Comment

Comment by Michael E. Smith on April 16, 2011 at 5:01pm

In my understanding, "grounded theory" is a kind of "middle-range theory" in Robert Merton's terms. I am always puzzled why anthropologists and archaeologists are so infatuated with high-level, abstract social theory, which is difficult or impossible to apply directly to empirical data (Roy Ellen 2010).

 

My take on middle-range theory, from the perspective of ancient cities is found in:

 

Smith, Michael E.
2011 Empirical Urban Theory for Archaeologists. Journal of Archaeol...

Ellen, Roy
    2010    Theories in Anthropology and "Anthropological Theory". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16:387-404.

 

And wouldn't it make more sense to merge this group with "Theory for Anthropology?" Grounded theory seems like an excellent example of a kind of theory that is widespread outside of anthropology, but something that anthropologists should pay attention to.

Comment by Victoria Reed on September 26, 2009 at 10:05pm

I am interested in Grounded Theory due to it's affinity with schemas. I am studying schemas from a psychological perspective at this time both in general and as they manifest in adolescence.

As an anthropology student, I am interested from the larger perspective. I ran across a matrix with basic term defs. Of interest to me was the entry for "context" [here].

The author's bias is that causes are more interesting than contexts. I find this not to be true for me. I must know the context to evaluate a cause. Anyone else find this curious?

Comment by deniz batum on September 24, 2009 at 10:23am

I would advise anyone looking for a user-friendly way to make use of Grounded Theory, the book of Kathy Charmaz.

Comment by Denice Szafran on September 24, 2009 at 5:59am

I am about to try and use it for my dissertation. I would appreciate any helpful suggestions you might have.

Comment by deniz batum on August 27, 2009 at 1:47pm

Hello. Anyone actively using Grounded Theory?