ABSTRACT
In building upon contemporary research on language and political economy, this chapter details how dealing with issues of access – access to information and access to sites, produced a certain methodology, or approach to asking questions of value, through processes of abduction and triangulation. In addition to these issues of access, there are also issues of generalisability that the chapter addresses by discussing the extent to which one can or cannot draw conclusions or make generalisations about ‘big’ matters like capitalism, the economy, or ELT broadly speaking, from a relatively small amount of data, including the subjective accounts of teachers who themselves comprise only a small part of commercial eikaiwa. In keeping with the dialectical drive of the book, the chapter details the development of a methodology for collecting data which initially focuses on the ‘parts’ of eikaiwa teachers’ work-lives, before dialectically mediating each part with one another in increasingly complex, and often contradictory ‘wholes’ that build up a picture of work within the schools, and ultimately show how teachers relate to ‘bigger’ structures such as the economy and the state.
