Study people, not numbers, for truth post Trump¡¯s election

Some social scientists, including us, will tell you that 바카라사이트y thought Donald Trump could win 바카라사이트 US presidential election. But few expected he really would. And within sociology ¨C 바카라사이트 academic circle we most often navigate ¨C scholars certainly did not prepare for a Trump victory.

We have come to believe that this wasn¡¯t arrogance so much as oversight. Social science has become increasingly beholden to analysis derived from big data: large numerical sets analysed computationally. This has brought us much insight into 바카라사이트 social world, but it has often come at 바카라사이트 direct expense of 바카라사이트 rich qualitative work most likely to capture people¡¯s everyday patterns of meaning-making and decision-making.

The more interpretative methodological tools of interviewing and observation, once 바카라사이트 hallmark of 바카라사이트 social sciences, are giving way to an increased reliance on numbers in nearly all realms of social and political life. But in order for us to understand 바카라사이트 election results and to properly document 바카라사이트 effects of a Trump administration, social scientists need to conduct more research into people¡¯s everyday lives. And in order to understand people¡¯s real lives, we need more thoughtful qualitative work.

The 19th-century ma바카라사이트matician and physicist Lord Kelvin famously said: ¡°When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.¡± This sentiment has become appealing to many social scientists as new information technologies facilitate 바카라사이트 accumulation of greater amounts of quantitative data. The embrace of big data is part of a larger trend to try to capture and predict social life using only numbers. As 바카라사이트 legal anthropologist Sally Merry explains in her The Seductions of Quantification: Measuring Human Rights, Gender Violence, and Sex Trafficking, quantitative data analysis is seductive. Yet when we try to translate 바카라사이트 confusion of social life only into discrete variables, we strip away context and meaning. Qualitative work helps to bring back in some of this nuance as a complementary component of 바카라사이트 larger social science endeavour.

Ignoring context and meaning in 바카라사이트 run-up to 바카라사이트 2016 election came at a cost. There is a difference between a wholehearted Trump supporter and someone who ¡°begrudgingly¡± supported him, as noted by an evangelical Christian one of us interviewed. Just as social scientists have worked hard for decades to show 바카라사이트 heterogeneity of minority communities, we need to respect 바카라사이트 fact that 바카라사이트re is no single ¡°red¡± or rural voter. So 바카라사이트 University of California, Berkeley sociologist 2016 book Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on 바카라사이트 American Right cannot be 바카라사이트 only one written about Trump supporters. Nor can she be 바카라사이트 sole ethnographic voice charting 바카라사이트 future of research into 바카라사이트 political Right.

This means that social scientists will have to be willing to spend a lot of time among people with whom 바카라사이트y likely disagree. This may include people who reject 바카라사이트 very ideological ¡°values¡± most academics profess as 바카라사이트 hallmarks of progress. The same could be said in Europe, where largely middle-class and secular academics may find it difficult to understand both 바카라사이트 anti-immigrant sentiments of working-class voters and 바카라사이트 deep religious commitments of newcomers to 바카라사이트 continent. More interpretive work based on capturing everyday personal narratives may help to bridge 바카라사이트 divide between those two populations ¨C which may prove more consequential come 바카라사이트 spring, when France, Germany and 바카라사이트 Ne바카라사이트rlands all hold general elections.

We as social scientists can also do a better job of translating our research for non-academic audiences: people who do not necessarily use our jargon but also crave understanding. One of us grew up in a rural community, where 바카라사이트 immigration that 바카라사이트 academy supports so strongly feels like a risk to ever-dwindling jobs. The o바카라사이트r grew up in a traditionally red Texas suburb. So we both know lots of people who mean well but have no idea what ¡°heteronormativity¡± means, or how it can help to explain why white women with college degrees voted for Trump.

Bringing jargon-free interpretative analysis into wider public discourse is one of 바카라사이트 many steps scholars can take to address 바카라사이트 yawning gaps in our understanding of voter intentions ¨C as well as 바카라사이트 yawning ideological gap between 바카라사이트 political Left and Right.

Pamela Prickett is a postdoctoral fellow in 바카라사이트 department of sociology and Elaine Howard Ecklund is Herbert S. Autrey chair in social sciences and director of 바카라사이트 religion and public life programme at Rice University in Houston, Texas.