Literature Reviews

I'll be honest, Luker kind of bugs me. While she apparently no longer agrees with canonical social science method, she is still describing a very structured approach to research. She really seems to think that her way is the best way to do research, but, at the same time, the more I read of her text, her 'salsa-dancing' approach does not seem to be drastically different from what I have learned in previous methods classes.

In chapter 7 of her book, though, I found myself really liking her description of historical/comparative methods in order to interpret the data collected. I think I liked this part of her text the most because I could relate to it based on previous research projects I have done, and this was always my favourite section of papers to write. Literature reviews, I think, are really important in a research project because it situates you within the literature of your subject. When Luker asks: "What pieces of would convince someone who is not already predisposed to agree with you that your argument about what this is a case of is compelling?"(p. 143).

One thing I think that Luker missed her discussion, is that, in my opinion, it is also important to find studies that your study disputes, in order to keep the academic discussion going. If you disagree, or want to tweak theories by other academics, and it's important to your study, you should do so. This, I think, is important to answer the the question I quoted. Whether you are agreeing or disagreeing, it is important to explain why and how you disagree. I think that this could have been more explicitly explained by Luker in this chapter.