How do scholars transform qualitative data into analysis? What does making analysis imply? What happens in the space in-between data and finalized analysis is notoriously difficult to talk about. In other parts of the research process, scholars and students are aided by method books that describe the technicalities of generating, processing and sorting through data, handbooks that teach academic writing, and scholarly works that offer meta-level, theoretical perspectives. Yet the path from qualitative data to analysis remains ‘a black box.’ Qualitative Analysis in the Making ventures into this black box. The volume provides a means of speaking about how analyses emerge in the Humanities. Contributors from disciplines such as anthropology, history, and sociology of religion all employ an analytical double take. They revisit one of their analyses, analyzing how this particular analysis came into being. Such analyses of an analysis are neither confessions nor step-by-step recounts of what happened. Rather, the volume argues that speaking of the space in-between requires analytical displacement, and the employment of fresh analytical takes. This approach contributes to demystifying the path from qualitative data to finalized analysis. It invites novel epistemological reflections among scholars, and assists students in improving their analytical skills.

Ronald A. Berk is Professor Emeritus of Biostatistics and Measurement and former Assistant Dean for Teaching, The Johns Hopkins University. He received the University’s Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award in 1993 and Caroline Pennington Award for Teaching Excellence in 1997 and was inducted as a Fellow in the Oxford Society of Scholars in 1998. He has published 11 books and 130 journal articles / chapters. These publications reflect his unwavering commitment to mediocrity and his motto: “Go for the Bronze!” He is a popular speaker on teaching and assessment throughout the U.S. and Europe.