Rosan,
I don't know if you want to refer to yourself as institutionalized these days!
There is no particular problem with what you brought up. If you are
investigating a problem in the area of poverty, it is a pretty good idea
to talk with people in poverty. With anything you are studying at the
doctoral level, it is important to bypass the literature that seeks to
interpret and explain phenomena and go directly to the phenomena. If
you stayed only with the literature, you would not be a doctoral
student. In short, doctoral study is all about Inquiry. It is not
about the interpretation of texts--what I call Semantics. The latter is
important for knowing what others have found, but that is never a
substitute for direct encounter with phenomena. Experiencing phenomena
gives one data, and it is actually very hard to find data in the
literature. The literature is about Interpreting data, not presenting
it in its most concrete form.
This holds, I believe, for the actual work on a dissertation. The
preliminary and comprehensive phases of doctoral study of course look at
the literature--which one learns to read very very carefully.
Dick
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