Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: -- Introduction; Jenny Hockey, Allison James and Carol Smart -- PART I: THE CHANGING POLITICS AND CONTEXT OF RESEARCH -- 1. 'Bias Binding': Re-calling Creativity in Qualitative Research; Simone Abram -- 2. Possession: Research Practice in the Shadow of the Archive; Rachel Thomson -- 3. Writing as a Movement of Imagination, Reading as Companionship in Thought; Les Back -- PART II: RESEARCH AND THE CRAFTING OF KNOWLEDGE -- 4. Jigsaws with Missing Pieces: Research Imagination(s) and Children's Lives; Allison James -- 5. The Social Life of Interview Material; Jenny Hockey -- 6. Voice, History and Vertigo: Doing Justice to the Dead through Imaginative Conversation; Nigel Rapport -- PART III: LIVING WITH DATA -- 7. Fragments: Living with Other People's Lives as Analytic Practice; Carol Smart -- 8. Being in the Field: Doing Research; Kath Woodward -- 9. Living with the Dead; Carolyn Steedman.

"In The Craft of Knowledge experienced researchers come together to explore what really matters to them in the process of doing research, providing personal accounts of what can often be the trying or painful processes of creating research-based knowledge and understandings of social life. Sociologists, anthropologists and historians come together to pool insights into what it is like to be immersed in real life research and to explore how they deal with the demands and challenges it creates. This is not a book about techniques but about what matters when carrying out qualitative research projects today. Faced with increasing demands for quick answers and unambiguous findings, this book is an appeal for more nuanced processes, deeper ethical considerations and the power of imagination in carrying out social research"--