‘Here I suffer too much’: notes from a survey conducted at a Custody and Treatment Hospital

Abstract

The present study introduces particular methodological aspects encountered during fieldwork conducted by a social science study in progress, which aims to understand the diseases, crimes and hospitalization rates associated with a custody and treatment hospital in Brazil . Our study consists of qualitative research that adopts a perspective of symbolic interactionism, with methodological features from grounded theory. Initially, we present some of the institutional ambivalences that aroused our interest and describe the general characteristics of the object of the study. We clearly show that the ‘ interned’ are individuals who experience the daily life of the institution. These people are categorized as interned-patients and interned-staff. Then, the technical procedures adopted while both obtaining and analyzing the data are presented. Subsequently, we discuss the issues arising from the investigator’s background and familiarity with the research subject, the accumulation of roles and the difficulties of distinguishing them in the field, and the relationship between the native (or near-native) investigator and the research universe as well as the benefits and difficulties arising from this relationship. While discussing these issues, we describe some of the interactions with the various social actors who compose the field. The present work aims to at least contribute to the methodological construction of other similar studies and to encourage some reflection on this field.