Investigating Violence? A Coding Scheme for a Reflexive Concept of Violence

Abstract

In this article we propose an understanding of violence that is appropriate for interpretative research, and we outline its methodological consequences. In dealing with qualitative studies on violence, we combine a clear theoretical explication of the phenomenon of violence with the openness towards the material required by qualitative social research. We begin from the distinction between a positive and a reflexive concept of violence: If violence is defined substantively from the perspective of an observer, we speak of a positive concept of violence. However, such an approach contradicts the assumptions of interpretative research, which seeks to analyze social phenomena based on the (self-)understanding of social actors. If, however, one leaves it to the self-understanding in the field to identify a phenomenon as violent, it can happen that this contradicts the intuition of the observers. In sociological research practice, this often leads to the identification of a phenomenon as violence in the field, contrary to the self-understanding of the field. In order to deal with this problem, we propose a reflexive understanding of violence and concretize it in a coding scheme for the qualitative-interpretive investigation of social relations with regard to violence. We illustrate the interpretative sense of the coding scheme using an example from the care of people with dementia.