So they wander the land, seeking and sharing.Ĭomparing books I like to other books I like is a fraught endeavor because people don’t like the same things for the same reasons. If you refuse a Steerswoman an answer, you’ll never get one from any Steerswoman again, ever.

(“How can I cure this disease?” “What was the weather like last week in Withywood?”) In exchange, they have to answer any question any Steerswoman asks, honestly. Anyone in this vaguely medieval milieu can ask any Steerswoman any question they wish, and receive the Steerswoman’s most honest answer, gratis. The Steerswoman is the first in a four-volume and currently in-progress series set in a world occupied by (among many other folks) the titular Steerswomen, an order of (mostly) women of amazing memories and powers of deduction and analysis, who travel their fantastical world seeking answers to the mysteries of life, sharing knowledge, and trying to make the world a better place. The design has attracted a great deal of interest from gerontologists and social science methodologists leading to numerous speaking invitations.I recently read the first of Rosemary Kirstein’s Steerswoman books, and was thrown by just how thoroughly the thing it was.

These include practical and ethical issues connected with the reuse of archived data and with replicating Townsend’s original method of inquiry in our own follow up fieldwork. Its focus is the methodological challenges that our innovative qualitative longitudinal design (showcased on the ESDS website) raises. 89–103.īased on on-going ESRC funded research which, drawing on archived data, is revisiting Peter Townsend’s seminal study of residential care for older people, ‘The Last Refuge (1962). In: Bernard, Miriam and Scharf, Thomas eds.Ĭritical perspectives on ageing societies.īristol, UK: The Policy Press, pp. Revisiting 'The Last Refuge': present day methodological challenges. Johnson, Julia Rolph, Sheena and Smith, Randall

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