Qualitative Inquiry and the Deprivatization of Experience

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Contemporary social life is increasingly deprivatized, that is, conducted under the auspices of formal and informal groups, organizations, bureaucracies, and institutions. In these circumstances, personal (often private) experiential objects such as family, self, and the life course are subjected to extensive public discussion, debate, and definition. This article raises the question, Do contemporary social theory and society reflect one another with regard to the public-private distinction? By way of response, the authors argue that theory has not adequately come to grips with the relatton between deprivati zation and the interpretation of experience. The article suggests an analytic approach that more adequately locates and accounts for the relation of public to private life theoretically and empirically, and it presents related methodological guidelines for qualitative inquiry.

This publication has 12 references indexed in Scilit: