Negotiations and Research Bargains: Bending Professional Norms in the Effort to Gain Field Access

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

RantataloOscar¹ 

关键词: field access;    ethnography;    police;    Robert Merton;    qualitative research;   

DOI  :  10.1177/1609406918770033

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

The present study provides an autoethnographic account of the efforts to gain field access to a police organization, spanning more than 2 years. The aim is to describe a case of gaining access in relation to the professional norms of science put forward by Robert K. Merton. Aided by an organized record of notes, e-mails, and other written communications regarding access (144 memos of various types), the study describes and discusses the negotiations with Mertonian norms that followed from the dissonance between ideals of research and practical reality. Opening up for further scholarly discussion, this article concludes that Merton’s norms are incongruent with both prevailing guidelines of research ethics and with the practical, short-term problems of access negotiations and research bargains.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC