Abstract

This book takes as its premise that how we negotiate the challenges of inequality in the 21st century depends less on what we consciously think about “difference” and more on what we inadvertently assume.  The analysis illustrates how commonsense functions to naturalize historical relations of power and privilege through the appearance of an inherently objective social world that seems to rise up in front of us, separate, distinct, and often overpowering.  Using commonsense knowledge as an analytical framework, this book makes a unique contribution to existing literature by demonstrating how race, gender, and class are made visible and meaningful as apparently routine matters of social difference. I illustrate how commonsense knowledge can sustain systems of inequality without mobilizing conscious feelings of bigotry or prejudice. Throughout, I demonstrate how lived experience, and the discourses through which experience is constituted, are analytically and politically linked. I re-theorize race, gender, and class and explore corresponding implications and strategies for social change. In addition, an overarching goal of this book is to produce a fuller understanding of the productive force of language with respect to race, gender, and class.  Therefore, I draw from both ethnomethodology and poststructural discourse analysis to analyze the production of commonsense knowledge at both local and cultural levels.

  In this paper, I examine the cultural production of homelessness in the United States with particular concern for the intimate connection between discursive practices and material conditions.  Drawing from poststructural discourse analysis, I trace the discursive development of “homelessness” and “homeless people” between 1982 and 1996 in The New York Times, Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.  I explore changes in discursive practices and demonstrate how these changes produce, transform, and stabilize public knowledge about people who cannot afford housing. In conjunction, I deconstruct current discursive practices in newspapers and examine the relationship of these practices to local political responses to homelessness.  I then discuss how discursive practices regarding poverty create particular problems, deliberations, and interventions, while precluding others.  Finally, I consider the implications of my findings for class politics and social change. 

The contributions provide unique insights into the variety and richness of qualitative social research in
 Europe (without limiting the issue to a solely European perspective). As always, in addition to articles
relating to "Qualitative Research in Europe," FQS 6(3) also provides selected single contributions and
articles that belong to the FQS Debateon Qualitative Research and Ethics, to FQS Reviews, and to FQS
Conferences.

FQS 6(3) THE STATE OF THE ART OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN EUROPE

http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/fqs-e/inhalt3-05-e.htm English
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/fqs-d/inhalt3-05-d.htm German
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/fqs-s/inhalt3-05-s.htm Spanish

Katja Mruck, César A. Cisneros Puebla & Robert Faux: Editorial: About
Qualitative Research Centers and Peripheries
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-49-e.htm
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-49-s.htm

Hubert Knoblauch, Uwe Flick (Germany) & Christoph Maeder (Switzerland):
Qualitative Methods in Europe: The Variety of Social Research
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-34-e.htm

1. General Methodological Trends in Qualitative Research

Paul Atkinson (UK): Qualitative Research -- Unity and Diversity
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-26-e.htm

Giampietro Gobo (Italy): The Renaissance of Qualitative Methods
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-42-e.htm

David Silverman (UK): Instances or Sequences? Improving the State of the
Art of Qualitative Research
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-30-e.htm

2. National Overviews: Qualitative Methods in Various European Countries
in Comparison to the U.S.

Johannes Angermueller (Germany): "Qualitative" Methods of Social
Research in France: Reconstructing the Actor, Deconstructing the Subject
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-19-e.htm

Ronald Hitzler (Germany): The Reconstruction of Meaning. Notes on German
Interpretive Sociology
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-45-e.htm

Shalva Weil (Israel): Qualitative Methods in Israel
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-46-e.htm

Attila Bruni & Giampietro Gobo (Italy): Qualitative Research in Italy
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-41-e.htm

Dirk Schubotz (Northern Ireland): Beyond the Orange and the Green. The
Diversification of the Qualitative Social Research Landscape in Northern
Ireland
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-29-e.htm

Krzysztof T. Konecki, Anna M. Kacperczyk & Lukasz T. Marcianiak
(Poland): Polish Qualitative Sociology. The General Features and
Development
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-27-e.htm

