Comics and visual biography: sequential art in social research

This article describes the use of comics in a mixed methods biographical research project aimed at understanding the experiences of vegans (i.e. people who eschew animal products such as meat, dairy and eggs). It begins with a discussion of Comics Studies as a growing interdisciplinary field of academic inquiry, and attempts to trace a connection between this and Visual Sociology more broadly. It then provides examples of the way in which comics were used in the project and the rationale underpinning this. Participants were asked to create comics about their lives, which aimed to supplement biographical interviews that had already taken place, eliciting rich ‘visual biographical’ data that an interview would not produce. Comics were also used as a mode of representation, whereby a ‘visual autoethnography’ was produced, outlining the author’s reflexive autobiographical relationship with veganism, and telling the story of the research. This project presented challenges, specifically around participation, ethics and anonymity, and data analysis. Despite this, the comics produced provided an unusual and valuable insight into the lives and experiences of vegans. To conclude, this article argues that the visual biographical data yielded through the use of the Comics medium represents a valuable tool in visual sociology.     

TAKING THE DEBATE ON REFLEXIVITY FURTHER

Much has been written on the presence of researcher subjectivity in qualitative research and the concept of reflexivity, and efforts to account for researcher influence abound. A vast proportion of this literature examines interviewer effects and is confined to the relationship between researcher and respondent in the interview interaction. The present paper extends this focus. It contributes insights from a collaborative team project by presenting a case study of a biographical‐narrative interview in an organisational setting. The psychodynamically informed panel analysis considered dynamics not only in the interview, but also in the research team and the organisation. This proved valuable in making explicit latent ways in which the interviewer, subject to such wider dynamics, shaped the interview accordingly. The paper shows that awareness of the nature of researcher influence can lead to important insights about the phenomenon studied.     

Liberating voices through narrative methods: the case for an interpretive research approach

This article argues the case for employing narrative methods when undertaking research with people with profound learning difficulties and people who lack verbal articulacy. It considers the foundations of life history research and the transformative position of the researcher since the 1930s. The article then examines the requisite skills for eliciting life stories and interviewing, followed by the form of the interview. It questions the logic in rigidly following qualitative interviewing as the main tool for eliciting information. The author argues that the skills and experiences of the researcher become important during challenging interview situations and that moving away from traditional qualitative interviewing means attempting to include people with profound learning difficulties in the process of researching their lives and experiences.     

Heteroglossia in text‐messaging: Performing identity and negotiating relationships in a digital space

This article uses Bakhtin's concept of heteroglossia to explore how linguistic repertoires are exploited in the performance of identity and management of relationships through text‐messaging. The study focuses on text‐messages sent and received by ‘Laura’, a middle‐class woman who has returned from university to her family home in rural England. Qualitative analysis of Laura's texted exchanges, informed by quantitative corpus data and ethnographic interview, details the role of heteroglossia as Laura and her interlocutors position themselves in relation to each other and negotiate differences in gender, class, education, past experience, and personal aspiration. The study shows how heteroglossia can emerge even in interactions between individuals from similar backgrounds with largely shared language resources, and highlights the need for sociolinguistic studies of linguistic repertoire to consider the part that digitally‐mediated linguistic resources play in individuals’ wider identity projects.     

Considerate Exchange: Exploring Social Exchange on Family Farms

Much theory about economic action has emphasized tensions between exchange and care for others. Based on a mixed methods study of family farms, this article shows how considerateness may be conceptualized in social exchange theory and how such conceptualization facilitates research on interaction among close relations. The article shows how scholars may combine an exchange purpose typology with existent concepts of social exchange to analyze multiple dimensions of exchange. Data from family farms illustrate how various forms of exchange unfold among close relations. The article sheds light on actors’ management of emotional and moral ties in economic matters. It argues that social exchange theory has an unfulfilled potential in research on economic interaction among close relations.     

