Abstract
Peer-reviewed journals, particularly international ones (although actually that often means published by an anglophone editor) are said to play an essential role in the production of scientific and academic knowledge today. Firstly, because they constitute the form of distribution that is the most acknowledged by academic personnel reviewers, but also because most are increasingly easy to access for anyone with an affiliation to a higher education or research institution. Journals are, collectively, at the heart of the distribution and evaluation of science, but their situations are also extremely variable. BMS does not belong to the category of journals with an impressive impact factor. It is a crossroads methodological journal, between disciplines, between languages, covering all kinds of methods, when methodology is itself considered a secondary issue in the university hierarchy, particularly for social sciences that struggle to have their scientific rigor recognized. However, its relatively discreet situation provides this journal with greater liberty than most in terms of the format of the articles it can publish. It allows us to be more inclusive in terms of the texts that we consider, to take the time to accompany the authors in revising their papers, and to provide the space that they need to account for their experience and express their point of view.
This explains why this issue includes relatively few articles, two of them being quite lengthy. Alice Guilluy’s contribution, to begin with, in the ‘Methodology of my Thesis’ category, looks at the reception of romantic comedies. She traces the conception of her research project, which initially adopted quite a “mainstream” approach, combining mixed methods and national comparison, through its transformation in view of feminist theory and methods.
This is followed by the in-depth article by Patrick Bruneteaux that provides a fascinating reflection on over 20 years of research, conducted with the members of the “underclass” living in emergency housing/shelters. He discusses the overly-frequent amalgamation between ethnography and observation, and the position of social domination that it can reflect. He relates his permanent efforts as an anthropologist negotiating access to field sites and the way in which he maintains contact over the long term, following a humanistic and often transgressive logic of gift exchange. He raises the question of the ethics of his approach to his informers, who have often become his friends.
The third and final text continues from the previous one in the category “Implementation”, and also questions the foundation of a methodology that has now become part of the canon. Written by Frédéric Lebaron and Andrés F. Castro T., it provides a very stimulating investigation into the usage of linear regression models. Based on an empirical example and using geometric representations, it analyses the effects of these models and their potential limitations. In so doing, it encourages the reader to put their analytical routines into perspective. This article is shorter than the previous one, not because its contribution is less fundamental, but because different types of methods and argumentation require different formats.
Finally, this issue also contains the newsletter of the RC33 (as it will twice a year). Directed by Karl van Meter, in a reduced format compared to previous newsletters, the choice was made to structure its content around past events relating to SHS methods. The newsletter therefore operates as a form of useful memory for the scientific community.