Suchergebnisse

In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the age of
life history archives with a wider access for the social scientists
is only coming. However, secondary analysis of qualitative
data is not limited to documents that are stored in
public archives. It happens quite often that researchers make
use of an interview transcript, or a part of it, which has
originally been gathered for a different occasion. Thus, they
use these data for studying new topics that are sometimes
far from the original research questions and objectives.
In this paper we discuss some methodological problems
arising from such practice. We show that, on one hand, the
ethnomethodological perspective is especially demanding
on the quality and the pinpoint accuracy of transcripts and
the descriptions of the interviews by which the narratives
were elicited (field memos). On the other hand, however,
the ethnomethodological perspective orients scholars to formulate
their research objectives according to what the data
itself offers. The methodological problems related to the reuse
of data can hardly be resolved in advance and on a general
level.