Courageous Methods in Cultural Psychology

Innovative research requires courageous methods. With this in mind, Courageous Methods in Cultural Psychology invites students and post-graduate researchers to develop methods that will let them grasp phenomena of interest more fully. Readers will learn how to use established methods, and may be asked to develop them further by combining single steps of extant procedures, or by taking a completely new approach to data collection and analysis. In this book, diverse researchers present projects in which they have tried to do just that. A comprehensive process — from narrowing down research questions to collecting and analyzing data — is given in detail, followed by critical reflections on how well the authors have understood and shared complex realities. Project presentations are framed by theoretical chapters that deal with the challenges and opportunities of cultural psychology and interdisciplinary research. Courageous Methods in Cultural Psychology is sure to inspire and encourage those who wish to venture on new roads “into the wild.”Courageous Methods in Cultural Psychology introduces research projects from various subdisciplines of the social and human sciences, each of which was conducted with a cultural–psychological reference in mind. The book strives to emphasize diversity and the added value of interdisciplinary exchange, something that is often neglected in research and needs to be encouraged.Through detailed descriptions of the research process, this book will support and guide readers on how to approach a research question when concrete ideas about the appropriate method may be lacking. Each chapter shows how methods are adapted to the phenomenon of interest, inviting the reader to proceed in a similar way.Within psychology, most methods are very language-based, which means that researchers analyze questionnaires, diaries, transcripts of interviews, and the like. Materials such as these play a major role in this book, but we have also tried to include other data sources. For example, art and architecture are also brought into the book’s purview, to help researchers and students rethink the construction of knowledge and data as such.