Frane Adam & Darka Podmenik (Slovenia): Qualitative Research in a
Changing Epistemic Context. The Case of a Small Social Science Community
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-40-e.htm

Miguel S. Valles & Alejandro Baer (Spain): Qualitative Social Research
in Spain: Past, Present, and Future. A Portrait
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-18-e.htm
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-18-s.htm

Thomas S. Eberle & Florian Elliker (Switzerland): A Cartography of
Qualitative Research in Switzerland
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-24-e.htm

Karen Henwood & Iain Lang (UK): Qualitative Social Science in the UK: A
Reflexive Commentary on the "State of the Art"
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-48-e.htm

Uwe Flick (Germany): Qualitative Research in Sociology in Germany and
the US -- State of the Art, Differences and Developments
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-23-e.htm

Margarethe Kusenbach (USA): Across the Atlantic: Current Issues and
Debates in US Ethnography
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-47-e.htm

3. Innovations in Special Methods

Reiner Keller (Germany): Analysing Discourse. An Approach From the
Sociology of Knowledge
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-32-e.htm

Hubert Knoblauch (Germany): Focused Ethnography
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-44-e.htm

Kai-Olaf Maiwald (Germany): Competence and Praxis: Sequential Analysis
in German Sociology
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-31-e.htm

Eva Nadai & Christoph Maeder (Switzerland): Fuzzy Fields. Multi-Sited
Ethnography in Sociological Research
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-28-e.htm

Michaela Pfadenhauer (Germany): Ethnography of Scenes. Towards a
Sociological Life-world Analysis of (Post-traditional)
Community-building
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-43-e.htm

Single Contributions

Karen Cronick (Venezuela): A Rhetorical and Hermeneutic Analysis of
Texts Related to Alcohol Use
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-8-e.htm
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-8-s.htm

Anat Kainan, Michal Rozenberg, Miri Munk & Nurit Eilam (Israel): The
Descendants of Time and the Lodgers of Space: The Life Stories of
Teacher Trainees who Immigrated to Israel During the 1990s
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-10-e.htm

Andrea Lauser (Germany): Locating Ethnography and Global Processes
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-7-e.htm

Wiebke Lohfeld (USA): Fight for Recognition. The Portrait of the German
Physician Paula TOBIAS (1886-1970). A Reconstructive Biographical
Analysis
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-22-e.htm

Katie MacMillan (UK): More Than Just Coding? Evaluating CAQDAS in a
Discourse Analysis of News Texts
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-25-e.htm

Marcello Maneri (Italy) & Jessika ter Wal (The Netherlands): The
Criminalisation of Ethnic Groups: An Issue for Media Analysis
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-9-e.htm

Henning van den Brink (Germany): Cooperation Relationships in Community
Prevention Committees -- Neglected by Qualitative Social Research?
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-20-e.htm

FQS Debate: "Qualitative Research and Ethics"

Lisa J. Blodgett, Wanda Boyer & Emily Turk (Canada): "No thank you, not
today": Supporting Ethical and Professional Relationships in Large
Qualitative Studies
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-35-e.htm

Rowhea Elmesky (USA): Rethinking Qualitative Research: Research
Participants as Central Researchers and Enacting Ethical Practices as
Habitus
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-36-e.htm

Michelle K. McGinn (Canada): Ethical and Friendly Researchers, but not
Insiders: A Response to Blodgett, Boyer, and Turk
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-37-e.htm

Catherine Milne (USA): On Being Authentic: A Response to "No thank you,
not today": Supporting Ethical and Professional Relationships in Large
Qualitative Studies
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-38-e.htm

Kathryn Scantlebury (USA): Maintaining Ethical and Professional
Relationships in Large Qualitative Studies: A Quixotic Ideal?
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-39-e.htm

FQS Reviews

Michael Appel (Germany): Review, Birgit Griese, Hedwig Rose Griesehop &
Martina Schiebel (Eds.) (2004). Perspektiven qualitativer
Sozialforschung. Beitraege des 1. und 2. Bremer Workshops.
Werkstattberichte des INBL 14 [Perspectives of Qualitative Research.
Contributions to Workshops One and Two in Bremen. Notes on the Workshops
of the INBL 14]
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-1-e.htm

