Prof. Nigel Fielding
Keynote: Contemporary trends in qualitative research and the use of qualitative software

This talk will explore the part that qualitative software has played in the development of qualitative methods and qualitative research. Qualitative software is an important example of a technology that has developed to answer a need in the social sciences (rather than a technology that was developed to address other needs and then adapted for social science use). Qualitative software is used in diverse ways that reflect the range of contemporary modes of qualitative research, from hard core positivist and mainstream approaches through to postmodern and arts-based approaches. The range includes evaluation research (where qualitative methods are subject to ‘gold standards’ criteria); post-positivist and neo-positivist research; mixed methods research; ‘citizen research’; performative and arts-based research; and ‘new openings’ (the adoption of qualitative methods in new fields like ‘qualitative geography’ and ‘qualitative psychology’). These positions reflect different understandings of what qualitative research is for, and they also call on different features and affordances of qualitative software.

Biography

Nigel Fielding grew up in the United States of America but returned to Great Britain for his university education, where he took an undergraduate degree in Sociology at the University of Sussex and a Masters degree in Sociology at the University of Kent. He then lectured at Hendon Police College. His doctoral research was the first study carried out on the National Front, an extreme Right, racialist political party. The study was based on covert participant observation. Nigel Fielding then taught in the School of Law at Ealing College of Higher Education and the Department of Social Administration at the LSE. In 1978 he joined the University of Surrey as a lecturer in criminology. He was promoted to a personal Chair in Sociology in 1995. From 1985 to 1998 he was editor of the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice and a member of the Council of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

Selected Publications

Fielding, N. & Cisneros-Puebla, C. A. (2009). CAQDAS-GIS Convergence. Toward a New Integrated Mixed Method Research Practice? Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 3, 349.

Fielding, N. G., Lee, R. M. & Blank, G. (Hrsg.). (2008). The Sage Handbook of Internet and Online Research Methods. Thousand Oaks u.a.: Sage.

Fielding, N. G. & Lee, R. M. (1998). Computer analysis and qualitative research. Thousand Oaks u.a.: Sage.