Family Story as Political Science: Reflections on Writing <i>Trapped in America’s Safety Net</i>
Name
Campbell 2015 Family Story as Pol Sci Writing Trapped.pdf
Size
203.01 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
251e1bb66e43f2c31a5fe284a1a218e9
Author(s)
Campbell, Andrea Louise
Date Issued
December 2015
Journal
Perspectives on Politics
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Citation
Campbell, Andrea Louise. 2015. "Family Story as Political Science: Reflections on Writing Trapped in America’s Safety Net." Perspectives on Politics, 13 (4).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Intimate ethnography presents a number of challenges: How could I write about my own family in a way that was true to their experience but also an “objective” report? How could I convey telling details without robbing my family of their privacy? How could I rein in my emotions to report their story, and did I pick and choose facts to protect them or to make them more sympathetic? How could I generalize from their experience to that of millions of social assistance recipients? In this Reflections essay, I consider these challenges in light of what other social scientists have said about the issues of close work with individual, sometimes vulnerable, research subjects.
Subjects
Political Science and International Relations
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592715002303