Handling your Baggage in the Field Reflections on research relationships 1

This paper explores some of the benefits of pursuing difficult, antagonistic, research relationships in the context of biographical interviewing methods that are sensitive to spatial relationships. It argues that confronting sources of tension between researchers and informants and being more open about the emotional baggage we bring to the field as researchers yields more rigorous fieldwork with more insightful results. The argument is developed from a particularly difficult research relationship: an encounter between the author and a British expatriate diving instructor living in Hong Kong. The broader context of the research is the production of white privilege through migration and the operation of global/postcolonial landscape.     

Coordination Tasks and Negotiation Modes of Linked Lives in Entrepreneurial Families

The overlap of business and family roles, and how they are linked in entrepreneurial families, requires intergenerational negotiation. Biographical case reconstruction analysis of 32 narrative interviews of 12 German entrepreneurial families explores what coordination tasks need to be resolved and how family members negotiate their interlocking lives. The article finds that entrepreneurial families actively coordinate positions, life phases, and material transfers by means of a pedagogy of succession, life course evidence analysis, and entrepreneurial narratives. The article presents two innovations. First, it demonstrates how these families experience and cope with their linked lives under flexible working conditions and in multigenerational families. Second, it argues that research on linked lives should shift from focusing on outcomes to understanding emergence and operations, and it advances the use of the biographical case reconstruction method for this endeavor.     

Lessons for teachers from Cleveland More questions than answers

SUMMARY. Schools and the role of teachers were rarely mentioned in the Cleveland Inquiry, However, they have a vitally important part to play in the identification of sexually abused children, in support for such children and in preventive strategies. In this article, the author argues not only for a recognition of this role by other professionals, but also by teachers themselves and the education system as a whole. To date, he argues, inadequate understanding of these issues has been compounded by a lack of resources for training and of involvement in the multi-disciplinary process     

Exorcism Leads to Reenactment of Trauma in a Mauritian Woman

ABSTRACT

Childhood trauma can have a lasting effect on personality and daily functioning, leading to dissociative changes in behavior and identity. How these are interpreted and handled usually depends on local culture and beliefs. This article presents the case of a Mauritian woman with a history of childhood abuse who was exorcised to “dispel an evil spirit.” An in-depth interview exploring her experiences and meaning-making was transcribed and subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. This article discusses possession as a culturally accepted metaphor for incomprehensible behaviors. It shows that help-seeking pathways are determined by symptom interpretation models that are reinforced by the local environment. It also demonstrates that exorcisms are potentially retraumatizing by the enactment of painful memories and emotions during this ritual. The authors stipulate that exorcism seekers could benefit from additional clinical assessment by professionals experienced in the dissociation field.     

When Success Makes Me Fail: (De)constructing Failure and Success in a Conventional American Classroom

This article examines the case of Laura, a 9-year-old Mexican immigrant who officially “failed to learn English” in an American school. It may be more accurate to say that schooling failed Laura, and in ways that went beyond language learning. This diagnosis of failure is criticized, along with the individualistic and essentialist assumptions about success and failure that support it. My analysis, based on a sociocultural notion of agency, suggests that Laura and her teachers uncritically shared an institutionally mediated agenda for school success, rooted in contradictory institutional demands and lack of access to each others' subjectivities. As a result, Laura unintentionally and ironically participated in her own failure construction.     

Die Kombination von Lebenslauf- und Biografieforschung

The combination of life course and biographical research can only be done within the framework of mixed-method-approaches. As there is no established research program for this, good practice examples of existing projects in which methods have been combined have to be reflected. In this sense, this article discusses three case studies regarding the complementarity of life course and biographical perspectives and possible synergies emerging from the combination. The discussion is based on three sequential mixed methods projects investigating identity-related questions: identity work and employment, family foundations and the construction of national belonging. Four different forms of synergies can be analyzed: a) Complementary understanding of process dynamics, b) complementary understanding of different types, c) complementarity to avoid one-sided misinterpretations and to understand the role of ambivalences for the course of life, and d) expanded possibilities for the evaluation of theoretical models. Finally, the position is justified that the combination of life course and biographical research doesn’t have necessarily to be linked to a paradigmatic standpoint when setting up the study. Qualitative and quantitative studies may be considered of equal importance without the necessity to decide which method is core and which is supplementary.     

