Labour pains: Some considerations on the difficulties of researching juvenile prostitution

This paper reflects on an empirical, retrospective study of juvenile prostitution. It aims to explore the ways in which the practical constraints, practical difficulties and ethical considerations that are inevitably encountered in a 'sensitive' area of research, such as young people who are exploited through prostitution, are intrinsically linked to choice of methods and the process of the research. It argues that in such research pragmatism in choice of methods is necessary to achieve the epistemological aims, of allowing the voices of disadvantaged young people who are exploited through their involvement in prostitution to be heard, while maintaining ethical integrity. In addition the paper reflects on the emotional impact of research such as this on researchers and suggests ways in which research design and the collaborative efforts of research teams may minimise potentially negative impacts on researchers. The author suggests that by anticipating problems posed by research into young people who are sexually exploited through prostitution, ethical and practical difficulties might be negotiated to enable research in this field to be taken forward in the future.     

Political elites and the pragmatic paradigm: Notes from a feminist researcher - in the field and out to lunch

This essay seeks to offer some reflections on doing research with political elites where those elites also happen to be women. It tries to show some of the excitements and frustrations of doing research with elite subjects in elite settings, when the researcher is always the stranger and the person with the least power in an otherwise very powerful and intimidating environment. It addresses some of the tensions in 'doing' feminist research with women with whom the researcher does not empathize and discusses the extent to which those differences actually matter when ranged against the much bigger considerations of gender and patriarchal relations.     

Working with emotion: Issues for the researcher in fieldwork and teamwork

This paper addresses the role of emotion in the qualitative research process and in particular, the effects of emotional experiences on the researcher. Drawing briefly on the literature, we show the importance of emotion for understanding the research process. Whilst this literature acknowledges the emotional risk for research respondents, there is little evidence providing in-depth understanding of the emotions of the researcher. We consider theoretically and empirically, the significance of emotion throughout the duration of a research project. Using our own personal experiences in the field, we present a range of emotional encounters that qualitative researchers may face. We offer suggestions for research teams who wish to develop strategies for 'managing' emotion and effectively utilizing 'emotionally-sensed knowledge'. We conclude that unless emotion in research is acknowledged, not only will researchers be left vulnerable, but also our understandings of the social world will remain impoverished. The challenge therefore is how to construct meaning and develop understanding and knowledge in an academic environment that, on the whole, trains researchers to be rational and objective, and 'extract out' emotion.     

Researching an-'other' minority ethnic community: Reflections of a black female researcher on the intersections of race,gender and other power positions on the research process

There is a dearth of discussion on the methodological dilemmas faced by minority ethnic researchers who research minority ethnic communities of which they are not a part. The paper explores the political and ethical issues involved in a black woman researching South Asian women's lives, analysing the research process, and focusing on issues of choice of research group, access and placing. This paper represents a reflexive account of the research relationships developed in longitudinal qualitative doctoral research between a black (of African descent) postgraduate student and sample of 19 South Asian female student teachers in England and draws on literature of women interviewing women and ethnic or 'race' matched research. The methods employed were documentary analysis, observing meetings, a focus group, two student questionnaires, one-to-one interviews with staff and group and one-to-one interviews with South Asian female student teachers. It is argued that whilst social characteristics such as gender, language, religion and culture are important in determining notions of commonality and difference, a shared experience of racism between the researched and the researcher may affect the research relationship most significantly.     

Reflection note: confessions of a Muslim researcher – considering identity in research

ABSTRACT

This research note explores some of the contentions that have emerged from Muslim-on-Muslim research and how this can implicate the researcher more personally. Speaking in the context of methodological concerns arising from qualitative research, the paper consider the following aspects: inappropriate access of participants, over-representation of own experiences, and questioning fundamental parts of your identity. Whilst certain experiences can shake the foundations of being a researcher and even sense of self, these should ultimately be welcomed. It is concluded that, in taking the time to reconcile from such tensions emerging from our multiple identities, it can allow for becoming a more rigorous and reflexive researcher.     

Social work and therapy: Reclaiming a generic therapeutic space in child and family work

This paper reflects upon some mixed messages found in recent consultation and framework documents that have been issued as part of the debate surrounding the Government's emphasis upon education and training within its 'modernisation' agenda. It identifies the long-standing arguments about 'testing' versus 'learning' or 'contextual' paradigms and suggests that, perhaps, there is still scope to influence the future direction of social work. The author has drawn upon his research with social workers and their team managers in current post-qualification award programmes to argue for a renewed emphasis upon the inter-personal and relationship aspects of educational processes within more broadly conceived socio-cultural contexts. A focus upon reflexively defined concepts of 'engagement' and 'assessment' is used to explore constructivist arguments that locate individuals within an interplay of potential and constraints. It is argued that constructive engagements within revised conceptions of assessment can form the basis of a framework of continuing professional development that starts from and develops the unique realities of social work practice. This requires the committed involvement of more people, in the negotiation of a professional practice agenda for knowledge creation through relationships, rather than the imposition of more measures.     

