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Like the hero of the 1946 Capra movie It's a Wonderful Life, Norman Denzin has been a builder of his local community. While much attention has been paid to his intellectual contributions on methods and in several substantive areas, possibly his greatest accomplishments have been in the area of building and fostering a robust, international, multidisciplinary qualitative research community. This chapter explores some of these contributions, focusing on Denzin's leadership in creating the Handbook of Qualitative Research, the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, and eight different journals or book series for which he serves as editor or coeditor. Through these channels, he has fostered the work of younger scholars, of marginalized groups, and of qualitative communities throughout the world, and supported innovative directions in qualitative theory and practice.

Assigning or claiming identities can be a dangerous business. Labels carry conflicting meanings and, even more importantly, what is a laudatory term to some will be grounds for condemnation by others. My immediate response to the invitation to write this piece about becoming a symbolic interactionist, aside from the pleasure of being asked, was that I was not sure that I could claim, or even that I would want to claim, this label. I have a visceral dislike of theoretical-cum-methodological camps, not least because over the years I have been accused of belonging to a variety of these, from positivism to post-modernism. Reflecting a little more on the invitation, however, I realized that I could not reasonably deny that in the past, particularly in the 1970s, I regarded myself and was seen by others as an interactionist. Moreover, while my ideas about sociological work are now somewhat different from what they were then, and the direction of travel might be viewed as ‘un-interactionist’, in fact much of my work is still focused on issues coming out of the interactionist tradition: notably, Blumer's views about methodology, Becker's arguments about ‘Whose side are we on?’, and the notion of analytic induction.

In this volume, we ask what happens when the researcher in forms of intimate scholarship is decentered – no longer the focus, but merely one part of an entangled material-discursive formation collectively producing the “results” of the inquiry. In the midst of the current ontological turn in qualitative research, we argue that this form of scholarship offers the opportunity to address directly the question of the post-human subject and generate thinking for the field of qualitative research more broadly. In particular, chapters in this volume highlight ways that researchers of teaching and teacher education practices can advance conversations and knowledge in education while exploring theories with an ontological view of the world as fundamentally multiple, dynamic, fluid, and co-constituted by entangled material and discursive forces. Authors “put to work” post-human, nonlinear, and multiplistic theories and concepts to disrupt and decenter the “I” or researcher-subject in self-focused methodologies, and/or to analyze knowledge and practice as co-produced by multiplicities of human/material and incorporeal elements in which the self is but one temporally “individuated” or “subjectivized” component. In the introduction, we provide brief discussions of intimate scholarship and post-human perspectives, followed by an orientation to the content of the this book.

Purpose – This chapter explores various approaches to historical methods as they relate to sport and physical culture research.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter discusses various paradigmatic approaches to historical methods (reconstructionist, constructionist and deconstructionist) and takes up current debates related to archives, newspapers, photographs and oral history as they relate to the method. Drawing on these discussions, I outline various approaches to designing a sport and physical culture project using historical methods, focusing on my work on women's industrial sport in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Findings – I discuss how data evolved from the method and how I made choices about the inclusion and exclusion of materials. The chapter concludes that historical methods are tedious, complex and messy but also exciting and insightful ways to do research. I also conclude by encouraging the researcher to be reflexive and aware of one's ‘positionality’ as a researcher and embrace the historical process.

Originality/value – The chapter is original work. It is not so much a prescriptive ‘how-to’ guide for historical research, but it works to take up current debates in historical methods. It also endeavours to engage students and scholars alike as they consider their research projects and the potential value of historical methods.

Since its inception in 1926, the tradition of playing Indian at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana (UIUC) has fostered powerful devotion and deep affection, creating powerful spaces of identification and narration for thousands of (largely EuroAmerican) students, fans, and community members. Embodied by Chief Illiniwek, this tradition had proven popular and pleasurable for more than 60 years when a small, but persistent, collection of students and faculty began challenging the prevailing uses and understandings of Indianness at UIUC. At first, these interventions appeared awkward and idiosyncratic as they worked to unsettle established interpretations and preferred practices. Over time, a vital and creative counter-hegemonic movement crystallized, fostering protest, internal efforts at reform, and critical scholarship. In conjunction with a broader, national movement (see King, 2010), these local initiatives culminated in a policy change by the National Collegiate Athletic Association that would eventually prompt UIUC, after initial resistance, to retire Chief Illiniwek. Nevertheless, alumni, fans, and several media outlets not only continued to defend the schools mascot, but went so far as to celebrate it as well. Indeed, almost immediately after Chief Illiniwek performed for the last time, the local paper in Champaign-Urbana released a volume commemorating the mascot and its import (Foreman, 2007). As much of the media and public has mourned for their “Indian” and longed for their lost traditions, they have silenced and marginalized local and national network of resistance intent to re/claim dignity, humanity, and community.

