Tony Adams

August 6

Using more than one qualitative method within one project offers researchers multiple opportunities to attend to the lived experience of their participants. This strategy generates more textured, holistic stories from the field and contributes to more nuanced written work.

In this course Tony Adams introduces a broad methodological toolkit, highlighting four methods that can be used in isolation or combination.

Methods include:

• Textual analysis of historical documents, life texts, online posts and comments
• Informal conversations and formal interviews
• Ethnography, fieldwork, and participant observation
• Autoethnography and the use of personal experience

Two guiding questions direct the course conversation:

• Why use multiple methods?
• How to keep integration in mind throughout the project lifecycle?
• At design: What can/does each method contribute?
• At sampling: Are the same people/settings represented across methods? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?
• During data collection: Can/will findings from one source shape what you look for in another?
• During analysis: How to decide if data should be analyzed separately, together, or iteratively?
• During interpretation: Where and how do findings converge, complement, complicate/diverge, or expand possible conversations that can result from a project?

Dr. Adams draws from projects in which he made innovative use of more than one qualitative method. Specifically, he will discuss the use of several methods across four interrelated publications about weight gain, sexuality, and becoming larger, and in his book, Narrating the Closet: An Autoethnography of Same-Sex Attraction.

The course draws on material from:

• Adams, Tony E. 2011. Narrating the Closet: An Autoethnography of Same-Sex Attraction. Routledge.
• Adams, Tony E., & Berry, Keith. 2013. Size Matters: Performing (Il)logical Bodies on FatClub.com. Text and Performance Quarterly, 33, 308-325. https://doi.org/10.1080/10462937.2013.818704
• Adams, Tony E., 2024. Craving Bigger Bodies: Size, Sexuality, and Becoming Larger. In S. Whetstone & J. Hogan (eds.), Consuming Bodies: Body Commodification and Embodiment in Late Capitalist Societies (pp. 106-123). Routledge.
• Adams, Tony E. Forthcoming. Queer Media as “Equipment for Living”: Pleasures, Proclivities, and the Passing of Time. In H. W. Holladay and T. R. Dunn (Eds.), Critical Autoethnographies of Popular Culture: Engaging the Cultural Stories that Shape Us. Bloomsbury Academic.
• Boylorn, Robin M. and Adams Tony E. 2016. Queer and Quare Autoethnography. In N. K. Denzin & M. D. Giardina (eds.), Qualitative Inquiry Through a Critical Lens (pp. 85-98). Routledge.