The Affect of Methods

Abstract

In the previouis two chapters I focused on the conceptual framing and lived experience of intimacy and family relationships, here I return to methodological debates on researching families, children and private lives. Through analysis of empirical data from Behind Closed Doors I demonstrate some of the tensions that exist in families research and the dynamic process of fieldwork and analysis. This book aims to move beyond the parameters of amethods handbook, to explore how sociological understandings of families are produced through the process of research. In chapter 2 I introduced the dominant conceptual frameworks of family and childhood research and in chapter 3 the research approaches that informed and shaped these fields. I examined different methodological approaches and research methods and how these have responded to and extended wider social trends in the patterning of relational life. In chapters 4 and 5 I interrogated conceptual understandings of the changing patterns of intimate life and family relationships.