The book is about a new paradigm in social sciences, contemplative inquiry. It concerns theory, methods of research,and practical applications. Deep contemplation of a situation could be an epistemological choice for social scientists. It is a fundamentally different approach to research, whereby the investigator is researching not only the object, but also the situation of research and herself/himself in it. Contemplating is a dual way of approaching the truth. It does not mean that the researcher is mentally divided; on the contrary she/he wants to be complete and achieve the unity of being as a researcher-human being and as an element of the situation (psychosocial and historical). Contemplating enables researchers to see how the mind works and create images and reports from the field: What is available for the mind and what is silent or repressed because of the dominating rhetoric of description and rhetoric of feeling? Contemplation is not only analysis, it is also an ethical choice of stopping here and now to see the situation clearly and reporting it together with all th reservations that could result from the mindfully observed interaction of mind, self, and situation at one historical moment.

About the Author
KRZYSZTOF T. KONECKI is chief of the Department of Sociology of Organization and Management at the University of Lodz, editor-in-chief of Qualitative Sociology Review, and president of the Polish Sociological Association. He served as a member of the Executive Committee of the European Sociological Asociation (ESA) and as the chair and vice-chair of the Qualitative Methods Network of ESA. He is a member of the Board of Qualitative Methods Research Network of the European Sociological Association and member of the board of the European Society for Study of Symbolic Interaction. He has published extensively on qualitative methods and grounded theory methodology and has done studies on symbolic interactions. His research interests include the sociology of organization and management, human and nonhuman animal interactions, qualitative methodology of social research, visual grounded theory, contemplative inquiry, and hatha yoga and contemporary forms of spirituality.

Reviews
This book is unique and audacious, and fits very well with current tendencies within qualitative research. It introduces new, fresh threads to questions and concerns that are highly significant for contemporary social science. The formulated conclusions go beyond directly methodological issues, posing key philosophical questions to the whole project of western sociology. The critical potential of the adopted perspective would allow the author to throw the question of reflexive scientific examination in social sciences into doubt to the extent comparable with that of the deconstruction of sociology once performed by Baudrillard. The author does not choose to fulfill this potential. Rather, he pursues the reconciliation of the nondualistic contemplative approach with the discursiveness of western science. He also strongly emphasizes the consistency between the ethical and the cognitive, which is characteristic of the Zen perspective; in our academic reality these two components have been separated and any attempts at their reconciliation result in numerous and rather unmovable difficulties with regard to logic. All this makes the book in question deeply inspiring on various levels of the organization of social science within the contemporary institutional and cultural state of affairs. Without a doubt, this book is worth publishing as it contributes new quality to academic reflection on the social world and the ways of cognising it. -- Grazyna Romanczuk-Woroniecka, University of Warsaw



Book Information
ISBN 9788323344186
Author Krzysztof Konecki
Format Paperback
Page Count 242
Imprint Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Wydawnictwo
Publisher Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Wydawnictwo
Weight(grams) 436g
Dimensions(mm) 239mm * 168mm * 16mm