55
ON THE RESEARCH QUESTION
KATEŘINA NEDBÁLKOVÁ
is chapter deals with the process of finding and developing the
research question. When drawing it up, I built on in particular, my
long-term research interest, which is class and the working class, on
my broader research history, and also on my experience with teaching
methodological courses on qualitative research. I consider the research
question to be the most important part of research because, among
other reasons, all of the other issues, i.e. the selection of theories and
concepts, the methodology and method, the structure of arguments
and thereby the final form of a text or texts resulting from the research,
are related to it. e research question is generated as an outcome aer
a topic or theme of research, has been pondered over for a long period
of time. It clearly follows from the foregoing that the choice of topic
and question always go hand in hand with decisions about the setting,
location, and cases we are going to study (for details on the setting and
location see the chapter on ethnography in this volume).
The Research Question and Debates in the Field of Studies
A good research question relates to the debates held in our own or
related fields of studies. In connection with class, the author of the
bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the French economist
omas Piketty regrets to state that the‘social sciences have largely lost
interest in the distributions of wealth and questions of social class since
the 1970’ [Piketty 2014: 32]. His thesis could be confirmed by taking a
look at all 37 research networks within the European Sociological Association,
where class, but also inequality, stratification and poverty, do
not appear at all1
. Sociologists themselves argue about whether class
1
See http://www.europeansociology.org/research-networks-menu.html.
56
is or is not a relevant category. e embarrassment over the concepts
of class and the working class are, particularly in the context of postCommunist
countries, understandable since the previous regime gave
them a strong ideological dimension, which most of the researchers
shielding themselves with objectivity do not want to dirty their hands
with.While, in the Czech context, Šanderová [1995] concludes that the
concept of class is unusable for a productive discussion due to its multivocal
(therefore unscientific) character, and proposes to reformulate
the discussion using new terms and avoiding the term of class, my
position is just the opposite.In line with Šanderová,I consider the term
to be ambiguous and used inconsistently, however, this is exactly the
reason why I find it to be sociologically interesting. I perceive contradictions
as appropriate for opening a theme. e ambivalence of class
is related to the ambiguous conceptions of this category in the political,
media and lay discourses.
‘Aer many years of research in the field of gender studies, this
means in the field that is usually described as new or fashionable
(always in a derogative manner for not being scientific or traditional
enough), I thus ended up with a topic that does not lack traditional
sociological anchoring, however, from the point of view of many, it
has survived only as a dead reminder of time that has already passed,
an empty category that we can very well do without in interpreting
society today’ [Nedbálková 2012: 85].
I will deal with the topic of class and the working class in detail with
respect to the specific research questions in the later sub-chapter.
Researched, Non-researched, Marginal, and Major Topics
Every so oen, students justify their interest in a topic by stating that it
has not yet been researched or that it is new or exotic.When examined
closely, the newness oen reveals itself to be only imaginary. e possibilities
regarding how to grasp a topic are multiplied considerably
when various sociological paradigms are compared and the social,
cultural, political, media, historical, or geographical dimensions of the
57
topic are taken into account. As the subsequent examples of specific
research topics will show, the same topic can be approached as narrow,
specific,limited by a territory or a group of persons,or it can be built up
as a case of a more general social phenomenon.A good example of a taboo
topic is shown in the study by the founders of the grounded theory,
Glaser and Strauss [1965], on death and dying.At the time of countless
achievements and progress of modern medicine, death started to be
perceived as a failure arising from a lack of successful treatment. e
authors focused on death and dying in a hospital context. ey formulated
their research questions as follows:
‘What are the recurrent kinds of interaction between a dying patient
and the hospital personnel? What kinds of tactics are used by
the personnel who deal with the patient? Under what condition of
hospital organization do these kinds of interaction and these tactics
occur,and how do they affect the patient,his family,the staff,and the
hospital itself, all of whom are involved in the situations surrounding
dying?’ [Glaser, Strauss 1965: 8].
I consider the questions to be a good example because they represent
social reality as relational, contextual and established in interactions;
they include actors and their individual types, the organizational
and institutional levels of the analysed environment.
