Studying Elites Using Qualitative Methods

by Rosanna Hertz; Jonathan B. Imber

• ISBN13: 9780803970366
• ISBN10: 0803970366
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-08-04
• Publisher: Sage Publications

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

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

The Study of Corporate Ethics - John P Workman Jr

Using Electronic Media to Support Fieldwork in a Corporate Setting - Paul M Hirsch

Tales from the Field

Learning from Researchers' Accounts

PART TWO: PROFESSIONAL ELITES - Joshua Gamson

Stopping the Spin and Becoming a Prop

Fieldwork on Hollywood Elites - Jennifer L Pierce

Reflections on Fieldwork in a Complex Organization

Lawyers, Ethnographic Authority, and Lethal Weapons - Alan Aldridge

Negotiating Status

Social Scientists and Anglican Clergy - 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'

Access, Rapport, and Interviews in Three Studies of Elites - Albert Hunter

Local Knowledge and Local Power

Notes on the Ethnography of Local Community Elites - Hanna Herzog

Research as a Communication Act

A Study on Israeli Women in Local Politics - Hugh Gusterson

Exploding Anthropology's Canon in the World of the Bomb

Ethnographic Writing on Militarism