Abstract
The greatly increased importance of diachronic process perspectives in the social sciences has led to process‐produced data (PPD) becoming one of the main topics of this debate. However, its current use is peculiarly ambivalent. It oscillates between substantialist understandings and self‐evident use. This article stresses the beforehand conceptual decisions made by the researcher that eventually define data, that is, which materials become PPD. Because process‐oriented research rests on heterogenous conceptions of temporality, it is especially these conceptions researchers must make transparent. Drawing on social constructivism, extended by path dependency, happenings, and events, the article exemplifies one conceptual foundation and, using insights from two research projects (historical discussion circles and trajectories of digital infrastructures), a particular specification of PPD. The article thus contributes to the necessary methodological reflection on PPD, and, at the same time, responds to the need for diachronic social research in order to grasp contemporary processes of digitalization.
Highlights
The greatly increased importance of diachronic process perspectives in the social sciences has led to process-produced data (PPD) becoming one of the main topics of this debate
OVER THE PAST YEARS, empirical social research has increasingly called to supplement a synchronous with a diachronous research perspective
A cross-case reflection generalizes insights for the definition of PPD. This first example comes from a sociology-of-knowledge research project entitled “Alfred Schütz and the Viennese Circles: Towards the communicative arrangement of incompatible knowledge,” funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation from 2017 to 2019
Summary
This first example comes from a sociology-of-knowledge research project entitled “Alfred Schütz and the Viennese Circles: Towards the communicative arrangement of incompatible knowledge,” funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation from 2017 to 2019. The second data form is to be emphasized here: The focus is on those documents and material expressions, which are expected to be developed in direct temporal connection with the discussions in the conversational contexts of circles and seminars Expecting that these materials allow one to draw conclusions about the typical ways and means of communicative exchange, they were determined as PPD. These include attendance lists, preparatory notes, minutes, and diary entries made during the course of a seminar, which refer to the processes in and between particular sessions. After an institutionalized period, there was typically another change of location
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