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point clouds have been widely used in deformation measurement for structures. However, reliability and accuracy of resulting deformation estimation strongly depends on quality of each step of a workflow, which are not fully addressed. This study aims to give insight error of these steps, and results of the study would be guidelines for a practical community to either develop a new workflow or refine an existing one of deformation estimation based on TLS point clouds. Thus, the main contributions of the paper are investigating point cloud registration error affecting resulting deformation estimation, identifying an appropriate segmentation method used to extract data points of a deformed surface, investigating a methodology to determine an un-deformed or a reference surface for estimating deformation, and proposing a methodology to minimize the impact of outlier, noisy data and/or mixed pixels on deformation estimation.

In practice, the quality of data point clouds and of surface extraction strongly impacts on resulting deformation estimation based on laser scanning point clouds, which can cause an incorrect decision on the state of the structure if uncertainty is available. In an effort to have more comprehensive insight into those impacts, this study addresses four issues: data errors due to data registration from multiple scanning stations (Issue 1), methods used to extract point clouds of structure surfaces (Issue 2), selection of the reference surface S_ref to measure deformation (Issue 3), and available outlier and/or mixed pixels (Issue 4). This investigation demonstrates through estimating deformation of the bridge abutment, building and an oil storage tank.

The study shows that both random sample consensus (RANSAC) and region growing–based methods [a cell-based/voxel-based region growing (CRG/VRG)] can be extracted data points of surfaces, but RANSAC is only applicable for a primary primitive surface (e.g. a plane in this study) subjected to a small deformation (case study 2 and 3) and cannot eliminate mixed pixels. On another hand, CRG and VRG impose a suitable method applied for deformed, free-form surfaces. In addition, in practice, a reference surface of a structure is mostly not available. The use of a fitting plane based on a point cloud of a current surface would cause unrealistic and inaccurate deformation because outlier data points and data points of damaged areas affect an accuracy of the fitting plane. This study would recommend the use of a reference surface determined based on a design concept/specification. A smoothing method with a spatial interval can be effectively minimize, negative impact of outlier, noisy data and/or mixed pixels on deformation estimation.

Due to difficulty in logistics, an independent measurement cannot be established to assess the deformation accuracy based on TLS data point cloud in the case studies of this research. However, common laser scanners using the time-of-flight or phase-shift principle provide point clouds with accuracy in the order of 1–6 mm, while the point clouds of triangulation scanners have sub-millimetre accuracy.

This study aims to give insight error of these steps, and the results of the study would be guidelines for a practical community to either develop a new workflow or refine an existing one of deformation estimation based on TLS point clouds.

The results of this study would provide guidelines for a practical community to either develop a new workflow or refine an existing one of deformation estimation based on TLS point clouds. A low-cost method can be applied for deformation analysis of the structure.

Although a large amount of the studies used laser scanning to measure structure deformation in the last two decades, the methods mainly applied were to measure change between two states (or epochs) of the structure surface and focused on quantifying deformation-based TLS point clouds. Those studies proved that a laser scanner could be an alternative unit to acquire spatial information for deformation monitoring. However, there are still challenges in establishing an appropriate procedure to collect a high quality of point clouds and develop methods to interpret the point clouds to obtain reliable and accurate deformation, when uncertainty, including data quality and reference information, is available. Therefore, this study demonstrates the impact of data quality in a term of point cloud registration error, selected methods for extracting point clouds of surfaces, identifying reference information, and available outlier, noisy data and/or mixed pixels on deformation estimation.

The propositional knowledge about the Health Promoting School (HPS) and how it privileges the health sector, and research through intervention and behaviour change rather than gaining an understanding of how social bases of health impact and influence individuals and the wider school community. The purpose of this paper is to explore how bricolage offers opportunity for understanding complexity, thick description and inter- and multi-disciplinary work. The experience of health promotion and what it looks like at the school level and provides epistemological considerations for reframing research about HPSs for purposes of social justice and equity through bricolage.

