Personal Documents as Data Sources for Social Sciences. A Review of History of Uses, Ethical, Methodological and Epistemological Considerations

• Authors: Ozana Cucu-Oancea
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article envisages critically present the use of the personal documents, looking from a historical perspective at how it was practiced in different paradigms in the humanistic-social sciences. The exposé also considers the methodological and the ethical implications of using the method, underlining, in this respect, the aspects related to the preservation and reuse of the materials of this kind. By putting into balance the trumps and downsides of the personal documents method, the article highlights, in fact, the importance of using the personal documents method in studying a wide range of specific problems of the humanistic-social sciences. The ultimate purpose of the article is, therefore, that of prompting the social scientists to look more carefully and more trustingly at the alternative of choosing the personal documents method, as a potential powerful tool for sociological research, providing them, at the same time, with possible directions in discerning between the favourable and unfavourable situations for using it.

Keywords

EN

Personal documents Qualitative data Data archiving Theoretical frameworks Triangulation

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Social Change Review
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 3-36

Dates

published

2012-06-01

online

2014-02-13

Contributors

author

Ozana Cucu-Oancea

• Romanian Academy, Institute of Sociology, 13 Calea 13 Septembrie, 050711 Bucharest, Romani Romanian Academy, Institute of Sociology, 13 Calea 13 Septembrie, 050711 Bucharest, Romania

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/scr-2013-0009