Studying Elites Using Qualitative Methods / Edition 1

by Rosanna Hertz, Jonathan Imber

Overview

The very nature of elites makes them difficult for social researchers to study. This volume provides valuable insights into how researchers can successfully gain access to elite settings. Using their actual experiences, the contributors provide constructive advice as well as cautionary tales about how they learned to manoeuvre and become accepted in worlds otherwise closed to them.

Three broad research areas are covered: business elites; professional elites; and community and political elites. Useful information is given on how researchers in these areas can gather data, construct interview strategies, write about their subjects and come to experience the research process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803970366
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	08/04/1995
Series:	SAGE Focus Editions , #175
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 9.06(h) x (d)

About the Author

Rosanna Hertz is the 1919 Reunion Professor of Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. She is the author of Single By Chance, Mothers By Choice: How Women are Choosing Parenthood Without Marriage and Creating the New American Family (Oxford Press, 2008). She is also the author or co-author of five edited collections which focus on the use of qualitative methods including Open to Disruption: Time and Craft in the Practice of Slow Sociology (Vanderbilt University, 2015) with Anita Ilta Garey and Margaret K. Nelson.

Table of Contents

Introduction - Rosanna Hertz and Jonathan B Imber
PART ONE: BUSINESS ELITES
Interviewing Important People in Big Companies - Robert J Thomas
Reaching Corporate Executives - Michael Useem
Fielding Hot Topics in Cool Settings - Peter Cleary Yeager and Kathy E Kram
The Study of Corporate Ethics
Using Electronic Media to Support Fieldwork in a Corporate Setting - John P Workman Jr
Tales from the Field - Paul M Hirsch
Learning from Researchers' Accounts
PART TWO: PROFESSIONAL ELITES
Stopping the Spin and Becoming a Prop - Joshua Gamson
Fieldwork on Hollywood Elites
Reflections on Fieldwork in a Complex Organization - Jennifer L Pierce
Lawyers, Ethnographic Authority, and Lethal Weapons
Negotiating Status - Alan Aldridge
Social Scientists and Anglican Clergy
How I Learned What a Crock Was - Howard S Becker
PART THREE: COMMUNITY AND POLITICAL ELITES
‘Surely You're Not in This Just to Be Helpful' - Susan A Ostrander
Access, Rapport, and Interviews in Three Studies of Elites
Local Knowledge and Local Power - Albert Hunter
Notes on the Ethnography of Local Community Elites
Research as a Communication Act - Hanna Herzog
A Study on Israeli Women in Local Politics
Exploding Anthropology's Canon in the World of the Bomb - Hugh Gusterson
Ethnographic Writing on Militarism

Editorial Reviews

Thirteen essays focus on how researchers have successfully gained access to elite settings, how they have come to terms with various dilemmas in conducting and writing about their research, and the decisions made with hindsight about their research. The contributors reflect on their experiences, providing constructive advice as well as cautionary tales about how they learned to maneuver and become accepted in a world otherwise closed to them. The coverage includes three broad research domains: business elites, professional elites, and community and political elites. Paper edition (unseen), $24.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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