This book offers an account of contemplative reflection in qualitative social research. Focusing on the experiences of the researcher – including sensory and emotional experiences – and the work of the mind in the investigative process, it considers the means by which the researcher’s basic assumptions can be analyzed and bracketed, so as to shed light on the process by which knowledge is produced. Through an exploration of the methods of meditation, auto-observation and self-reports, epoché, "contemplative memo-ing," and the contemplative diary, the author explores the essential role of subjectivity in qualitative research, providing inspiration for more mindful research. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, and geography with interests in phenomenology, research methods, and the role of the mind in the research process.

The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in Spirituality and Contemplative Studies provides the first authoritative overview of methodology in this growing field. Against the background of the pandemic and other global challenges, spirituality is expanding as an agreed term with which to discuss the efforts people make to be fully present to deeper, invisible dimensions of their personal identity and external reality, but until now there have been few resources exploring the different methodological approaches researchers take. This book explores the primary methodologies emerging: First Person, Second Person, and Third Person, and provides a systematisation of spirituality research in applied contexts for the first time. Comprising 33 chapters by a team of international contributors, the book is divided into seven parts: Foundations Approaches to Contemplative Research Contemplative Research in Education Contemplative Research in Work and Leadership Contemplative Research in Science, Health, and Healing Contemplative Research in Social Sciences Contemplative Research and the Way Forward The Handbook provides readers, practitioners, and policymakers with methods and approaches which can facilitate a spiritual and contemplative stance in research activities. It is an essential resource for researchers and students of Religion, Spirituality, and Research Methods.

"This book offers an account of contemplative reflection in qualitative social research. Focusing on the experiences of the researcher - including sensory and emotional experiences - and the work of the mind in the investigative process, it considers the means by which the researcher's basic assumptions can be analysed and bracketed, so as to shed light on the process by which knowledge is produced. Through an exploration of the methods of meditation, auto-observation and self-reports, epoché, 'contemplative memo-ing', and the contemplative diary, the author explores the essential role of subjectivity in qualitative research, providing inspiration for more mindful research. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology and geography with interests in phenomenology, research methods and the role of the mind in the research process"--

Experiencing the Body in Yoga Practice: Meanings and Knowledge Transfer inspires more mindful and contemplative qualitative research on body and knowledge transfer in bodily practices in hatha yoga. The book explores the work of the mind, as well as the role of emotions and body sensations in perceiving reality and in reflecting on it. Procedures and research methods are an extension of our mind, which wants to reach into the social reality to describe it objectively. It usually refuses body and emotions. The techniques of sampling and representativeness are also tools of the mind. Using these tools, our contact with social reality produces emotions and feelings of the body. These phenomena surrounding the mind and body often go unnoticed during research and are only partially reported in the conclusions. Experiencing the Body in Yoga Practice: Meanings and Knowledge Transfer examines this gap. It presents the application of a contemplative way of thinking and proceeding in qualitative social research and a first-person perspective, focusing on experiencing lived body and knowledge transfer in hatha yoga. It analyzes how the mind focuses and stops working, proceeds in the finite province of the meaning of yoga, how the body produces emotions and deals with them during yoga sessions, and how the knowledge is transferred by using the body in some linguistic and cultural context. The book will be of interest to sociologists and social scientists who want to concentrate on and analyze the experiences of the body from contemplative and phenomenological perspectives. It is also key reading for all practitioners dealing with body and bodywork, such as in sports, recreational activities, physical education, rehabilitation, physical work, educational activities, etc.

The book casts a spotlight on Central and Eastern European societies, making their experiences visible and meaningful within the postcolonial discourse. The modernization theory overlooks important aspects of postsocialist transformation. Consequently, sociological knowledge has drifted apart from the social production of knowledge, and sociology has become alarmingly irrelevant to the people it studies. Therefore, the book departs from preconceived notions of “normal” and “modern” to foreground the importance of actual social experience. After all, Central and Eastern Europe is a valuable yet underestimated social laboratory. Thus, the contributors experiment with new theoretical and methodological approaches to bridge the gap between social research and real people. Contributors are: Izabella Bukraba-Rylska, Jacek Burski, Grzegorz Ekiert, Kaja Gadowska, Anna Giza, Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper, Michał Kaczmarczyk, Krzysztof T. Konecki, Mirosława Marody, Adam Mrozowicki, Joanna Wawrzyniak, Anne White, Renata Włoch, Tomasz Zarycki, and Marek Zirk-Sadowski.

The first wide-ranging, organic analysis of the sociology of unmarkedness and taken-for-grantedness, this volume investigates the asymmetry between how we attend to the culturally emphasized features of social reality and ignore the culturally unmarked ones. Concerned with the structures of cultural invisibility, unconscious rules of irrelevance, automatic frames of meaning, and collective attention patterns, it brings together scholarship spanning sociology, anthropology, and social psychology, to cover various aspects of humdrum, unglamorous, nondescript, nothing-to-write-at-home-about social phenomena, developing the key assumptions, underpinnings, and implications of this field of study. As comprehensive analysis of unremarked features of our social existence, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in social theory and the sociology of everyday life.

Seeking a concise and substantial vision of symbolic interactionism, this volume manifests the crucial research endeavors and key elements that contribute to the vitality of the interactionist theoretical framework.