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Analytic Tradition (analytic + tradition)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	75%

Selected Abstracts

Integration of Different Data Bodies for Humanitarian Decision Support: An Example from Mine Action

DISASTERS, Issue 4 2003
Aldo A. Benini
Geographic information systems (GIS) are increasingly used for integrating data from different sources and substantive areas, including in humanitarian action. The challenges of integration are particularly well illustrated by humanitarian mine action. The informational requirements of mine action are expensive, with socio,economic impact surveys costing over US$1.5 million per country, and are feeding a continuous debate on the merits of considering more factors or ,keeping it simple'. National census offices could, in theory, contribute relevant data, but in practice surveys have rarely overcome institutional obstacles to external data acquisition. A positive exception occurred in Lebanon, where the landmine impact survey had access to agricultural census data. The challenges, costs and benefits of this data integration exercise are analysed in a detailed case study. The benefits are considerable, but so are the costs, particularly the hidden ones. The Lebanon experience prompts some wider reflections. In the humanitarian community, data integration has been fostered not only by the diffusion of GIS technology, but also by institutional changes such as the creation of UN-led Humanitarian Information Centres. There is a question whether the analytic capacity is in step with aggressive data acquisition. Humanitarian action may yet have to build the kind of strong analytic tradition that public health and poverty alleviation have accomplished. [source]

Qualitative Data Analysis for Health Services Research: Developing Taxonomy, Themes, and Theory

HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH, Issue 4 2007
Elizabeth H. Bradley
Objective. To provide practical strategies for conducting and evaluating analyses of qualitative data applicable for health services researchers. Data Sources and Design. We draw on extant qualitative methodological literature to describe practical approaches to qualitative data analysis. Approaches to data analysis vary by discipline and analytic tradition; however, we focus on qualitative data analysis that has as a goal the generation of taxonomy, themes, and theory germane to health services research. Principle Findings. We describe an approach to qualitative data analysis that applies the principles of inductive reasoning while also employing predetermined code types to guide data analysis and interpretation. These code types (conceptual, relationship, perspective, participant characteristics, and setting codes) define a structure that is appropriate for generation of taxonomy, themes, and theory. Conceptual codes and subcodes facilitate the development of taxonomies. Relationship and perspective codes facilitate the development of themes and theory. Intersectional analyses with data coded for participant characteristics and setting codes can facilitate comparative analyses. Conclusions. Qualitative inquiry can improve the description and explanation of complex, real-world phenomena pertinent to health services research. Greater understanding of the processes of qualitative data analysis can be helpful for health services researchers as they use these methods themselves or collaborate with qualitative researchers from a wide range of disciplines. [source]

Religious Epistemology: Naturalizing a Point of View

THE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 4 2001
Jane Duran
I construct and describe an epistemology for the religious , a naturalized epistemology , based on recent work in epistemics. Two points of view exemplary of religious thought are analyzed (Wisdom's and work taken from Kierkegaard), and the normative/descriptive distinction in epistemology utilized to bolster the contention that the religious requires a less normative, more descriptive concomitant epistemology. I conclude that our reluctance to grapple with difficult ontological questions is directly related to the standard normative epistemology of the Anglo-American analytic tradition, and I also conclude that tradition is of little use to us in attempting to develop an epistemology of the religious. [source]

Risky Business: Economic Uncertainty, Market Reforms and Female Livelihoods in Northeast Ghana

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 5 2000
Brenda Chalfin
This article examines the implications of economic uncertainty for rural markets and the livelihoods of female traders. It does so through a case study of a community in northern Ghana caught in the throes of a structural adjustment-driven privatization initiative. In order to fully comprehend the nature of the economic uncertainties in which rural economic actors are enmeshed and the manner in which they resist, engage or engender these conditions, two theoretical lenses are interposed. One, focusing on structural dissolution and an overall process of rural, and especially female, disempowerment, is drawn from recent approaches to African political economy. The other, gleaned from the field of economic anthropology, attends to the agency and knowledge of rural entrepreneurs in the face of unstable and imperfect market conditions. By bringing together these different analytic traditions, the critical significance of uncertainty within the complex process of rural economic transformation and reproduction becomes evident. Rather than functioning as a diagnostic of economic crisis and insecurity, uncertainty can be a strategic resource integral to the constitution of markets, livelihoods and economic coalitions. Such a perspective, privileging the institutional potentials of local social practice, makes apparent the forceful role played by female traders in the structuring of rural marketing systems even in the face of externally-induced and sometimes dramatic shifts in material conditions. [source]