In assessing the importance of a topic,it is possible to invoke,at both
the academic and political levels, the number of persons whom the
topic applies to. In the case of my former research of lesbian families, a
colleague of mine raised the question of why one should bother dealing
with something that relates to just four percent of the population,when
we know so little about the remaining 96 percent.My understanding of
the topic, however, was very different. My point was to show that the
topic of homoparentality was not a marginal phenomenon with specific
conceptualizations and researches,but that it significantly relates to the
more general reference framework of the family as a dominant social
institution, the family which is primarily perceived as gendered, heterosexual,
and procreative. Non-heterosexual parenthood embodies a
number of changes that have been generally accompanying the institu-
58
tion of family in particular over the last decades: postponing marriage
to a later age, the formation of new patterns of intimacy, the loosening
of traditional gender roles, or the increase in unmarried cohabitation.
Homoparentality thus shis from the category of the unusual and unthinkable
into the sphere of paradigmatic illustrations of the diversity
and transformation of kinship in post modern conditions.
e examples of class and homoparentality show that the peripheral
or mainstream status of a topic is not given a priori with objective
validity, a topic becomes major or minor with respect to the theoretical
and methodological perspective and training of researchers. e
‘Memory of Roma Workers’ project also strived, inter alia, to liberate
the topic from the primarily ethnical encoding. One of the objectives
was to show ‘acceptance of modern Roma history into the code of
Czech history, for civic perception of Roma and Czech as equals, but at
the same time preserving the sensitivity toward intercultural dialogue’
[Sidiropulu Janků 2015: 19].
Theory as a Hook
When consulting Bachelor’s as well as Master’s theses, some students
would change several research ideas and topics in the horizon of a few
weeks. No matter how important the interest, amazement, and enthusiasm
for research may be, the key is the ability to develop the idea in
greater detail. is happens through writing, which at first acquires
the form of note-taking (research in the library, observations from
everyday life, Internet sources, discussions with friends or colleagues).
Mills, in the appendix to the famous Sociological Imagination recommends
that one ‘keep a journal as the sociologist’s need for systematic
reflection demands it’, where one can record his/her ideas for current
and future researches [Mills 1961: 196]. Today’s digital technologies
considerably extend recording and archiving facilities. e systematic
nature and quality of a recording are nevertheless as important as is
the order in the archive so that later we are able to trace back collected
materials and resources in a somewhat logical manner.2
As regards aca-
2
I myself use Zotero and Dropbox to archive academic literature, and a Word docu-
59
demic sources and literature,it is not quantity that should be seen as the
impressive factor regarding collected materials. eories and concepts
are not pendants or ornaments endowing a text with academic erudition
just for the sake of appearance.As a result of their careful selection
and extensive knowledge, they become an integral part of our thinking
about the topic and, subsequently, of our interpretation; they enable a
better understanding of the researched matter, they help to clarify and
explain.
In the case of my doctoral thesis about the subcultures in women’s
prisons, I was initially inspired by the text written by the Slovenian
sociologist Darja Zaviršek [1997], who was interested in the gender
structure of residential institutions for people with mental illnesses and
the gendered character of the diagnosis of mental disorders in general.
I decided to follow on from her framing of the topic and transfer it into
the context of the prison.
‘An example of a research question: Are gender-specific patterns of
the organization of the social world recognizable also in a world
populated only by representatives of one sex? In other words, are
masculinity and femininity identifiable even in an environment
where only men or only women stay together in a limited space
for a determined time? What forms do male and female patterns of
behaviour acquire here?’ [Nedbálková 2006: 10].
If we are inspired by a theory or a concept,we should not forget that
the role of such lies in clarifying the question that interests us in a research.
e aim is not to demonstrate that we can apply the concept to
our topic,this means to conclude that the prison is a gendered organisation
as defined by Acker [1992], or that the everyday operation of public
toilets reveals the symbolic violence described by Pierre Bourdieu
[1989]. Goffman encourages treating the concepts with affection, this
ment for writing down ideas for further research or for jotting down observations that
are not directly related to my current research (but may come in handy, for example in
tuition). I copy or rewrite my notes from a telephone or paper notepad, which I always
carry with me, to the Word document. I deal with taking fieldnotes specifically in the
chapter on ethnography (in this volume).
60
means carefully searching for connections in the whole context and the
appropriateness of utilization, thinking about interpretations, comparing.