Of Skilled Migration,Brain Drains and Policy Responses*

Developed countries are increasingly trying to attract skilled migrants, rarely giving any consideration to the impact that this migration might have on countries of origin. The debate on the “brain drain” is not new but it has taken on greater urgency in the context of a globalizing economy and ageing societies and this article reviews the evidence over time and space. It examines opposing interpretations of the impact of the skilled from countries of origin and goes on to examine the particular case of the migration of health professionals. Health workers are seen to be key to achieving basic welfare objectives in any country and their loss may be critical to countries of origin. Hence, the movement of health professionals may be central to any understanding of a brain drain. However, the case for a brain drain, even in this sector, is not straightforward. Specific country and place of origin of the skilled, place of training, appropriateness of training, fit of skills to needs, and the role of return and inmigration of health professionals all need to be taken into consideration. The article examines the case for a two‐tiered health training system, one for global markets and the other for local markets. Retention and return of the skilled are examined through the potential for outsourcing in both education and health care. The article concludes with an examination of policy approaches towards skilled migration and offers pointers towards a more balanced and integrated approach by placing the emphasis on development rather than control of migrants.     

Powerful emotions: symbolic power and the (productive and punitive) force of collective feeling

This article argues that emotions can be a medium of social power. Using qualitative interview material from American Jews discussing anti-Semitism and its relationship to contemporary politics, it engages recent scholarship on emotions and political contention and shows how emotions make effective the various forms of symbolic exclusion by which group members exercise what Bourdieu calls symbolic power. It also explores the emotional connections to group membership by which some “excluded” members can engage in symbolic struggle over “the principles of vision and division” Bourdieu (Sociological Theory 7(1), 14–25, 1989) that define the group. Finally, it shows how emotions work to incite discipline in some group members, inspiring them to conform to dominant definitions of group membership so as to avoid both symbolic struggle and exclusion.     

A case study of an African American stepgrandmother raising adopted grandchildren

Research on the perspectives of older African American stepgrandparents raising adolescent grandchildren is underdeveloped. This case study research uses a culturally sensitive conceptual framework to explore the experiences of one African American stepgrandmother raising adopted grandchildren. The participant was identified in a larger study of older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren. An in-depth, face-to-face interview was conducted in a public place. The themes described by this older African stepgrandmother included (1) strong family ties overlaid with family conflict and emotional difficulties, (2) traditional philosophies of parenting and childrearing that conflicted with her spouse, (3) reliance on a constellation of support including her religious community, and (4) recommendations for improving resource development. The findings of this case study identify critical issues for this older African American stepgrandmother. Although the findings are not meant to generalize, social workers and other helping professionals can benefit from the increased knowledge gained from this stepgrandmother’s experiences that can inform issues for exploration with similar caregivers.     

Firm friends: exploring the supportive components in gay men's workplace friendships

Research shows that friendships are among the most important sources of support for gay men. Despite insights into how friends can be significant providers of emotional, practical and affirmational support, particularly when gay men 'come out' or experience discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, scholars have rarely considered the role of work friends in supporting gay men in the workplace. This is remarkable given that work organisations remain challenging arenas for sexual minority employees to fashion a meaningful sense of self. Drawing on in-depth interview data with twenty-eight gay men employed in the UK, this article argues that gay men can rely on work friends for different forms of support in helping them to negotiate and sustain a viable sense of self. The findings show how the gender and sexuality of organisation influences which men and women are available as work friends, and the types of support they might give. Also, the affirmational support received from work friends is important not only for validating participants' sexual identities, but also identities of class and parenthood. The study aims to complicate stereotypes of men's workplace friendships as sources of support used largely for advancing careers and personal gain.     

Training for frontline workers

This article examines the training needs of people who work directly with children and families–frontline workers. It argues that such people are working with child abuse, whether they have recognized this to be the case or not. The article outlines work that needs to be covered in training of frontline workers, in order that they can respond effectively to abused children and undertake appropriate prevention work. A range of relevant publications which can support this training are discussed.     

