Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T02:28:31.623Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Family Story as Political Science: Reflections on Writing Trapped in America’s Safety Net

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2015

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.

Type
Reflections
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Carpenter, Charli. 2012. “‘You Talk of Terrible Things So Matter-of-Factly in This Language of Science:’ Constructing Human Rights in the Academy. Perspectives on Politics 10(2): 363–83.Google Scholar
Campbell, Andrea Louise. 2015. “Reassessing the Conventional Wisdom: Entitlements from the Inside.” The Forum 13(1): 105–18.Google Scholar
Cook, Fay Lomax and Barrett, Edith J.. 1992. Support for the American Welfare State: The Views of Congress and the Public. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Copeland, Libby. 2013. “A Car Accident Took My Body from Me But Not My Baby.” Glamour, May, 218 – 24.Google Scholar
Fujii, Lee Ann. 2012. “Research Ethics 101: Dilemmas and Responsibilities.” PS: Political Science & Politics 45(4): 717–23.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin. 1999. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
González-López, Gloria. 2011. “Mindful Ethics: Comments on Informant-Centered Practices in Sociological Research.” Qualitative Sociology 34(3): 447–61.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S. 2004. “Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy Retrenchment in the United States.” American Political Science Review 98(2): 243–60.Google Scholar
Lukas, J. Anthony. 1985. Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Maisel, L. Sandy. 1982. From Obscurity to Oblivion: Running in the Congressional Primary. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane J. 1986. Why We Lost the ERA. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, Kimberly J. and Campbell, Andrea Louise. 2011. The Delegated Welfare State: Medicare, Markets, and the Governance of American Social Policy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Price, June. 1996. “Snakes in the Swamp: Ethical Issues in Qualitative Research.” In Ethics and Process in the Narrative Study of Lives, ed. Josselson, Ruthellen. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Schneider, Anne and Ingram, Helen. 1993. “Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy. “ American Political Science Review 87(2): 334–47.Google Scholar
Soss, Joe. 1999. “Lessons of Welfare: Policy Design, Political Learning, and Political Action.” American Political Science Review 93(2): 363–80.Google Scholar
Soss, Joe, Fording, Richard C., and Schram, Sanford F.. 2011. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sparer, Michael. 1996. Medicaid and the Limits of State Health Reform. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Verghese, Abraham. 2006. “Forward.” In Narrative Matters: The Power of the Personal Essay in Health Policy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Walley, Christine J. 2013. Exit Zero: Family and Class in Postindustrial Chicago. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Waterston, Alisse and Rylko-Bauer, Barbara. 2006. “Out of the Shadows of History and Memory: Personal Family Narratives in Ethnographies of Rediscovery.” American Ethnologist 33(3): 397412.Google Scholar
Woliver, Laura R. 2002. “Ethical Dilemmas in Personal Interviewing.” PS: Political Science & Politics 35(4): 677–78.Google Scholar
Wood, Elizabeth Jean. 2006. “The Ethical Challenges of Field Research in Conflict Zones.” Qualitative Sociology 29(3): 373–86.Google Scholar