An introduction reveals the challenges of health promotion settings, and schools in particular to achieve social justice and equity. Bricolage is discussed with reference to complexity, thick description and inter- and multi-disciplinary work. Considerations are given to bricolage as research to gain understanding and to contribute to social change.

As a setting the HPS is a complex site of social interaction and where there is interplay of multiple, casual factors that influence health and well-being. The potential for social justice and equity remains latent and new approaches to investigating and researching are required. Bricolage offers substantial possibilities as it recognises the value of researching social contexts but with a deliberate intent to engage with participants.

This paper considers how bricolage can re-focus ontological and epistemological positions to engage in health promotion as a social action.

This paper raises questions about the ability of the HPS model to deliver on social justice under current compliance regimes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore stressors and facilitators experienced by police officers when engaging with individuals with learning disabilities, within the context of policing disablist hate crime.

This paper is based on qualitative data obtained from research undertaken within a medium-sized police force in the south of England, and which focuses on the lived realities of service providers and service users. Using a triangulatory research approach, this research included a total of 230 h of observations of day-to-day policing, 10 semi-structured interviews with police officers and 4 focus groups with individuals with learning disabilities.

Stressors, previously identified by sociologist Michael Lipsky – the unpredictability of situations, workload pressures and need for rapid decision making – are discussed within the research, alongside additional stressors regarding the previous experience (internal and external to policing) held by police officers. For some officers, these have the opposite impact and serve as facilitators of positive engagements with individuals with learning disabilities. The discussion is situated within the social model of disability, with an emphasis placed on the impact stressors have on police processes. Finally, the paper suggests practical options for enhancing confidence within the interactions between these two groups, through police training.

The current paper explores an under-researched area of policing and disablist hate crime and utilises a combined approach of the social model of disability and Lipsky's (1980) street-level bureaucrats.

Over the past two decades the subject and growth of social media has been exponential, along with its relevance to the sport marketing industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategic usage of social networking websites to develop the concept of a personal brand by international rugby union players.

This study was embedded within an interpretivist paradigm that allowed the qualitative examination of the way international rugby players use social networking sites. The primary data collection method involved ten semi-structured interviews and was triangulated with secondary sources which involved visiting the three social networking sites utilised by all the players (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).

The research analysis revealed personal branding themes that can be classified according to the following mnemonic: personality, exposure, response, follow, endorse, consistent, and target audience (PERFECT).

This study has focused entirely upon international rugby union players; therefore no claim is made for generalisability to other contexts. A potential area for future research lies in replicating this study in different sport settings in order to identify whether the identified contextual factors also play a role outside of international rugby union and for different gender, playing-level or social media categories.

This study has reinforced that, within “real-life” social networking contexts, the development of an online profile can help create differentiation for players in a highly competitive market, especially if they share similar “sporting” characteristics with colleagues or other athletes. This research highlights that the utilisation of social networks by sports athletes has to become part of a strategic marketing approach.

The author draws attention to the theoretical position based on the PERFECT mnemonic offering sports athletes a framework to develop a successful online branding strategy. The central premise is based on emphasising uniqueness and distinction to offer a competitive advantage by delivering added value throughout various communications.

This story tells a version of my life as an ethnographer and symbolic interactionist. From an early age, I was intrigued by how people interacted and created meaningful worlds for themselves and by my own motives, actions, thoughts, and feelings. Later, as a student of sociology, my eyes were opened to the macro forces that constrained, liberated, and influenced actions, identities, and performances. Eventually, I located myself on the margins of sociology, as I experienced the constraints of mainstream sociology and how this perspective limited what and how I could study and write. I was drawn to a wider interdisciplinary community of scholars who examined experience more concretely and emotionally, and I began to work comfortably in the spaces between social science and literature, self and other, research and story. I now view myself more as a writer communicating heartfelt stories for the purpose of opening up and evoking conversations and emotional responses from readers than a reporter giving an account of what she has seen, heard, and analyzed from a distance, a researcher who works with others rather than one who collects data on them. In my current collaborative witnessing project with Holocaust survivors, I have come full circle, connecting macrohistory and structure with personal storytelling and integrating my sociological eye with a communicative heart.