RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

204 HISTORICAL AND DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH
suggest, are close to the actual experience under
study, whereas research texts are at a remove;
that distance lets in unreliability and invalidity.
While acknowledgement of this by the researcher,
and the researcher’s identification of the criteria
for judging the research, may go some way
towards addressing this issue (i.e. reflexivity), nevertheless
it may not solve the problem, only
articulate it.
The issue is that the researcher has to exercise
extreme caution in using documents. As well
as having a life of their own, documents are
interpretations of events. As Prior (2003: 26)
suggests, the content of documents may not be
the most important feature of the document,
and documents are ‘situated products’. They
are the drivers, media (channels), mediators
(filters) and outcomes of social interaction
(a clear exemplification of Giddens’ theory
of structuration). Understanding their context
is crucial to understanding the document.
Documents are multilevelled and have to be
interpreted at their many levels; they need to
be contextualized.
For a detailed analysis of several aspects of
documents in research we refer readers to Prior
(2003). For examples of documents, we refer the
reader to the accompanying web site pages (http://
www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415368780 –
Chapter 8, file 8.1.doc; http://www.routledge.
com/textbooks/9780415368780 – Chapter 8, file
8.2.doc).