Using a metaphor of dressing, he adds, ‘better, perhaps, different
coats to clothe the children well than a single splendid tent in which
they all shiver’ [Goffman 1961: xiv]. Strong interpretative frameworks
that are built on the basis of literature can conceal the sparsity or weakness
of the obtained data. However, they lead us to strong conclusions
when a theory is confirmed [Kusá 2015]. In writing, the theory illuminates
but also ties down; it can guide us along a too narrow road, so it
is therefore desirable to be attentive to its details and treat it in a critical
manner when writing, to combine and compare multiple concepts
or interpretative frameworks, which are always applied with care and
sense for the concept and the selected topic.
Research always means adopting a position. In a better case, we
make our perspective obvious through writing, the manner of arguing,
in a worse case, we hide behind objective neutrality (which is
not further clarified). Whatever our option may be, the choice (always
made as one of many) of a position represents a commitment
and manifests itself in all the phases of research activities, including
publishing strategies and the actual writing. Positionality is associated
with feminist research which ‘is oen dismissed as just another specialization,
where in fact its arguments have wider relevance to other
forms and types of research’ [Caplan in Skeggs 2001: 428]. e authors
who ascribe to the feminist paradigm draw attention to the coherence
of various categories (class, ethnicity, and gender) which cannot be
treated as explain-it-all meta-categories. ‘Gender is no longer seen as
the primary determinant of women’s lives and the constitutions and
disruptions of other categorizations such as race and class are seen to
be as important as gender’ [Skeggs 2001: 429], the same is true of the
primacy of class, ethnicity or race. Mappes-Niediek, for example, asks
the question, in the context of Central and Eastern Europe, whether
the subject of the Romany should be framed as social or ethnic, and
argues for the first option, explaining that it is essentially a problem
of poverty, unemployment, education, under funded health care, and
underdeveloped infrastructure [Mappes-Niediek 2013: 16–17]. us,
the categories and concepts in which we think about a research topic
61
have direct implications regarding what we are able to see and discover
about the given topic.
The Vague and Banal Question
Non-quantitative oriented researches oen lead to questions starting
with the word ‘how’ or to a question for meaning (what meaning is
attributed to something), then the variation is the question of how
something is socially constructed. While the social constructivism is
an important paradigmatic perspective, the research question acquires
meaning only if it goes beyond such a generally defined framework
and develops the constructing as contextual, full of all sorts of tensions
and contradictions,as the constructing which has a structural and individual
dimension. I remember a case when a student filed a complaint
about the evaluation of her state examination on methodology because
the lecturer allowed herself to comment,‘It is not clear what the question
examines, what it means in fact, what the question proposed by
her actually asks about (“How do people socially construct the building
of a house of worship?”)’. A more appropriate reformulating of the
question would lie in specifying the dimensions within which we will
focus on the building.Will we be interested in different types of actors?
Which ones? If the building of a house of worship provokes discussions,
we can focus on mapping ideological arguments, overlaps and
conflicts,individual positions,in lay,academic,media,and political discourse.We
can choose only the media image of the building of a house
of worship and compare its forms and contents in various media. We
can also be interested in the ways of solidarity and of belonging, which
are mobilized in the course of construction, the values that are referred
to. It is necessary to ask developing questions from the very beginning
of thinking about a topic, but it is also apparent that their specific form
and direction changes in the research process. Sometimes it is useful to
consider the main and secondary research questions because it is not
possible to grasp a topic by means of only one question.
It is also a subject-matter of thinking about the research question
as to whether we will be able to answer the question by using data and
materials that we have available or are planning to use. Whether the
62
question implies field work, gathering statistical data, or whether we
may find an answer to it in a library or in the materials and statistics
that already exist. e research question cannot be trivial and should
not invoke a one-word answer,which can also be assumed in advance,
even without research. e following can serve as an example: Can
we observe the influence of gender stereotypes in the communication
of kindergarten teachers with children? It is preferable to use
the introductory ‘how’, this means to inquire about the programmes,
activities and organisations of everyday life through which gender
stereotypes are reproduced in the kindergarten. However, the aim
of the research is not to denounce gender stereotypes as bad, but to
show in detail and closely how gender stereotypes are established and
reproduced through everyday, petty and oen imperceptible practices
that are imprinted in the operation modes and routines of social
institutions and organizations. It would also be worth considering
whether to narrow or clearly focus the topic, for example by focusing
on the reactions of children, teachers or parents in the situations
when children do not choose gender-appropriate toys and activities.