Merging and its procedures in QSR software

Qualitative Solutions and Research (QSR) provide merge tools for combining NUD*IST or NVivo 'projects' as neither package enables more than one researcher to work on a data set simultaneously (although, of course, turn-taking on the computer is possible). These tools appear to offer researchers collaborating in pairs and in teams the option to develop work separately and combine it for cross-analysis. Although the merge tools are easy to use, doing so effectively imposes some important limitations on the use of QSR software. This paper discusses four strategies for using merge effectively in team research.     

Power at work: reflections on the research process

Reflecting on a research project on workplace learning amongst low-grade staff in the public sector, this paper identifies a number of key issues arising from the research process. The theme which runs throughout the paper is a concern with the nature of power, both in the workplace and in the research process. The research itself focused on a relatively powerless section of the workforce. The process of securing access contributed to the research team's understanding of power relations in the work place and to consideration of the nature of the relationship between the researcher and the researched. The paper identifies a range of sources of power and concludes that researchers must use an understanding of the research process as a part of the findings, not merely a route to findings.     

The Application of Leon Pastalan' s Theories on Environments for Seniors to Research on Facilities for Children

Abstract

Although his primary contribution to design research has been in the field of housing for the elderly, many aspects of the work of Leon Pastalan have had a significant impact on research in other specializations. Researchers focusing on healthcare environments for children and their families, for example, have been influenced by his methodological and theoretical approaches. These approaches include the utilization of user-focused design tools, the recognition of the importance of qualitative methodology, an emphasis on applied research, and the incorporation of cross-disciplinary themes. This paper elaborates on the relationship between Dr. Pastalan's theories and studies on children's environments, and discusses the relevance of this comparison to housing for the elderly.     

The reproduction of culture and personality: Critique of Christopher Lasch

Following in the theoretical tradition of the Frankfurt School, Christopher Lasch contends that the narcissistic personality has become the modal personality type in the United States. According to Lasch, the narcissistic personality is nurtured in the contemporary nuclear family and sustained by a culture that promotes immediate gratification and a preoccupation with the self.

The central aim of this paper is to critically analyze Lasch's argument. The paper will show that Lasch's perspective rests on the unfounded psychoanalytic assumption that the adult personality is crystallized during childhood socialization and remains largely resistant to change. It will further be shown that Lasch's Freudianism is at odds with his Marxist politics, and that his conceptualization of culture and personality rests upon a functionalist bias in his theoretical perspective. The conclusion of this paper is that Lasch does not provide any reliable evidence for the existence of a narcissistic personality type in contemporary America.     

Methodological triangulation in researching families: Making sense of dissonant data

The research literature on triangulation has paid little attention to the problematic of 'making sense of dissonant data'. Nor has there been much discussion around the use of the technique of triangulation when researching families. Through a presentation of research findings gathered from self-report questionnaires and in-depth interviews with couples and families the possibilities of convergent, complementary and dissonant data and their interpretation are explored. The paper reflects on the ontological, epistemological and methodological tensions that must be negotiated when working with triangulated data. It is argued that given the multi-faceted context and intimate subject matter in family and couples research there is a high likelihood of dissonant findings. Recommendations are made for family researchers interested in the technique of triangulation to consider the context and process of their research in the interpretation of their data. Despite the challenges that triangulation throws up for researchers, it is argued that working within a post-positivist paradigm, triangulation enables analysis which is both more complex and more meaningful.     

Photography and field contacts

This paper is a definition of photo elicitation and a history of its development in anthropology and sociology. The view of photo elicitation in these disciplines, where the greatest number of photo elicitation studies have taken place, organizes photo elicitation studies by topic and by form. The paper also presents practical considerations from a frequent photo elicitation researcher and concludes that photo elicitation enlarges the possibilities of conventional empirical research. In addition, the paper argues that photo elicitation also produces a different kind of information. Photo elicitation evokes information, feelings, and memories that are due to the photograph's particular form of representation.     

The curious case of case study: a viewpoint

Abstract

This paper focuses on microethical issues concerning interactions in which the process of informed consent occurs. It draws on research analysing the biographies and future hopes of 15- to 17-year-old girls and boys participating in targeted youth/educational programmes in the Helsinki area. The ethical challenge explored here is how to negotiate with the young interviewees on expanding the research setting towards a longitudinal and cross-generational approach, which also means expanding the data produced on their already well-reported lives. The paper highlights the power relations between adult researcher and young research participant, the contextual nature of gaining informed consent, and the conflict involved in trying to avoid hounding an over-surveilled group while still tracking their whereabouts and revisiting them for a follow-up interview.     

