Policy Press
Voices 4 Old and new trends
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Abstract
Research projects are rarely straightforward. However logically first planned, their success depends on negotiating misfortunes such as ill-health or interpersonal competition, and also rivalry between different groups in the wider research world. Here are some accounts of conflict and also of building up research groupings. Much was expected of Margaret Stacey’s second Banbury Study. It proved a disappointment, and a turning point, the start of the decline of community studies. Colin Bell, lead fieldwork researcher, reflects on the tangle of intellectual doubts and personal difficulties which led to this crucial disappointment: So, to Banbury. Your Tikopia. You once wrote, ‘Banbury will forever be the social system with which I compare all else. It is my Nuer land and my Tikopia.’ You see, that’s there. You see, it was there, I really wanted to be a proper anthropologist! I think that’s no longer true. And I went through Banbury fairly recently, and was quite sort of taken aback with the changes. But it was, it was expansive fieldwork. It was a full community. It was a full range, there were poor people, there were titled people. It had a working economy, an aluminium factory. While we were there General Foods moved Maxwell House Coffee and Birds Custard out of the centre of Birmingham to Banbury... I think, this is almost metaphysical, and I don’t really think I understood – I do now – the constraints that anyone who does a replication, is going to be under, if the person who wrote the first study, which is a bloody good book – a bloody good book – the constraints I was actually under, and I don’t think, deep down, I didn’t own those constraints, I hadn’t internalised those constraints.
Abstract
Research projects are rarely straightforward. However logically first planned, their success depends on negotiating misfortunes such as ill-health or interpersonal competition, and also rivalry between different groups in the wider research world. Here are some accounts of conflict and also of building up research groupings. Much was expected of Margaret Stacey’s second Banbury Study. It proved a disappointment, and a turning point, the start of the decline of community studies. Colin Bell, lead fieldwork researcher, reflects on the tangle of intellectual doubts and personal difficulties which led to this crucial disappointment: So, to Banbury. Your Tikopia. You once wrote, ‘Banbury will forever be the social system with which I compare all else. It is my Nuer land and my Tikopia.’ You see, that’s there. You see, it was there, I really wanted to be a proper anthropologist! I think that’s no longer true. And I went through Banbury fairly recently, and was quite sort of taken aback with the changes. But it was, it was expansive fieldwork. It was a full community. It was a full range, there were poor people, there were titled people. It had a working economy, an aluminium factory. While we were there General Foods moved Maxwell House Coffee and Birds Custard out of the centre of Birmingham to Banbury... I think, this is almost metaphysical, and I don’t really think I understood – I do now – the constraints that anyone who does a replication, is going to be under, if the person who wrote the first study, which is a bloody good book – a bloody good book – the constraints I was actually under, and I don’t think, deep down, I didn’t own those constraints, I hadn’t internalised those constraints.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of abbreviations iv
- Authorship v
- Acknowledgements vi
- Finding and using the pioneers’ interviews vii
- Introduction: the pioneers of social research study 1
- Moments of discovery 9
- Life stories: biography and creativity 21
- Beginnings 33
- Contexts: Empire, politics and culture 45
- Old boundaries, new thoughts 73
- Organising: creating research worlds 79
- Old and new trends 101
- Fighting or mixing: quantitative and qualitative research 111
- Into the field 129
- Fieldwork: making methods 135
- On the margins 161
- Social divisions: class, gender, ethnicity – and more 163
- Reflections for the future 189
- Conclusion: what can we learn? 199
- Epilogue 203
- Notes 209
- Further reading 215
- Biographical summaries 219
- Index 233
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of abbreviations iv
- Authorship v
- Acknowledgements vi
- Finding and using the pioneers’ interviews vii
- Introduction: the pioneers of social research study 1
- Moments of discovery 9
- Life stories: biography and creativity 21
- Beginnings 33
- Contexts: Empire, politics and culture 45
- Old boundaries, new thoughts 73
- Organising: creating research worlds 79
- Old and new trends 101
- Fighting or mixing: quantitative and qualitative research 111
- Into the field 129
- Fieldwork: making methods 135
- On the margins 161
- Social divisions: class, gender, ethnicity – and more 163
- Reflections for the future 189
- Conclusion: what can we learn? 199
- Epilogue 203
- Notes 209
- Further reading 215
- Biographical summaries 219
- Index 233
