Qualitative_data_analysis

178 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
This way of analysing dynamics infers connections from the regular association of
categories in the data. This is because our categories break up the data into a
succession of images or events, and then somehow we have to find a way of putting
them together again. We could call our athlete David Hume, after the Scottish
philosopher who wrestled with this problem of how we can connect together what
we experience as separate impressions. Hume’s answer—that we can infer causation
from the constant conjunction of impressions—was not very different from the way
of connecting categories we have just considered. This indirect procedure for
connecting categories stems from fragmenting the data into a succession of discrete
impressions or events in the first place.
If we link as well as categorize our data, we can offset this initial fragmentation of
the data and provide more direct empirical grounds for making connections
between categories. We no longer have to base our analysis on separate events, for as
well as distinguishing these events we can also link them. Suppose we link our
observations of ‘jumping’ to ‘clearing the hurdle’ and our observations of ‘clearing
the hurdle’ to that of ‘landing’. We could call the first link ‘going up’ and the
second link ‘coming down’. Now when we want to connect the categories ‘jumping’
and ‘clearing the hurdle’ we can find all the data where we have already linked our
observations. We no longer need to infer between categories on the basis of
concurrence, for we have already observed and recorded the corresponding link in
the data.
This contrast between inference and observation can be overdrawn, for
observation itself involves an element of inference. When we watch the videotape of
our athlete ascending and descending, we make the inference that it is the athlete
who is moving, and not the hurdle. This inference is, of course, entirely reasonable,
but it is no less an inference for that. Think of those movies where we are supposed
to think a stationary car is moving, because we see moving traffic behind the car.
Special effects rely on our ability to make mistaken inferences. Anyone who has
mistakenly inferred that their own (stationary) train is moving because a train
alongside is pulling out of the station will know that we cannot always trust our
senses in real life. We also have to make sense of the information they provide.
How we make sense of connections is rooted in reasoning based on our
observation and experience of links and how they operate. We can think of links as
the sort of ‘connecting mechanisms’ (cf. Sayer 1992) between events which we
experience in everyday life—why the door bangs when we slam it; why the light
comes on when we operate the switch; why eating satisfies our hunger. We connect
these things because we understand the links between them. If the light does not
come on, we do not revise our thinking to take account of this ‘irregularity’—we
change the bulb. Of course, our reasoning may be mistaken—perhaps the fuse has
blown. And it may be more or less sophisticated. At a common sense level, we