Cover of Data Analysis in Qualitative Research
Data Analysis in Qualitative Research Theorizing with Abductive Analysis
by Stefan Timmermans and Iddo Tavory
University of Chicago Press, 2022
Cloth: 978-0-226-81771-2 | Paper: 978-0-226-81773-6 | Electronic: 978-0-226-81772-9
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.001.0001

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University of Chicago Press (cloth, paper, ebook)
ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

From two experts in the field comes an accessible, how-to guide that will help researchers think more productively about the relation between theory and data at every stage of their work.

In Data Analysis in Qualitative Research, Iddo Tavory and Stefan Timmermans provide a how-to guide filled with tricks of the trade for researchers who hope to take excellent qualitative data and transform it into powerful scholarship. In their previous book, Abductive Analysis: Theorizing Qualitative Research, Timmermans and Tavory offered a toolkit for innovative theorizing in the social sciences. In this companion, they go one step further to show how to uncover the surprising revelations that lie waiting in qualitative data—in sociology and beyond.
 
In this book, they lay out a series of tools designed to help both novice and expert scholars see and understand their data in surprising ways. Timmermans and Tavory show researchers how to “stack the deck” of qualitative research in favor of locating surprising findings that may lead to theoretical breakthroughs, whether by engaging with theory, discussing research strategies, or walking the reader through the process of coding data. From beginning to end of a research project, Data Analysis in Qualitative Research helps social scientists pinpoint the most promising paths to take in their approach.
 


 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Stefan Timmermans is professor of sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles. He is the author of Postmortem, Saving Babies, and coauthor Abductive Analysis, all published by the University of Chicago Press. Iddo Tavory is associate professor of sociology at New York University. He is the author of Summoned and coauthor Abductive Analysis, both also published by the University of Chicago Press.
 

REVIEWS

"This book is a manifesto for a better sociology—one centered on explaining the inexplicable in a way that does not merely replicate what we know but empowers us to know more, know subversively, know better. I want to assign this book to every incoming grad student—both to instruct them on what sociology can be and also put in their minds the expectation that they too can create great sociology."
— Jennifer Carlson, University of Arizona

“Data Analysis in Qualitative Research aims to show researchers how to collect, analyze, and write about their data in more theoretically fruitful ways. It presents a set of principles to guide and empower researchers to think more productively about the relation between theory and data. This approach is likely to induce the active engagement that will generate innovative research, rather than simply guiding readers to follow a recipe that would produce a merely passable piece of work.”
— Carol Heimer, Northwestern University

“Timmermans and Tavory have done the field of sociology a great service with their deep and probing exploration of methods of analyzing qualitative research data. Students will find the questions they are often asked answered here to everyone's satisfaction.”
— Howard S. Becker, author of Writing for Social Scientists

“Timmermans and Tavory show us how to use abductive analysis through every stage of the research process to exploit the potential for theory construction that breaks new ground. They give qualitative researchers—beginning and experienced—new ways to think about what we do as we are doing it, as well as a set of new analytic practices.  In so doing, they also give us the ability to teach it.”
— Diane Vaughan, author of Dead Reckoning

“In spite of its title, Data Analysis in Qualitative Research is as much about theory as it is about data. The authors make a case for theoretically informed qualitative research in which true discovery—or, as they put it, surprise—is key. At times irreverent in tone and informed by years of experience, the book will prove valuable to ethnographers and interviewers grappling with qualitative analysis.”
— Mario Small, author of Someone To Talk To

"Timmermans and Tavory’s how-to guide provides tricks of the trade for researchers who hope to take excellent qualitative data and transform it into powerful scholarship. One focus is on how researchers can approach qualitative research in a way that will locate surprising findings that may lead to theoretical breakthroughs."
— Law & Social Inquiry