Robin M. Boylorn (USA): Review, Ina-Maria Greverus, Sharon MacDonald,
Regina Romhild, Gisela Welz & Helena Wullf (Eds.) (2002). Stability Upon
Shifting Ground: Review Note of Shifting Grounds: Experiments in Doing
Ethnography
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-17-e.htm

Charles Lee Cole (USA): Review, Paul ten Have (2004). Understanding
Qualitative Research and Ethnomethodology
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-12-e.htm

Birgit Huber (Germany): No More Separation between Paid Work and
Leisure? Methodological and Empirical Challenges in the Debate about
Post-Fordism. Review Essay, Sabine Hess & Johannes Moser (Eds.) (2003).
Kultur der Arbeit - Kultur der neuen Oekonomie. Kulturwissenschaftliche
Beitraege zu neoliberalen Arbeits- und Lebenswelten [Culture of Work --
Culture of the New Economy. Cultural Studies in European Ethnology about
Spheres of Working and Living in a Neo-liberal Society]
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-2-e.htm

Marilyn Lichtman (USA): Review, Janet Heaton (2004). Reworking
Qualitative Data
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-15-e.htm

Marilyn Lichtman (USA): Review, Mechthild Kiegelmann & Leo Guertler
(Eds.) (2003). Research Questions and Matching Methods of Analysis
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-16-e.htm

Ralf Ottermann (Germany): Constructivism is the Invention of a Critic.
Review Essay, Heinz v. Foerster & Bernhard Poerksen (2004). Wahrheit ist
die Erfindung eines Luegners. Gespraeche fuer Skeptiker [Understanding
Systems: Conversations on Epistemology and Ethics. New York: Kluwer]
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-3-e.htm

Rudolf Schmitt (Germany): Review, Susan Geideck & Wolf-Andreas Liebert
(Eds.) (2003). Sinnformeln. Linguistische und soziologische Analysen von
Leitbildern, Metaphern und anderen kollektiven Orientierungsmustern
[Meaning Formulas. Linguistic and Sociological Analysis of Models,
Metaphors and Other Collective Patterns of Orientation]
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-4-e.htm

Martin Spetsmann-Kunkel (Germany): Review, Ronald Hitzler & Jo Reichertz
(Eds.) (2003). Irritierte Ordnung. Die gesellschaftliche Verarbeitung
von Terror [Irritated System. The Social Processing of Terror]
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-21-e.htm

Kara M. Strobel (Canada): After the Aftermath: A Reply to Wolff-Michael
Roth's Review of Harry F. Wolcott's "Sneaky Kid and Its Aftermath"
published in FQS 5(1)
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-6-e.htm

Wayne Thexton (UK): Review, Birgitta Qvarsell & Christoph Wulf (Eds.)
(2003). Culture and Education. European Studies in Education (Volume 16)
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-14-e.htm

Nicole Westmarland (UK): Review, Lesley Noaks & Emma Wincup (2004).
Criminological Research -- Understanding Qualitative Methods / Mark R.
Pogrebin (Ed.) (2003). Qualitative Approaches to Criminal Justice --
Perspectives from the Field
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-13-e.htm

FQS Conferences

Lars Allolio-Naecke (Germany): How Much Culture is Psychology Able to
Deal With? Conference Report, "The 100 Years of the German Society of
Psychology"
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-11-e.htm

Silke-Birgitta Gahleitner & Leo Guertler (Germany): Conference Report,
Fifth Annual Meeting of Qualitative Psychology: "Qualitative and
Quantitative Approaches to Learning and Instruction" / First meeting of
the Special Interest Group No. 17 of the European Association for
Research in Learning and Instruction (EARLI): "Mixed Methodology in
Psychological Research"
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-33-e.htm

Thomas Kuehn (Germany): The Hunt for the Nibelungen Treasure. Report BVM
Conference, "Qualitative Market Research -- State of the Art and
Prospects"
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-5-e.htm