Data Analysis in Qualitative Research

"Good research teaches us something we didn't know, maybe that we didn't even realize we needed to know. But how does a researcher setting out to do their work find those elusive, illuminating insights? How can you create a surprise? Sociologists Stefan Timmermans and Iddo Tavory have been teaching young scholars how to do just that, and in Data Analysis in Qualitative Research, they explore the foundations of conducting revelatory ethnographic research. This book's predecessor, Abductive Analysis, teaches students how to uncover the theoretical insights in their ethnographic work; this book ensures that researchers will go into the field ready to make the most out of the relationships and situations they encounter. Timmermans and Tavory describe ways of engaging with theory that help the researcher note where their findings meet and diverge from existing models. They discuss strategies for designing research that zooms in on specific questions and zooms out to observe the interconnectedness of social life. They walk the reader through coding data, encouraging methods that defamiliarize data after it's been collected. They highlight the single most promising path to take when scholars are still not sure what is worth pursuing in their research project. They also take readers through the writing and publishing process, showing that writing is rife with analytical decisions of what to include, how to narrate, how to respond to reviewers, and how to engage an academic audience"--