Social and cultural research has changed dramatically in the last few years, but methods texts have not kept pace with these changes. This volume provides a set of new approaches for the investigation of the contemporary world. Building on the increasing importance of methodologies that cut across disciplines, more than twenty expert authors explain the utility of 'devices' for social and cultural research ¿ their essays cover such diverse devices as the list, the pattern, the event, the photograph, the tape recorder and the anecdote.