Qualitative Research

Article Marking and responding to the " participatory turn " in rhetorical criticism, the essays in this issue engage the synergies, tensions , and consequences that arise from intertwining rhetorical and qualitative approaches to research. From fleeting encounters to developed relationships with communities, the scholars in this special issue participate with(in) a broad range of rhetorical phenomena, engage in a diverse set of participatory research practices, and demonstrate a range of insights gained from in situ engagement with their topics of interest. This issue develops three pathways, each marking a possible point of productive engagement between rhetorical criticism and qualitative inquiry. First, in (re)introducing rhetorical fieldwork , the issue marks a landmark moment for rhetorical criticism , a time when a participatory approach to rhetorical criticism has become recognized as a valuable way to analyze embodied and emplaced rhetoric. Second, acknowledging this participatory turn necessitates some reflection on the points of overlap, tension, and mutual benefit that emerge when qualitative inquiry and rhetorical criticism look to one another for theories and critical approaches. In particular, the essays highlight how in situ rhetorical fieldwork not only falls within the bricolage of qualitative research, but also how it contributes valuable theoretical, methodological, and praxis-oriented insights to qualitative inquiry. Third, given the value of seeing exemplars of this sort of work, the selected articles offer a range of participatory approaches to critical/cultural studies that draw on a broad cross-section of qualitative and rhetorical theories and methodologies. By advancing these three pathways of conversation within this issue, the individual contributions , as well as the volume as a whole, provide a focal point for additional efforts to more robustly theorize hybrid research approaches like rhetorical fieldwork. We conclude this special issue by focusing on and jump-starting those efforts to further theorize the ways that qualitative and rhetorical inquiry can mutually inform and enhance one another, arguing for a transdisciplinary approach to criti-cal/cultural scholarship propelled by the overarching goal of answering critical questions with the best tools available. We do so by synthesizing some of the theoretical and method-ological resonances found in the essays that compose this issue. First, we return to five of the overlapping points of conversation between rhetorical criticism and qualitative inquiry that we identified in the introduction, discussing how the essays in this issue speak to these connections. Next, we contend that blending qualitative research practices with rhetorical approaches to scholarship can revitalize rhetorical praxis, especially in regard to the critical implications of rhetorical scholarship. Third, we identify some substantive contributions that attentiveness to the assumptions of rhetorical scholarship can offer to qualitative inquiry. Last, we advocate for a 655821C SCXXX10.1177/1532708616655821Cultural Studies <span class="symbol" cstyle="symbol">↔</span> Critical MethodologiesMiddleton et al. Abstract This essay concludes the special issue on the intersections between qualitative and rhetorical inquiry by responding to each of the essays. We highlight the productive tensions between rhetorical and qualitative inquiry, examine the benefits that qualitative inquiry brings to rhetorical fieldwork while also revealing how rhetorical inquiry can contribute to qualitative inquiry. We ultimately argue that rhetorical fieldwork is form of transdisciplinary research that resists replicating rhetorical and qualitative research by subsuming one approach under the other and instead creates a new form of hybrid research that adopts and adapts both research lineages.

This conversation takes place in Warsaw. Carolyn Ellis has come to Poland to accompany Jerry Rawicki, a Warsaw Ghetto survivor, on his first trip back to Poland since the Holocaust. There she arranged to meet Marcin Kafar, a scholar in Poland who has spent time with her at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. During this visit, Marcin assists Carolyn with video recording Jerry’s experiences as they visit Holocaust sites, and Jerry remembers and reflects on his experience. Afterwards, Marcin converses with Carolyn about autoethnography, storytelling, and the importance of life in the context of searching for ethos by academics.

Autoethnography is a method of research that involves describing and analyzing personal experiences in order to understand cultural experiences. The method challenges canonical ways of doing research and recognizes how personal experience influences the research process. Autoethnography acknowledges and accomodates subjectivity, emotionality, and the researcher's influence on research. In this book, the authors provide a historical and conceptual overview of autoethnography. They share their stories of coming to autoethnography and identify key concerns and considerations that led to the development of the method. Next, they outline the purposes and practices--the core ideals--of autoethnography, how autoethnographers can accomplish these ideals, and why researchers might choose to do autoethnography. They describe the processes of doing autoethnography, conducting fieldwork, discussing ethics in research, and interpreting and analyzing personal experience, and they explore the various modes and techniques used and involved in writing autoethnography. They conclude with goals for creating and assessing autoethnography and describe the future of autoethnographic inquiry. Throughout, the authors provide numerous examples of their work and share key resources. This book will serve as both a guide to the practices of doing autoethnography and an exemplar of autoethnographic research processes and representations.

With clarity and elegance, Bay-Cheng (2015) has
provided a solid articulation of how neoliberalism has infiltrated
the sexual lives of many girls and young women.
Without question, research in the U.S. and the Anglophone
West, as well as current trends in popular culture and the
media in these locales, warrant recognizing neoliberal
sexual agency and understanding the variety of ways it
interacts with the slut/prude/virgin continuum. While
some research has evidenced the salience of neoliberal
sexual agency for some adolescent girls, we depart with
Bay-Cheng’s (2015) assertion that developmental and
age differences not be taken into account and question
the primacy of neoliberal sexual agency as a new and
comparable hegemony to the slut/prude/virgin continuum.
We suggest that there remain other forms of sexual
agency that should not be displaced or disregarded and
wonder whether a paradigm shift from model to metaphor
may be helpful for capturing the complexity, contradictions
and contexts that constitute girls’ and young
women’s sexuality.

Design is everywhere: it influences how we live, what we wear, how we communicate, what we buy, and how we behave. In order for designers to design for the real world, defining strategies rather than just implementing them, they need to learn how to understand and solve complex, intricate and often unexpected problems. This book is a guide to this new creative process. With this book in hand, students of design will:

understand and apply the vocabulary and strategies of research methods
learn how to adapt themselves to unfamiliar situations
develop techniques for collaborating with non-designers
find and use facts from diverse sources in order to prove or disprove their ideas
make informed decisions in a systematic and insightful way
use research tools to find new and unexpected design solutions.
Research for Designers is an essential toolkit for a design education and a must-have for every design student who is getting ready to tackle their own research.

With Foreword by Ken Friedman.