Programme full

Wednesday 15 April 2015 16:00 - 17:30
PAPER SESSION 3
Methodological Innovations
W324, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
The Value of Using Bourdieu and Social Field Analysis in Gang Research
Harding, S.
(Middlesex University)
Over the years Gang Research has become skewed into two methodological camps – large, positivist, administrative
and quantified studies in the US or small scale, limited qualitative studies here in the UK. Moreover, gang research,
notably here in the UK, has often been dogged by unresolved issues of definition, over-reliance on labelling theory
and moral panic theory and overlong disputes about the existence or otherwise of violent street gangs. Both
nationally and internationally theoretical perspectives on gang involvement have seldom moved on beyond those of
the Chicago School. Multiple issues, such as internal gang dynamics, internal power and economic relations,
structure and social order in gangs, have remained largely unexplored.
In the UK, gang researchers are frequently divided into those who follow Simon Hallsworth's views that gangs are a
socially constructed moral panic or John Pitt's view that gangs are real and potentially dangerous.
Recent gang research by Harding, published in Harding, S. (2014) The Street Casino: survival in violent street gangs,
has shown that using concepts of habitus and social field from Pierre Bourdieu opens up a whole new research
perspective for gang research, leading in turn to new theoretical paradigms. This new approach offers a radical new
lens through which the tricky issue of gangs and group offending can be theorised. In this session Harding will review
key concepts from Bourdieu and illustrate how they fit as an interpretative frame for gang research and analysis.
In the Field: The 'Messiness' of Reconciling Research Expectations across Cultures
De Lima, P., Hutchison, C., H.M., Valero, D.
(University of the Highlands & Islands)
The idea that qualitative research methods and their accompanying methodological rules are shaped and are
contingent on particular historical and cultural contexts is not new. There is widespread recognition that realities are
dynamic and heterogeneous and the methods/ practices required to understand these complex realities are diverse
(Darling 2014; Billson 2006; Marshall 2004) However, particular accounts or versions of methods continue to exert a
hegemonic hold, such that research methods as taught and practiced still aims to describe different realities in a
consistent and neutral-fashion (Law 2003), and are implicated in not only describing realities, but also in producing the
realities they seek to understand ( Law 2004 p16). This paper will draw on three qualitative research projects
conducted in culturally and geographically distinct settings: indigenous peoples and public health practitioners in
Argentina; poverty and social exclusion policy makers/practitioners in rural Spain; and barrio residents and
environmental relationships in Venezuela. The paper will aim to : (i) explore the ways in which methods are involved
simultaneously in knowing and producing research outcomes enacted in different ways depending on the cultural and
geographical context, as well as the biographies of the researchers; and (ii) to provide insights into the messiness of
fieldwork experiences in a way that suggests the need to challenge the limits placed by hegemonic research methods
discourses and discusses the implications for undertaking social science research and methods/ practices.
The Police Officer as Reflective Practitioner?
Lumsden, K., Goode, J.
(Loughborough University)
Why are 'partnerships' between the police and the academy suddenly springing up all over the UK? What forms do
they take and what expectations surround them? The literature on police-academic partnerships, such as it is, talks
about the 'two worlds' of 'research' and 'practice'; the obstacles inherent in bringing these worlds together; and offers
case studies of how they might be overcome. What it also does is leave some fundamental questions unanswered, by
using 'monolithic' concepts such as 'research' and 'practice' without deconstructing what kind of research is under
discussion (as though there weren't epistemological, disciplinary and methodological variations in how research is
'done'); and what kind of practice (as though there weren't variations in roles, responsibilities and practices according
to practitioners' positioning within complex organisations, the 'problems' they are facing, the kinds of 'knowledge' they
might find useful in addressing them and the kinds of practices they may engage in when capitalising upon such
knowledge in their everyday occupational worlds. In the context of wider moves towards 'evidence-based' practice and
the 'professionalization of policing', this paper uses an emerging collaboration to examine why the police are looking
BSA Annual Conference 2015 124
Glasgow Caledonian University