It is also possible to research coherences or contradictions between
the observed behaviour of teachers and their declared attitudes to the
issue of gender roles.
Ways toward and Motivations for the Research Topic
e previous sections, which were devoted to different aspects of the
research topic and question, also showed the multiplicity of ways that
bring us to them.Analytically, they can be divided into theoretical and
methodological (the predetermined choice of a theory or methodology
or method), experiential (an experience that can be personal or
mediated, long-term or episodic) and instrumental. e instrumental
way is for example being involved in the research topic of a professor/
supervisor or performing a research assignment announced by a public
or private institution.Such an option can provide financial security and
certainty of institutional patronage and leadership; on the other hand,
it determines our choices of the framing of the topic that will need to
fit into the ideas of the supervisor, ordering party, or sponsor.
63
An example of the interest through a mediated experience is Haruki
Murakami’s Underground.e writer,who is known primarily as an author
of fiction, published a book in 2001 about the Tokyo subway sarin
attack.As he describes in the introduction, he was brought to the topic
by a brief report in a newspaper where the wife of one of the victims
described the persistent psychological aer-effects that the attack le
on her husband, together with all the related emotional and physical
difficulties of the whole family. e author was personally moved by
the story and decided to write about it, however, he did not choose the
novel form to deal with the topic but proceeded from authorial transcripts
of his interviews with people who were exposed to the attack
(the subway operators, passengers, passers-by as well as members of
the group of attackers).3
Another type of empirical shortcut to a topic is also coincidence.
During research I conducted for my Master’s thesis focused on the
urban gay and lesbian subculture, my way led, on recommendation,
to public toilets where I originally wanted to focus on impersonal sex
between men. However, my intention was to capture through this institution
the historic establishment of the gay subculture in the Czech
Republic.I thought that it was these places that had made up an important
part of the subculture before 1989, this means at the time when no
official gay and lesbian bars, clubs or organizations existed, and homosexuals
were registered by the State Security in order to blackmail them
later. Public toilets, along with other sites such as saunas, showers in
swimming pools,parks,and train stations,in addition to functioning as
cruising places also represented one of the few opportunities for meeting
a person of the same sexual orientation. During my first research
visit to public toilets I met Mrs. Marta, a 75-year retired woman, who
finally gave me, to my surprise, the diaries that she had kept about her
work for several years. In the end, the diaries were not useful for the
3
e book is also inspirational in the way how the author works with the interviews.
Each interview is preceded by familiarization with the interviewee, where the author
selects and combines, in a revealing manner, the information that appears to be substantial
and significant in relation to the event being surveyed. is creates a colourful
picture of the specific event as well as the persons who intentionally or accidentally
become the stakeholders.
64
study of the subculture because their content did not really correspond
to my original question formulated as follows: What features could
characterize the public space of the homosexual subculture in Brno
as we come across it through selected institutions? Later, I returned to
the diaries with the following question: How is a social structure reproduced
as regards the institution of public toilets and what does our
analysis of this process say about the interaction among the categories
of gender, class, and ethnicity? What are the forms acquired by the
public and private disciplining view in this case? [Nedbálková 2009].
When I look at the questions from a distance today, I evaluate the first
as too descriptive, the others as too abstract and formal, both of them
formulated without the social relevance that would portray the subject
as topical, one way or another, or politically relevant.
e test of the relevance of a question and the research objectives
may well be searching for opportunities of when we can share the topic
with someone else.When thinking about the topic of the working class,
a colleague of mine asked me the question whether it is my ambition
to write for people from my own paradigm (meaning gender studies
that he considered a limited sector of social knowledge), or for a wider
audience. e question was an opportunity to think about what kinds
of audiences I want to relate to, which of them I want to reach. An
interesting experience came my way later on during my one-week stay
at hospital, sharing a room with Mrs. Míla, with whom I talked about
family, illness, and of course, work as well. Mrs. Míla told me that when
I was not in the room, she looked at the titles of the books I had on my
bedside table, and that she would therefore like to know exactly what
I did. I tried to explain it precisely on the theme of the working class,
but my answer did not satisfy me. I could not refer to any paradigms
or sociological debates, my interest suddenly seemed absurd to me,
which was frustrating considering the fact that Mrs. Míla was, due to
her profession, much closer to my research interest than I was, and my
ambition was to turn to people like Mrs. Míla in my writing.
