What Do We Do When We Do Social Science? Approaching, Contacting, and Grasping

Abstract

It is important to understand what we do when we do social science. While this might sound obvious, it is quite challenging to produce relatively detached knowledge of our research. One way that I have supported people in doing just that is via three overlapping, interrelated but intellectually distinct ideas—approaching, contacting, and grasping. In this essay, and its twin which is to be published elsewhere in Qualiative Inquiry, I outline how all social science must involve elements of each. I will argue that when we consider our work in such ways, we are likely to become well placed to objectify and therefore better understand what was done, how, and why. Such understanding can then inform the ways we think about, do and write up our methodological strategies. So, rather than detailing a novel approach to qualitative research, or pushing at the vanguard of methodological debates, I provide a relatively concise, accessible and useful foundational understanding upon which robust and refined social science can be built.