Documentary method

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The documentary method is a process of reconstructive or qualitative social research that was developed in the social, cultural, educational and pedagogical sciences and is mainly used in these.

term

The term 'documentary method' goes back to Harold Garfinkel , who uses it to denote the methods of establishing a common, everyday order (cf. Garfinkel, 1967: 95). An interpretation of the actions of others always takes place against the background of a non-explicit context knowledge that members of society share; this means that we always perceive actions and statements as 'a document for something' or 'a reference to something'. For Garfinkel, the documentary method is a method of mutual observation and interpretation in everyday life, a method of constructing a common reality.

This is formulated somewhat differently in the case of the sociologist of knowledge Karl Mannheim , to whom Garfinkel refers. In the context of the scientific observation of everyday actors, Mannheim distinguishes the “ documentary sense” of an action or statement from an “objective sense” and an “intended sense of expression”, i.e. subjective sense (Mannheim, 1964: 104). He explains the difference using the following example: "I am walking on the street with a friend, a beggar is standing on the corner, he is giving him alms" (ibid .: 105).

The objective meaning of this action, which is independent of intentions or motives or the way in which it is carried out (e.g. indifferent, annoyed, generous), is according to Mannheim the 'help'. In addition, the friend also connects an intention with his action, so there is a “second layer of meaning: that of the sense of expression. This second type of meaning, in contrast to the first, is characterized by the fact that it in no way possesses that detachability from the subject and its real stream of experience, but only in relation to this, only receives its completely individualized meaning from this 'inner world reference' ”(ibid .: 107 ). This layer of meaning consists of the intention or the motive that the agent links with his or her doing and not doing, which can be equated with the "relevance of motivation" (Schütz / Luckmann, 2003: 286ff.) In the sense of Schütz's sociology of knowledge.

In contrast to Alfred Schütz, however, for Mannheim this layer of meaning is not a central subject of analyzes of the sociology of knowledge. Rather, there is a third layer of meaning in which it is not the (intended) what of the action but the how, the “modus operandi” (Bohnsack, 2008: 60), that is of interest: “In this case, it doesn't matter what the friend objectively done, had achieved, also not on what he 'wanted' to express through his deed, but what through his deed, also unintentionally by him, documented itself for me about him ”(Mannheim, 1964: 108). Such an analytical attitude can be extended to all actions of the friend (or in general the action practice of the researched): “In this direction I can understand all his objectivations, his expression, his play of signs, his pace of life, his speech rhythm, I persist in this interpretative attitude , each of his impulses and actions gets a new 'interpretation' ”(Mannheim, 1964: 108). This means that elementary experience and knowledge structures are reflected in the sense of the document, i.e. structures of conjunctive knowledge in the Mannheim sense. Mannheim distinguishes the form of conjunctive knowledge from communicative knowledge; a distinction that is constitutive for the further development of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge into a "praxeological sociology of knowledge" (Bohnsack 2006c, 2007) and for the documentary method developed by Ralf Bohnsack as an interpretation technique and evaluation method for qualitative resp. reconstructive social research.

Leading difference

Any way of thinking, feeling and perceiving the world and the people who populate it with their actions is, according to Mannheim, tied to our location in the world. He explains this unavoidable aspect quality using the perception of a landscape, which is necessarily only possible in the landscape itself and from a certain vantage point (cf. Mannheim 1980: 212). The landscape as such cannot be recognized. Dissolving perspectives in favor of objectivity means creating a map that can be read and not experienced. In this sense, Korzybski coined the famous sentence: “the map is not the territory” (1958 [1933]: 58). Just as landscapes can only be experienced in perspective, this also applies to social reality. We move in different spaces of experience that are of considerable relevance for the "aspect" (Bohnsack, 2008: Chapters 10 and 11) of existence. In Mannheim's sense, these are conjunctive spaces of experience that are characterized by the fact that their members share essential aspects of a common worldview and a similar style of thinking, i.e. common structures of experience and knowledge. This is accompanied by a common language, the indexicality of which (in the sense of the excess of meaning of signs) is reduced in a way that is specific to the experience space, so that "for the closer community a conjunctive meaning arises" (Mannheim, 1980: 218), which differs from " General term in definitional characterization ”(ibid .: 220). The conjunctive knowledge from specific areas of experience (which, for example, can be conditioned by the dimensions of gender, generation, milieu, peer culture) must be contrasted with those general places and stereotypes that arise from a collectively shared common sense and are hardly linked to one's own everyday practice.

The conjunctivity of language in specific spaces of experience and communities has a double effect: On the one hand, experiences in language can be “banished” (ibid .: 222) and “fixed” (ibid .: 229), so that a shared world of meaning arises and Sediment structures of knowledge. On the other hand, through the naming, events, relationships and facts can be drawn into the common space of experience, related to it, so that a group perceives certain facts in a similar way and regulates them in everyday practice. Through language in particular, collective ideas specific to the space of experience arise (which should not be confused with Émile Durkheim's collective consciousness): “The collective ideas are the precipitate of perspective, but stereotyped, ie conjunctive experience related to a specific space of experience” (Mannheim, 1980: 231). The knowledge that arises in conjunctive experiential spaces is implicit and largely atheoretical knowledge (in the sense of the Bourdieu habitus ) that can hardly be queried explicitly and is expressed or documented in the 'how' of social actions and utterances.

