Triangulation and dealing with the realness of qualitative research

Qu ua al li it ta at ti iv ve e S So oc ci io ol lo og gy y R Re ev vi ie ew w V Vo ol lu um me e I IV V I Is ss su ue e 3 3 w ww ww w. .q qu ua al li it ta at ti iv ve es so oc ci io ol lo og gy yr re ev vi ie ew w. .o or rg g 7 7 Q Qu ua al li it ta at ti iv ve e S So oc ci io ol lo og gy y R Re ev vi ie ew w Abstract This paper provides a sociologists' reflection of a sociologist on qualitative field research. Reflections will include some methodological and epistemological considerations that are connected with field work, while building the realness of the description and conclusions, i.e. constructing the quality of qualitative research. The intellectual process of doing research will be characterized by analysis of: 1. description of investigated reality (tales of the field), 2. analytical process, 3. usage of commonsense research procedures (so called triangulation procedures), which are used in the field by the researcher and during analysis or writing a research report to adequately "re -present" researched reality. The three above mentioned stages of representation of reality are interwoven to create one complex intellectual process, which is called "field research". The quality of qualitative research is the intellectual process where some procedures are used to create the accountability of research conclusions. Keywords Triangulation; Field research; Qualitative methods; Sociology; Ethnography; Writing of ethnography; Ethnographic description; Definition of reality; Realness; Tribal rules; Generalized other The considerations in the paper are based on two assumptions. The first one is that social researchers have specific perspectives of social and psychic reality. The social world is divided into parts which can be differentiated according to a criterion and between these abstract categories ("parts of reality") exist real connections. Individual thoughts and feelings have also "causes"' or conditions that are included in the above-mentioned "parts of reality" or in the relations between them. The second assumption is that social researchers try to show a description of social world as real and adequate. They want to prove that the described organization, organizational structure, reconstructed strategy or mission, community relations exist in reality, not only inside but also outside the description. The problem of the quality of qualitative field research is strictly connected with testifying the description of reality, accounts of it and the "reality itself" (by triangulation) and not with the problem of validity i.e. whether the research procedures truly help to answe