In her work Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences: Research in an Age of Info-Glut, Kristin Luker utilizes salsa dancing as an analogy to discuss the kind of research she feels is critical to address our modern world; she asserts that, like salsa dancing, this kind of research is “bold and interdisciplinary” and “for all its improvisational nature…builds on some very specific steps” (2). She advocates for us to evolve our research methods and thinking beyond what has typically been practiced in the past or is even taught to us today, for the reasons that these earlier methods do not account for the fact that we are now living in a nonlinear world and the availability of literature (and filtering of literature) has changed drastically in the age of the internet. Rather than “mastering esoteric facts or techniques,” she argues that knowledge in the current era comes from making connections “across traditional boundaries— going wide rather than deep” (13).
In his piece “Understanding,” Bourdieu explores communication by exploring the “simultaneously practical and theoretical problems which emerge in the particular case of the interview between the investigator and the person questioned” (17). Although I was admittedly a bit fuzzy on some of the points that he made, I felt that he was primarily saying that we need to be more aware of reflexivity and the positionality and social relations of the interviewer and interviewee. I felt he also advocated that it is crucial, as a good or ethical researcher who is committed to uncovering social truths, to be empathetic towards interviewees, to respect them as having “lived lives” and having experiences and vast social conditions that all contribute to who they are, and to practice “active listening” and allow the interviewee to partake “in the project of self-portraiture” that they wish to “engage in” rather than imposing (27).
I actually felt there was quite a bit of overlap in the points that were made by Luker and Bourdieu as they both criticize the ways that research has more commonly or traditionally been conducted and advocate for some sort of shift (which reminded me somewhat of Eve Tuck, particularly Bourdieu). Also, I think that both of their arguments, to some degree, take into account some questions of power or accessibility involved in research. Bourdieu discusses the social asymmetry that is inherent between the interviewer and interviewee and the violence that can be exerted in this process. Luker actually cites Bourdieu in her brief discussion of cultural capital, and she talks about who used to hold the keys to knowledge and “conduct the social research” in the past vs now (as well as the audience who consumes this and who is interested in learning more about social life).
I thought that Luker’s piece was particularly relevant to the research that I envision myself conducting both this summer and well into the future, as it focuses on bridging disciplines in research, which is much of what ALIGN does as they try to link issues and interests from all sorts of (often conflicting) fields. I would actually be quite curious to read the remainder of the book and see what more concrete methods and suggestions she has for approaching this type of research. Additionally, I felt Bourdieu’s piece was quite relevant as I try to keep in mind my positionality when thinking about what communities I may be coming in contact with through my work and may be surveying/interviewing this summer.
I think you can download all of Luker’s book from Bobst, so go for it! Given the research methods courses you’ve taken, I wonder how these pieces compare? Do they echo the ways your methods are framed in other courses, or are they as original as they seem? In other words, has the canon that Luker critiques changed since she first wrote (which was not that long ago)? It’s also striking to me how much Bourdieu’s words, written in 1996, seem so fundamental now. Perhaps that’s the influence of non-linearity and Foucauldian thought that Luker asks us to consider.