Qualitative_data_analysis

64 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
virtues of the dedicated and dextrous theoretician. But it is enough to emphasize the
conceptual character of categorization: categorizing data is never a ‘routine’ process.
The computer cannot break the data down into bits, or put the bits together again;
only the analyst can do that. There are limits, therefore, to how ‘mechanistic’ even
the most atheoretically inclined analyst can be. If this provides some comfort, there
remains a danger that an obsession with the technology and technique will blind the
analyst to the crucial conceptual problems and assumptions of his or her research
(Seidel 1991:112–113).
There are more radical criticisms of the role of the computer. For example, it is
sometimes argued that the computer encourages ‘data fragmentation’. Computerbased
analysis can be likened to dissection—to the irony of trying to understand the
living by dissecting the dead. Instead of studying the data in situ, the data are
‘fragmented’ into bits and the overall sense of the data is lost. A related complaint is
that the computer encourages a quantitative mentality orientated to ‘computing’
frequencies and cross-tabulations in place of more qualitative forms of analysis. But
these criticisms relate more to the continuing contest between rival epistemologies
than to the role of the computer per se in qualitative analysis.
It should be clear by now that these problems lie less in the technology than in
the use (or abuse) we make of it. There is no need to throw out the (technological)
baby with the (unrealistic expectations) bathwater. All that is required is to retain a
sense of proportion about the role of the computer; to recognize its limitations; and
to keep a firm focus throughout on the analytic as well as the technical tasks to be
accomplished.