How to Study Social Life

Do you want to study what people do, the things they say, or what they think?

This book offers a lively and questioning account of the essential elements of social research, from defining your research purpose to producing the right output for your audience.

Fostering inquisitiveness and ingenuity and drawing on lots of examples and experiences, it will inspire you to think afresh about the various things you might do as a social researcher.

It will also:

• Reveal the lived realities of research, sharing honest and illuminating stories along the way;
• Draw on plenty of past exercises with students to consider how different activities work
• Demystify the process so you can think for yourself about how to do effective projects.

Original, engaging and candid, this book will help any undergraduate or postgraduate navigate the dynamic and challenging landscape of social research with confidence and creativity.

Russell Hitchings was a Professor of Human Geography at University College London. His research focused on everyday practice, energy consumption and nature experience and he had been lucky to study these themes in a variety of contexts all around the world. He was particularly interested in how we use talk to examine these topics, having done a lot interviewing about them. He also used focus groups, solicited diaries, observation, and survey methods when that seemed like a good idea. Originally from South Wales, he spent many years at UCL, London.

Alan Latham is a Professor of Human Geography at University College London. His research focuses on sociality, social infrastructure, and the public life of cities more generally. He has undertaken research in Germany, America, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Sweden on cities as diverse as Auckland, London, New York, Eugene (OR), Malmo, Berlin, and Champaign-Urbana. Before moving to UCL he held academic positions at the University of Southampton, and the University of Auckland.