to sharpen some of my arguments, and from Hans Joas, whose blanket
espousal of qualitative research on values gave me a great boost of confidence.
I also want to thank Neil Jordan at Ashgate whose support of this project was
instrumental in me seeing it through.
I could not have written this book without the steady and loving support
of my friends and family. Jacqui, Roxi, Jasmin and Verena – your belief in me
and my work means more to me than I can say. My husband David Andrew
Gilland has read the entire manuscript and engaged me in critical discussions
of many of the finer points in the argument, for which I am infinitely grateful,
all the more so since my working on this book really cut into our time together.
Lastly I want to thank my PhD supervisor and friend Debra Gimlin who has
nurtured me over many years with her intelligent and kind presence. Debra
laid the seed of trust in my abilities and this gave me the courage to tackle
interesting and challenging topics such as how we might be able to study values
using qualitative methods. I dedicate the book to her. The shortcomings of and
mistakes in the manuscript are of course mine and mine alone.
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Introduction
Values are ‘back on the sociological menu’. The editors of a special issue of
Current Sociology (March 2011) on the topic of values and culture claim that
‘interest in values and moral concern is growing’ (Bachika and Schulz, 2011,
p. 107). A range of publications in the Sociology of Morality (Honneth, 2007;
Hitlin and Vaisey, 2010b; Sayer, 2005; Lamont, 1992; Lamont, 2010; Sayer, 2011)
give further evidence to this development. Partly responsible for the resurgence
of interest in the sociological study of values is that values are ‘part of the
common-sense culture in which everyone lives’ (Wuthnow, 2008, p. 339) and
that this ‘common-sense culture’ is increasingly assuming centre stage in British
and American Sociology of Culture (Inglis, 2005; Alexander, 2003). Another
reason could lie in the fact that since the 1960s, western capitalist societies
have undergone dramatic cultural shifts entailing changed value-based outlooks
of large swathes of the population which have attracted scholarly curiosity
(Klages, 1988; Inglehart, 1977). A loss of values or the ‘weakening of their
binding force’ (Joas, 2000, p. 4) has been noted and piqued interest as to their
causes (e.g. Bellah et al., 1996; Putnam, 2000). At the same time, scholars in the
sociology and philosophy of emotions have begun to inquire into the seemingly
rather close ties between values and emotions (Flam, 2002; Landweer, 2009;
Nussbaum, 2013). Speaking of values in sociology, then, puts one in pretty
good company.
But it is not so simple to speak of values as a qualitative sociologist. To the
contrary; qualitative sociologists usually have very little to say on the topic. A
few years ago, after I had just finished giving a paper on my all-but completed
PhD thesis which looked at the role of values in Conservative politics and which
was based on ethnographic fieldwork, I was told by the professor who chaired
the session: ‘If I were you, I would get rid of the term ‘values’ altogether. This
is such an outdated topic. Could you not speak about attitudes or preferences
instead?’ A few months later I passed my final oral examination and was allowed
to submit my thesis to the university library and archives without any further
corrections. Who was right: the professor who told me to get rid of values
or the examiners who had read my entire work on values and approved of
it? I wanted to believe in the second team but was quite shaken by the strong
rejection of my work at face value (no pun intended), i.e. simply because it
focused on values. I could not understand what it was with this concept which
repulsed not only this one scholar, but others too (as I discovered by and by).
Values are part of the staple diet of social scientists, after all. They are one third