Should I stay or should I go?

Reflecting about experienced methodological issues

auteurs Camille Claeys
  Els Dumortier
  Sofie De Kimpe
tijdschrift GERN (ISSN: )
jaargang 2015
aflevering 3. Criminology, Security and Justice. Methodological and epistemological issues
onderdeel Article
publicatie datum 22 juli 2015
taal English
pagina 15
samenvatting

This paper derives from the fieldwork experiences of Camille Claeys, a female PhD student, doing ethnographic research in the field of police interrogations of juvenile delinquents, and the discussions with her supervisors Els Dumortier and Sofie De Kimpe. As there has only been a small-scale empirical research in Belgium on how police interrogates juvenile offenders in daily practice, we want to discover through ethnography (more specifically observations and complementary interviews with the police interrogators) how the interrogations are conducted.
After her first steps into the field (a Belgian Police Youth Unit) and drawing on her first empirical data, we reflect on our relationship and on the approach we used to access the field. Camille Claeys also reflects on her ‘personal access’ to the field, her personal ‘baggage’ and several methodological issues such as the role as an observer and avoiding over-identification. As reflecting about these issues (arising from both the research aims and the research context) affects the way we approach our research and interpret our data – and because reflection about this topic is sometimes overlooked in literature – we believe this reflection is significant from a theoretical as well as a practical point of view.
Methods are a crucial part of the scientific enterprise and reflexivity offers an opportunity to discuss and overthink them. Consequently, this paper underlines the relevance of reflecting about methodology and is intended as a contribution to the discussions about qualitative research methods in a police setting.