Research materials from qualitative fieldwork in Japan, 2013 – Vol. 2

Among the possible innovative ways to publish research data and materials—alongside the more established formats of the research paper, the academic article, and the critical review—we inaugurate here the format of the “Research Files”, batches of qualitative data which have been assessed as useful materials for other scholars. A certain amount of data which academics collect often remains underused. But such data, if contextualised within one’s own past research activity, can be kept “alive” and perhaps be reborn and virtuously transmitted to other researchers who may want to make some use of them, citing the original source and therefore generating a proficuous circle of knowledge. We decided to distribute a few of these materials over different issues of Mutual Images, grouping them by type. In this first instalment (presenting some early interviews from one of my own past projects), we are also suggesting a way to interpret the notion of “research files” for other scholars who in the future may want to experiment with it. The format of presentation we have thought of as appropriate—or, at least, admissible and functional—is that of recounting the general features of the original research project within which the data here published were produced, so to favour the circulation of ideas.