e ways leading to the topic are related to the motivations for research
and writing, which also necessarily reflect our idea of sociology
as a discipline and its role.Does sociology explain the relationships and
connections between social phenomena and variables? Does it bring
65
light into what is obscure or, vice versa, does it show that things are not
what they appear to be at first (traditional, media, political, or secular)
sight? Should sociologists be advisers in managing society and ensuring
its optimal functioning through expert guidance or do they stand
outside the field of the instrumental logic of utility? ese questions
cannot be answered within the framework of the discipline with universal
validity; it is always a reflection of the position of the particular
researcher within the sociological field.
An Example of Class and the Working Class
In the following section, I will study in detail several research variations
on the topic of class that will later be followed by the topic of the
working class. Class is a concept with a historical trajectory, and has
itself become a subject of research. One of the types of research on
class is therefore a historical overview of its conceptualisations, as we
find them for example in Giddens’s e Class Structure of the Advanced
Societies [1973] or a historical view of the working class in England
Making of the English Working Class [ompson 1966]. e title of
ompson’s book and its introduction is at the same time claiming
the paradigm position where class is not perceived as a ‘structure, nor
even as a category, but as something which in fact happens (and can
be shown to have happened) in human relationships’[ompson 1966:
10]. us, the process of classification and naming of classes, which is
not a neutral tool for description but something directly giving a shape
to social reality, including classes, necessarily comes to the centre of
researchers’ attention. Hout, Brooks and Manza consider ‘the theoretical
question for the next decade, ‘Why is class so complex? And why
is it dependent on politics instead of determinative of politics?’ [Hout,
Brooks, Manza 1993: 271]. e question points to the decline of class
politics [Ost 2015: 16] in the form of political interests mobilized by
actors and emphasizes the interaction of various discourses (including
the expert or sociological), which contribute to whether and how class
and classes are reflected on. e topic is raised not only as a social science
but also as a highly political subject, which of course also entails
the media dimension of the studied issue. e manner of developing
66
individual spheres also largely depends on the paradigm or paradigms
within which we work on the topic. If we start from the theoretical or
conceptual motivation, the range of approaches in relation to class is
very wide and includes, for example, Marx’s concept of class (his critics
and followers), Weber’s distinction of class, status and party, Durkheim’s
occupational groups, the stratification research, Pierre Bourdieu’s
conceptualization or feminist theories. While some approaches stand
in mutual opposition of opinions, others coexist side by side without
any considerable interest, and others combine one with another and
complement each other. A concrete example of theoretical paper
linking the critical theory and the sociology of culture is the study
by Nový, who similarly to the authors mentioned at the beginning of
this subchapter sees class in the realm of politics and collective consciousness,
and ‘stresses the interconnectedness and inseparability of
the concepts of class and class struggle in critical theory, and ponders
their usage in the sociology of culture’[Nový 2014: 554].Another theoretically
based study of class is the Is Durkheim a Class Analyst? [2005]
paper by Grusky and Galescu, the authors point out that Durkheim’s
account of the occupational group provides the foundation for a new
class analysis that is tailor-made for contemporary research purposes.
e authors thus rank among those who more generally criticize the
big classes that the stratification research works with.
Unlike the quoted theoretically-based objectives, questions of the
stratification based research focus on the testing of measuring instruments
or monitoring the transformation of inequality and social mobility
in a certain period and the political and geographical context.
Since the 1960s, the stratification research has gained a dominant position
not only in the field of study of social inequalities,but is sometimes
mistaken for sociology in general. It works with big classes of the type
of the higher and lower salariat, white collar, petite bourgeoisie, blue
collar, skilled and unskilled manual workers and the unemployed [see
Rose, Harrison, Pevalin in Katrňák, Fučík 2010: 41] or, as the case may
be, entrepreneurs, higher grade professionals, the self-employed, middle
grade professionals, clerks, skilled workers and unskilled workers
[see Machonin 2003, 2004]. Nevertheless, the inclusion in a class is primarily
derived from the position of the individual in the labour market,
67
from the degree of occupational autonomy and the extent of work
responsibilities in the workplace. Weeden, Grusky [2005, 2012] argue
against the stratification research and criticize it for generating classes
that do not exist in reality (they do not correlate with the living conditions
they are to represent), and so lose their explanation value for the
understanding of the behaviour of social actors. On the one hand, they
cluster together disparate groups of the population that greatly differ
in their living conditions and prospects, on the other hand, they ignore
the institutionally anchored links or hierarchies in the labour market
that do have significant implications for life style. According to critics,
attention is overly focused on making advanced statistical operations
precise and on the modelling of the relationships between variables,
while the interest in deeper understanding and explanation vanishes.
