Re-approaching interview data through qualitative secondary analysis: interviews with internet gamblers

Abstract

This paper addresses two interrelated questions concerning what interview data are and how researchers might use them. The first considers the value of a shift from a predominant or exclusive focus upon how data are constructed and produced at interview, and towards how such data might be apprehended through different forms of research engagement. The second question relates to how and what qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) might be used to tell about the social world.In exploring this, we advance a critique of the divide between primary and secondary analysis, recasting the debate in terms of different degrees and qualities of 'proximity' and 'distance' from the formative contexts of data generation. We revisit a common assumption underpinning ethnographic approaches, that researchers are required to 'be there' in interview encounters to say anything of worth about the data generated. Instead we propose both proximity to, and distance from, the temporal, relational and epistemic contexts of data production offer their own distinctive affordances. Using QSA of interview data from a study of problem internet gambling as an empirical crucible, we explore these ideas, considering the kinds of participation that interviewees develop through their reciprocal engagement with interviewers. We illustrate how participants reflexively negotiate the limits to the 'stock' of narratives within which to frame and recount their experiences. Finally, we show how interview data can be used both to speak of the temporal, relational, spatial, epistemic contexts of their production, and also to speak to contexts and questions beyond these.

Working at a remove: continuous, collective, and configurative approaches to qualitative secondary analysis

“…The paper builds upon our work elsewhere (see Tarrant and Hughes 2019 , 2020a , b ; Hughes and Tarrant 2020a , b ; Hughes et al 2020b ) by developing and expanding two central lines of argument. First, through our directly challenging the notion that working at varying degrees of remove from formative data contexts is exclusively a source of empirical and analytic deficit (Irwin and Winterton 2011a ; Hughes et al 2020b ). Here we explore precisely how ‘remove’ and ‘distance’ can, indeed, serve as the basis for distinctive kinds of insight and may be alloyed and blended with more ‘proximal’ insights through particular modes of QSA research engagement.…”

“…In particular, the contextualised character of qualitative data production requires considerable theoretical work by researchers seeking to reuse them (Mauthner et al 1998 ; Goodwin and O’Connor 2006 ; Moore 2007 ; Geiger et al 2010 ; Irwin and Winterton 2012c ; Tarrant and Hughes 2019 ; Lyon and Crow 2020 ). This complexity has driven a growing body of work on the distinctive affordances and defining challenges of qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) (Bishop 2009 ; O’Connor and Goodwin 2010 ; Irwin and Winterton 2011a , b , 2012a , b ; Bornat et al 2012 ; Davidson et al 2018 ; Tarrant and Hughes 2019 ; Hughes et al 2020b ).…”

“…From our standpoint, all qualitative research involves temporal frames spanning different timescales. These range from, say, the beginning of an interview to its end; or, for example, from the development of theoretical precepts employed in a study long before that study’s inception; and/or extending beyond the publication of findings from a piece of research, where such findings have yielded insights for scholars several decades later (e.g., Bornat et al 2012 ; Hughes et al 2020b ; see also Bishop and Kuula-Luumi 2017 ). Similarly, all qualitative research involves varying degrees of ‘secondary’ analytical remove, including, for instance, the different levels of involvement in primary data generation of members of the same research team (Frost et al 2010 ; Thomson et al 2012 ; Phoenix et al 2016 ); or when those same members revisit data at varying times after these were originally produced (see, for a fuller account of this position, Hughes et al 2020b ).…”

“…In the case of QSA, however, this is the defining concern. Our aim in this paper is to reframe questions of remove in QSA as relating to how best to take account of, and indeed harness, both the analytical limitations and affordances of varying degrees of temporal, relational and epistemic ‘proximity’ and ‘distance’ from the formative contexts of data production (Hughes et al 2020b ).…”

Salami Science in the Age of Open Data: Déjà lu and Accountability in Management and Business Research

“…In this respect, it is not appropriate to assume that just studies of a quantitative nature will be subject to sharing data, in order to permit their future reuse. That is, there is a gamut of research opportunities that could be viable if the benefits of the reuse of qualitative data were a reality (Davidson, Edwards, Jamieson, & Weller, 2019;Hughes, Hughes, & Tarrant, 2020;Irwin, Bornat, & Winterton, 2012;Lewthwaite, Jamieson, Weller, Edwards, & Nind, 2019;Tarrant & Hughes, 2019).…”