The death of informants or when a fieldworker outlives the community studied

This paper analyses the phenomenon of the death of informants. Based on his own experience with the long-term (1999–2016) research of Voyvodovo – the only Czech village in Bulgaria, the author shows what the death of one’s informants means for the research and the researcher. The author argues that any long-term fieldwork entails emotional involvement of the researcher, and so the departure of his or her informants has a deep impact on the researcher’s well-being. The articles also address methodological consequences of the death of informants, namely, the case when the death of all of them leads to a situation that the group ceases to exist. The author shows that with the last member’s passing away Malinowski’s ‘native’s point of view’ is lost forever. The author also suggests that the topic of death of informants should be included into educational curricula for fieldwork training.     

Masculinity and the Biographical Meanings of Management Theory: Lyndall Urwick and the Making of Scientific Management in Inter‐war Britain

This article explores the biographical shaping of management theory. Using the British management theorist Lyndall Urwick (1891–1983) as a case study, it argues that existing understandings of the history of management studies are limited by their lack of attention to the emotional a priori of theory production. For men such as Frederick Taylor or Urwick, the work of composing management theory for a public audience was intimately connected to events and experiences in the private life. Theorizing addressed emotional dilemmas even while it strove to construct a separation between the personal and the organizational. Management theories are not only historically, socially or discursively constructed, but can be read in terms of the evidence they provide about individual subjectivity. Psychoanalytic concepts can help illuminate such relations. Theorizing can be seen as a form of play: as something which, in D.W. Winnicott's terms, takes place in the space between the psychic reality of the ‘me’ and the external world of the ‘not me’. The ‘classical’ administrative theory represented by Taylor, Fayol and Urwick sought to create organizational structures which could stand apart from, and allow the management of, individual personalities. It simultaneously insisted on the status of theory as the ‘not me’; that is, as a product which was not shaped by personal experience, but which constituted objective knowledge. The illusion of theory as a largely external, social product persists in much management and organization studies today. This article challenges that social determinism, first, by showing how Urwick's theories addressed issues of separation and intimacy, and second, by placing Urwick's work in the context of his relations with women.     

TWO SURVIVOR CASES: THERAPEUTIC EFFECT AS SIDE PRODUCT OF THE BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE INTERVIEW

This paper draws a parallel between the biographical narrative life‐story interview technique and psychoanalytic therapy. It points out that this type of interview may, in some cases, assist with the re‐construction of a new narrative identity of the interviewee. Where there is practically no intervention by the interviewer it can do this just by providing the interviewee with a situation where there is someone who does not want anything other than to listen to her life narrative. Through this process there can be a therapeutic effect which is more than a joyful by‐product, which the interviewees not only unconsciously experience, but for which they overtly express their gratitude.

The paper features the case of such a woman, who was sterilised in Auschwitz. It also tells the story of a man where the interviewer experienced incredibly strong resistance and projective identification throughout the interview. This resulted in almost insoluble guilt in the interviewer. The paper tries to interpret the story of the interviewee, who is also a Shoah survivor, and is unable to make some things in his life story explicit. The interpretation suggests that he might have killed some Arrow Cross officers in order to take their uniforms to help others. He has lived for the last 60 years with feelings of insoluble guilt. The question is raised whether in this case the interview had a similar therapeutic effect to the first case or not.     

The limits of the decentred state: the case of policing insurance claims fraud

Existing research clearly shows that the public–private divide is continuously being challenged, recast and transformed. However, this article argues that a sharp distinction between public and private continues to operate as an important norm for professionals involved in the investigation of insurance claims fraud in Sweden. It shows how power within private insurance companies and the police authority is organized around the public–private divide, which is in turn mobilized to justify repression and to give investigations legitimacy. The article indicates that the formal public–private distinction is far more thoroughly maintained than is suggested by the existing literature. Rather than challenging the centrality of state power, private insurers and the police construct, maintain and have a stake in the reproduction of a state‐centric monopoly of crime control.