e field of class research thus becomes also the territory of dispute
about the method and its place in the social science research. Kaufman
criticizes the tendency to deliver data and complex methodological
techniques as the primary objective of the research [Kaufman 2010:
18], similarly, about half a century earlier, Mills advised avoiding the
fetishism of method and technique [Mills 1961: 224]. Following the
same logic, it would be possible to deliberate over the fetishism of the
theory, see the previous section that concerns itself with the pitfalls of
full affiliation with a certain school or conceptualization.
e previous approaches differentiate not only between research
methods and reflections of the methodology or among relationships
to the theory, but they also differ significantly in their relation to the
category of power. e stratification theories came under criticism
because they ignored power, mainly from the positions of Marxist sociology
for which,on the contrary,power had a substantially explaining
character.
‘Economic advantages and disadvantages, affluence and deprivation,
are anchored in structures of exploitation and domination, not
simply in differences among individuals in the ability to compete in
markets. To state the matter starkly: the rich benefit from the poor
being poor, and the poor are poor in part because of what the rich
do to get and stay rich’ [Wright 2005: 1].
68
e Marxist concept of class primarily distinguishes two classes,
capitalists and workers, depending on the ownership of the means
of production or their absence respectively. Workers are exploited by
capitalists, who can be mobilized if it is realized, and class consciousness
is born. e relational reasoning of the exploitation then logically
generates a different perspective of the working class than that offered
by stratification theories that treat classes as objective descriptive
schemes. Skeggs [2012] writes about the exploitation through media in
TV reality shows, in which persons with a lower social status are portrayed
as uncivilized, vulgar, without taste, or stupid. Leicht generally
sees a link between the demise of traditional blue-collar professions
and the growth in popularity of the television competitions where ordinary
people are appreciated for their skills in singing, dancing, or some
other talent [Leicht 2014: 493].‘e working class has been vilified and
romanticised, it is the former positioning which currently dominates’
[Skeggs in Taylor 2007: 11]. Workers are oen displayed through excesses
in a variety of areas (conduct, appearance, housing, sexuality)
[Skeggs 2004: 99–105]. Similarly, the Romany are, in the context of
the Czech Republic, described as those who speak too loudly or even
scream, gesticulate and spectacularly consume, which is perceived as
unmatched by adequate incomes or good taste.
Žižek notes the rising nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe,
which becomes a substitute for the mentioned absence of class politics
[Žižek in Kalb, Halmai 2011: 14]. Bartha explores the‘“forms of workers”
new subalternity in the new capitalist regimes in East Germany
and Hungary’ [Bartha 2014: 309] and shows a growing nostalgia for
the former regime,which is the way how ordinary people express their
social criticism in a situation when there is no established le-wing
variant of the critics of capitalism in the political spectrum [ibid.]. In
the context of the Czech Republic, this type of nationalism and populism
can be observed in the anti-Roma marches and demonstrations
(for example, in Northern Bohemia in 2011 or later in Ostrava) or
current (2015) anti-Islamic and anti-refugee demonstrations. In the
debates on migration, the right wing appeals to the values and rights
of ‘ordinary people’ (and the legitimacy of their fear) to whom lewing
political parties cannot or do not want to offer support, solidar-
69
ity and collective consciousness and who are fastened on nationalism
as something that gives meaning and a sense of belonging to their
lives, something that relieves them of the fear of things uncertain and
foreign.
