"Qualitative" Methods of Social Research in France: Reconstructing the Actor, Deconstructing the Subject Johannes Angermüller Abstract: This contribution gives an overview of the numerous tendencies of open non-standardised social research in France. For various reasons, the label "qualitative" seems to be less distinctive than in the Anglo-Saxon world and Germany. While the interpretive-hermeneutic (verstehend) approa- ches have recently come to play a certain role as a result of international reception, a strong tradition that does not fit into the quantitative-qualitative divide has to be noted: discourse analysis which I will label "quasi-qualitative". A comparison between the interpretive-hermeneutic tendencies of qualitative sociology and the semiologically informed strands of discourse analysis reveals fundamental differences as well as points of convergence. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. "Qualitative" Social Research: The Discovery of the Human Actor 2.1 Ethnographic sociology 2.2 Idealtype based action sociology 2.3 Interpretive sociology 2.4 Techno-social network research 2.5 Biographical documentation 2.6 Computer-aided text analysis 2.7 Beyond the qualitative-quantitative divide 3. "Quasi-Qualitative" Research: The Decentering of the Speaking Subject in Discourse Analysis 3.1 Pioneers 3.2 Evolutions 3.3 Instruments 4. Comparing "Qualitative Sociology" and "Discourse Analysis" 4.1 Object of analysis: "discourse in situation" vs. "discursive formation" 4.2 Ontology of the empirical object: "intersubjective meaning" vs. "interdiscourse" 4.3 Methodology of knowledge production: "empathetic understanding" vs. "epistemological break" 4.4 Definition of the symbolic as "instrumental" vs. "material" 4.5 Objective of the research process: "thick description" vs. "rules of discursive formation" 5. Conclusion © 2005 FQS http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/ Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research (ISSN 1438-5627) Volume 6, No. 3, Art. 19 September 2005 Key words: qualitative sociology, interpretive and hermeneutic methods, ethnography, discourse analysis, linguistics, Foucault, Lacan, Althusser, pragmatics, France FORUM : QUALITATIVE SOCIAL RESEARCH SOZIALFORSCHUNG