ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses how textual and thematic analyses can be used to determine relationships, power issues, and social norms. Textual analysis has many names, probably because it comes from different places and perspectives. Textual analysis is often called “close textual analysis,” and some scholars call it “multimodal semiotics,” which means the study of signs in a text from a variety of perspectives. Ethnography uses many of the same techniques as textual analysis, although it includes other elements like being fully embedded in a community and getting consent from that community. There are many fantastic examples of powerful ethnography, some of communities like street gangs and some of scholars themselves. One of the most famous examples is a 2001 book from Barbara Ehrenreich called Nickel and Dimed, which describes how she lived as a minimum wage worker to examine issues of systemic inequality and access.
