Doing Document Analysis: A Practice-Oriented Method

Uniting methods from disciplines across the social sciences and humanities, this hands-on guide develops a novel approach to doing document analysis. The authors present a framework for studying documents that enables you to conduct a rich and systematic analysis of documents in all their diversity.

Focussing on document analysis both in practice and as practice, the book provides you with an innovative and versatile toolkit for analysing print and digital documents. It also:

• Highlights the impacts of digitalisation on documents themselves and the methods used to study them
• Has a strong focus on research ethics and critical engagement with digital sources
• Offers practical guidance on preparing and doing a document analysis research project.

The book offers insightful perspectives both on the indispensable role of documents in our society and practical advice on how you can best analyse documents and their significance. 

Kristin Asdal trained as a historian and is currently professor of Science and Technology Studies (STS) at TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture at the University of Oslo. She has consistently been working across the social sciences and humanities and published in journals like History and Theory, British Journal of Sociology, Social Studies of Science, Accounting, Organizations and Society, the Journal of Cultural Economy and several interdisciplinary textbooks. Such encounters across disciplines spurred Kristin’s research on practice-oriented document-analysis, her interest in what documents can do, and how to be inventive with document-methods that can work across the humanities and social sciences.

In her empirical research, Kristin combines the study of politics and administration with an interest in the sociology of knowledge – and she explores how different knowledge practices, most notably natural science and economics, inform political work and issues. She has pursued her analyses in a wide array of areas, such as environmental politics, controversies over whaling, the bioeconomy and the domestication of new species. Her recent comprehensive research-project The Good Economy and the Little Tools of Valuation, funded by the European Research Council, enabled her to further her interest in documents as ′little tools′ that may each and one of them be small in size, but which together are key to large machineries and have a huge impact. Doing Document Analysis (SAGE, 2021) is the result of a longstanding cooperation with Hilde Reinertsen on exactly such issues. Kristin is currently working on a monograph with Bård Hobæk on paperwork and democracy in parliamentary procedure.

Hilde Reinertsen is a researcher at TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture at the University of Oslo, Norway. She is enthusiastic about exploring and teaching the great diversity of documents, historically and globally, their importance in our lives and in society, and the range of methods by which we can study and analyse them. Hilde has been particularly interested in studying documents within government and public administration, with evaluation practices as a case in point.

She currently leads a research project on the techniques, practices and infrastructures of evaluation and audit in Norway, entitled ‘Evaluation optics of the nation state: The past, present and future of public documentation (EVALUNATION)’. Hilde is a trained historian, has worked as a newspaper opinions editor and holds a PhD in science and technology studies (STS) from the University of Oslo.

Doing Document Analysis (SAGE, 2021) is the result of long-standing cooperation with Kristin Asdal. They have previously co-authored several journal articles and also a textbook in Norwegian on practice-based document analysis.