ABSTRACT
Before the term ‘qualitative’ was common, sociologists who had no interest in setting up experimental conditions or conducting quantifiable surveys simply called their activities ‘fieldwork’ and their method of data collection ‘participant observation’. If they had been asked to label their approach, they probably would have called it ‘anthropological’. Most of these early qualitative researchers were members or followers of the so-called ‘Chicago School’. Chicago had the first sociology department in the United States. However, this department was not a sociology department as we know it today. Sociology in the US was much influenced by British ‘social anthropology’, and the department in Chicago was called ‘Department of Social Science and Anthropology’ (Kirk and Miller, 1986, p. 35). Thus, much of the distinction between anthropology and sociology in those days had to do with the locations in which the studies were conducted, either foreign/exotic or at home.
