Qualitative_data_analysis

Figure 3.2 Three aspects of description in qualitative analysis
CONTEXTS
WHAT IS QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS? 33
The need to take account of contexts is a recurrent theme in qualitative analysis.
Contexts are important as a means of situating action, and of grasping its wider
social and historical import. This can require detailed descriptions of the social
setting within which action occurs; the relevant social contexts may be a group,
organization, institution, culture or society; the time frame within which action
takes place; the spatial context; the network of social relationships, and so on.
Suppose we want to understand the role of personal ads in dating behaviour. We
may want to describe the relevant social contexts, including the normal patterns of
dating behaviour, the advertising medium, how personal ads are submitted, and so
on. These patterns of interaction may be specific to particular spatial contexts—
compare urban and rural settings, or New York and the Isle of Skye. They may also
vary over time, for example, reflecting changing social mores about marriage and
promiscuity. To understand the role of personal ads in dating behaviour, we may
therefore include much complex detail about apparently ordinary and perhaps even
seemingly superficial aspects of social settings.
In a more literal way, contexts can also be seen as a key to meaning, since
meaning can be conveyed ‘correctly’ only if context is also understood. This is most
obviously true of pronouns where the meaning depends entirely on information
already given or known from the context—such as the meaning of the word ‘this’ at
the start of this sentence. But communication in general involves inferring meaning
from the context in which it occurs (Sperber and Wilson 1986). When I say ‘coffee?’