ABSTRACT
From one point of view the nature of naturalistic research is straightforward: it is the case-study research of Chicago sociology. Thus, Blumer cites The Polish Peasant as an exemplar of naturalistic research (Blumer 1979a). However, this is not as helpful as it might be since, as I noted in Chapter 3, the Chicagoans were not very explicit about methodology. Furthermore, Blumer himself provides only one account of what he is recommending, and even that is little more than a sketch (Blumer 1969a). In fact, as late as 1979, Blumer stated that the methodology of naturalistic research ‘has not been worked out at all’ (Blumer 1979a:xxxiv). In this chapter I shall try to work it out as best I can, looking first at Blumer’s own description of naturalistic method, and then at some other accounts of the logic of qualitative analysis that may be taken as developments of it.