Use as a method of interpretation in qualitative social research

Ralf Bohnsack (2008, 2009) developed a praxeological sociology of knowledge (Bohnsack 2007) following Mannheim and Garfinkel and dealing with Pierre Bourdieu's social theory and, in this context, the documentary method as a method of evaluating and interpreting data material in qualitative and developed reconstructive social research. The core of this procedure is the reconstruction of organizational principles of conjunctive spaces of experience (orientations), i.e. an implicit action-guiding and largely atheoretical knowledge, as well as the relationship of this tacit knowledge to explicable (i.e. reflexively available) knowledge (self-designs, theories about oneself and others). In order to expose the layers of meaning of that conjunctive knowledge, the documentary method proceeds in two specific steps of interpretation.

After the text material (transcriptions of interviews, group discussions , everyday conversations, etc.) has been viewed and thematically structured for overview and comparison, selected passages, especially those with a narrative or interactive density / level of detail (so-called “focusing metaphors”, cf. . Bohnsack 2006b: 67) prepared a formulating and reflective interpretation. In the formulating interpretation, the researcher remains on the level of the immanent meaning, that is: WHAT was said is reformulated. This step serves to alienate the material as well as to differentiate thematic contents (in main and sub-topics), any contextual knowledge is to be faded out and in the reformulation special features of the researched are to be taken over (such as "educational company" or "breeding institute" as an expression for school").

The subsequent reflective interpretation of the material is the core of the documentary method. Here it is important to distance yourself from the level of the WHAT of the text and to focus and describe the HOW. B. deals with a specific topic or problem by a person or group. Particular attention is paid to performance aspects, such as the organization of discourse in group discussions / everyday conversations (Przyborski 2004) or types of text in interviews (Nohl 2006). First (as in all elaborate methods of qualitative research) the material is interpreted sequentially (i.e. step by step) and secondly it is subjected to a comparative, cross-case analysis ( objective hermeneutics and documentary methods differ in the latter aspect in particular). The aim is the reconstruction of specific orientations ("orientation framework", cf. Bohnsack, 2006b: 132) of the researched and mostly the creation of a multi-dimensional typology. In this regard, a distinction can be made between sense-genetic and sociogenetic types. The latter is also able to map the social constitutional logic of the emergence of the reconstructed types, a complex undertaking that is mostly reserved for dissertations or larger project contexts.

application areas

Initially elaborated on the basis of group discussions , the documentary method is now a standard method of empirical research in the social and educational sciences, which is used in the interpretation of everyday conversations, interviews, protocols of participant observation, written statements from those being researched, as well as pictures and films. Areas of application are, for example, youth research, educational research, school research, media (reception) research, organizational research, migration research, gender research, ritual research, family research, evaluation research, and many more (see the overview in Bohnsack, 2008: 31).

literature

  • Bohnsack, Ralf: "Orientation pattern". In: Bohnsack, Ralf / Marotzki, Winfried / Meuser, Michael (eds.): Main terms of qualitative social research . Barbara Budrich, Opladen & Farmington Hills 2006a, pp. 132-133. ISBN 978-3-8252-8226-4 .
  • Bohnsack, Ralf: "Focusing metaphor". In: Bohnsack, Ralf / Marotzki, Winfried / Meuser, Michael (eds.): Main terms of qualitative social research . Barbara Budrich, Opladen & Farmington Hills 2006b, p. 67. ISBN 978-3-8252-8226-4 .
  • Bohnsack, Ralf: "Praxeological sociology of knowledge". In: Bohnsack, Ralf / Marotzki, Winfried / Meuser, Michael (eds.): Main terms of qualitative social research . Barbara Budrich, Opladen & Farmington Hills 2006c, p. 67. ISBN 978-3-8252-8226-4 .
  • Bohnsack, Ralf: "Documentary method and praxeological sociology of knowledge". In: Schützeichel, Rainer (Hrsg.): Handbuch Wissenssoziologie und Wissensforschung . UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, Konstanz 2007, pp. 180–190.
  • Bohnsack, Ralf: Reconstructive Social Research - Introduction to Qualitative Methods . Barbara Budrich, Opladen & Farmington Hills 2008. ISBN 978-3-8252-8242-4 .
  • Bohnsack, Ralf: Qualitative image and video interpretation. The documentary method . Barbara Budrich, Opladen & Farmington Hills 2009. ISBN 978-3-8252-8407-7 .
  • Bohnsack, Ralf / Fritzsche, Bettina / Wagner-Willi, Monika (eds.): Documentary video and film interpretation. Methodology and research practice. Social Science Iconology: Qualitative Image and Video Interpretation, Volume 3. Barbara Budrich, Opladen & Farmington Hills 2014
  • Garfinkel, Harold : Studies in Ethnomethodology . Polity Press, Cambridge 1967.
  • Kellermann, Norbert: Metamorphosis - Sexual Socialization in Female Puberty . Budrich UniPress, Opladen 2012. ISBN 978-3-86388-003-3 .
  • Korzybski, Alfred : Science and Sanity. An Introduction to non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics . Institute for General Semantics, Lakerville 1958 [1933].
  • Mannheim, Karl : "Contributions to the theory of Weltanschauung interpretation". In: Mannheim, Karl: Sociology of Knowledge . Luchterhand, Neuwied 1964 [1921-22], pp. 91-154.
  • Mannheim, Karl: "A sociological theory of culture and its recognizability (conjunctive and communicative thinking)". In: Kettler, David / Meja, Volker / Stehr, Nico (eds.): Karl Mannheim. Structures of thought . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1980 [1924], pp. 155-322.
  • Nohl, Arnd-Michael: Interview and documentary method. Instructions for research practice . VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006.
  • Nohl, Arnd-Michael: "Relational type formation and multilevel analysis. New ways of the documentary method. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2013.
  • Przyborski, Aglaja: Conversation analysis and documentary method. Qualitative evaluation of conversations, group discussions and other discourses . VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004.
  • Schütz, Alfred / Luckmann, Thomas : Structures of the lifeworld . UVK Verlag, Konstanz 2003.

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