Doing collaborative research: doing what feels right and makes sense

Drawing on current doctoral research in the UK, this paper discusses the benefits, challenges and dilemmas associated with adopting a collaborative approach to exploring the experiences of women offenders as consumers of community-based health and social care services. The initial focus is on the rationale for setting up an advisory group of 'expert advisers/knowers', as a means of collaborating with women with direct and personal experience of the criminal justice system. In addition, the group's role in supporting, advising and guiding the research process is explored with particular emphasis on examining the practice of building long-term relationships with 'vulnerable' groups of women. Both short and long-term ethical issues are considered, for example, the implications of adopting an approach based on reciprocity, mutual disclosure and 'friendship' and the impact of 'role reversal' where it is the researcher who ultimately feels powerless and abandoned in the relationship. A key theme that underpins the work is the notion that in this context, 'doing' collaborative research essentially embraced 'doing' what fundamentally 'felt right' and 'made sense' thus ensuring that the study was meaningful to all involved.     

The work to make an experiment work

ABSTRACT

Contrary to its typical presentation in scientific publications as a certain and linear process, in reality, the experimental method, not least the design aspect of it, requires a great deal of trial-and-error and ad hoc decision-making on the part of the researchers. This uncertain and contingent aspect of research, although little known outside of the circle of experts, has important implications for our understanding of the nature of science and scientific findings.

This paper offers a backstage perspective to experiment design, where the uncertain and contingent nature of experimental research is at its starkest. It draws on insights from the sociological perspective of ethnomethodology through the auto-ethnographic first-hand experience of the first author's own social psychology experiments. Based on detailed lab notes and planning documents on how and why design changes were made, the analysis focuses on the evolution of the experiment design, particularly the researcher’s in situ practical reasoning for how to make the experiment work. From this, we show how ethno-methods shape experiment results and highlight the inseparability of social science experimentation from in situ practical reasoning.     

Inside out: some notes on carrying out feminist research in cross-cultural interviews with South Asian women immigration applicants

This article considers a number of important issues raised in the growing literature with regard to the place of ethnicity in feminist research methodology and the woman-to-woman interview. Drawing on examples from the author's experiences of conducting interviews with South Asian women immigration applicants, the article firstly illustrates that because of a different ethnicity, a white feminist researcher is likely to be regarded as an outsider by the minority-ethnic interviewees, regardless of the sharing of gender. Secondly, using the ideas of 'personal' and 'structural' power the article discusses how the researcher's outsider status complicates the power relations between the interviewer and the participants.     

Freedom and Sociability for Bergson

This paper discusses the way that Bergson relates the notions of freedom and sociability. It retraces a path leading from his first major work to his last, from a proto-phenomenology of freedom to a kind of biology of social life. The continuity of this passage is explained, at least in part, by Bergson's continual rethinking of his chief philosophical invention: the concept of qualitative multiplicity. This paper also seeks to indicate the importance of Bergson's understanding of both freedom and sociability for the poststructuralist political philosophy of Gilles Deleuze.     

Hugo Münsterberg and the Origins of Vocational Guidance

Hugo Münsterberg was among the most famous psychologists in the world at the turn of the 20th century. Despite his preeminence and associations with prominent leaders in several disciples, including Frank Parsons, his abrasive personality and unpopular politics led to his work being largely ignored during the 20th century. One such work is H. Münsterberg's (1910c) Vocation and Learning: A Popular Reading Course, which represents an early trait‐and‐factor psychological model of vocation. This triangular model suggests that people and vocations are composed of thinking, feeling, and willing dimensions that must be aligned to find the most suitable vocation for the person.     

Retheorising Emile Durkheim on society and religion: embodiment,intoxication and collective life

In this paper we argue that Emile Durkheim's sociology contains within it a theory of society and religion as a form of embodied intoxication that is implicit in his writings on effervescent assemblies but has not yet been explicated or developed fully by subsequent commentators. This holds that for social or religious collectivities to exist, the bodies of individuals must be both marked by insignia, customs and techniques that facilitate the possibility of culturally normative patterns of recognition, interaction and action, while also being excited, enthused or intoxicated sufficiently to be inhabited as collective rather than egoistic beings. Our paper begins by investigating the central features of Durkheim's theory – including his interest in the ritual steering of these processes – as developed most fully in his last major study, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. We then develop our own analysis of Durkheim's concern that modernity has stimulated a rise in ‘abnormal’ forms of embodied intoxication that fail to attach individuals to the wider societies in which they live, and demonstrate the utility of our analytical framework by employing it to assess the recent resurgence of charismatic Christian revivalism.