The Research: Methods and Methodology

Abstract

This chapter discusses the approach (grounded theory) and the method (life stories) adopted for the empirical research the books draws on. It also clarifies the main methodological choices adopted, discussing issues of sampling, conduction of the interviews and selection of the excerpts of empirical materials published in the book. After a presentation of the interviewees, the chapter discusses two of the three main concepts adopted for the analysis: social practices, derived from the second generation of practice theories, and in particular from the work of Theodore Schatzki; and enactment, derived from the field of Science and Technology Studies, and in particular from the work of John Law and Marianne Elisabeth Lien. Finally, it clarifies how the different enactments of dark that could be observed in Milan in the 1980s emerged from the bundle of practices in which subcultural participation unfolded, each bundle being composed by three different kind of practices: practices deemed of key relevance to subcultural participation in all the enactments; practices deemed of key relevance to subcultural participation in one specific enactment; and practices not deemed of key relevance to subcultural participation, and yet shaped by it.