DIRTY DATA AND INVESTIGATIVE METHODS

Abstract

Qualitative researchers have overlooked the potential scholarly utility private detectives' investigative methods possess for coping with informant deceptions and accessing dirty data. Using interview and observational data, I present private detectives' investigative techniques and a generalizable model they offer for dirty data inquiries consisting of deception cues, leakages, enactment, reconstruction, and surfacing. I then identify accessible secret repositories that private detectives use, consider the performance vulnerabilities in dirty data behaviors they expose, and determine the questions they raise about how secrets are socially embedded. Finally, I illustrate three ethnographic applications for investigative methods: checking informant veracity, secondary analysis of dirty data behaviors, and unexplored secret repositories. I conclude by addressing ethical concerns in implementing these methods and by calling for a bolder scholarly attitude about garnering dirty data.