Theoretical Validity and Empirical Utility of a Constructionist Analytics

Wing-Chung Ho offers an extensive critique of what he calls our “radical constructionist approach to family experience,” questioning the theoretical validity and empirical utility of the research program. This article responds to the charges in the broader context of the program\u27s constructionist analytics, discussing family\u27s experiential location, organizational embeddedness, and the importance of ethnographic sensibility. A brief extract of situated talk and interaction is presented to illustrate the discursive complexity and institutional bearings of family as a category of experience. The conclusion takes up the issue of whether the program is radical in conceptualization and empirical realization

Animating Interview Narratives

This chapter discusses the implications of viewing the interview as an actively constructed conversation through which narrative data are produced. It explores the ramifications of framing the interview and resulting data as by-products of interpretive practice - the whats and hows of an animated process involving active subjects behind interview participants. Matters of reliability, validity, bias, and rigor are considered

Don\u27t Argue with the Members

Mel Pollner regularly cautioned researchers not to argue with the members of settings under consideration. He warned against substituting the researcher’s meaning for the meanings of those being studied. This article discusses facets of the caution as they relate to the research process. Seemingly simple, the tenet is nuanced in application. The article adds to the nuance by distinguishing what is called the “replacement” of meaning with the “displacement” of meaning, providing a way of understanding what members could mean if the contexts and settings of their accounts were taken into consideration

Quantum Corrections to the Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m and Kerr-Newman Metrics

We use effective field theory techniques to examine the quantum corrections to the gravitational metrics of charged particles, with and without spin. In momentum space the masslessness of the photon implies the presence of nonanalytic pieces $\sim \sqrt{-q^2},q^2\log -q^2$ etc. in the form factors of the energy-momentum tensor. We show how the former reproduces the classical non-linear terms of the Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m and Kerr-Newman metrics while the latter can be interpreted as quantum corrections to these metrics, of order $G\alpha\hbar/mr^3$Comment: 16 page latex file with two figure

On the parameterization dependence of the energy momentum tensor and the metric

We use results by Kirilin to show that in general relativity the nonleading terms in the energy-momentum tensor of a particle depends on the parameterization of the gravitational field. While the classical metric that is calculated from this source, used to define the leading long-distance corrections to the metric, also has a parameteriztion dependence, it can be removed by a coordinate change. Thus the classical observables are parameterization independent. The quantum effects that emerge within the same calculation of the metric also depend on the parameterization and a full quantum calculation requires the inclusion of further diagrams. However, within a given parameterization the quantum effects calculated by us in a previous paper are well defined. Flaws of Kirilin's proposed alternate metric definition are described and we explain why the diagrams that we calculated are the appropriate ones.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure