Les enquêtes comparatives comme des relations sociales

Retour réflexif d'une recherche Franco-Américaine sur le journalisme local

Resumo

Many articles about comparative research are available today. However, few of them focus on their conditions of production. This article explores this issue through an exercise of participant objectivation made by three researchers differently situated in the academic sphere (an experienced associate professor in France, a recently recruited assistant professor in the US and a temporary teaching and research assistant in France), during their participation in a comparative research on local journalism in France and the US. Following Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology, the aim is to show that professional positions contribute to shaping decision-making processes and thus results. The analysis of e-mail exchanges, field notes and transcripts of our research meetings highlighted two main aspects. Firstly, that position within the academic world contributed to the definition of the division of labor within the team (placing ideas and results in a broader context, financial and academic entrepreneurship or daily mediation and monitoring). Secondly, that position oriented methodological and scientific debates, as suggestions of the best-placed were usually followed. Thus the process of transformation from a quantitative survey based on aleatory questionnaires to a qualitative research based on a non-probabilistic sample can be described.