'righteousness and antagonism too often prevail'

The above quote comes from Daphne Patai (When method becomes power (response) in A Gitlin (ed) 1994 Power and Method: Political activism and educational research p64). I have been returning to some texts (on methodology where that is understood as being a very broad church) that I read some time ago and often refer to. I thought it would be a good idea to remind myself of what was actually written instead of basing my interpretation on what I had last written about them. Daphne Patai expresses my feelings about some (most even) of the writing on methodology really well in the quote above. Unfortunately her paper seems to be written in the same spirit of righteousness and antagonism that she criticises. I won't bore you with why I take issue with her opinions, but it amazes me that discussions about methodology seem to unleash the beast. I refer here both to what is said and how it is expressed. Here's an example (there are so many it's quite hard to choose) .

Sara Delamont says 'I don't believe in interviewing' ... because she doesn't trust interview data... because people lie and delude themselves. (Confessions of a ragpicker in H Piper and I Stronach Educational research: Difference and Diversity p89). Well yes they do, but surely the point is that your methodology and the methods that support this have to be those which are demanded by what you set out to do. There is no way I could have done my study using the observational method that she terms 'proper fieldwork'. She could have made her point without rubbishing what other people do but that doesn't seem to be the way it's done in debates over methodology (I choose my words deliberately here - I could equally have said in the bun fight over methodology). Now I have a lot of time for Sara Delamont and learnt so much from 'Knowledgeable Women' (1989) and I was quite shocked (and, I have to say, disappointed) to hear her being so dismissive.

I'll probably be accused (again choosing my words deliberately) of relativism here but why can't supposedly intelligent people state their case without demolishing others? To my mind this shows a lack of sophistication that I find quite staggering. The 'debates' here remind me more than anything of the 'bickering' that my sons used to indulge in a while back ('is' 'not' 'is' not' 'is' 'not'). I got bored of it then and I'm still bored with it now. It makes me want to leave the room or shout 'that's enough' or 'grow up'.

That's why reading Stanley and Wise (Breaking Out 1993) and Stanley (Feminist Praxis 1990) was such a refreshing change. Others may disagree but to me their approach may well resonate with other accounts and epistemological, ontological, theoretical and methodological stances and certainly leaves me in no doubt about where they are 'coming from' but somehow they are also able to be 'generous' in their reading of other positions, perspectives and views. I first read these texts when I did an MA in Women's Studies at Bradford University way back in 1990 (the 1983 edition of Breaking Out obviously) and they blew my mind. I have since then developed my own thoughts and am not quite so awestruck (not quite) but I still have the utmost respect for the way they do it. We are academics not the 'nodding dogs' you get on the parcel shelves of cars but being critical is not a byword for being nasty. Or maybe it's me that needs to grow up.

Philosophy becoming practical

If you've read my profile you know that I am concerned with ensuring that what I do in my research supports my research philosophy (which kind of came to me while I was doing my MA rather than being something I consciously developed but which has definitely been of huge significance and relevance since). Having submitted it to a number of interrogations, I concluded a while ago that life history research would be the way to ensure I was faithful to this idea of 'praxis'. And I still believe this is the case. However, I did have a bit of a wobble the other day (yes another one).

My supervisor sometimes asks me to be a 'critical reader' for some of the stuff she writes. I always feel this is more to my benefit than hers but I picked up on a point which led her to respond that life history isn't for everyone. They might not feel comfotable with, indeed might not be able to handle, all the stuff that comes up. So I had a big think about how I was 'doing' my life history research. I have sometimes been concerned that I can be quite 'hard' when participants cry for example. Now in 'real life' I am known to 'fill up' at the drop of a hat. It concerned me that I was maybe doing the kind of thing I abhor - along the lines of stop crying and give me the data. However, thinking through the question 'who might life history be for?' as a research methodology, led to the realisation that the reason I didn't cry in the research interviews was because I was doing what I had been trained to do as a life coach, that is 'holding safe'.

Now I have been very quiet about being a coach since re-joining the academy in 2006. There is so much rot on the telly that comes under this heading which I would be mortified to be associated with. I found it tiresome to constantly explain what I was doing when I was doing it and it is a relief not to have to get in to that any more. And I also feel that academics can be most disparaging, particularly when it is about something they have the luxury of not needing to know anything about (a kind of metaphorical loosening of the intellectual corsets). So I keep silent. But I know now that if I had not had this background and the practice of creating a space in which people feel comfortable to talk I would not have heard the stories I have heard. Of course there is a danger that participants reveal more than they intended. I hope I can mitigate this possibility by asking them to check transcripts and amend as they see fit (although amendments have been rare so I'm not entirely convinced this is a useful anti-dote).

The point of the blog today - when I should be transcribing - is that I now feel quite resolute in my conviction that, regardless of what I produce in the way of a thesis, at least how I produced it will be congruent with what I set out to do. And that gives me a very warm glow.

Pushing the boundaries

The dates say it all. I knew I would not be doing a daily post but it is quite shocking to find that well over a month had elapsed since my last post. It was in part the Christmas factor - it creates a fair amount of work in a timetable that is already overburdened. Something had to give.

However, it reflects to a greater extent my struggles with my work. Perhaps it is inevitable that there will be lows, times when I get lost and wonder what exactly I am doing; times when looking again at my research questions and my (evolving and shifting) aims and objectives serves not to remind me where I am heading but to question why I ventured forth . While I have never (seriously) contemplated giving up, I have had what might be termed a crisis of confidence.

Anyway, after some effort to recall how to access it, I am now re-committed to my blog.
Resuming this blog may be taken as a sign that I am now restored to something approaching equilibrium. I have been working again with transcripts of the stories I have heard which has served to anchor me again in the reasons I decided to research this topic. This for me adds meaning to the term 'grounded theory'. I see it not as a pointer to a set of rules and regulations to be followed in the analysis of data and production of knowledge, but as a way of feeling more grounded, more certain of my ground. I had at one time lost my footing and been spinning into the stratosphere.

One of the things I have been struggling with was finding time and space to concentrate on my work. Things just kept crowding in. I won't say too much more about this here coz I am emailing a colleague about this, also a 'mature' (as in cheese?) PhD student. And by mature we mean 50s not early thirties. We are hoping to edit our correspondence into a journal article because we feel our experience has not received sufficient critical attention. The experience of older women in general seems (curiously? understandably?) under-researched. I know the women who have shared their stories with me have done so because there was nothing out there yet that they could connect with. My supervisor, Professor Pat Sikes, has written that stories make us feel connected. It's not that we have lived what we might read, more that we could have lived it. When I read that I cried because it was the time when my mum was nearing the end of her life and I felt quite lonely. This in turn served to reinforce my belief that emotion and cognition are not different beasts.

I fear I am now rambling which is my sign to stop.