Sherryl Kleinman

“We must do the impossible and start before we begin. Before making that first phone call or visit, freewrite (see Elbow, 1981): Write fast and furiously without worrying about spelling or grammar or coherence. Ask yourself, What images do I hold of the people and the place I am about to study and how do I feel about those images? How did I come to study this setting at this time?
Ask yourself about the needs you expect this setting to fulfill: Do I have an axe to grind? Do I have a mission? Am I looking for a cause or a community? Do I expect this study to help me resolve personal problems? Am I hoping to create a different self? What political assumptions do I have? What kinds of setting activities or subgroups might I avoid or discount because of who I am or what I believe?”
― Sherryl Kleinman, Emotions and Fieldwork

“[…] a student in our class asked disdainfully why quantitative methodologists do not openly criticize qualitative methods. He scoffed, 'They don't even mention it. But in courses in qualitative methods, quantitative methods always come up.'
[…]
I pointed out that the lack of critical remarks and the absence of any mention of qualitative research in 'methods' courses indicate the hegemony of the quantitative approach. Were not his statistics professors making a strong statement about the place of qualitative methods by omitting them entirely? Qualitative researchers, then, have to legitimate their perspective to students in order to break the methodological silence coming from the other side.”
― Sherryl Kleinman, Emotions and Fieldwork