Share
Studying Elites Using Qualitative Methods
Edited by:
- Rosanna Hertz - Wellesley College, USA
- Jonathan B. Imber - Wellesley College, USA
September 1995 | 210 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
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.
Rosanna Hertz and Jonathan B Imber
Introduction
PART ONE: BUSINESS ELITES
Robert J Thomas
Interviewing Important People in Big Companies
Michael Useem
Reaching Corporate Executives
Peter Cleary Yeager and Kathy E Kram
Fielding Hot Topics in Cool Settings
John P Workman Jr
Using Electronic Media to Support Fieldwork in a Corporate Setting
Paul M Hirsch
Tales from the Field
PART TWO: PROFESSIONAL ELITES
Joshua Gamson
Stopping the Spin and Becoming a Prop
Jennifer L Pierce
Reflections on Fieldwork in a Complex Organization
Alan Aldridge
Negotiating Status
Howard S Becker
How I Learned What a Crock Was
PART THREE: COMMUNITY AND POLITICAL ELITES
Susan A Ostrander
`Surely You're Not in This Just to Be Helpful'
Albert Hunter
Local Knowledge and Local Power
Hanna Herzog
Research as a Communication Act
Hugh Gusterson
Exploding Anthropology's Canon in the World of the Bomb