TABLE OF CONTENTS


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.003.0001
[abduction;theory construction;induction;deduction]
The first chapter articulates the book's central theme: a how-to guide fordoing abductive analysis. The authors review the notion of abduction andits centralrole intheory discovery.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.003.0002
[qualitative methodology;theoretical sensitivity;semiotics]
The second chapter reviews the key components of abductive analysis. The authors focus on the process of theory discovery based on surprising findings in qualitative research. They follow Charles S. Peirce to distinguish abduction from deduction and induction and point to several ways of cultivating surprising research findings: familiarity with multiple theories, methodological kneading of observations, and finding puzzles. The chapter also introduces Peirceian semiotics but note that they are not key to abductive analysis. The authors end the chapter with a case study of how to start abductive reasoning.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.003.0003
[social theories;substantive theories;formal theories]
Thischapter begins with the question of theory: what should you read, how to engage readings, and when to stop reading. Using the metaphors ofmapandcompass,the authors show that literature provides you with landmarks of expectationagainst which new theoretical paths may be tracked. They advise you to familiarize yourself with your subfield and listen to your interlocutors for theoretical inspiration.The chapter urgescareful attention to the ideas of the people you study, and to their ongoing concerns. The authors term this theprinciple of engagementand return to it throughout the bookas one of the most important methodological precepts of qualitative research.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.003.0004
[in-depth interviewing;ethnography;research design]
The fourth chapter addresses questions of research design. Taking ethnography and interview research as two primary methodological anchors, the authors argue that the crux of qualitative research design is an interplay between focusing and defocusing research, between zooming in on specific questions and zooming out at the interconnectedness of social life. All research needs to gather data rich enough to provide possibilities of surprise but different qualitative methods face different challenges. In participant observation, a method that is almost infinitely flexible, weneed tofocusour evolving research. We might achieve this by adding a site as a comparative case, or by shadowing our participants across the places they live their lives. In interview design, which due to question format and time constraint is much more rigid than ethnography, we build breadth into our interview questionnaires, strategicallydefocusingour questions, especially early on, to maximize possibilities of surprise. The interplay of focusing and defocusing leads to organizing our research differently than how these methods are commonly practiced across the social sciences. The chapter encourages a constant, agile adjustment of bringing the phenomena in sharp detail and a move back to explore aspects others ignored to note surprises.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.003.0005
[open coding;sampling;data gathering]
This chapter develops a more systematic version of grounded theory’s open coding. In the initial rounds of coding, we attempt to get a deeper, defamiliarized, sense of the data. We do so, primarily, by mapping and detailing the dramatic structure of our data. Thinking through a coding scheme, we focus on whodoes what, when, where, how, and to what practical effects. This rhythmic questioning of our observations raises aspects of our data that we either took for granted or ignored in the interview or the field. Open coding this way produces two more benefits—first, it allows us to ask about how action and interaction moves forward in our data, priming us to look for processes and privileging mechanism-based explanations of our field. Secondly, it helps us to see what we still don’t know—both in terms of what our interlocutors refer to, but alsoin terms of the silences and gaps in our data. Coding then gives us marching orders of where to go next in our data collection efforts.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.003.0006
[focused coding;index case;data analysis]
Chapter six centers onfocused codingand theindex case.Where open coding tries to decipher a promising theme in the noise of your observations, focused coding elaborates on a theme you surmise––from experience and your familiarity with the existing literature––as promising. While such themes capture patterns in your data, they do not “emerge” from the data, but already stand in relation to the theoretical traditions you engage. Anindex case,a kind of “patient zero” in our data, serves as an anchoring device for the empirical and analytic narrative that your work ends up telling. Choosing and assessing the power of your index case, and then examining variation in light of the index case constitutes the thrust of focused coding.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.003.0007
[surprise;analytical clues;social structure]
Chapter sevenshows the single most promising path to take when you are still not sure what is worth pursuing in your research project. The authors return to the principle of engagement—your responsibility to take your research subjects seriously. Based on a rich tradition of theoretical writingand on practical experience, we focus ontensionswithin the social world we study as a way to deepen our familiarity with the social world.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.003.0008
[writing;data analysis;review process]
Chapter eightshows that the process of writing is rife with analytical decisions of what to include, how to narrate, how to respond to reviewer comments, and how to engage your audience. These decisions are not mere window dressing but, quite literally, constitute your theoretical contributions. Writing up your research becomes a trial of strength: is what you thought was surprising actually that novel and unanticipated? It may require extensive revisions to what you thought your surprising findings were and what your theoretical intervention is. Abduction lends itself to an organizational format of setting up a surprise followed by a theoretical denouement in the text. We encourage you to work with this format; and to adopt a writing style that reinforces rather than obstructs your theorizing. The authors argue for a reflexive writing engagement with words-data-ideas to persuade your audience of what you want them to walk away with.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.003.0009
[data analysis;abduction;big data]
This chapter wraps up the earlier ones and encourages you to be bold and creative in analyzing your data. In an appendix, the authors explore how abductive analysis may also be of interest to computer social science working with large, found data sets.

Book published by University of Chicago Press, 2022. Page maintained by BiblioVault.