e working class appeared to be more understandable historically,
sociologically and by laymen when it was personified by men and
work in heavy industry. Traditional trades are disappearing, the working
class is increasingly present, among others, in the service sector,
and the proportion of women in the working class is thus becoming
more visible. Julie Bettie focuses specifically on women within the US
context. e author studied class differences at the girls’ high school
in California, and she asked the following questions: ‘How the young
women experience and understand class differences in their peer culture
and how their and their parents’ class location and racial/ethnic
identity shaped the girls’ perceptions of social differences at school
and the possibilities for their futures’ [Bettie 2003: 7]. With her approach,
Bettie subscribes to the feminist theory, which, like Marxist
sociology, emphasizes the aspect of power, but also thematizes the
intersectionality of this approach to class, that is to say the already
mentioned interconnection with ethnicity, race, gender, religion, or
sexuality. Similarly, the ‘Memory of Roma Workers’ project is exceptional
in the re-framing of the Romany theme through becoming
closer in ordinariness [Sidiropulu Janků 2015: 19], and through the
integration of the Romany into the category of workers. e Romany,
coming from rural areas to industrial cities and the borderland to seek
jobs aer the war [Schuster 2015], is a good example of the transformation
of work in the post-modern society.Work, that had previously
ensured the certainty of a stable income and housing, has been gradually
failing to meet this function and losing its position as the main
source of identification, it is uncertain, precarious. e restructuring
and transformation of the labour market caused hesitation over how
to talk about the working class (and class in general), how to define it,
how to treat it politically and in the media. New classifications with
new classes have been emerging. Guy Standing [2011] comes up with
the term precariat, which he uses to refer to a rather heterogeneous
group characterized by a lack of income opportunities, income inse-
70
curity, uncertainty of an employment contract, which fails to guarantee
stability of employment, the lack of retraining opportunities, and
also the uncertainty of representation through unions and collective
agreements.
e goal of any type of writing about disadvantaged groups, which
the working class can be increasingly considered to belong to, is however
not to:
‘[...] document their everyday world in an effort to attract sympathy
for their plight. It is to dissect the social mechanisms and meanings
that govern their practices, ground their morality (if such be the
question), and explain their strategies and trajectories, as one would
do for any social category, high or low, noble or ignoble’ [Wacquant
2002: 1470].
e quotation of Wacquant goes beyond the descriptive and objective
documentary goals of research questions and leads to the perception
of the interdependence between the planes of actors and social
structures.
The Research Question and Research Writing
I have repeatedly mentioned in this paper that thinking about a topic
is related to the process of writing. In his treatise dedicated to graduate
students, Howard Becker advises them to start writing early.‘If you
start writing early in your research you can begin cleaning up your
thinking sooner’[Becker 1986: 17–18]. e same is true of the research
question, the sooner and in more detail we think about it, the better it
then takes care of our final text. Writing means rewriting, finding the
right words, arguments, theses and their sequence. One of my most
joyous experiences with writing was my dissertation, when I set myself
the target of writing one page every day from the very beginning (i.e.
my study stay at the University of Toronto). Some pages were hard
earned, some mindless, some written with ease, some days I wrote
several pages, some days none. I consider the habit of sitting at your
computer every day, opening a text file and writing to be both good
71
and productive. e opportunity of discussing a research idea or question
with someone else as I mentioned in the introductory section can
also be used in the process of writing. Aer all, the manuscript of this
book came into existence similarly. e personal meetings of authors
where we exchanged our texts in pairs, set aside enough time to read
and then comment on them,was one of the most enjoyable moments in
the creation of the book. During rewriting and critical reading, useless
parts of a text can be avoided or contrariwise attention can be drawn
to the spots in a text that are not sufficiently explained, are confused or
their place and meaning in the text is not clear. Becker warns of fancy
writing and the use of meaningless expressions [ibid.: 7]. Similarly, we
should be cautious in the use of sociological jargon as an inclination
towards a sociological school or approach may tempt us to do because
‘how we write is linked directly to how we read’[Hammersley,Atkinson
1995: 239].
To capture the plasticity, multiplicity and physicality, corporeality
and the unrefined nature of the social world in the form of a text oen
seems to be difficult (for other means of grasping the world around
us see Staveník or Kubala in this volume). I take my concern about
research questions4
(my own and those in the texts of others) as a way
of exercising the academic hygiene, the goal of which, is not to clean
and sterilize a topic or terrain, but to strenghten us as researchers and
authors.It enables our assertions and texts to stand up to external influences,
and hence also to the objections and questions of others.
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