Review Essay: The Representation of a Pioneer of Research on Childhood Using Film: "In Search of Martha Muchow"

Authors

  • Katharina Miko-Schefzig Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-20.3.3394

Keywords:

documentary, social science film, Martha Muchow, childhood, adolescence, National Socialism, performative social science

Abstract

This review essay focuses on the film "Auf den Spuren von Martha Muchow" [In Search of Martha Muchow, a documentary about the psychologist Martha MUCHOW, who researched childhood and adolescence in the 1920s and 1930s. She was a pioneer of the socio-spatial perspective on childhood, as well as the method of (participant) observation. The social scientist MEY and the filmmaker WALLBRECHT explicitly label their film as performative social science. I present crucial aspects of the film's content and thus of MUCHOW's biography, but primarily I analyze the dramaturgical and filmic decisions by MEY and WALLBRECHT from a social science perspective. I also place the film within current debates on the use of film as an output of research similar to written articles in the social sciences, which is gaining more and more importance within qualitative research methods.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Katharina Miko-Schefzig, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien

Katharina MIKO-SCHEFZIG hat eine Postdoc-Stelle (Assistant Professor) am Kompetenzzentrum für empirische Forschungsmethoden und ist Lektorin am Institut für Soziologie der Universität Wien. Ihre Forschungsschwerpunkte liegen in den Methoden der qualitativen Sozialforschung, in der Sicherheits- und Polizeiforschung sowie der visuellen Soziologie und dem sozialwissenschaftlichen Film.

Published

2019-09-26

How to Cite

Miko-Schefzig, K. (2019). Review Essay: The Representation of a Pioneer of Research on Childhood Using Film: "In Search of Martha Muchow". Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 20(3). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-20.3.3394